Between Earth & Sky by Karen Osborn

did not have enough after buying the windmill to purchase the water rights. All during the dry summer, we sat with our windmill and ditches partly dug, watching our crops burn up. I was afraid to put water on the patch near the house for fear that the pump might go dry, and we lost even the grape vines. Feed corn is so high this year we cannot get enough for the chickens, but they and the rabbits are the only food we have.
    I went out at sunset tonight and walked to the river. The sky, which is like a huge bowl that fits over everything, was streaked with red and purple. The colors spread across the mountains and got all through me until the whole world was blazing. I cannot understand how land that is this beautiful can be this hard.
    Mr. Peerson, who has a big ranch near here, says it took him three years to get water and we should not give up, the land is too good. He gets so much cotton he has to pay Mexicans to help pick it. I nearly asked would he pay us, but that would not have been seemly.
    I must confess, I am of different minds about your news. Of course, I am glad for you that John has made such a success of his store, but as I am sure it means you are less likely to join us in New Mexico, I am also saddened.
    Yours,
    Abigail
    January 29, 1872
    Dearest Maggie,
    Clayton is gone now except one day a week, freighting supplies to the mining camps. He does not talk about speculating anymore. There seems to be surer money in freighting.
    You say that I must ask myself why I came, that I must regret the trip since our life here has not met with success. I can only tell you my life seems as it should be. Each morning I peer out our narrow window and see mountains, which cut into the deep-blue sky. They have sharp, clean lines, and in the winter they are partly white with snow. I cannot imagine my life elsewhere.
    Mr. Peerson is an interesting man. He came here eight years ago from Texas to establish a ranch. His wife died that first winter, but he has stayed on alone, learning the complicated methods of irrigation and raising cattle and sheep. He has sometimes gone for months without conversing with another Anglo, as we are called here, but that does not seem to bother him.
    Several years ago he was hired by the government as an Indian interpreter, and he speaks many of their languages. There is a story that his wife was dark, that he met her while living with a tribe to learn its language, but I do not believe it. A few weeks ago Mr. Peerson’s nephew, who is a doctor, came to stay with him. I am much relieved to have a doctor staying so close by. Last week, when Dr. Mayfield heard that Amy had cut her foot on a rough board, he came over and offered to look at the wound and put a fresh dressing on it. He did all this and gave me some syrup for George Michael, who has a belly ache now and again, and he would not take any of the chickens I offered him to carry back to Mr. Peerson. We have good neighbors here, so do not despair for me.
    Your Sister,
    Abigail
    April 29, 1872
    Dearest Maggie,
    The desert is in bloom. It is still strange for me to see the hard, thorny cacti covered with delicate blossoms. The prickly pears in our yard have deep-pink blossoms the size of roses. I look into their thick, spiraling petals and cannot find myself. On long afternoons when Clayton is gone, I get out my sketching paper and try to draw them. The cottonwoods near the river will flower soon. In early summer they are covered with downy white flakes and delicate leaves.
    Dr. Mayfield has decided to stay on through the summer. He tells me he has fallen in love with the desert. Clayton took him riding last weekend up into the mountains, where they saw several antelopes. The evening they returned, I left Amy and George Michael with a reliable Mexican woman, and Clayton and I rode out to Mr. Peerson’s ranch for dinner.
    After Mr. Peerson’s wife died, he hired a Mexican woman, who does all his cooking. The food was very spicy, as she