Anna Godbersen: Rumors

At first she had missed her home intensely. She had been literally homesick. In New York, Elizabeth had been a girl for whom perfection — of appearance and dress, of etiquette and reputation — had been a kind of habit. She had not let go of these things easily. But now, after two months in the west, where neither dress nor manners were dictated by elaborate rules, she found herself in an almost dreamlike state. There was the great expanse of blue above her — a pure blue unlike any sky she had ever seen in New York — and the sound of warm wind in the ochre grass that she was marching through, and very little else.

She was still unused to hearing no carriage wheels, no far-off El, no rumblings of the laundresses or kitchen girls somewhere down in the house. As she walked, she held her wide-brimmed straw hat to her head, and focused on two things: the arc of blue, and the scarred yellow hills, undulating up and down as far as she could see. To Elizabeth, the noise her own feet made crunching against grass, scattering dirt and pebbles, was almost orchestral.

Suddenly the sound of horse hooves erupted behind her. There was the earthy smell of a large animal, and the loud pronunciation of her nickname.

“Lizzy!”

Her heart seized, but when she looked up she saw Will, her Will, trotting around her on the old dappled horse that he had bought in Lancaster. When she met his eyes, she saw that he was smiling.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The laughter was clear enough in his voice.

Elizabeth bit her lip, fighting the impulse to laugh with him. It was not lost on her, the irony that a girl who had been able to read any social situation, from its faintest laugh to its shortest pause, was still unable to read the wide-open country. She should have anticipated Will’s approach, and yet she hadn’t. “I was going…home.”

“I was wondering if you weren’t running away from me,” he went on with the same smile, “when I saw you pass about a hundred yards from camp and keep walking, heading west at a determined gait.”

Elizabeth turned around sharply, raising the folded newspaper to her face to keep the sun out of her eyes. She could see it clearly now, over on the bluff, the little makeshift canvas-and-wood cabin that Will had built. It was a ways back now, but perfectly clear.

“You must have moved it!” She looked back at him, shaking her head in mock accusation. “It wasn’t there twenty minutes ago! I’m sure of it.”

She waited for his reply, and it took her a long minute to realize that he wasn’t going to say anything. His pale blue eyes, set far apart in his tanned face, were gazing at her and his thick lips, twisted slightly at their edges, betrayed no sign of movement. He was watching her closely, thinking what, she couldn’t be sure, perhaps marveling at how much she’d changed. Before her father died Will Keller had been his valet, and his sturdy features had always distinguished him from the Henry Schoonmakers of the world. But as they grew up, Elizabeth had found Will’s good looks surprising, and she considered the pleasant composition of his face her own precious secret.

“You just like me chasing after you, don’t you?” he said finally.

“Yes.” She smiled. He smiled. Then she took a breath and a step in his direction. “Are you going to take me home then?”

“No,” Will answered, swinging his leg over the horse’s broad back and landing on its other side. “I wanted to show you something first.”

He led the horse with one hand and reached for hers with the other, and together they walked north up a rise. She lagged slightly behind, still holding on tight, the top of her head just reaching his broad shoulder.

“I saw this the other day while I was out scouting,” he went on, though in fact Elizabeth needed no explanation. She had followed him across a vast country knowing only vaguely of his plan to seek his fortune out west, and she hardly needed more words to justify climbing to see the view of their rented acreage now. She looked down the gentle slope of the hill and saw a field covered in delicate orange poppies that was as brilliant as any Fifth Avenue chandelier, and clutched his hand tighter.

“So beautiful,” she whispered.

“Isn’t it?”

“There were always so many flowers at home, remember? But nothing like this.”

“That’s because these are wildflowers, and anyway, that’s not home anymore.”

Elizabeth could think of no answer to this, so she simply smiled back. She smiled until he took her face in his hands and kissed her. Then he drew her in, folding her small body into his arms, making her forget that there had ever been any other place.

In New York the time that she had spent with Will, and the affection that they had shown each other, had been secret, stolen from the hours late in the night or early in the morning. Now, in the West, with no one to watch them but the vast sky and the old horse now bending toward the ground, Elizabeth felt drawn to Will with an intensity that was almost frightening. It was a hunger for lost time, she supposed. Already he was hoisting her up, carrying her as he moved toward the horse and opened the saddlebag to remove a piece of canvas.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he said, looking up at her with sincere, watchful eyes. He still called her that even though she’d begged him not to. It was a habit he found difficult to let go of. She was still aloft, her body propped against his arms, her own grasp tight around his neck, and as she waited for him to continue he shook out the piece of rough, off-white cloth and let it fall behind her on the ground. Then he bent to lay her down on top of it.

“What were you going to say?” she asked as he came down beside her. She pushed herself halfway up, so that she was lying on her side and facing him.

Will reached over and took off her hat, and began to play with her hair thoughtfully. “Just that I’ll build you a real house someday,” he said quietly. “With a room to dine in and a room to receive, and enough vases so you can pick all the poppies you want and put them everywhere.”

“Oh, I know you will!” She bent her head and laughed, and then gave his arm a pull so that he rose over her, his body blocking out the sky. She lay back, feeling the flowers cushioning her head underneath the canvas, her hair fanning out around her, and smiled up at the serious expression that had come over Will’s face. His hair had grown so long that it had to be tucked into the collar of his shirt. The formerly dark color had become almost reddish in the sun. It was as though the city had always been wrong for him, and here, far away, where the land was open, he had arrived at his full strength. He brought his lips to hers with exquisite pressure, and when he drew back again to look at her she couldn’t stop the flush that had come across her cheeks and down her neck.

She felt so pleasantly light and empty, and almost overwhelmed by the events that had brought her to this place. The silence that followed was strangely long, and at first she wondered if he didn’t have another surprise. But she had been studying Will’s silences for a long time. She knew in a few passing moments that there was something he’d been meaning to tell her.

“It wasn’t just luck that we ended up here,” he said with the steadfast seriousness that had first endeared him to her. He had pulled away from her and pushed himself up to sitting.

“Oh no?” she answered lightly.

“No. I knew about this place already. Your father told me about this place.”

Elizabeth’s breath slowed and she felt a momentary dampness along the lower lids of her eyes. The memory of her father was always confused and strong. He had embodied the familial sensibility, its particular grace, but he had never been any good with money. He had made poor decisions about his inheritance and lived largely in a world of his own. She pushed herself up on her elbow to dismiss the emotion. “But how is that…?”