These Is My Words (35 page)

April, I said, that is a bad snake. You must pretend to be a statue. Be a stone statue, and don’t move. If you move honey, he will try to bite you.

April held her finger to her lips, and said, Sh-sh, Mama.

Don’t move, I whispered, Honey, don’t move. I reached in my pocket again for my pistol, then I put it down and ran to the bedroom for my rifle. I was always a much better shot with it.

When I got back, I stood at a far enough range the snake wouldn’t charge at my movements. The rattler’s head was hidden, but its body curled and writhed up the arm of the chair. Then there it was, its head appeared right over April’s left shoulder. Its tongue flicked hard at her. April, I said, raising my rifle, you must make Mrs. Lady be very still. Don’t even breathe. Don’t wiggle one little bit. I aimed, and tears started to blur up my sight, I couldn’t make out the tip of the barrel, much less the snake’s head. It opened its horrible mouth, like a yawn, and licked closer and closer to her hair.

Mama, she whimpered, Mama shoot me?

No, I said, Mama’s going to shoot the snake, but don’t move, sweetie, don’t move.

I held my breath. The snake’s long body swirled up in a coil on top of the back of the chair and a length of it slipped between the cushion and the backing.

Mason came trudging through the water and stopped short, and I heard him say, Oh, Lord, real softly.

I wiped my eyes.

Mama? April started to cry. In a moment I thought she would panic, and if she moved she would surely be struck by the snake. It raised its head over hers, tongue flicking faster and faster now, and the rattle started shaking. April’s little face turned red and her lips curled up, tears rolled down her face, but she held still like a statue. Mama?

I raised the rifle again and drew a bead on the snake, now it looked so small and moving around, coiling around my baby. I sniffed hard and held my breath, and stiffened my whole body, and pulled the trigger.

April let out a scream and her body quivered hard, and I grabbed my heart, knowing I had shot my child. Mama, mama, izza snake gone? She was holding the edge of the chair with all her might. Mama? April’s mouth moved silently. Snake gone?

I looked again. It was truly gone. At least its lifeless head hung down over the back of the chair, although the body still held tight to the rungs. April, I said, Run to me, baby, the snake is dead! She flew into my arms, and I held her, trembling, listening to the noisy frogs on the porch. Oh, my brave girl!

Mason skinned the snake and pinned it to a board, careful to save the rattlers at the end. He didn’t say much about it, except, Glad your little one is all right, Ma’am. I went back to sweeping frogs, determined to keep them out of my house.

Toobuddy is covered with mud and dripping, he runs and plays in the water, then slings his wet furry body up the steps and likes to sit right by the door. I popped him on the head for trying to eat a frog, as I know they are poison and he will die if he does. I don’t know where the kitties are, hopefully safe in the rafters of the barn.

Mason said then, Ma’am, my room is awashing away.

I hadn’t even thought of him, poor thing. Bring your bunk up here, quick, I said, anything you need to save, I’ll help you. So we went through the mud again and I brought April in one arm and carried his guitar and a rolled up blanket under my other one. By the time he got his bunk set on the porch, we were all three cold and soaked to the skin, and April is upset because Mrs. Lady is wet.

As I was changing in my room, I thought about Jack trying to get home, and wondering if he tries to cross the stream, he could be swept away. We set Mrs. Lady on the table, and straightened her hair. Mason had changed into his only dry clothes outside, which had been rolled into that blanket I carried. I couldn’t let him just sit out there in the cold, so I told him to come in and I will fix supper.

He rolled up an old sheet and stuffed it under the door to keep out the frogs, and brought his guitar, and sat by the fire. As I heated the stove and cut up the meat for stew, I realized I had not felt nearly as sick today. Maybe it was all the fussing around, and the fright, maybe it just took it all out of me.

When the biscuits were in the oven, I sat for a minute to rest my feet while they cooked. I asked Mason if he played that guitar or just carried it for someone, and he kind of smiled and said he picked a bit, so I said, Well, would you pick a tune for us?

So he did, he played and sang, songs I have not heard mostly, one called Clementine, and one about the Red River, and I said I have crossed the Rio Grande twice when I was a girl, but not the Red. Then he said his voice wasn’t so good, but I could hear the tune in it, and it was a nice voice for a ranch hand.

We passed a pleasant enough evening, and Mason seems like a nice man, and doesn’t give me reason to suspect he has a bad streak in him at all. He is about as old as my Papa would be now I think, and he likes to hear me talk about books I have read, and said he never learned to read. Then he asked me if he could trouble me to read to him, and I said surely, and we talked about which book to start with, and so I began to read Treasure Island aloud.

The rain fell. Frogs croaked outside the door, and I finally put Toobuddy into the back storeroom to keep him from eating them. I ate only a few bites of stew, but the biscuits set well so I felt pretty fair. He listened hard to the story of Treasure Island like it was an amazing thing to him to hear a story like that, and after more than two chapters said he knew I was tired, but he’d like to hear more tomorrow. Well, I couldn’t let the man sleep outside in the frogs and the cold, and however many more snakes could be on the porch by now. So I said, You better bunk here by the fire, and he made him a place on the floor, and we turned out the lamps.

Just before I turned in, Mason said to me, Ma’am? Don’t you worry about your man. He’s got sense enough not to cross that water like it is. I laid awake and thought about Mama and Harland and Melissa, and I know they are on a rocky place up high, so they are probably fine. Albert and Savannah too, are higher than most places around. But the Maldonados are lower and further down the stream bed, where the water is likely running all the harder.

Jack will not be here. He can’t get through.

February 11, 1886

Mason went to feed this morning, shivering and wearing his wet clothes from yesterday so he would have a dry set for the house. I made him coffee and pancakes and bacon, and he said it warmed him through the bones. The water seems down, and I saw clear sky through some clouds, but later at the afternoon the clouds thickened up again and rain fell more heavy than before.

We sat by the fire and I mended some clothes. April built a square with her blocks and sat Mrs. Lady in it, proclaiming her safe from everything bad, snakes and rains and frogs and bad men.

Doesn’t she ever want to come out and see the world? I said.

No, said April.

I think she does, I said, I think she wants to be mostly safe, but to see outside too, and not be shut up in there all day.

She can have a window, said April, and removed one block.

If I was her, I said, I’d want a door too.

No. Bad men come in the door. Don’t want door.

Mason smiled at me then, She’ll want a door soon enough, he said. Seems like they just grow up so fast now days. We talked about his family, grown and gone, and his wife who died of cancer. He was a lonely man.

I read more of Treasure Island to him, and it pleased him a great deal. It seems to me there are so many lonely people in this world, and so little of life is kind and good. In a way, I am thankful for this flood, since without it, I might never have talked to him much, and Mason is a nice fellow. Another day passed before us, and it was night and dark, when the rain finally stopped falling.

February 12, 1886

We have tried to inspect all the place for damage. My garden is nearly washed away, just full of rubble and stones, and one side of the fence down. Beaumont is standing on his island bellowing for food. The horses are cold and shivering, and Rose looked at me with her big sweet eyes and I felt mighty guilty leaving her in the cold and rain, but her feet were not going to rot.

The stream is flowing, thick and muddy but fast, and tumbling things along with it. I saw a pig float by, and it scared me because it looked like a person’s pink-skinned body at first. From where we can go to the south it looks like the neighbors are in about the same shape, just nearly washed away, but I see the roof on a house, and I hope they are fine but we are trapped here on my land and can’t tell for sure.

I helped Mason all I could, and sure as I thought, if I stay busy I don’t feel quite as sick, but food still doesn’t look or smell good at all. And things I used to like don’t taste right. I used to love eggs but now I don’t think I could eat an egg and keep it down for all the tea in China.

I heard a sound and thought it was one of the cats, but when I went outside I saw in the distance my Mama waving an apron high over her head and calling my name. She was across the muddy water, and jumped when she saw me. Then she hollered, Baby is coming! Savannah’s baby! Something’s wrong, Sarah!

I’m coming! I called to her.

No, she shouted back, Too dangerous. Just want you to pray! Have to go now, and she turned and hurried away.

Mason, I said, I have to get to Savannah’s house.

But, he said, You heard what she said. Your Mama just wanted you to know about it and say a prayer, she don’t want you to come.

I took a deep breath, Well, Mason, Nobody on this earth is closer to God than Savannah, and if He has to listen to
me
praying to get to her, we are all in a world of trouble. I think she needs someone nearby, not just off somewhere praying.

He just nodded, and said, Maybe, Mrs. Elliot, it ain’t that. Then he closed his mouth a second and said, Let’s see what we can do.

All up and down the stream, the banks we knew were gone and the tumbling rocks and branches made fierce ripples in the brown water. Mason studied and studied.

Maybe, I said, I could jump it on a horse. Rose jumps real fine.

No, Ma’am! He said, and got all stiff in the neck. No, Ma’am, I won’t have it. I won’t be a part of you jumping a horse in your condition. No, no, no! There’ll be no more of that, you ain’t going to do it. No, Ma’am.

Well, all right, I said, What then?

He studied it more. It’s lower here, but wider. If I lassoed that tree yonder, and we’ll pull ’er tight, and see if she holds at the roots, then you could ride a horse, and hold that rope, run through the bit. He got the rope, and I saddled up Rose and brought her down to the rope he had cast. He tied it tightly around a palo verde, because they have long roots, he said, and I mounted up and he handed April to me. Then he took her reins and fed one over, and started to lead us into the water.

Mason, I said, Don’t you walk across, it’s too dangerous.

He just looked at me and said, You know, Ma’am, it does a man good to pray now and again, and he kept walking into the water.

It got deeper and deeper, and Rose swayed, half swept away, trying to swim with her feet, Mason struggling to keep her footed on the ground. He was over waist deep and the water came up to Rose’s belly at the lowest place. It seemed like we were in the rushing water forever, and then suddenly we were on the other side, and Rose bounded up, fighting the slick mud, but safe and sound.

When we got to Albert’s house, I could hear Savannah crying from the yard. Albert looked up and didn’t seem surprised to see me a bit. It started last night, he said, around midnight. The baby should have come by now. She’s having a bad time.

Mason stayed with Albert and they took April to Mama’s to be with Harland and Melissa and the little boys, and I went and found Mama brushing Savannah’s hair and talking to her, making a long braid.

Then another pain took her, and she cried again. Sarah, she said to me, It hurts so bad this time, so bad!

What shall I do? I said to her, what can I bring you? But her only answer was another cry of pain.

We stayed and comforted her, and finally around two o’clock, she said, I have to push.

Then the pains started worse and worse, and Mama and I got ready to take the baby as it started to be born. Mama said, Oh dear, Savannah, this baby’s turned bottom first. Suddenly there was a frightening rush of blood and water, and the baby was born.

A little girl! I said. Very small, I thought, too small. Savannah cried out again. Mama wrapped the baby and cut the cord.

It’s over, dear, Mama said, It’s over now.

No! yelled Savannah, and pushed harder and harder.

Mama, I said, Mama there’s another one! This time a baby’s head came first, and the little thing started to cry tiny baby mews with only its head born.

Savannah said, I can’t push any more, I can’t. She started to cry in heartbreaking sobs.

Push, Savannah, I said. Then I started to say a prayer in my head, while with my mouth I said, Come on, you can! Push again, it’s almost through! She tried and tried, but nothing happened. The baby mewed. Finally she put her own hands on her stomach and pushed with her hands, and the baby was born. Another tiny little girl. Twins. Precious and perfect, but so very small. Savannah collapsed like a little rag doll in the bed.

Mama and I cleaned the babies and put them by her sides. Albert and Mason were sitting on the porch, nervously trying to keep talking about the rain and flood. Mama crooked her finger, and Albert just jumped off his chair, and ran to Savannah.

Twins! Oh, my goodness, he said, Thank the Lord. Twins.

Girls, said Savannah. She has named them Rachel and Rebeccah, and has put a little thread around Rachel’s foot because they look so much alike. Albert bent over her and kissed her head. I left them alone and went and sat on the porch.

February 14, 1886

I was never more surprised than to find my brother Albert banging on my door in the small of the morning. Sarah, he says, will you come with me quick? Savannah is real sick.