Chapter Nine

 

At three o’clock the following afternoon, a family of settlers rattled into Mac’s wagon yard. The weather remained cold. When Noah had awakened that morning, frost had covered his bedroll. When he’d sat up, he heard ice crystals crunch as his blanket wrinkled. The frost had melted by this time, but the air was like the inside of an ice house, and a strong wind cut through it like shards of glass. Inhospitable is probably what most folks would have called it. It appealed to Noah more than he could say. He still harbored a faintly peaceful feeling left over from the day before, too, and he cherished it.

He watched the newcomers from his stall where he’d been reading The Personal History of David Copperfield, one of several books he’d brought to the territory with him. As he watched, he wondered what it must be like for a family to pick up stakes and take off across this huge American continent to settle in new, unfamiliar territory. He’d left his home state and taken off across the country, but he’d had no stakes left at the time.

He heard the door to Mac’s mercantile open and turned to see Maddie and Mac come out. He watched them head over to greet the newcomers, Maddie skipping along at Mac’s side and looking as if this were the most exciting thing to happen to her since she heard that piano music the other day—which it possibly was.

Noah shook his head. His own desire to have her land aside, he couldn’t understand why Grace Richardson wanted to put her own little girl, whom she obviously loved with all her heart, through the rigors of growing up out here in the territory. Hell, growing up was hard enough even when a kid had friends and family around.

But Maddie’s upbringing was nothing to him. What Grace did with her kid was her own affair. His only problem was how to get her land away from her. He told himself so roughly, when he realized his mind had taken to meandering fondly around thoughts of Grace.

“Welcome to Rio Hondo, strangers,” Mac called to a bearded man driving the team of exhausted-looking oxen. The man looked relieved to hear the friendly greeting.

“Good afternoon, mister. Understand you can help me repair this here wagon. She’s got a wheel on her that’s barely holding together.”

“Aye,” said Mac. “You’ve come to the right place for wagon repairs.”

“Thank God.” The bearded man turned and spoke into the back of his covered wagon. “It’s all right, Caroline. You and the children can get down now.” He turned back to Mac. “The kids were taking a nap back there. Don’t know where they found the room.” He chuckled, sounding rueful. Noah didn’t wonder at it. It must be difficult, carrying a family’s entire belongings in so small a vehicle.

The bearded gent climbed down from the wagon. Faintly curious and figuring he might make himself useful, Noah wandered over to the strangers. Maddie and Mac greeted him as if they were happy to see him. He found himself enjoying their congeniality. Friendship. Is this what friendship used to feel like? Noah couldn’t remember, but he warned himself not to get used to it, because it would end soon enough.

“It’s my birthday, Mr. Noah!” Maddie announced eagerly. “And Mac says these new people are like a present!”.

Cripes. Was it really the kid’s birthday? Noah wished he’d known earlier. He’d have found or made something to give her. A present or something. That was what folks were supposed to do for kids’ birthdays, wasn’t it?

“Happy birthday, Miss Maddie. How old are you today?” He knew the answer, of course, but couldn’t think of anything better to say.

“I’m six,” she declared proudly. “And Mommy’s baking me a real choc’lit cake.”

“Sounds good.”

Two children, a boy and a girl, both about Maddie’s age, walked out from behind the back of the wagon. Noah watched Maddie’s expression bloom into joy. She clasped her hands to her chest as if this were the happiest moment of her short life. His heart gave a painful spasm. What a life it was! Criminy, that little girl’s life was even more circumscribed than his own.

“Oh, look!” Maddie sounded ecstatic.

“Aye, Maddie-lass. Looks like ye have some children to share your birthday wi’ ye.”

“Oh, yes!” Maddie raced over to meet the two children. “My name is Maddie Richardson. Who are you?”

The girl smiled uncertainly and hung back a bit from Maddie’s exuberance. “My name’s Anastasia,” she said. “This here’s my brother Paul. We’re twins.”

Maddie cocked her head as if this information were fascinating to her. “What’s twins?”

Anastasia said, “Twins look alike. Sometimes you can’t even tell ‘em apart. You can tell Paul and me apart, though, ‘cause he’s a boy and I’m a girl. Twins are borned at the same time.”

“Oh.” Maddie nodded, accepting Anastasia’s explanation easily. Noah grinned as he watched Maddie’s attention transfer to Paul. “What’s the matter with your brother? Is he shy?”

Evidently taking Maddie’s question as a challenge, Paul straightened himself up and took a bold step forward. “I ain’t shy,” he asserted stoutly.

Unaffected by his show of bravado, Maddie grinned and said, “Good. I’m glad, ‘cause it’s my birthday, and I’m six, and my mommy’s making me a real choc’lit cake and fried chicken for supper, and you can eat with us.”

“Thank you,” said Anastasia. “Happy birthday.” She smiled a shy smile, and Noah’s heart warmed up and got mushy. Cripes, if he didn’t watch himself, he’d turn to some kind of maudlin soup here in this backwater of a territorial village on the edge of nowhere.

“We were six a long time ago,” said Paul, obviously not wanting to be out-done by Maddie.

Maddie ignored him, which Noah thought was very wise of her, all things considered. “Want to see my dolly? My mommy made her for me. Her name’s Priscilla.”

“I’ve got a dolly, too,” said Anastasia.

“Want to play together?”

Maddie’s eyes were as bright as stars. Noah wished he could wave a magic wand and make the world beautiful for her. But he couldn’t. The best he could do was buy her daddy’s property and give her mama some money, if Grace would ever allow him to.

The children walked off toward the house, the two little girls chattering away as if they’d known each other since birth, the boy dragging his feet. It looked to Noah as if Paul didn’t want to be seen playing with girls, but was hard-pressed to keep up his air of aloofness and superiority since there weren’t any other children around. He must be lonely as the dickens for kids his own age to play with.

Noah suspected the boy’s pretense of masculine pride would crumble soon enough, and he’d be playing with the girls before very much time passed.

He was right. Long before Noah’d helped Mac and the newcomer, whose name was Claude Merchant, repair the broken wheel on his wagon, the three children were ensconced in Mac’s store, playing together in the warmth of the pot-bellied stove like chums of long standing.

After the repairs were completed and the Merchants had been ushered into Mac’s store to meet Grace and purchase supplies, Noah went back to his stall, sat on his hay bale, and looked around. Now what could he give to little Maddie Richardson to make her birthday happier? He had no idea. What the hell did he know about children and, more particularly, little girl children?

Then, out of the blue, something occurred to him. He sat up straight on his hay bale and turned the notion over in his mind. He expected it to hurt, but it didn’t, which seemed encouraging to him. Shoot, maybe this one tiny thing in his life was healing over.

Probably not.

Nevertheless, he got up, walked over to the neat pile of his belongings stacked in the corner of his stall, and reached for his saddlebags. From deep inside one of them, underneath the Bible his mother had given him when he was twelve, way down where he never had to look at it, he withdrew a small, decorative, heart-shaped gold locket on a short golden chain. He hesitated before he opened the locket, because he wasn’t sure what his reaction was going to be, and he didn’t fancy having another fit.

Finally he pressed the clasp, the locket opened, and there she was. Julia. She’d given him the tiny picture years and years ago—to remember her by, she’d said, when he went off to war. Noah recalled that day vividly. He’d felt so damned noble and so damned sad. Julia had had tears in her eyes.

He’d bought the locket to hold the picture somewhere in Washington right after he’d joined the regiment, thinking he’d give her the locket when he got home again, sure she’d still be waiting for him. Hell, she’d cried over him, hadn’t she? He’d intended to get the back of it engraved with their initials, but now he was glad he hadn’t had the chance to do so.

“What a damned dunderhead I was back then,” he muttered, staring at the face in the locket. She’d sure been pretty, Julia had. Dark eyes, dark hair all shiny and cut and curled. She’d been a real belle. She hadn’t waited, of course, but married another man not six months after she’d promised to wait for Noah. And now Julia was dead and Noah wasn’t, and he still carried her picture around in this damned locket, like a reminder of his youthful follies. He sighed.

“Ah, what the hell. At least Maddie Richardson’s alive. She’ll probably value it a hell of a lot more than Julia ever would have.”

The truth didn’t make him feel appreciably better. He stuck the small photograph of Julia into the Bible, shoved the Bible to the bottom of his saddlebag, snapped the locket shut, and wondered if he’d just made a big mistake.

Later that evening, however, when he joined the Merchants, the Richardsons, and Mac for Maddie’s birthday dinner, he realized he felt freer somehow, as if by ridding himself of that last vestige of Julia’s betrayal, he’d purged himself of a burden. He was probably just being whimsical again.

“I’m so glad you could join us, Mr. Partridge,” Grace said with a warm smile of greeting. “I know you don’t like to socialize very much.” She blushed, and Noah suspected she thought she’d said something rude. As if the truth could be considered discourteous.

“Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Richardson.” He decided not to touch upon the subject of his lack of social graces—or his lunacy. It was hiding out of sight at the moment, but he knew it was ready to spring out at him at the least provocation. If he went crazy and had to rush outside to escape the party, he trusted that Grace would make his apologies for him. At least now she knew what ailed him, sort of. She seemed to be good at gracious apologies, too.

Dinner was delicious. It didn’t seem to Noah that Grace had been at all daunted by the prospect of feeding four more people than she’d originally planned on. He’d seen her earlier, heading out to the chicken coop with a hatchet in her hands, and guessed then that she aimed to sacrifice a second chicken for her daughter’s sake and the sake of the strangers. At least Grace and her daughter didn’t lack for food, thanks to Mac. Noah wondered how they’d fare without the kindhearted Scotsman’s help.

“This is my favorite meal, Anastasia,” Maddie confided to her new friend. “Fried chicken and corn and ‘tatoes.”

The two little girls had been giggling ever since Noah walked inside the house. If he’d been asked if he’d enjoy hearing a couple of six-year-olds giggling before he heard these two, he would have said he’d as soon skip it. However, he found himself oddly comforted as he listened to them. They sounded happy. Even Paul had fallen from his superior masculine pedestal—looked like he’d jumped off, actually—and giggled almost as much as the girls. Something warm snaked its way into Noah’s heart and curled up there, heating him on the inside.

Grace looked like she was as pleased as anything to have another female to talk to. She and Mrs. Merchant were going at it a mile a minute. Mr. Merchant, a taciturn man, didn’t speak much, but he kept casting tolerant glances at his wife and Grace, and Noah liked him for it.

Mac, of course, presided over the gathering as if he were Old King Cole himself, watching everyone’s goings-on with a benevolent eye, and contributing a tidbit here and there to keep the conversation going. Noah didn’t have to say much of anything, thank God.

The three kids sat at a table made of crates hauled in from Mac’s store. Their special table was set apart from the adults because there wasn’t enough room at the grown-up table. They didn’t seem to mind at all. Noah remembered the tea parties his sister and her friends used to have. This reminded him of those long-gone days.

When supper was over, Grace and Mrs. Merchant cleared the two tables. Then Grace vanished into the kitchen and came back holding a masterpiece of a chocolate birthday cake for Maddie. Noah was impressed. He hadn’t eaten a piece of chocolate cake for centuries. He’d never eaten one that tasted as good as this one.

When they retired to Mac’s parlor after devouring the cake, the room was plenty crowded, what with four more people in it than it generally had to hold. No one seemed to mind, though. Even Noah didn’t get to feeling too crowded, although he did make sure he remained near the door, just in case.

Maddie modeled the new dress her mother had made her. “And see? She made Priscilla one just like it.” She held up that old rag doll of hers—and rag pretty much described it—and her eyes danced with joy.

“That’s so pretty.” Anastasia held her hands together at her chest and didn’t seem to notice Priscilla’s deficiencies. Noah admired her for it.

He cleared his throat. This was the time, he reckoned, if ever there was one. “Uh, I have a little something for you in honor of your birthday, Miss Maddie.”

Maddie’s face lit up and her eyes widened, and she looked so happy, Noah got embarrassed.

Grace gaped at him. “Oh, Mrs. Partridge, there was no need for you to go to the trouble of—”

“It was no trouble, Mrs. Richardson. I already had it.” He shrugged. “Just thought maybe Miss Maddie here could use it. I sure can’t.”

That didn’t sound altogether chivalrous, but Noah was out of practice. People kept telling him that. Well, he guessed they were right. He dug in his breast pocket and withdrew the locket. He didn’t even feel a pang when he opened his hand and allowed the chain to dangle from his fingers. He took his lack of emotion as a good sign.

The golden locket glinted in the light from the fireplace as it twirled on its chain. Everyone in the room gasped as if he’d performed some sort of magic trick. That embarrassed him too.

“Ooooooh,” Maddie breathed. She didn’t step forward to take the locket, but only stared at it, mesmerized.

“That’s much too fine a gift, Mr. Partridge,” Grace said after an awed moment. “Much too fine. It’s—it’s beautiful.”

He lifted his head and looked at her. Hell, what was he supposed to do now? Take it back? He couldn’t do that. He shook his head. “I don’t think so, ma’am. It’s just a small locket, and it’s something I already had. She can put a picture of—” Of what? Inspiration struck. “—of her daddy in it. If you have one small enough to fit.”

Damn. Noah hated even hearing about the sainted Frank. But Frank had been Maddie’s father. He guessed she’d like a keepsake of him. She probably couldn’t even remember what he looked like anymore.

He saw Grace swallow. “Yes,” she said. “I do have one that will probably fit.”

Aw, hell, she was crying. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.

Maddie slowly walked up to him. “Can I really put a picture of Daddy in it? Does it have a place for a picture?” Her tone was reverent, as if Noah were presenting her with a holy relic instead of a small locket.

He blessed her for the question, because it gave him something to do other than stare at Grace and wish he could put his arms around her and wipe her tears away. “Sure, Miss Maddie. Let me show you.”

So Noah sat on a chair by the front door, and Maddie promptly climbed onto his lap. He couldn’t remember ever having a kid on his lap before. He didn’t even feel odd about it. In fact, it felt kind of nice to know that Maddie both liked and trusted him. Him, of all people! Crazy old Noah Partridge. Wonders never ceased, he reckoned.

“Let me see that thing.”

Noah looked up to find Mac grinning at him. The old man walked over and stood behind Noah to watch while he fingered the catch to the locket. When Mac put a hand on Noah’s shoulder, Noah felt a strange tingling sensation there. He wasn’t altogether surprised when he saw sparkles in the air. Good old Mac. Up to his magic tricks again. He blinked and endeavored to ignore the glimmering dots floating in the air.

“See here, Miss Maddie? What you do, is you press this little latch here.” He showed her. “Your fingers are real small, so it’ll be easy for you to work it.”

“It’s so pretty, Mr. Noah. Thank you very much.”

“You’re very welcome.” He returned her smile. Shoot, he couldn’t recall ever having been smiled at like this by a little kid. He’d never known any kids except for Julia’s bratty brother, and Noah’d never liked him. “Anyway, when you press that latch, the locket springs open. See?”

He pressed the catch, and Maddie squealed with joy when the locket opened up. There were spaces for two pictures in it, one on either side of the heart. Noah had once believed his likeness and Julia’s would share the locket, fool that he was.

Maddie’s little fingers indicated each space in turn. “There a place for two pictures in here, Mr. Noah.”

“Um-hum.”

She lifted her head and stared straight into his eyes. “Can I have a picture of you to put in there? Along with my daddy’s picture?”

Noah stared at her. She wanted a picture of him? What the hell for? “I, ah, I don’t think you want to carry a picture of me around with you, Miss Maddie. You need a picture of your mama to put in there with the one of your daddy.”

“Oh.” She frowned.

Noah got the feeling she was dissatisfied with his answer. He shot a glance at Grace and felt almost desperate to clear up any misunderstanding. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. “I—ah—I mean, if you have a picture of your daddy in there, wouldn’t you rather have a picture of your mama to go in there with it? I mean—I mean, they were married and all.”

He heard Mac chuckle softly behind him and didn’t appreciate it. Shoot, he could use some help here, not one of Mac’s enigmatical bouts of hilarity.

“But I have mommy here all the time. She told me you might go away again and if you do, I want to be able to remember what you look like.”

Stunned, Noah muttered, “You do? Why?”

“‘Cause I like you. ‘Cause you’re nice. And ‘cause you gave me this locket and I love it. It’s the prettiest thing I ever saw.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Noah saw Grace lift a hand and brush it across her eyes. She looked like she was trying to pretend she wasn’t crying, but she was, and he knew it. Cripes. He hadn’t meant to make anyone sad here; he’d only been trying to give a kid a birthday present. He’d been improvising, for the love of God, like he used to do in church on the organ when there was too much time left over after the preacher finished spewing out his sermon.

“I, uh, don’t have any pictures of myself, Miss Maddie.”

“Oh.” She sounded terribly disappointed.

“Maybe you can draw a picture of Mr. Partridge, Maddie,” Grace suggested. Her voice sounded as if her throat was tight.

“Good idea!” exclaimed Mac.

“But—but, you don’t really want my picture in there, Miss Maddie.” Criminy, she was just a kid. Noah kept reminding himself of that, because the idea of her wanting to keep his likeness in her locket was beginning to appeal to him way too much. He couldn’t afford to get attached to anyone, much less a little child like Maddie Richardson.

“Sure she does,” said Mac.

“I can help you, Maddie,” said Grace. “We can draw a fine likeness of Mr. Partridge.”

Noah looked up and his gaze got trapped in hers for a moment. Her expression was almost unbearably tender. He looked away first, unable to take in so much blatant caring. He wasn’t used to it. It was like after they’d hauled him out of that prison camp, when he’d been nearly dead with starvation and illness and he could take in nothing but thin soups and dry bread for weeks and weeks. Anything rich would have come right back up again. That’s the way he felt about Grace Richardson’s expression. It was too rich. Too sweet. He couldn’t tolerate it.

But, shoot! They didn’t really want his ugly face in that locket with a likeness of Maddie’s daddy. Did they? They couldn’t possibly.

“That’s just the sweetest thing, Mr. Partridge. Just the sweetest thing.”

Noah jerked his head to the right and saw Mrs. Merchant wiping her eyes, too. Well, hell. He’d just been giving a child a birthday present.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Noah.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Maddie.”

He was getting awfully itchy, being the center of attention this way. He could feel the pressure building up inside of him and hoped it wouldn’t bubble over into an explosion of craziness. Not now. Not here. Not during Maddie’s birthday party.

Then Maddie gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek, and any thought of cracking up flew right out of his head. She scrambled down from his lap and Noah was left to press his hand to his cheek and wonder why being kissed by a little girl should make his whole miserable life feel so much less miserable

# # #

Grace watched Maddie and Noah and thought what a nice man he was, underneath all his nervousness and battle-scarred memories. She felt silly crying until she saw that Pauline Merchant was sniffling too, and then she felt a kinship with her rather than an alienation from the rest of the parlor-dwellers. Mac gave her one of his ever-ready winks, too, and she knew she wasn’t being merely overwrought and emotional. The moment was genuinely tender, and Grace suspected she’d cherish it forever.

Imagine that hard man giving her daughter such a delicate, lovely gift! What a surprise. What an enigma he was. Not for the first time she wondered what Noah Partridge might have been like if he’d lived in easier times; if there hadn’t been a terrible war to rip his life to tatters and spit him out the damaged creature he was today.

She heaved a sigh, and was just in time to catch Maddie when she hurtled out of Noah’s lap and into her arms.

“Look, Mommy! See what Mr. Noah gave me? Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It certainly is, Maddie. It’s perfectly lovely.”

Grace’s sentimental mood lasted for several more minutes, as Maddie showed everyone in the room her locket, how it opened, and exactly where she was going to put her daddy and Noah’s pictures. Grace caught Noah’s eyes a couple of times, but he glanced away immediately whenever it happened. Poor man. Poor, wounded man.

Gradually the atmosphere lightened, as it always seemed to do. Pretty soon, the two little girls began singing songs. Grace joined them, and so did Pauline. Then Paul’s teetering reserve crashed and he sang, too, along with his father and Mac.

Grace’s evening was complete when she heard Noah Partridge, very softly and looking as if it embarrassed him to do so, join in the happy group when they all sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She very nearly teared up again, but didn’t, and was proud of herself.

# # #

The Merchants stayed at Mac’s wagon yard until three days after Maddie’s birthday party. They set off again on a Tuesday, in spite of the icy wind blowing over the plains and the pile of black thunderheads hovering in the sky to the east like monsters about to pounce on the puny folks who dared to live on the earth below them.

The Merchants were determined to make it to Pauline’s brother’s ranch near the New Mexico Territory-Arizona Territory border before Christmas, they said. Noah wished them luck.

He watched Grace and Mrs. Merchant embrace, tears streaming down their faces, and wondered why people chose to put themselves through the agony of uprooting themselves, tearing themselves away from friends and family, and starting over in precarious new settings. For the sake of cheap land? To make a new life because the old one was so rotten? He guessed he could understand that because it’s the reason he was in Rio Hondo himself.

Still, it was hard for him to watch those two women bid each other farewell. They’d never see each other again; he knew it and they knew it, and the truth made them both sad. Truth had a way of doing that in his experience.

Anastasia and Maddie, too, were sad to be parting company. Even Paul looked like he was having a hard time appearing bored with the females’ leave-takings. Noah knew exactly what Paul was feeling inside, though, and it was anything but bored. The poor lad was doing his level best to “act like a man,” whatever the hell that was. Noah remembered doing the same thing when he was six, about a million years ago.

Grace and Pauline waved hankies at each other when the Merchants’ wagon lumbered off. Both ladies were still crying.

“I’ll write!” Pauline called out. “As soon as we get settled somewhere!”

“Please do!” Grace called back. “It will be so good to hear from you! I’ll write back!”

Noah wondered if they’d ever hear from each other again. For all anyone knew, the Merchants might get wiped out by cholera or diphtheria or any one of a million other illnesses that preyed on the folks who traversed the hard trails west. Or they might be attacked by a roving band of desperadoes or Indians—although, Noah knew, Indians generally didn’t bother settlers’ wagons.

He admired the Indians for their forbearance. If he saw a bunch of people trying to take over his land, Noah wasn’t sure he’d be so tolerant. On the other hand, the army’d pretty much eliminated the Indians from the area. His heart felt heavy as he contemplated the Indian situation.

Oh, well, that was merely one more problem over which he had no control. Hell, he didn’t even have control over his own life more often than not.

The wagon trailed a huge cloud of dust behind it as it rocked over the hard, dry, cold land away from Rio Hondo. Grace, Maddie, and Mac stood outside and stared for a long time before they turned and headed back to the house.

Noah saw Grace and Maddie trying to be brave in the face of their latest loss. Then he looked after the retreating wagon, and he waved, too.