Paradise Valley (16 page)
“You mean guns?”
A nod.
“Well, we got a shotgun for rabbits and squirrels, a rifle for deer.”
“No side arms?”
Caleb had already noticed several cowboys on horseback that morning, riding around the stockyards wearing pistol belts. They had
all
noticed. The customs agent’s question made Caleb a little uneasy.
“We have no need of a pistol,” he said flatly. “A rifle is better for hunting.”
The agent eyed them all again for a long moment without saying anything, taking in the plain clothes, the prayer kapps and aprons, the wide-brimmed farmer’s hats. He shook his head, took a deep breath, blew it out and offered Caleb a parting handshake.
“Best of luck to you, then, Mr. Bender. I sure hope you make friends easily. I expect you’ll need ’em.”
The Mexican National Railway hooked them up and dragged them across the trestle into another country. Soon they were breezing along through the Mexican countryside, but as the sun rose higher even the wind of the train’s passing did little to blunt the oppressive heat. What lay around them was a desert, pure and simple. It wasn’t perfectly flat; the land rolled gently, and they crossed an occasional small canyon or creek gorge, but it was all terribly hot and dry, a place of sagebrush and cactus, snakes and scorpions.
In midmorning they passed through Monterrey, a fair-sized city on the edge of the mountains. Great, long ridges of jagged rock loomed over them in the west, mostly green on the lower slopes, with patches of red rock showing through near the peaks.
“We still have a ways to travel,” Emma’s voice said. She had come up behind Rachel and laid a hand on her shoulder as she stood looking up at the mountains through the slats of the cattle car. “But we’re headed up into the mountains now. Soon we’ll be a lot higher up, where it’s cooler.”
“I sure hope so,” Rachel said, fanning the neckline of her dress in a vain attempt to cool off.
“How are you holding up?” Emma asked.
“Me?” Rachel tried to act surprised. “I’m fine, why?”
Emma’s head tilted and she smiled gently. “You must miss him very much.”
She could never fool Emma. Rachel studied her toes for a minute, determined not to cloud up. The best she could manage was a weak nod.
Emma put her arms about Rachel’s shoulders, touched her forehead to Rachel’s temple and said, “You won’t believe this now, but the time
will
pass and you’ll be together again before you know it. I’m sorry it’s so hard for you right now. I wish there was something I could do, but when you’re sixteen time just moseys along like a tired old horse, doesn’t it?”
Rachel nodded weakly. “But you’re only four years older than me, Emma.”
Emma chuckled softly. “Yes, and already, for me, the horse has begun to canter. Grossmammi says when you’re old the years go by like fence posts.”
“Well,” Rachel said with a sad smile, “I wouldn’t mind a quick trot just now.”
Emma’s arms tightened about her younger sister’s shoulders. “The year will pass soon enough, Rachel. Keep yourself busy and before you know it the others will come, and Jake with them. Gott knows your heart.”
It helped a little. It wasn’t so much the things Emma said that made Rachel feel better, it was just that she was always there. She was always Emma.
“And how are
you
doing these days?” Rachel asked, glancing at Emma’s belly.
“Oh, not so bad. I’ve been a little queasy on the train, but Mamm thinks it’s motion sickness. In another month or two I’ll start to show a little bit, but I think I can hide under this dress for a while yet.”
The train climbed steadily, its steam engine laboring sometimes on the grades. They passed through tunnels and along the edges of steep cliffs, through a world of cleft and chasm like nothing Rachel had ever seen, a world apart from the rolling green hills of home.
The train made a brief stop in Saltillo to pick up mail and unload coal; then the engine hissed and chugged and climbed even higher. In midafternoon they pulled into the station at Agua Nueva, where the three cars of the Bender family were uncoupled for the last time on a siding at the far end of the little station.
The towns had gotten smaller and poorer at every stop since they left Laredo. Monterrey was smaller than Laredo, but still a city. Saltillo was half the size of Monterrey, and Agua Nueva half the size of Saltillo. There were no grand government buildings here, only a few small stores, a blacksmith shop, and a scattering of houses along the tracks and up the sides of the hills. Most of them were mere shacks of adobe, gray unvarnished wood and rusting tin, a few with makeshift goat pens in back. There were chickens running loose everywhere. One or two rangy dogs paced warily along the dry dirt streets, and half-naked children stopped what they were doing to watch every move the foreigners made.
They were deep in the Sierra Madre now, and the air had cooled noticeably with the altitude. Rachel had been wearing her coat since they left Saltillo. She busied herself helping her mamm and the other women pull all their belongings together and box everything up, all the hundred little necessities that had gotten them through the days and nights on the train. And they were Amish women. It was a point of honor to leave the boxcar cleaner than they had found it.
While the men and boys hauled out the wagons and began putting them together, Dat went up the platform to the little ramshackle station to inquire about Herr Schulman. While he was gone, a big mule-drawn wagon turned a corner and rumbled down the service road beside the tracks. When the wagon drew even with the Benders the driver hauled back on the reins and stopped.
“
Sind sie Herr Bender?”
he said to Aaron, who only now looked up from pinning the tongue onto the front of his own wagon. Rachel was already up in the wagon, catching and stacking.
Aaron straightened up and hitched his suspenders, eyeing the newcomer warily.
“
Er ist mein Vater. Ich bin
Aaron,” he said, trying not to sound too Dutch. Rachel smiled, for she knew High German didn’t come easily to her brother’s tongue. “
Er ist dort.
” He pointed toward the station, where Dat was just emerging from the door and coming down the platform.
As he tied off the reins, the German looked back over his shoulder and spotted Dat. He jumped down from the wagon and pulled off his hat, a shapeless felt thing, badly frayed along the edges and corners, deeply stained with sweat. Standing on the ground next to Aaron, Rachel could see that Herr Schulman was a big man, broad in the shoulders, with a shock of light brown hair and a ruddy-cheeked, distinctively German face. He wore heavy wool trousers, a brown corduroy coat and hobnail boots that looked like they’d spent plenty of time behind a plow.
Herr Schulman stuck a big hand out to Caleb Bender when he walked up. “Herr Bender? Ernst Schulman!
Wie gehts?
”
Dat was far more comfortable with High German than his son, and he told Ernst Schulman all about the trip from Ohio while the whole family lined up shoulder to shoulder to meet their new neighbor. Dat introduced them all, one by one, and each of them gave Herr Schulman a good, stiff, one-pump Amish handshake.
A cart about half the size of Schulman’s wagon rumbled down the service road and came to a stop behind the other one. The cart was drawn by a small slow-footed ox – a relative rarity at home, though a few people kept them just for fun – and driven by a young Mexican. The driver jumped down and stood by the wagon, one hand casually draped over the front wheel, watching Schulman, waiting. He didn’t say a word, nor did he make any move toward any of the Benders. He didn’t even look at them.
Rachel stared. The Mexican’s loose-fitting pants had once been white, made from some sort of heavy native cotton, and the waist was tied with a piece of thin hemp rope. He wore a dark brown hat with a flat brim just like an Amish hat, only with a taller crown. His jet-black hair was long like a woman’s, and it hung straight down past the shoulders of a threadbare poncho and a shirt made from the same heavy cloth as his trousers. There were dusty sandals on his feet instead of boots. He was taller than many of the local people, longer of leg than the average. But something about him struck Rachel wrong. He seemed relaxed almost to the point of boredom, yet his dark eyes were alert and focused. There was just something arrogant in the way he carried himself.
“Pelao!” Schulman yelled, switching to Spanish. “Don’t just stand there. Get up here and help load the wagons! Quickly!” Schulman shook his head. “One thing I cannot get used to in this country, Herr Bender – everyone moves like molasses. These people are so incredibly lazy. They just don’t care.”
Pelao remained motionless for a moment, just long enough for his inertia to become a statement. When he was good and ready he sauntered casually over to one of the boxcars to help Aaron haul out the riding plow and heft it up onto the hay wagon. Even then he didn’t speak.
With Schulman’s help, all the wagons were loaded and tied down in less than two hours. While Levi and Ezra brought out the draft horses and hitched them to the larger wagons, Pelao led one of the standard-bred horses out to where Harvey was assembling one of the surreys. Rachel watched as he backed the horse into place and hitched it up, his movements unhurried but precise. At least he knew what he was doing. When all was ready he leaped back up onto his oxcart and sat holding the reins loosely, waiting, a faint smirk on his lips.
Rachel went with her father to the hay wagon, as the surreys were overcrowded. Dat was about to climb up to the driver’s seat when he looked over his shoulder at Schulman, nodded in the direction of Pelao and whispered in German, “Is he mute?”
Schulman spat, glanced at the Mexican. “No, he can talk when he wants to, but like most
Chichimeca
s he’s a bit stubborn. They’re like mules – they’ll work, but you have to get their attention.”
Schulman took his hat off then, and looked purposefully at the western sky where the sun was beginning to dip toward the mountaintops. “We won’t make it all the way home tonight,” he said, “but we should put some distance between us and this town. It’s not safe here.”
The ragged caravan trundled slowly up a dirt road for two hours, climbing gradually to the northeast along the face of a ridge. Pelao’s oxcart took the lead, being the slowest of all the wagons. The others paced themselves behind him, Rachel’s father constantly fretting and muttering to her about the top-heavy hay wagon with its load of farm equipment on these rutted, rocky, uneven mountain roads. But the pace suited the cows, plodding along, tied behind the wagons. Several miles up the ridge, when they were out of sight of Agua Nueva, they came to a crossroads. Pelao’s oxcart led them to the right.
As they were making the turn Schulman looked over his shoulder from his position in front of Dat’s recalcitrant hay wagon. Pointing to the mountain pass in the east he shouted, “This is the last turn, Herr Bender! From here, the road takes us straight to your property!”
On the other side of the pass, a long curving valley opened out in front of them, and in the gathering dusk Rachel could see a ribbon of road winding ever upward and out of sight at the top of the southern ridge. She wondered how much farther they could go before dark, but ten minutes later her question was answered. As they neared the base of the ridge Schulman shouted something up ahead to Pelao, who threw up a casual hand to acknowledge that he’d heard and then slowly pulled his oxcart off the road, heading for a level spot up the hill a little ways in a stand of oak trees.
Schulman called back to Dat, “We camp here for the night!”
The campsite had been used many times before, evidenced by a shallow depression full of ashes and blackened earth in front of a log worn smooth by so many having sat on it. While the women built a fire and put together a makeshift supper, the men took care of the livestock, seeing that the horses and chickens and cows and pigs were secure for the night, with plenty of food and water. Harvey and Rachel saw to the milking. Even here, the cows needed milking. Schulman had picked the spot because he knew of a small spring a stone’s throw up the hill where the water was always fit to drink. Aaron fetched water, and the women made a big pot of soup with potatoes and canned vegetables. Levi and Ezra untied one of the wagons and brought down hickory rockers for the women, and when the chores were done everyone gathered around the campfire for dinner.
While they ate, Dat and the others began peppering Schulman with questions about their new home.
“It’s a fine piece of land,” he assured them. “This road runs right through the middle of it. There are hills on three sides to keep the worst of the winds out, and the topsoil is black and rich. Best of all, you have me for a neighbor!” He laughed heartily at his own joke, as did everyone else.
Except Pelao. Turning his bowl up, he drained the last of his soup without so much as a smile. Mamm noticed, and asked him – through Schulman, because she had barely begun to learn Spanish – if the soup was to his liking.
Pelao nodded once, uttered a low grunt, then put his bowl down beside him on the log. Schulman said one clipped word to him in some strange language. The Mexican nodded curtly, rose and walked out of the circle of firelight. Pulling a ratty gray blanket and a Winchester rifle from under the seat of Schulman’s wagon, he propped the rifle on his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness.
