Listen to the Mockingbird (17 page)

I drew myself up to my full height, which was nearly his own, dropped my chin and peered into his watery blue eyes. “There are Texans on my ranch. They aim to confiscate it.”

Zeke gaped at me dumbly and shrugged. “Texans are runnin’ the government now.”

“They can’t just ride out there and take my land, throw my people off it! I am innocent until proven guilty, or are the Confederates less civilized than the Federals?”

He shuffled his feet but said nothing.

“I have a right to a trial, Zeke. You know that. Maybe they could take the land if I’m convicted, but I haven’t been convicted.” My eyes flashed to Winona. “Go home, stand guard with a gun if you have to.”

I fixed on Zeke again. “Where’s the alcalde? Where’s Guthrie?”

Winona stood mute while Zeke took a deep breath and twisted his thick-lipped mouth in an impatient grimace. “Guthrie ain’t here. He left when the Texans came, and he ain’t come back. He probably ain’t alcalde anymore anyway. They’ll send a judge up from Franklin, but that’ll likely take a spell.”

Winona left, but not before I saw a small smile that didn’t match the set of her chin.

“All right, Zeke,” I said, “for the time being, I’ll settle for a pail of water. Two pails, as a matter of fact.”

“Two pails of water!” He was so shocked at the request his voice broke.

“And some lye soap. If I send a message to the Women’s Christian Union, they will be appalled at the disgusting condition of this jail.”

If I had sent a message to the Women’s Christian Union, they would have applauded my arrest and hoped for a hanging. But Zeke Fountain wouldn’t be the first man who feared a woman’s tongue more than a man’s fist. His resolve began to teeter. I fixed him with my best stare.

Sheriff Zeke Fountain hitched up his pants, looked at the dust-encrusted ceiling for a while, and nodded.

999

That night I dreamed of single-handedly horsewhipping those thieving Texans off my land. Accomplishing that quite easily, I settled myself on a rock where the land rises quick to meet the mountains and listened to the trickle of the dripping spring as the sunset painted those organ-pipe peaks crimson.

The next morning I was wakened by something brushing against my foot. Opening my eyes, I bit back a scream. A tarantula was trotting across the dirt floor toward a corner.

Seizing the back that had broken off the chair, I pursued the monster spider; but it climbed straight up the wall, its hairy grey body carried on black legs that seemed more than half a foot long. Near the low ceiling, it turned to look at me. I recalled Nacho saying that tarantulas eat insects and even an occasional mouse and decided that I could have a worse cellmate.

999

I scrubbed myself and put on the clothing Winona had brought. Then I went to work on that jail cell. By the time I was satisfied the filth and vermin were gone it smelled of lye and my back ached, but I felt better. And I was much older than I had been a few days before.

Winona sent Julio with word that the Texans left without saying anything further. Whether they would be back she didn’t know. He also brought more clothes, a clean bedroll and a big container of tamales and pinto beans, which I wolfed down. The jail food was unspeakable.

This was not my first jail cell. I was grateful my parents could not know. Papa had doted on me. My dear mother was not granted a strong constitution. News of how their only child had disgraced herself would have killed my father and sent poor Mama mad.

I had come into the world in a drafty castle near the village of Durnstein, in Austria. The castle was impossible to keep in good repair, but the farms provided us a living.

One early-spring day that had seemed like any other, Papa solemnly announced that the country was teetering on the brink of revolution—the emperor was feebleminded, the archdukes scarcely possessed the intelligence of geese and the people’s only hope, the minister of foreign affairs, was becoming a cruel reactionary. Papa was resolved that we should go to America.

My mother didn’t want to go, but my father believed in the New World more than he believed in God and he could charm the teeth from a snake; Mama could deny him nothing. To keep her happy, he invited her mother to accompany them.

As a girl, my grandmother had run off with a Czech stableboy. He died of a liver ailment before they could marry but not before my mother was conceived. Nanny’s own parents must have been decent souls because they had welcomed her back, concocted some story and eventually left her their moderate wealth.

Unlike my mother, who doted on ribbons and lace and dressing for dinner, Nanny cared little for society, preferring to spend her time in solitary pursuits. One of these was her flute, which she taught to me. More than once she sent my mother into despair with her disregard for proper style. Nanny had a penchant for saucy, outrageous bonnets and would wear a Bonaparte hat even to visit the green grocer. When Papa announced we would all go to America, Nanny thought it was a glorious idea.

For my part I, too, was glad enough to go.

Papa, having no son, had taught me how to keep accounts, how the planting should be done, even how to settle disputes among the peasants who worked the farms. Mama was forever squabbling with him over proper activity for a lady. At fifteen, I was certain that anywhere would be better than Durnstein, where the Danube—and precious little else—paused on its way to Vienna. The cobblestone streets and wattle-and-daub houses had begun crumbling long before the Americans had declared independence. The only event of any moment had been the capture for ransom of some dotty English king in the twelfth century.

My father had heard of the plight of the Negroes in America, and that urged him on. He would purchase a farm in Missouri, would buy a few black folk from their cruel masters and help them to settle on part of his land. It didn’t work out quite that way.

He did buy the land. And Mother enrolled me at Bartholomew’s Ladies Academy. She fussed over my hair and hired a seamstress to make me a whole new wardrobe so I should not be out of style in such sublime company. I fought all the frippery, I was a headstrong girl, and when Mama fell ill of a wasting disease I was stricken with guilt. I began taking elaborate pains with my appearance to please her.

Two weeks after I graduated from the academy, my dear papa was struck down by a heart no one knew was ailing. Nanny and I arranged the funeral and saw him into the ground. Mother was too weak to be much aware of anything; she lingered another six months.

I had hardly begun to think straight when Nanny shocked everyone—me most of all—by announcing she was getting married. At age seventy-four, my grandmother, who had borne a child but had never wed, married the haberdasher from whom she bought her audacious hats.

I wandered about our huge house feeling gloomy and abandoned. My friends declared that a husband would make my life cheery again and insisted I attend as many parties as possible. To my dismay, I found them quite tiresome. Each month, another of my erstwhile classmates announced her engagement. I feared my mother was right: Papa had treated me too much like a son and my willful ways would never attract a suitor. I resolved to sweeten my behavior.

Crossing the street one day, I was splattered with mud by a passing carriage; and as I was trying to repair the damage, I felt a hand on my elbow and looked up into the face of Andrew Collins. His Irish dash, mixed part and part with a lost-boy manner, snatched at my heart and lodged it permanently in my throat. He was a lieutenant in the First Missouri Cavalry, and I wager you will never set eyes upon a handsomer figure in a uniform.

He smiled a wise-wistful-private-joke sort of smile that was all from the eyes. A broad forelock of red-blond hair slid slantwise across his forehead.

And I was as lost as the Isle of Atlantis.

Chapter Nineteen

I named the tarantula Evelina. Whether it was female I hadn’t the slightest idea, but it was so fastidious about dispatching cockroaches I decided it must be.

Sheriff Zeke Fountain was astonished by my cleaning efforts and apparently thought I enjoyed it too much because he nattered something about not being sure such activity was allowed.

“You sound like a government man from back East,” I said, which made him snort and eye me as if I might be some sort of spy. I added to his discomfort by asking, “Where in the name of God do these dreadful victuals come from?”

He cast me an insulted look.

I leveled a gaze at him. “Fetch me a small stove, Zeke. There must be an old one around somewhere.”

“A stove!” He banged a thick fist against the bars that separated us. “You know I can’t do that, Matty.”

“Why not? It’s cold in here, for one thing. I need the heat. You wouldn’t want me to call the Women’s Christian Union down on you for abusing a prisoner, would you? And I’m a sight better cook than whoever prepares that slop. It’s not fit for pigs.”

He shook his head and stomped off, muttering.

I heaved a sigh and sank onto the chair that was still minus its back, thinking Zeke probably wouldn’t be sheriff if his cousins didn’t own half the valley. Tomorrow, I’d badger him to bring a hammer and nails so I could fix the chair. It had been quite elegant once—mahogany, with graceful claw feet, it looked rather like the chairs I took with me from St. Louis.

999

When Andrew continued to drink himself to madness, I slipped away one morning and took the carriage into town. There, I found J. Marcus Lewiston, attorney at law, and begged an interview.

He was a slight gentleman with narrow wrists inside white shirt cuffs starched stiff as boards. A shock of very white hair fell across a pale brow above an equally white mustache.

I explained my plight.

He listened carefully, asking a few questions.

“I did not come to this union penniless,” I finished, “but my husband has taken charge of my funds.”

“Of course.” He rose from his desk, examined for a time the cases of books behind it then turned to me.

“Regaining your property, if any remains, might be possible. But it would be no easy matter and doubtless take considerable time. How do you propose to live during this process?”

I stared at him. “I don’t know.”

“Have you children, madam?”

I hesitated. “No.”

“But you are with child.”

I could feel a flush engulf my face. “How did you know?”

“That is when women in your circumstances seek my counsel.” He held my eyes then turned his face to the window. “I regret that I have no advice for you except to endure.”

“But suppose I find some source of support?” I gasped. “A divorce is not possible?” My voice wavered on the last syllables.

“Not if you wish to keep this child with you after it is born. Your husband would be its guardian.”

“Even given the…way he is?”

“Could you prove that? Are there witnesses?”

I couldn’t seem to shape my lips around words to answer.

“Even if you could prove it, the likelihood is very, very great that your husband still would be given guardianship. Think it over, madam. My advice is to endure.”

999

I grasped the bars of my cell and peered into Winona’s face.

“You do look right pert, Miss Matty. It appears you is doing a sight better.”

“Did the Confederates come back? Do they still think they can take my land?”

“Nosiree. I ain’t seen hide nor hair of them buzzards. I had me some words with them, but I don’t know as that’s what sent them off.

“‘She do got certain rights, sir,’ that’s what I told ’em. That lieutenant, he calls me a witch and I tells him ‘If you think I got the powers of a witch, maybe you better think about that some more.’”

Zia, sleepy and untroubled, was hugging Winona’s shoulder.

Zeke appeared behind Winona. “You got twenty minutes, Matty,” he muttered. “I got me an errand to run.” He scratched a bushy eyebrow, grunted and disappeared.

I put my hand through the bars and patted Zia, who stirred and found her mouth with her thumb. “She’s twice as big as she was. She’s been okay? No croup?”

“She be fine. Other things ain’t so fine.”

I raised my eyes to meet Winona’s.

“Someone sure do think we got something, and they wants it,” she said. “We was all out workin’ yesterday. I made me this contraption to carry Zia on my back like the Injun women do an’ I was mucking out the barn. When I got back to the house, I seen right quick someone been there. He sure to God made a mess. All them papers from your desk was throwed this way and that, clothes chucked out of bureau drawers and I don’t know what all. Every room. Even onions dumped out an’ rollin’ around on the kitchen floor. Whosomever done it weren’t particular.”

“Your room, too?”

“Yes, indeedy. Like I got something worth lookin’ for.”

“What was taken?”

“That be the funny part. We don’t know if anything’s missin’ from your papers or your clothes, but nothing else seems gone. Just mussed up. ’Specially your papers. And whosomever it was, I reckon he figgered he didn’t make a big enough mess, ’cause he come back in the night.”

I blinked. “While everyone was there?”

“Not to the house. This mornin’, Nacho say someone was rootin’ around in the barn last night. There was pictures all here and there. Seems like that Julio kid be fancying himself an artist.”

“Julio? An artist?”

“Well, he does make pictures. An’ I reckon the barn be where he keeps his stuff. Probably he’s drawing when you think he’s working. I got to say, though, he does a fair job at drawing. He got some real good likenesses of folks. He seemed real embarrassed to see ’em all layin’ around like that.”

“But what would anyone be after in the barn?”

Winona’s shoulders rose and fell eloquently. “Maybe someone thinks you got a solid gold saddle. Even feed sacks was spilled all over.”

I knew full well there was only one thing I had that anyone might want: the small wooden chest I’d brought with me to the Mesilla Valley. Only one person knew about the chest, and he wasn’t likely ever to set foot on the ranch. Then it occurred to me that a thorough enough thief could have found it accidentally. “Were any of the walls of the house damaged? I mean the inside walls.”