Bittersweet

“Where’d you come by the Indian kid?” David asked.

“I take care of him for his pa,” Sarah replied. “Wolf’s a good boy.”

David looked at his sister, warm and maternal, smiling at the baby as he played.

“Look!” Wolf crowed, waving a perfectly ordinary twig, and Sarah laughed and clapped her hands.

David winked at Mac. “Some Indian’s kid landed in a pot of jam.”

“He’s only half Indian,” Mac said. “Pa’s a miner up Virginia City way, though he gets around. Does a lot of things. Right now he’s over to San Francisco doing some damn thing.”

“Wife die?”

“I don’t know as they were rightly married, when it comes down to it. I don’t know if a white man can marry an Indian in Nevada. They had some Indian mumbo-jumbo, I remember. Me and Nate was pretty drunk. But not a marriage proper like you think of.”

“Did she die?” Sarah asked this time.

“No, Weldrick run out on her. Last I heard, she was shacked up with some miner up near Carson.”

“Wolf’s mother is alive?” The odd tone in Sarah’s voice caught Mac up short in his gossiping. Imogene and Sarah were closemouthed about their personal affairs, but Mac had seen the changes the Indian boy had brought about in Sarah.

“You getting at something I’m missing?” He cocked a wary eyebrow.

“Wolf ought to be with his mother,” Sarah said flatly.

“Now that ain’t so. After Nate lit out she took to the booze, can’t leave it alone. And besides, she run off and left the kid-guess her new fellow didn’t take to half-breeds not of his own making-and last November she left him outside a flophouse Nate was staying at. Naked as the day is long, and tethered to the horse trough with a piece of rawhide. If he hadn’t shied a horse by wiggling, nobody’d have found him till he froze to death. I guess the little fellow never set up a caterwauling like most kids would’ve done. That’s the Indian in him, I expect. You keep that boy, Mrs. Ebbitt. You take him back to his ma, he’ll die as sure as if you put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.” Mac’s exaggeration had the desired effect; the haunted look left Sarah’s eyes and she watched Wolf like a young lioness would watch a lone cub.

“Mrs. Ebbitt?” David looked at his sister.

“I married Sam Ebbitt.”

“That pigheaded, psalm-singing son of a bitch!” David exploded. “Jesus Christ, why?”

Sarah looked ready to cry.

Mac shoved himself to his feet, saying he had to see a man about a horse, and, excusing himself, hurried from the yard.

“Why?”

“I just did,” was all she would say. Another avenue of inquiry was closed and they sat without speaking, watching the clouds change shape overhead. With Wolf’s busy hands busied elsewhere, Manny came out from under the porch where he’d hidden himself, to lie between Sarah and David. He flopped down with a mournful sigh and rested his chin on his paws. Sarah scratched his ears for him.

“You like Manny?”

She nodded. The dog pricked up an ear at the sound of his name.

“I named him Emmanuel after Pa. He’s a fighter, takes offense at everything and starts in snapping.”

“You miss Pa?”

“Nope.”

“Remember Sam Ebbitt’s old yellow-eyed dog?”

“That damn dog bit me once. I like to killed him, but he got under that woodshed.”

“I did kill him.”

“You’re joking me!”

“No, I’m not. I choked him in a door.” Sarah smiled a little in spite of herself. “And I’m not sorry, either.”

David laughed so loud it brought Mrs. Glass to the window.

When Imogene came home from school, Sarah, David, and Wolf were indoors preparing dinner. When it was ready, Sarah said a simple grace: “I thank You, Lord, for my brother.”

After supper she asked David to stay with them while he was in Reno, and Imogene added her welcome, but David declined, making his excuses. “It’s just nine-way before my bedtime,” he said. “I’ll likely still be visiting with some of the boys long after you’re asleep. I can sleep anywhere. Besides, I’ve got to be in Auburn-over the Sierras-tomorrow, but I’ll come by in the morning and say good-bye. I’m in these parts a lot,” he assured Sarah. “I’ll be on your doorstep so much you’ll wish I’d stayed lost.”

He wouldn’t change his mind and so Sarah hugged him, said good night, and went in the bedroom to tuck Wolf in. David and Imogene could hear her singing to the boy through the door. David paused on the porch steps. “Could you walk with me a bit, Miss Grelznik? There’s some subjects I’m not clear on.”

The night had turned cold. Even in summer a wind came down off the mountains and cooled the valley at night. In the clear, dry air, there seemed to be half again as many stars as shone in the Pennsylvania skies. They walked in silence for a while, following the footpath along the river, David’s silhouette only slightly taller than Imogene’s.

“How do you come to be out West?” he asked. And Imogene told him of Darrel’s accusations and Karen Cogswell’s hysterical outburst, of Sam whipping Sarah and breaking into Imogene’s house when Sarah had run there for protection.

“Was it true about you and Sare?”

Imogene answered with an icy stare.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “There was no call to ask that.”

“I’m sorry too.” They walked on, Manny padding softly at David’s heels.

“Do you need money?” he asked, ending a long silence.

“No. I have a good job. We can take care of ourselves.”

Before they parted, Imogene gave him the address they used to send letters to Mam, and he scribbled down the address of a bar in Virginia City where he received his mail.

23

SUMMER STAYED LONG INTO SEPTEMBER AND CAME AGAIN FOR A WEEK in late October. The bishop’s girls returned, a year older and anxious to lord it over the new students. Imogene immersed herself again in her beloved school, and Sarah tended to the household and to Wolf. Sarah spent her days with him, and the child brought her out of herself.

Nothing was seen of Nate Weldrick, but the money for Wolf’s upkeep came every few weeks by way of Mac.

David passed through Reno twice more and spent a day each time with Sarah. Wolf learned to ride Manny, much to the dog’s annoyance, and Sarah made David forbid it for fear that Manny would bite the boy.

With Indian summer, the last of the warm weather disappeared and geese honked overhead in black, southbound vees. At Thanksgiving, the bishop gave the school five fat Canada geese and Imogene persuaded Sarah to join the girls for Thanksgiving dinner. Shy and retiring, Sarah said little and ate sparingly. The girls were enchanted and made up romantic stories about her for half the night.

A fire burned in the potbellied stove, the flames devouring the wood with a shirring sound, making the room cozy. Outside, a thin, hard winter sun shone, its cold light glinting off bare branches and winter-brown grass. Only the white pine in the far corner of the yard retained its greenery, unperturbed by the passing of the seasons, grander even in winter.

Sarah sat near the stove, her head bent over a tiny red flannel shirt, her narrow hands plying the needle deftly. Wolf had left a pile of wooden blocks behind to climb up on a chair. Kneeling on the seat, he pressed his cheek against the pane, squeezing his eyes to the right. A little fir tree leaned against the porch, its boughs tied up