Ruby jumps when Virgil sneaks up behind her and taps her on the shoulder. “Virge! You almost made me lose my breakfast.”
“Sorry, Ma. Am heading out.”
“Have a good day, son.” Ruby hands Virgil a packet of dried meats and cheeses, a rind of bread, and three carrots for his dinner break.
“I’ve been thinking, Ma …”
“About?”
“Making a fresh start.”
Ruby puts her arm around Virgil. “Your birthday wish?”
“Everyone in Jericho is rebuilding. Even Mae Burton.”
Mae’s words of yesterday grind at Ruby. She rolls her head from side to side. Her neck is tight. Will Mae really go to Dog and spill the beans? For all of Jericho to read?
“Why not us, Ma? We can rebuild, and better.”
Ruby doesn’t answer right away. Then she nods, at first imperceptibly, and then more vigorously. “I’d have to ask Sheldon for another loan. He’s been helping me keep this place afloat after a few bank loans.”
“He knows you’re good for it.”
Ruby pecks Virgil on the cheek.
“Ma!”
“You’re right about this, Virge. We’re in frightful need of some new beginnings around here.”
“C’MON, SAM.” RUBY KICKS RED dirt as she and Sam shoulder their canteens and head toward the desert with Roger. Sam is just home from school and Wink is passed out. There are no guests, so she has all the time in the world today. So what if they have scraps for supper?
They pass stunted trees and clumps of bunchgrass, both starting to green. Scat lines the pathway: bobcat, kit fox, coatimundi. Ruby hears a rattle, and motions for Sam and Roger to stop. Crouching, Ruby takes a handful of gravel and scatters it in the direction of the rattler. From the corner of her eye, she sees the snake slither away. She motions Sam to follow again. Roger stays close to Sam’s heels.
“There’s so much you don’t learn at school, but don’t tell Miss Stern I said so.”
Sam smiles wryly.
“Look around. This is a good a classroom as any. Take that saguaro. It’s likely a hundred years old. And has never moved, Sam. Just grew where it sprung up, prickly and useful at once, and shelter to insects and birds. Tells me this, we don’t need to go to the ends of the earth to do good. Can do that right here, in Jericho.”
Ruby points to the sky. “Clouds?” Ruby balls her fists. “Some days they bunch together so tight they burst …” She uncurls her fingers. “… and everything goes to Hell in a hand basket, floods and mud and stains you can never get out, no matter how hard you try. Tells me we’re not in control, Sam. Never have been, never will be.”
Ruby’s split skirt chafes her thighs. She sits on a nearby boulder and drinks from her canteen. Sam sits on another boulder not far away. Ruby swipes her mouth and lowers her canteen so Roger can slurp from it.
A cactus wren chirps from a nearby mesquite, then darts away.
“The wren, the thrasher, the dove? Think about it, Sam. They have everything they need right here. Tells me I ought to be content. That’s the hardest lesson to learn.”
Ruby bends over to meet Sam eye to eye. Soon, he’ll be as tall as she is. He’s already as tan, with the same yellow hair, although his is straight as a teetotaler to her curls. “You’ll learn these things on your own time,” she says. “And a heap more if you’re paying attention. I reckon you’re old enough to walk in the desert by yourself now. But keep Jericho in your sights, especially if you’re not with me or Wink. See to it you keep close by, you hear?”
Sam nods.
“I’ve got one more thing to tell you.” Ruby spreads her split skirt to get air circulating. “Your pop used to sing to me, before he got mean. When I start to think of the bad times, I sing this to myself to help me feel better. He made up some of the words, you’ll see. But it’s not just a song about me, Sam. It’s about this desert. A rose underneath all the thorns.”
Ruby begins, her alto voice strong and clear.
There’s a yellow rose in Texas I’m going down to see …
THE NEXT DAY, SAM DOESN’T come home for the midday meal, and still isn’t home by supper. Ruby tries not to let it get the better of her. He’s just late, right? Or lost time with Wink?
By the time supper is ready, Ruby knows something’s amiss. Sam would never miss a meal, let alone two. And she saw Wink an hour earlier heading to the livery. If Sam isn’t with Wink, where can he be? Did he even go to school today?
Ruby gets a rush of cold blood in her veins and her eyes bulge. She knows exactly where Sam is. He is somewhere out in that desert that she just herself told him he could wander in alone. Ruby’s eyes dart across the landscape. No sign of him.
Ruby tamps the stove’s burners off and covers the iron pots. She rips off her apron, grabs her hat, and sprints across the street toward the sheriff’s office. She bangs in without a greeting. “It’s Sam.”
“Sam?” Sheldon looks up from his reports and removes his glasses.
I didn’t even know he wore glasses …
“Missing. Since this morning. Skipped dinner. Didn’t show for supper. Thought he might be with Wink, but …” She sets her mouth. “Damn it, Sheldon, get off your arse and help me.”
“Don’t ‘damn it’ me, Ruby. Of course, I’ll help. Now gather yourself and let’s be smart about this.”
News travels faster than a cat in heat in a town like Jericho. Within an hour, townspeople have joined the search. Doc Swendsen and Sheldon ride ahead through desert underbrush. Ruby and Margaret Stern follow on foot. Virgil limps behind Ruby but Roger sprints ahead. Dog Webber wields his ungainly camera and strides past Virgil and the women.
“Sam! Sam!” Ruby’s words echo in the desert air. She feels like she can’t take in enough breath. “Damn it, Margaret. I told Sam just yesterday that he could explore the desert on his own. I don’t know whether to be glad he heeded my advice or mad as hell that he did.”
“I wondered why he wasn’t at school today.”
“Wish I had known that earlier, but it’s not your fault, Margaret.”
“Where do you think he’s headed?” Margaret asks.
Ruby stops to think. “The pools. He loves it there.”
The women run toward the foothills southeast of Jericho. They dodge cholla and sagebrush as they cover dry, cracked terrain. All around, they hear others yelling for Sam fanned out over a wide swath of the desert. Even Old Judd and Willa join the search. Ruby spots Tom Tillis and his crew a quarter-mile away in a wagon. Is that Wink with them? But no Mae Burton, damn her.
Ruby and Margaret pause before the last incline. The steep trail winds through mesquite and brittlebush, yellow with flower.
“We’ll find him, Ruby.” Margaret squeezes Ruby’s hand.
Ruby can’t find words to answer. Her throat is choked with dust and despair. If something has happened to Sam, it’s her fault. It’s all her fault, Willie dying, Sam not talking, now this. She loosens her hand and starts to run up the trail, her skirt catching on acacia thorns. Sweat drips in the crevice between her breasts and perspiration stains her underarms. Where is he?
In the near distance, Ruby hears Roger yowl. She stops for a second to ascertain where the bark emanates from.
“This way, Margaret!”
When they reach the pools, Roger is still yowling. Ruby lets out a blood-curdling scream. Sam’s crumpled body lies beside the stream behind a boulder the size of Arizona Territory itself. His tawny hair is matted with blood.
“Doc! Quick! Over here!” Margaret waves her hands above her head.
Ruby rushes to Sam and kneels. She places her head on his cool body and detects a shallow breath. “Sam!” she says, and gently turns his face. It is stained red.
Sam’s eyes flicker as Ruby cradles him to her chest. “Oh, Sam,” she murmurs.
Sheldon and Doc Swendsen gallop toward the pools. Swendsen grabs his medicine kit and dismounts while Sheldon ties the horses to a mesquite.
“This is all my doing,” Ruby cries. “I told him he was old enough to be out in the desert alone.”
“Let’s reserve blame for later, after we get this boy back home,” Sheldon says. He crouches by Ruby’s side.
Willa has beat her husband up the incline. “Can I help?” Willa asks. “I had nurse’s training. In the war.”
Other loud voices ring out down the trail. A crowd gathers around the unconscious boy, his clothing torn and bloodied. Margaret kneels on the other side of Ruby. She props Ruby up as she holds Sam. Sheldon removes his hat and wipes his forehead. He offers an arm around Ruby, his hand brushing Margaret’s. She doesn’t pull away.
“Anyone have water?” Swendsen asks. He puts his head to Sam’s chest.
Old Judd offers a canteen. Swendsen tears off his vest and unbuttons his shirt. He peels it off and soaks it, then applies the cool garment to Sam’s forehead. After a swift examination, Swendsen, in an undershirt now, picks up the boy and gently carries him down the trail. “Looks like a big cat might have roughed him up a bit, but he’ll come through. Not named Fortune for nothing.”
Margaret picks up Swendsen’s vest and hands it to Sheldon. They follow Swendsen to the base of the trail. By now, Tom Tillis and two helpers have arrived with a livery wagon.
“Easy now,” Swendsen says. Tillis assists Swendsen in lifting Sam into the wagon bed, where Wink sits, his hat in his hands.
“Take my place, Ruby.” Wink steps down from the wagon and helps Ruby up.
“Roger!” she calls. The dog races to Ruby’s side.
“I’ll take care of him, Ruby,” Wink says. “You get along now.”
The wagon hurtles off toward Swendsen’s surgery where Doc makes a poultice of kerosene, turpentine, and lard. He soaks a wool cloth in the mix and places the dressing on Sam’s chest.
“Will he …?”
“He’ll come through just fine, Ruby. Probably came upon a cat and she swiped at him before running away. The boy will be scared more than he’ll be hurt. Might not go out into the desert by his lonesome anytime soon.”
Sam’s eyes flicker open. He seems disoriented at first. Ruby takes his hand and he signs an “o” and a “k.” She signs back.
Supper! Ruby thinks. And those guests who just arrived without a reservation! “Rest up, Sam. I’ll be back in the wink of an eye.”
“Better that he’s in his own bed.” Swendsen takes a shirt from a peg on the surgery wall and puts it on over his bloodied undershirt. He carries Sam to the inn, with Ruby following.
“Thanks, Doc,” Ruby says. “I can take it from here.” Ruby puts Sam to bed and then hurries toward the dining room, hoping the guests have helped themselves to the supper she left in the kitchen when she fled so abruptly. Ruby enters the dining room, hot and sweaty, to find her new guests sitting at the dining table enjoying the last of their meal.
“I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of utilizing the kitchen.” A large housewife from Prescott who is accompanying her husband while he scouts out property in Jericho stands at the far end of the table, Ruby’s apron barely filling out the woman’s portly frame.
“Snooping in the kitchen, you might say,” her husband adds. On the table, chicken, potato salad, fresh peas.
Ruby exhales. “There’ll be no charge for your stay, of course. My treat. And don’t see to the washing up.”
“There are two people at it already back there,” the woman’s husband says. “The sheriff and the school teacher.”
Ruby goes through to the kitchen. Margaret, in another of Ruby’s aprons, is elbow-deep in dishwater. Sheldon takes a dish from Margaret and dries it with a tea towel.
“Sheldon, Margaret, I don’t know what to say.”
“Go get cleaned up, Ruby,” Sheldon says. “We saved you a plate.”
Ruby closes the bedroom door behind her. She strips and washes her body with a sponge. Her tummy sags. She looks at herself sideways in the mirror and sucks in her midsection. It is covered with stretch marks. Why has she not noticed this before? She dresses and sits on the edge of her bed. Sam … oh Sam …
Back in the kitchen, she pours a cup of tea. She’s not hungry.
“Anything else we can do for you tonight?” Margaret asks. She hangs Ruby’s apron on a hook and dries her hands on a towel.
“You’ve done plenty to help. Go on, you two.” Maybe something good came of this day, after all.
Sheldon whispers something to Ruby.
“Bugg?”
He nods. “Bad doings at the mine. Going to Yuma for it.”
Ruby whistles. “Well, I’ll be.” Yes, something good came of this day, alright. She pushes out the kitchen door and sits on the back stoop under a near-full moon, alone.
At least, Sam is safe. Ruby won’t let him out of her sight for a good long while. She thinks of Clayton and Fletcher, wonders where they are. Even though they made fun of Virgil and didn’t pay much attention to Sam, Ruby is convinced they would have led the search today, long legs striding through desert brush and strong arms carrying Sam home between them. They are brothers, after all.
Hadn’t Clayton said he’d be back someday? Although ‘someday’ isn’t yet. But what can Ruby do? He saw how Willie treated her, and Clayton received the most thrashings of all the boys, being the oldest to survive. Who wouldn’t want to leave the place where those memories smolder? Ruby holds out hope Clayton will show up on her porch one day and lift her off the ground. And Fletcher? He was once the dearest child, but the wounds of his harsh words linger fresh as the day he said them. He’ll be back too, won’t he? Isn’t family stronger than words?
Virgil, on the other hand, is as comfortable as an old slipper. Ruby doesn’t take him for granted, but knows he’ll never leave Jericho. Even if he is to find a missus.
But if she had lost Sam today, Ruby would have fallen into a gaping hole of grief so deep she would never have been able to claw out. Over time, it may have dissolved until the boulder of sadness rubbled into specks of dirt finer than sea salt, but by that time she would have gone stark raving mad from it all, stumbling in the desert looking for her youngest son like the lost sheep of the Bible until her tongue parched dry and every last ounce of energy a body could rustle up withered like a shriveled leaf.
Who is she kidding? No, if Sam had died in the desert today, Ruby would have gone to the exact place she found him and curled into a ball so tight that the yawning hole of heartache would have had no choice but to have its fill of her right then and there. There wouldn’t have been the need to prolong the agony any longer. One bullet is all it takes.
Virgil would have been left with the sorting out of it all. People don’t give Virgil credit. Well, Ruby does. Virgil could run the hotel and the post office and the saloon all at once. And maybe the store and the mine, while he was at it. Hell, he could be senator, or even president, given the chance.
But Sam is safe and Ruby is breathing and Virgil will open the post office at 9 a.m. sharp, like he’s done every day since Harold M. Cleaver gave him the job, and he’ll likely do the same for forty years to come, like clockwork.