Chapter 20
Cordelia stood at the bend in the creek above Rufus Barclay's home pasture in a pale dress with sage pinned at her waist, and listened to Reverend Hollis ask her, in his mild voice, whether she would take this man.
She hadn't, the morning of the train at Cottonwood, been able to picture this. A parlor, yes. A stranger's hand on her shoulder, yes. But not sage, or a creek that ran silver, or a rancher with grey eyes who had walked her up the hill the night before with a tin lantern.
She said yes, she would.
Rufus took her hand. He had a careful round hand.
His fingers had a small new tremor that she hadn't seen before, and she liked it more than she could have explained, because it told her that she wasn't the only one who had traveled a long way in spirit to get to the bend in this creek.
He said yes to his half. He said it slow and plain.
The yes had no flourish in it. Reverend Hollis pronounced what he had been brought there to pronounce.
Mrs. Letts, in her good blue, brought her hands together at her mouth and did not cry.
Boone was at the back with his hat in both hands.
Gillie was beside him, and Foster Fairchild beside Gillie.
Anthony Vale was there. The Drews. The Calders.
Mrs. Lacey from the bakery. Sippy Wardell had come and was at the back of the gathering with his hat against his chest. He had aged a year in two weeks.
Cordelia had set a chair for him beside Mrs. Letts and he had thanked her and sat in it.
Afterward, on the grass in front of the house, with the trestle out and Mrs. Letts's pie cut, and the men taking off their coats in the sun, Rufus took her arm and walked her down toward the creek.
"Mrs. Barclay."
"Mr. Barclay."
"That is a strange word to put on you."
"It is a strange word to wear."
She tried it again silently, Mrs. Barclay, and felt the corner of her own mouth give it away.
"Tell me about the train."
"Which train?"
"The one you got on at Cottonwood."
She laughed. He had asked her this the night before, walking her up the hill, and the night before that, sitting on the porch of the cottage. He kept asking. She thought it was because he liked, in his quiet way, to hear the version of her that hadn't yet met him.
"I was very small on the train," she said. "I was loyal and I was small and I was on my way to a problem I didn't yet know about. A woman gave me half a sandwich and told me my Mr. Barclay was a kind man. She was correct."
“What kind of sandwich?”
“Cheese and apple."
"Tell me about it again."
She told him about Jacqueline. She told him about Alma, and about the letter she had finished, last night at the cottage table, and would put on the eastbound on Monday.
Alma was still paying part of the debt from it, and would be for another season.
She told him about the sage in his eighth letter.
He listened. His hand stayed at her elbow, light and certain, his thumb resting once against the fabric of her sleeve.
"I will tell you something," he said.
"Yes."
"I'm grateful, Cordelia, that we found each other.
I'm also glad that things happened the way they did.
I didn't think I would say that out loud. My greatest fear was that this country would be too much for you, but it gave a grand challenge the moment you arrived, and you proved yourself a match for it.”
She did not answer at once. She turned her face up to him. The sun off the home pasture put a clean light on him. His arm was warm under her hand. She took her time; the day had finally given them time to take.
"I am glad I came when I did. I'm glad I arrived in time to help Boone."
“He's a good boy."
Cordelia looked back up the slope, to where Boone was making Gillie laugh with a story that required both hands.
"A good boy who is sometimes a little oblivious about how a town judges a person."
“He'll learn."
"With Gillie to help him, and Foster to keep him honest about the route from the church steps to the corner of Main."
Rufus laughed.
They walked back up the slope to the trestle.
Mrs. Letts pressed a slice of pie into her hand as she passed.
The apple filling was sweet and the crust had gone soft in the afternoon sun.
Boone was at the table with Gillie at his elbow, eating Mrs. Letts's pie like a boy who had been warned that morning not to stuff in pie at a wedding the way ranch hands did at a Tuesday supper.
Foster sat at the end with a slice of his own.
Anthony Vale was telling a slow story to McAfee with both hands.
She set the empty plate at the far end of the trestle and stopped at the rail above the home pasture.
The creek ran bright in the late sun. The hills beyond stood the dry-sage color she had begun, in two weeks, to recognize as the color of home. She set her hand on Rufus's where it lay on the rail, and Rufus turned his hand and folded hers inside it.
"Mrs. Barclay."
"Yes, Mr. Barclay."
"Look at all that."
She looked at all of it.
The wind moved in the cottonwoods. Cordelia stood at the rail with the hand of her husband over hers, and looked into the bright Fox Hollow afternoon.
***