Carla Kelly (39 page)

No, everything isn't,
Julia thought.
I can't bear to see you so sad. But no one asked me.
She prepared what he wanted, adding a handful of dill pickles because she knew how much he liked them. She packed it in the cloth bag he had left on the table from the night before.

She went back into her room, dressing quickly and tying her hair back with a strip of ribbon. She looked at her Book of Mormon on the table beside the bed and just touched it. That wasn't enough. She knelt beside her bed. It was an incoherent prayer, consisting of nothing more than “Please, Heavenly Father, bless Mr. Otto. Nothing is so bad that it can't be cured, but how will we know?”

He was finishing up his coffee when she came into the room again, tying an apron around her waist. Doc must have returned to the bunkhouse or the horse barn. Mr. Otto stood there, looking at her, chewing on his mustache.

“I'm sorry I won't be able to take you and James to Cheyenne for the Christmas party,” he said finally. “Doc said he could.”

“Don't worry about us.”

“I don't, really,” he said with a slight smile that didn't even approach his eyes. “You're, uh, a good deal more sensible than I would have thought last September.”

“Well, I like that,” she replied, trying to inject a little humor into the unknown sorrow that seemed to fill the kitchen.

“You should,” he said. “I mean it.”

“I'll pray for you, Mr. Otto,” she whispered.

“I thought you would,” he told her. “I hope I'm not a waste of God's time.”

“No one's a waste of God's time, Mr. Otto.”

Suddenly, it was too much. Without a word, he put his arms around her, pulled her close, and clung to her for a brief moment. Her arms went around him, and she pressed him close and released him when he stepped back and picked up his valise again. With a look she was completely unable to interpret, he left without a word.

oc was as mystified as Julia. “He didn't tell me anything, but I don't think it has to do with cattle or the ranch.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Julia, that's just business. This is something personal.”

“I don't know anything except that he's divorced,” Julia said.

“You're so sure he's divorced?”

“I have no idea. I guess he made it pretty clear it wasn't our business, didn't he?”

“He did to me, anyway.” Doc didn't try to hide the concern in his eyes. “I thought maybe he might tell you. No? He's a private man, Julia. We won't know anything unless he chooses to tell us.”

I'm too impatient, and it's none of my business,
she told herself over and over during the week. She tried to distract herself with Christmas, saddling up with James and riding toward the Rudigers’ burned-out cabin to locate a modest pine she had noticed several times during the fall when they were taking food to their neighbors. She marked it and left it to Doc to cut and haul back to the ranch and set up in the parlor.

She put James to work stringing cranberries and then popcorn into long ropes, which twined around the little tree, hiding its more obvious defects. She was at a loss for ornaments, but, to her surprise, Willy Bill used his tin cutters and fashioned hearts and stars from soup cans. When she tried to thank him, he just grimaced and backed away.

“Julia Darling,
that
was a smile, sure as God made green apples,” Doc said.

Two Bits decided the tree was his to climb. He was still too small to knock it over as he moved from branch to branch up the scrawny pine, and more than once his meowing from a high branch meant James had to retrieve him.

The glory of it all was James. He had never seen a Christmas tree before, but he knew the story of Christmas. When she read the second chapter of Luke to him that night before bed, he had her read it again and then each night after she finished reading from the book Sister Gillespie had given her.

The simple story nestled into her heart too. She had heard it every year as long as she could remember—once, she was even lucky enough to be the stand-in for Mary in the Primary pageant—but she had a glimmer of what shepherds watching their flocks looked like. Maybe they looked like Mr. Otto, and now Matt, riding the line in wind and cold, doing the same thing: watching their herds and seeing that all was well.

Staying up late, Julia finished the sweater she had been knitting for James. She wrapped it in brown paper, made a yarn bow, and called it good. Doc had already promised to take them to Cheyenne next weekend for the Sunday School Christmas party. When she rode to the Marlowes’ for eggs, she took along a brief letter addressed to Sister Gillespie, asking her to buy some Christmas candy and a few more items to put under the tree, promising payment when she came for the party. She hoped that the Marlowes were going to Gun Barrel and could mail it.

As it turned out, they were. “You're learning how we do things here,” Alice told her as she walked Julia back to the corral with a basket of eggs packed securely in sawdust. “Up you go, now, and I'll hand you the eggs.”

Julia did as she said, holding the reins loosely. Alice watched her. “Charlie McLemore told us about delivering that telegram from Chicago. Any idea what the problem is?”

Julia shook her head. “Mr. Otto was so sad, Alice! I wish we knew how to help.”

Absently, Alice fingered the horse's mane. “Paul's used to being self-sufficient.” She seemed to give herself a mental shake. “Well, all we know is he had a bad marriage, and we only know that because of rumors. That was before any of us lived around here, so it's his secret to keep.”

“Doc thinks he's still married.”

Alice shrugged and pulled her shawl tighter. “I haven't a clue.” She gave Julia such a measuring look that Julia felt her cheeks redden. “Don't put too many eggs in that basket, my dear.”

Julia shook her head. “I'm safe,” she said softly. “I'm sure you remember the contract.”

“Who could forget it? Still, best not to get too attached to … to the Double Tipi.”

“I couldn't possibly,” Julia told her.

Maybe he will send us a telegram, and let us know how he is doing,
she thought, as she rode away.
Or maybe we'll never know anything.

Matt returned from the line shack the next day, assuring Doc all was well on the range. They were sitting down to the noon meal when Mr. Marlowe knocked on the door and waved a telegram at her when she opened it.

“Something from Mr. Otto,” she said, feeling more relief than she ever would have admitted. “You're just in time for steak, Mr. Marlowe. And look, an empty chair.”

Marlowe took off his overcoat and sat down as Doc passed the steak platter. Willy Bill sent along the mashed potatoes.

What happened next, happened like a bad dream. Marlowe put the telegram on her plate. She looked down at it, surprised to see it addressed to her, and not to Doc.

“I wonder why he sent it to me,” she mused.

“It's not from Paul,” Mr. Marlowe said as he poured gravy on his potatoes. “The operator penciled ‘SLC’ on the back.”

Filled with sudden fear, she put it down. Nothing good ever came from telegrams.

“Julia?” Doc asked.

It's Aunt Mary,
she told herself.
She has been hanging on for months. But Papa wouldn't send a telegram about Aunt Mary. She's old, and we've been expecting this. He would just write me a letter.

She knew the color had drained from her face because Doc was looking at her intently, half out of his chair, his eyes full of concern.

“I don't want to open it,” she heard herself say, as though from a long distance. “Doc, you open it.”

She must have held it out to him because he suddenly took it from her hand. He opened it and read silently, his eyes going to her face. He was pale now.

“Julia, let's go in the parlor,” he said, his voice gentle.

“No.”

“Julia, just come with me,” Doc said. He held out his hand to her.

After a longer moment than any she had ever lived, she put her hand in his and let him help her to her feet, which felt strangely uncooperative.

“No,” she repeated. “It's Papa.”

He shook his head.

“Mama?” she asked, when he had seated her on the sofa.

“Not Mama!”

When he shook his head again, she knew, as surely as if she could see through the yellow envelope and read every terse word. “Iris. Please, no.”

He didn't say anything but took the telegram from his pocket, removed it from the envelope, and put it in her hand. After only one glance at the telegram, she knew its words were burned on her brain forever. She would never forget them.

Dearest STOP Iris died of complications STOP Funeral 20 Dec STOP Please come home STOP We need you STOP Papa

She gasped and dropped the telegram as though it were a hot coal. “I can't be there in time, can I?” she said, leaning on Doc, who put his arm around her and held her tight.

“No, honey, you can't. The telegram must have been in the Western Union office for several days before Marlowe

got it.”

She closed her eyes. Maybe the telegram was wrong. Maybe there was another Iris, another Julia Darling somewhere in Wyoming, another Salt Lake City. “This can't be true,” she said.

He made no comment but strengthened his grip on her.

“I mean, think of it: Iris is—was—is—only twenty-two! She's healthy. She's going to have a baby in August. This is a mistake, a bad joke!” She turned to look at Doc as the full horror settled on her like concrete. “I can't be there for the funeral! I hate this place!”

She cried then, her arms tight around Doc as he held her, until she saw James, the distress on his face unmistakable. Doc handed her a handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes.

“James, sit beside me,” she said. “It's all right, Doc. If I don't understand what has happened, I'm certain he doesn't. Please, James.”

In another moment his head was resting in her lap. She stroked his hair, grateful for the distraction.

“I didn't do anything wrong, did I?” he asked, near to tears.

“No, never,” she told him, her voice stronger now. “It's some sad news I received.”

“Mr. Otto left. Maybe that was my fault,” he said.

“No, no, nothing like that,” she said, giving him all her attention because he obviously had not understood anything that had happened this week, from Mr. Otto's tight-lipped departure to her own anguish.
Why didn't I notice that?
she thought. “You've done nothing this week to cause any of this, James.”

She rested her head against Doc's shoulder again. “I have to go home,” she whispered.

“I know you do,” he answered. “I'll get you to Gun Barrel tomorrow morning. That train comes at noon, and I think the UP leaves from Cheyenne in the evening, doesn't it?”

She nodded. James took her hand. Julia could hardly bear the anguish in his eyes. “You'll come back, Mr. Darling?”

She gathered him close. “James, I can't leave you for long.”

“It scares me when people leave me,” he whispered into her shoulder.

She looked at Doc over James's head. He put a gentle hand on the boy's head. “James, I'll stay here in the house with you until Mr. Otto returns. Christmas will still come.”