“What’s ‘bedding’ somebody mean?” Matthew asked suddenly, and Sarah started, her hands grating noisily on the sandstone. She looked over his head at Karl.
“Little pitchers have big ears,” Karl said.
“You always say that,” Matthew complained. “I’m not a little pitcher. What does it mean? ‘Bedding’ somebody?”
“Where did you hear it?” Karl asked gently.
“I was making mineshafts in the kindling-I put it all back in the woodbox,” he added quickly. “That man drives for Standard Feed said you were bedding Momma. He said he wondered why you wouldn’t marry her, because she cooked good.”
Karl rubbed the palms of his hands on his thighs. “People like to hear themselves talk.”
Sarah looked across the wide valley, her eyes on the first stars of evening. The shadows had coalesced over the desert, and the valley floor was a dark pool between mountain peaks. She had kept herself out of the conversation.
“What does it mean?” the boy persisted.
“It’s two people living together without the blessing of God,” Karl said softly.
“Without the permission of the law, Karl. God doesn’t enter into it,” Sarah retorted.
Matthew, startled into silence by the fierce declaration, sat meekly staring at his shoe tips. When he found his tongue he said, “Why won’t you marry Momma?”
Karl spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “I never thought to ask your mother if she’d marry me, Matthew. It never seemed to be a dream possible for the two of us. I would be proud if she would be my wife. That would make you my son, too. What do you think of that?”
“It’d be okay, I guess. Would I have to call you Pa?”
“No, Sam Ebbitt was your pa.” Karl looked over the boy’s head at Sarah. “Now I’m afraid if I asked she would say no.”
She smiled, tucking back a wisp of hair. “Ask.”
A week later, in the early hours before sunup, Karl and Coby harnessed the team.
“We’ll be back late tomorrow,” Karl said as he checked the horses’ hooves one by one. “There are no stages due, and Sarah has made a big stew and bread. You should be able to feed yourself and any freighters that happen in. I expect Jerome and Charley might be through-and maybe the fellow that hauls for Stamphli’s out of Elko.”
“I was cook on a ranch one winter,” Coby said.
“You are full of surprises. You shouldn’t have any trouble, then.”
“I don’t expect any.” Coby slapped the rump of one of the horses affectionately.
“How long until you can buy your own team and wagon?”
“A while. I’m in no hurry.” He combed his hair back with his fingers and stood quiet, his eyes fixed on the dark bulk of the Fox Mountains. There was just a fingernail of a moon, already growing wan with the coming day. “I like it here. The place kind of grows on you. I’ve never been much for noise, even of my own making.”
“Ready?” Sarah called from the porch.
“We are set here,” Karl returned.
“Matthew, get your things,” Sarah said as she went back inside.
The sun was just visible above the mountains when the wagon rolled out to the southwest, and the shadows of the horses’ heads preceded them on the road. Moss Face ran alongside until Coby caught him and carried him back.
The trip was uneventful. They stopped at a spring on the west shore of Pyramid Lake to water the horses. Toward the southern end of the lake, about seven miles from where the Truckee River flowed in, they left Pyramid for the road into Reno. Stopping only twice more, in midday to eat and once more to rest the horses and stretch their legs, they reached Reno before dark.
Karl booked two rooms at the Riverside Hotel, Reno’s grandest, one room for Sarah and Matthew, the other for himself. He seemed nervous and distracted. He wore his hat even indoors, the brim pulled low over his eyes. They took dinner in their rooms and visited no one. Sarah wanted to walk down the river past Bishop Whitaker’s School, but Karl wouldn’t accompany her and she didn’t go without him.
At nine o’clock the next morning, Sarah and Karl, with Matthew between them, holding his mother’s hand, walked from the hotel to the courthouse. Sarah wore her finest dress, a sage-green gabardine suit with a fitted jacket that flared gracefully over her hips, and a cream blouse that tied at the throat in a soft bow. Karl’s clothes were worn and common, but as clean as soap and water could make them, and freshly pressed.
From beneath a glossy cap of hair, parted exactly in the center and combed wet so it was plastered to his skull, Matthew glowered at the world. He had been squeezed into the somber black traveling suit his grandmother sent him west in. It was far too small and pinched under the arms.
They stopped at the foot of the courthouse steps and gazed up at the intimidating structure. The heavy doors swung open and the dark, polished wood flashed as two men, stiff and proper in black broadcloth suits and rigid collars, came down the steps. Karl and Sarah drew back respectfully to let them pass.
“Reno’s become such a city,” Sarah whispered. Matthew, knowing only Calliope, Pennsylvania, and Round Hole, goggled at everything.
“Sarah?” Karl smiled, his gray eyes warm. “Shall we?” He gestured toward the open doors.
She hesitated, the color deserting her cheeks. Several dark-suited men passed, going up the steps and closing the doors behind them. “Maybe we’d better not.” She was suddenly afraid and rested both hands on her son’s shoulders to stop them from shaking.
“I love you, Sarah. I want to be with you always, in the sight of God and man.”
Sarah nodded shortly, her lips pressed in a determined line, and took his arm.
The foyer was dark and cold, with high vaulted ceilings of burnished oak collecting gloom over floors of the same dark hue. The heels of Sarah’s shoes clicked and echoed. They hurried to the less imposing offices beyond. In a drafty little room smelling of stale cigars, Sarah Ebbitt and Karl Saunders were married.
The justice of the peace was dry and papery, with the look of a man who has spent his life indoors. He fumbled a pair of spectacles from his vest pocket and read the ceremony without inflection, tired already, though it was not yet ten o’clock. An old clerk, hard of hearing and nearly blind, was the witness and he mumbled and chuckled to himself all during the vows.
Sarah had taken off the jade ring Imogene had given her, and handed it to Matthew to hold. Karl slipped it back on her hand as the justice said, “With this ring…”
The justice pronounced them man and wife and closed the book with a sigh. For a moment he blinked at them from behind his spectacles. “You may kiss the bride,” he remembered.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t!” Sarah protested and looked at the justice, the clerk, and back to Karl. He looked as uncertain as she.
“Kiss her,” cackled the old clerk imperiously.
Karl tilted her chin and studied the lines of her face as though reading a long sweet story. Then he kissed her gently and the old clerk smacked his lips with satisfaction. Karl pulled Sarah’s arm through his, and held his hand out for Matthew. “Son?”
The three of them left as unobtrusively as they had come, quiet and plain in their simple dress, but as they passed, people turned to look after them and smile.
“Can we go to the Broken Promise? Or the Bishop’s Girls?” Matthew asked as they reached the hotel, repeating names he’d heard his mother and Karl mention.
“No, honey, we’ve got to be heading back as soon as we get our things together. Next time,” Sarah promised.
“There won’t be a next time,” Matthew grumbled.
Their hotel rooms were across the hall from each other, Sarah and Matthew’s overlooking the Truckee, and Karl’s facing east, toward the mountains. In the hall, Karl knelt beside Matthew. “I’d like to be alone with your mother for a few minutes. Do you think you could find something to do in your room for a while?” Matthew agreed to try, and Karl ruffled his hair. “Good boy.”