Jerome sat at a nearby table, drumming his fingers on the cloth and staring into space. All three looked up when Sarah entered.
“He won’t go to the doctor,” she said flatly.
“Of all the damn fool-” Jerome started.
“He has his reasons,” she snapped. Then: “I’m sorry, Jerome, I’m sorry.”
He waved the apology away. “I’ve already forgot it. I don’t want to make things worse for you than they are already, Sarah. But I’ve lived on this desert a lot of years. That man of yours looks like death to me. If we don’t get him to Reno, I don’t think he’s got the chance of a snowball in hell. He’s broke up inside. A man don’t cure himself of that.”
“The ride would kill him.”
“He’ll die sure as hell here.”
Sarah hid her eyes behind her hand. When she took it away, her mind was made up. “If he’s no better by morning, we’ll go.”
“Suit yourself. I’m hitching up to go, then. You won’t be needing me.” Disapproval was in the set of his jaw and the hunch of his shoulders. He waited a minute for Sarah to change her mind, then said, “I’m going that way, I’d just as soon roll on into Reno.” She said nothing. “Suit yourself,” he said again, and stomped out.
“Help him with his hitching, Coby.”
Sarah didn’t leave the bedroom again that day. Coby cooked dinner for Matthew and himself. At ten he put the boy to bed and tapped on Sarah’s door. “Sarah? It’s Coby. How you doing in there?”
The door opened suddenly, taking him by surprise. There was the reek of sweat and blood and human excrement in the room. Sarah’s lips were pale and the skin around her eyes was as dry and drawn as that of a woman twice her age. In her hands was a chamber pot. “Coby, get the wagon ready to leave as soon as it’s light.”
“I will, Sarah. We can go now if you like-soon as the moon’s up.”
“No, there’s not enough light. The wagon could break a wheel-go off into the ditch. He can’t be jostled around like that. He’s bad, Coby.” The tears started and she choked them back. “Here.” She pushed the chamber pot at him. “I don’t want to leave him.”
“I understand. First thing in the morning. I’ll bed down with Matthew tonight so I’ll be handy. You call if you need anything or just want somebody to talk to.”
“Thanks, Coby, good night.” Sarah turned the lamp down low and drew her chair nearer the bed.
The night was cool, the air soft and feeling of spring. Karl lay quiet, his eyes closed. A stale, fetid smell clung to his clothes, and the bedspread was scuffed with dirt. Careful not to jar him, Sarah worked his boots off and unbuttoned his collar and sleeves. A blanket was draped over the foot of the bed. She pulled it up, laying it loosely over him. When he was as comfortable as she could make him, she went to the window, propped it wide, and leaned out. The desert was utterly still under immobile, unblinking stars. Sarah breathed deeply, clearing her lungs. Impatiently she pulled the pins from her hair and combed out the plaits with her fingers, letting the clean night breeze play through it. A rustling, so slight it might have been a moth brushing against the shade, turned her from the night. “Karl? she whispered.
“I’m awake.” He opened his eyes and smiled at her. Blood was crusted brown where his lips met, and around his nostrils. His words were more air than sound.
“Don’t talk,” Sarah said. “I just needed to know you were here.”
“I’m here.” He closed his eyes and let his head roll on the pillow, side to side, just a fraction of an inch. Around his eyes the flesh was blue and sunken. “God, I hurt, Sarah.”
She stroked his forehead and hummed softly, a lullaby from her childhood.
“I’m hurt bad.”
She crept onto the bed beside him, and though she was as gentle as she could be, he moaned when her weight made the mattress shift. She lay on her side, watching his profile, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. With an effort he moved his hand into both of hers.
The rooster crowed a premature dawn near three-thirty, and Sarah moved for the first time since she’d lain down at her husband’s side. Her limbs were cramped and stiff. Slowly she crept from the bed. Already Coby was stirring, and a reassuring morning clatter sounded faintly from the direction of the kitchen.
Matthew and Coby had breakfasted. Sarah put a note on the bar and weighted it down with a coffee tin: “Help yourself. Food’s in the kitchen. Whiskey’s under the bar. Leave money in the can.”
While his mother and Coby loaded the wagon, Matthew hung anxiously about, underfoot, numbed by the sight of adults afraid. Finally, Sarah stopped long enough to notice him. “You’re a good boy.” She smiled for him and kissed his cheek. He was so tall she no longer knelt to embrace him. “Coby and I are going to bring Karl out to the wagon now. Could you run ahead and get all the doors for us?”
“I can carry.”
“Just the doors’ll be best for now.”
As upright as a sentry, Matthew stood at the bedroom door while Sarah and Coby murmured together at the foot of the bed. Karl seemed unaware of them and didn’t respond until Sarah spoke his name. His breathing was shallow and the muscles of his jaws were knotted against the pain.
Coby took one side of the blanket, clutching it near the injured man’s shoulder and knee. Sarah did the same, and on a count of three they lifted him just clear of the bed and lowered the improvised hammock, with him in it, to the floor. They dragged him down the hall and out through the main room, Matthew scurrying ahead to pull rugs out of the way and see that the doors stayed wide. Coby had the wagon near the house, backed up to the steps.
They paused a moment on the porch to let Sarah rest, and Coby talked quietly with Matthew while she saw to Karl. He was barely conscious; the pain had dulled his eyes and shortened his breath. Beads of sweat studded his forehead and upper lip. Sarah pulled a towel from the waistband of her skirt and blotted his face. “Just a little more and we’re done. Just a little more,” she whispered. “Okay,” she said to the hired man, and they took up the corners of the blanket again.
Matthew’s mattress was on the wagon bed, with most of the house’s pillows and blankets beside it. Sarah tucked the bedding snugly around Karl so he couldn’t roll, slipped a pillow under his head, and settled herself beside him.
All morning they drove south and west, the sun warm on their backs and the shadows retreating before them. No one spoke much. Coby sat with his shoulders hunched, his blue eyes riveted to the rutted wagon road, conning the horses painstakingly around potholes and rocks. The boy sat quietly, sometimes facing forward, sometimes backward, his legs dangling over the bed, where he could see his mother. Sarah had moved; her back was to Coby and Matthew, and she was cradling her husband’s head in her lap.
June touched the desert with a pale tinge of green, and the air was sweet with the scent of the bitterbrush in bloom. Along the roadside, on drab bushes of dusty green, fragile white poppies, the size of a woman’s palm, blossomed, and the blue of lupine mixed with the gray of sage. There was no wind. It was so still that the whistle of a hawk’s wings as it dove brought Sarah’s eyes up. Karl heard it too, and together they watched it pull up on canted wings, a limp brown shape clutched in its talons. The bird circled just above the hilltops, fighting for altitude, the weight of its prey dragging it earthward. Then its wings trembled as it found an updraft, and it soared in solemn, majestic circles.
“I never dreamt I could fly,” Sarah said. “Mam said everybody did. But I didn’t.”
“I still do.” Karl smiled, the corners of the wide mouth turning up almost imperceptibly. “When I was a child, I could scarcely get off the ground. I’d skim along the streets of Philadelphia, just barely clearing the carriages by flapping my arms. Now I soar like that hawk and take off from a standing start.” Sarah had to lean down to hear his words. It hurt him to talk, but she didn’t try to quiet him.
“Sarah, you have been my life so long. I have had everything. Who would’ve thought I would have it all? Seeing the sunrise outside our bedroom window, your head on my shoulder. Nights, sitting quiet by the fire. Even a son. You made my life a miracle. The ministers-they said I would surely burn. Maybe. If I’d had your love only for a day, it would have been worth it. I don’t want to die, Sarah, I want to live wit you.”
“You won’t die,” Sarah said fiercely, and bent over to kiss him.
The team plodded on under the sun’s trackless arc. Karl slept some during the heat of the day, with Sarah, ever watchful, above him. The bloodless face was made even more pallid by the desert dust, and twice he vomited
