No Eye Can See (12 page)

“I don't know if we have agreement about that,” Mazy said.

Suzanne felt a clutching in her throat. She'd planned to ask Mazy what she thought she might do in Shasta, how Mazy planned to make a living there. She hadn't talked with Ned yet about his music either, or conferred with Ruth about allowing the boy to pursue it. Her hands felt damp, and she clutched her throat, circling her neck with her fingers— like she used to. Were they all going back to doing what they used to do? And what from the past was worth taking with them, and what just burdened them down?

Clayton took the moment to pull on his mothers skirt. “Go, Mommy.” He pulled at his diaper as Suzanne bent to touch it beneath his little gown.

“Oh, can you wait, honey?”

“I'll take him,” Mariah said. “I dont want to listen to this anyway.” Suzanne nodded.

“We've got to decide. Time's come,” Ruth said. “You've all been putting it off.”

“And you haven't, I suppose,” Adora snapped. “I haven't heard you say when you were heading up to Oregon for those horses of yours, or have you forgotten?”

“Hardly,” Ruth said. “I've a few responsibilities on my hands right—”

“We should begin this momentous decision as we have before, seeking guidance and grace,” Esther said. She must have followed her interruption with a bowed head because Suzanne heard a shushing that sounded as though it came from Ruth and had Ned and Jason's name in it.

Esther spoke her prayer, and at the “amen” a strange man's voice interrupted, “Well, lookee at all these ladies. Yessiree, you're quite the lucky one, Mister—”

“Forrester,” Seth said.

“Greasy, recently of Shasta City. Heard you say something about heading that way. Good town,” he said. Suzanne smelled garlic on the mans breath, though he stood a distance from her, judging by his voice.

“You been invited to this party?” Ruth said.

“Oh, an uppity woman,” the man said, and laughed. “We California men are used to your types. Whatcha use that whip for? Snare yourself a man?” He laughed again.

Seth said, “These women are asking for some privacy, Mister, ah—”

“Greasy. Just call me Greasy, like I said. Some say my britches have more bear grease than thread holding ‘em together.” He laughed again, a high-pitched cackle that grated on Suzanne's ears. His voice was louder, as if he'd moved closer to her. “Ah, fine,” he said. “I'll let ya be. Just being friendly in a new territory.”

“I thought this was a state,” Jason said.

“So it is, lad, so it is. And welcome to it.” He whispered then, “Yesterday, I was a poor little hungry miner. Today, my pockets are full of ore. You're in California, all right. Where anything goes, overnight if you're lucky, long as you got the riches.”

“Not anything,” Sister Esther said. “Rudeness is still rudeness, no matter where you're standing. If you please?”

The man laughed his cackle again, but the scent of garlic left and Greasy with it as he shouted out, “Good-bye, ladies, see you at Goodwin and Yorks. Best place in town for ladies.”

Seth cleared his throat.

“You don't agree, Seth?” Mazy asked.

“Not exactly a parlor.” He cleared his throat again, and Suzanne thought,
He's uncomfortable.

“Truth be known, you haven't decided yet, have you, Ruthie,” Adora continued, “about going or staying? Sister Esther?”

Sister Esther took in a deep breath. “You all know we must go south. Mei-Ling to her new husband with her bees, Naomi to her husband-to-be, and me, to discover how to make up the losses. So yes,
we will go. If we can arrange for a wagon without leaving one of you without shelter.”

“Suzanne, you haven't told anyone what your plans are,” Elizabeth said then. “Heading to Sacramento or staying on with us?”

“I haven't been…sure,” she said, aware that an old habit of hesitation had just raised its head.

“And we need to settle on the brass tacks,” Lura said. “Divide up the spoils. And the wagons. How will we divide three into what, eleven, twelve of us? I plan to buy chocolate, that's what I'm hungry for.”

“The tacks are worth about sixteen dollars an ounce. Should be enough to buttress up your winter months,” Seth said.

“Weren't we going to have a celebration?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. A fete, if I remember,” Seth said. “For you women making it and for all those brass tacks.”

Elizabeth said, “We don't celebrate enough everyday things. Gotta celebrate something…momentous.”

“Like seeing a town with lovely springs coming out the side of the hill like a wedding veil, as Mr. Forrester so beautifully described to me over the evening fire,” Tipton added.

“Described it to all of us,” Jason said.

“And all those bookstores,” Mazy said. “He talked of those as well. You have to see them, Sister Esther.”

“The town and our making it together has been our destination for so long I believe we would fail ourselves if we did not celebrate the seeing of it,” Sister Esther said. “We could wait a day or so, if you girls agree.”

“Bees be happy wait a day, fly out. See town where friends soon live.”

Seth scratched at the side of his bare chin, then pulled at his blond mustache. “How many of those bookstores did I say there were?”

“Four,” Esther and Mazy said together.

“Hmm. Well then. I have a truth and a lie to tell,” Seth said. He
cleared his throat. “I hope I understand the rules in that little game you ladies played across the prairies. Ill make an alteration, though.” He cleared his throat again.

• “I lied about the bookstores.
  

• Not their presence, just their number.
  

• My optimism shades my judgment,
  

• sometimes leads my mind to wander.”
  

“Divide by two and subtract one from whatever you tell us?” Mazy said. Suzanne listened for irritation but heard only a tease in the woman's voice.

“Might be,” Seth said.

“You lied about the bookstores?” Tipton said. “There aren't any?”

“There's one,” Seth said. “Or was. Maybe by now there's more. I multiplied by hope. And four.”

Mazy groaned. “What else have you told us that is optimism over truth?”

“Nothing. We're fifteen miles out. This is a good place to cross. Whoa Navigation is the fastest growing town in the north. Queen City is another of its names. Come spring, you'll have a garden fit for royalty,” Seth said.

“Here,” Mazy said. She dropped a handful of soil into Suzanne's palm, the grains damp and smelling of musk. Suzanne squeezed the clump in her palm. It held together. “What do you think?” Mazy asked.

Suzanne sniffed the rich loam, inhaled its lush promise. Then she let her tongue touch the wet grains.

“My ma said we wasn't ever to eat dirt,” Ned said. His words held a scold.

“She ain't eating it,” Jason corrected. “Just learning it.”

“So what's it taste like?” Mazy asked.

Suzanne felt herself smile. “Like ‘the footstool of God,’“ she said.

“That's a tender picture,” Elizabeth said. “From Isaiah, ain't it?”

Suzanne nodded agreement. “It's what Isaac Watts called earth, too, in that lovely songbook of his,
Hymns and Spiritual Songs.
You'd like them, Ned,” she added.

“I'm going to try that too,” Mazy said. Suzanne imagined Mazy touching her tongue to the earth, the scent of soil and new beginnings mingling as one.

“What's it taste like to you?” Suzanne asked.

“Like dirt,” Jessie said.

“Like wet ground,” Mariah countered, and Suzanne imagined them each touching their tongues to the earth.

“Like home,” Mazy said.

And it sounded to Suzanne as though the words caught in her throat.

6

Sacramento City

Through the dirty window, Zane watched the rain drizzle, the drops slithering down imperfect glass. Puddles formed in the muddy streets, splashing red mud as a wagon or stage plunged through them at speeds fast enough to avoid getting stuck. Inconvenient if not dangerous to anyone standing on the boardwalk. Inside, the smell of wet wool, ale, and smoke caused a man with broken blood vessels across his nose to suggest they should all stand out in the rain. His comrades laughed, slapped him on the back, then picked him up as though to toss him through the window. The barmaid intervened, bringing another round of drinks.

Zane's eyes watered from the thick smoke of cigars and the iron stove puffing out as much smoke inside as out. He swirled his stick in the tumbler now half full of amber liquid. He heard a burst of laughter. A man with pants greasy enough to stand alone sat close to the stove and slapped at his thigh, hooting at some drivel another miner was telling him.

Zane wasn't sure why he stayed. He sat alone at his table, bigger and smaller men both giving him wide berth once he lifted his
eyes
and offered silence to their inquiries of “You needing this chair, mate?” or “Like some company?” They seldom repeated their question, moved on
instead to the smooth bar or a table already covered with peanut shells and cards and cigarette ashes and men laughing and telling tall tales. Sometimes they looked back at him in the bar mirror. He liked being able to move people away from him with a mere stare. He liked perching like an eagle, scanning, watching, seeking prey with his back always to the wall. He liked that he did what he planned, alone, even in the midst of a crowd. He'd learned that in the Missouri prison too: how to be alone while in the presence of many; how to use others without being used himself.

He focused on the worms of humanity squirming in the smoky din but allowed his mind to reflect on the days just past. He'd stepped inside every livery stable, ducked his head at saddle makers, spoken with sooty blacksmiths, gone anywhere he could imagine a horsewoman might be found in Sacramento. His search turned up not one clue of Ruth.

His method of seeking never varied. He tipped his hat, used his most charming voice. Not too charming. He didn't want to be remembered. A big man needed cunning so he wouldn't be recalled. He casually inquired about purchasing a string of mounts. “Need a good mare for my wife,” he told them, or “Considering buying brood mares.” Sometimes he was given the name of a ranchero up in the hills or told to check with a place out of town. He'd done that, followed up on every lead. But most often he was laughed at and told that strings of horses were worth their weight in gold, so many being snapped up by miners heading into the gold fields, north and east. Few good horses made it across the plains. Mules could graze on the sparse grasses, but horses needed grain.

“Army's outfitting northern posts to keep the heathens in line,” one blacksmith told him in between the slams of steel on his anvil. “Got to put your dibs on ‘em long before you need ‘em. Friend of mine has orders to keep him in business for the next five years.”

He was told by more than one person that the only stock in greater
shortage were milk cows and mules since those were needed for the miners and pack strings and freighters carrying everything from stoves to soap as far north as Shasta City. That was where the stage line ended. “One or two horses you can buy, but dont go looking for more than that ‘less you want to add ‘em two by two over time. What ya planning?”

Zane disliked men telling him what he should and should not do, and even worse were the questions. He rarely answered with more than a nod.

No one had mentioned any new animals recently herded in and none by a woman. He couldn't ask about a woman, of course. He didn't want to use Jed and Betha Bernard's name, Ruth's brother and his wife. That might well be remembered. Tomorrow he would check newspaper offices, to see if she had returned to her chosen work as a lithographer. He might even secure a position, look into banking. It would allow him reason to show interest in breeding stock as an investment and break through doors for pursuing Ruth.

He knew the note from that wrangler, Matt Schmidtke his name was, said he had Ruth's horses. He never knew his wife to be without them except when he had sold her favorite mounts. She loved horses above all else, certainly above him. Even the birth of the brats hadn't changed that.