Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

To break out of the feather bed comfort, one day he rode up to Calaveras Grove with Billie Lapham, who did business with Haynes while Robert collected more sequoia cones. He had thought it would be a relief to be among the giant trees, but they only reminded him of Martha’s death and the last time he was here, and he worked with little pleasure, a sadness gnawing at him that even the trees could not assuage.

He had planned to stay overnight, camping out as he used to. But when he came back to the Big Trees Hotel towards the end of the afternoon to wash, there was a letter from William Lobb waiting for him that had followed him up the mountain.

Lobb was as brief as ever.

Bienenstock’s

California & Montgomery

San Francisco

August 20, 1856

Goodenough-

A man on the Welsh border wants to plant the biggest redwood grove in Britain on his estate. He is keen to get a head start on his wealthy friends, so wants seedlings rather than seeds. Bring back 50 as quick as you can, and a few sequoia seedlings to impress his neighbours.

William Lobb

He rode straight back to Murphys, relieved to have a purpose but uncertain what to say to Molly. When he got to their room, she was walking around with Jimmy on her shoulder like a sack of flour, patting his back to burp him. She brightened. “Robert Goodenough! I guess you couldn’t stay away even for a night. Did you miss your little family?”

“Molly, I-”

“Rub my feet, won’t you, honey? Carryin’ two babies around is swellin’ ’em right up.” She sank onto the bed and stuck out her feet.

As he took one in his hands, Robert looked around the room at the new cradle by the bed, the bucket full of soaking diapers, a line strung across the room where clean diapers were pegged to dry. On a small table were the remains of a steak Molly’d had sent up. The place had an air of permanence that made him uneasy. “Molly, we got to talk about what to do next,” he said.

“Well, first thing to do is to take Jimmy and put him in his cradle.”

Once he was settled back rubbing her feet, he started again. “Willam Lobb wrote to me. I’ve got to go back to San Francisco, and collect redwoods on the way.”

He was expecting arguments and complaints. But Molly surprised him. “How long we got to pack?” she said.

“Oh. I wasn’t expecting you to-”

“’Cause I’ve been wantin’ to see that city for a long time now. You know I’ve been in California three years and not been to San Francisco yet? I ain’t even seen the ocean! Now’s as good a time as any. Easier to do it now than when the other baby comes.”

“But you don’t have to come with me. I can come back to Murphys after. Aren’t you settled here?”

Molly snorted and gestured at the room. “You call this settled? You got a funny idea of settled. Settled is when I have a range to cook on and my own front door and a garden full of beans and tomatoes. Anyway, we’d better come with you. Otherwise who’s to say if you’ll come back to us? This William Lobb I hear so much about will jest give you somethin’ else to collect, then somethin’ after that, and we’ll never see you.”

Robert stopped rubbing her feet, stung by her words. He wasn’t sure he could argue with her, though. “I’m going to have to leave tomorrow,” he said instead.

“I can be ready tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Watch me.” Molly got up and began pulling clothes down from hooks and folding them. As she moved around the room, Jimmy’s dark eyes followed her as he lay quiet in the cradle.

“What about Jimmy?”

“What about him? You think babies ain’t traveled all over this country? He’ll be fine as long as he’s fed and swaddled to feel secure. Little ones don’t need more than that. It’s when they start to walk that it gets harder.”

“And you won’t have-the other one-on the way?” They had not talked about the baby Molly was carrying. Until it cried and needed feeding, it did not take their attention. Robert no longer questioned whether or not it was his. There would never be a satisfying answer to that question.

Molly shook her head. “It ain’t due for a while yet. Git my trunk out from under the bed for me, will you, honey?”

Faster than he’d expected, she dismantled the room, then went to arrange for the rest of her things to be brought back from the stables, leaving Robert alone with his nephew. Jimmy did not cry when she was gone, but regarded Robert at the foot of the bed, his long lashes making a fringe on his cheeks.

“Well, now, Jimmy, looks like we’re going on the road again.”

Maybe it was hearing his uncle’s voice, soft and wistful, but it seemed to Robert that Jimmy smiled a little.

They left Murphys amid something like a fanfare. Robert had met many people when he was struggling to get Jimmy fed and was memorable as the desperate man with the hungry baby. Molly was equally memorable for her laughter that filled the hotel saloon, her waves and halloos from the front balconies and her strolls through town, Jimmy in one arm, her other arm cupping her ballooning belly to support it, her yellow dress let out to its fullest and sweeping the dust behind her. Robert had hired a wagon to take them to Stockton, where they would get the steamboat to San Francisco. There he would get Molly and Jimmy settled, then go back out to dig up redwood seedlings, for he didn’t see how he could do that with them in tow.

A crowd began to form as he and Billie Lapham and a few other men loaded the wagon with Molly’s things and Jimmy’s cradle, as well as the sacks of sequoia cones and the seedlings. Even Nancy Lapham came out and sat in a chair on the front porch of the hotel. She had insisted on getting dressed, and she made a point of kissing Jimmy and hugging Molly goodbye, though she stepped out of Molly’s mountainous embrace as soon as she could. Robert went and sat with her for a few moments.

Nancy took his hand. “Everything’s changing, ain’t it?” She seemed sad.

“I’ll still come up this way to collect sequoias,” Robert assured her. “I’ll stop in and see you.”

“You better!” Nancy squeezed his hand. “If I hear you’ve been to Cally Grove and not come here to Murphys, there’ll be hell to pay, Robert Goodenough!”

Robert smiled. It was hard to imagine Nancy giving him hell. He made to get up but she gripped his hand tighter. “But something tells me I ain’t gonna see you again.”

“Don’t talk like that, Nancy.”

“It’s not that.” She dismissed her own decline with a shrug. “It’s-never mind. You go on with your family now. Look after that little boy.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he said. “Real soon.”

“Sure.” Nancy let go of his hand.

After many handshakes and claps on the back-with Billie Lapham throwing his arms around him twice, and Molly laughing and crying, and the proprietor telling her she had a job at Murphys Hotel any time she wanted, and Jimmy squalling because of the noise-what Robert remembered most about their departure was Nancy seated and still on the hotel porch, dressed in white, watching them and nodding once. It turned out she was right.

Robert had only taken the steamboat from Stockton to San Francisco once before, when he’d traveled with William Lobb. Usually he preferred the gray and a mule or two and his own company coming down out of the golden foothills of the Sierra Nevadas and across the flat plain of central California, where the mountains disappeared; and then after a day of mesmeric riding in the bright hot sun, a blue haze of new mountains began to shimmer ahead. There were no miners in the plains to dirty it up, and the Indians and Californios he met along the way were benign.