Mohn’s second place short story features ancestral ties

Editor’s note:  Beverly Mohn was the second place winner in the 2010 first ever Friends of the Library short story contest. Residents had to be age 16 and over to enter. The stories, 750 words in length, had to take place in the city of Maricopa. They were judged on originality, creativity, entertainment value and the ‘wow’ factor.

A Desert Miracle

As the sun rose above the Sierra Estrella mountains on a chilly winter morning, they rode into Maricopa, five horsemen dressed in black with a tiny young baby girl in their possession. Where did the baby come from? Why did the five horsemen have the little girl and where were they going?

It was early in the morning on a very bleak Christmas Day, in the Arizona desert that the young child was born, Lucy Maben. Lucy’s mother, Texas Daisy Maben, and her husband George, had come from Texas to Arizona to find a job and earn money to raise a family, but the trials and tribulations of the barren land had brought only sickness and sorrow for them and now their newborn daughter. Two of their other children were already buried in unmarked graves along the trail.

Texas Daisy had given birth much like Mary, the mother of the Christ child; she was all alone except for her husband, George. George had been a cowpoke for almost half of his 26 years, but was now doubting that it was the future that he and Texas Daisy had planned for so long.

The winter of 1895 had been one of the coldest they had encountered, and they had only a lean-to to shelter them from the cold. The frigid, desert winds had been too much for Texas Daisy, and she sadly passed away during childbirth, leaving a tiny young baby to be cared for by other members of her family.

Among the five horsemen were Texas Daisy’s four brothers and her husband, George.  Like the wise men who came bringing gifts, her brothers had ridden on horseback from Texas to bring needed food and clothes to their sister’s family because they were in need.  They arrived just in time to see their sister go into labor for the last time. Her labor lasted only a few hours before George knew she was in trouble.

Being so far away from civilization, he knew they couldn’t receive any help. They did the best they could, but she died anyway. Daisy’s four brothers and her husband carried her body several hundred feet away from the makeshift house. There were no trees, just a handful of weeds, several prickly pear cactus, six or seven tumbleweeds and three ocotillo plants making dark, black silhouettes against the bright blue and orange Arizona sky.

Each taking turns with the shovel, the brothers slowly dug a shallow grave in the hard, dry soil. After wrapping his wife snugly in an old woolen blanket, George laid Texas Daisy to rest on the barren desert floor. After the last shovel full of dirt had been placed on her grave, George felt like he had to read a scripture over the body before they could leave, so he chose to read from the Bible. He read, “Who can find a virtuous woman?  For her price is above rubies.” (Proverbs 31:10)

Sadly looking into the eyes of her brothers, Charles, William, Lorenzo, and Tobe, George spoke in soft muted words, “ I loved Texas Daisy with all of my heart. She was a strong and faithful woman who loved the Lord. She was a great wife to me and a wonderful sister to you boys.”

As the darkness covered the sky, Lorenzo quickly put a small cross together that he made from two dead pieces of cholla. Charles helped him gently hammer it into the ground.  Finally, finished with the chore of burying Texas Daisy, George wrapped the tiny little Lucy in the beautiful patchwork quilt that her mother made with her own two hands. He held her tight to his breast as he silently rode away from the grave of the woman he had met and married only five years ago.

As George and the others rode toward Maricopa, they wondered if they could find a job with a cattle ranch or a dairy farm and a place to get the tiny little baby girl out of the cold desert wind. 

Who would have thought that one hundred and fifteen years later, Lucy’s own great, great, great granddaughter would find a place to call home in the same old desert winds of Maricopa?

Beverly Mohn

Photo by Joyce Hollis