No Eye Can See (45 page)

She remembered a psalm Sister Esther read once at one of their Sunday stops: “ ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.’ Psalm one-nineteen, verse one hundred sixty-five. Peace, greater than any we might know of our own effort, a completeness,” Sister Esther told her. “It's what God offers with him and his laws as the focus.” Suzanne liked the image of not being offended as much as the picture of peace and God's law as the focus.

“I wish you could see yourself,” Mariah said. “You really are beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Suzanne said.

She felt the curls the girl had twisted with the hot iron then pressed braids of black thread through them to set off the blond hair now piled high. The tin stars poked upward like a crown. Mariah described things as she worked, not as fully as Tipton had, but with her own flair.

Pig whined, pressed against Suzanne's leg. “Looks like everyone's getting impatient,” Mariah said.

Suzanne heard bursts of laughter, foot stomping as they called out her name, and the patter of their hands on their knees, slapping for her presence. Tobacco smoke tickled her nose, and she felt a breeze lift the crack at the flaps of the dressing tent Lura, Ned, and Mariah had set up beside the big one. Suzanne pushed her round dark glasses onto her face, smoothed the skirt at her hips, the linen cool despite the August heat. Then she felt for her troubadour harp, picked it up. She grabbed Pig's harness and took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “Get Ned and Clayton ready. They're on next.”

Suzanne stepped through the opening. She smelled the smoke of cigars, the pounding got louder, and she heard appreciative applause, a sound she never imagined she'd ever hear for anything she did. Pig led her to a chair. She seated herself, and with the first strum of the harp and her clear soprano voice lifted in song, the room hushed then exploded into applause as she completed the old Irish hymn, “Be Thou My Vision.” As she bowed, Suzanne marveled again at her choices. A body had to ache and stretch a bit to see just what it could do if a person wasn't too frightened to step out onto a cloud of faith, believing she would not fall through.

17

“Matt Schmidtke!” Ruth beamed at the lead drover. “You made it! I cant believe it! Its incredible, just incredible!”

“At your service, Miss Martin,” Matt said. “With apologies for the delay.” He held his hat at his chest. “Ma'am,” he said. He still had that shock of white hair against the black. Ruth blinked. Had he been that big a man when he left a year ago? No, he'd been merely a boy. A nice boy, a thoughtful boy, but still just a boy.

Joe Pepin, the string-bean drover who she thought was in charge of bringing her horses and cattle and Mazy's bull west, rode up now, his Adams apple bobbing. “Good to see you, Miss Martin, Mrs. Bacon,” he said. “Glad you made it.”

“Oh, we made it fine,” Mazy told him. “It was you we were worried over.”

Ruth smiled at the sight of the sun on the brood mares, the sounds of whinnying so welcome. “You did well,” Ruth told him. “Thank you. Thank you, Joe, very much.”

“Don't thank me,” Joe said. “Matthew there's the one who did it. Got us through things I never woulda. Yup, he's the one to thank.”

“Now, Joe, don't be modest,” Matt said. “It was a team effort. Hired on some boys to help us bring them south. What took us some time was wintering in Oregon. Worst ever, they said. Fed the horses tree moss, snow was so deep. Had to earn us some wage money. Sorry about not
letting you know. When we got your letter, we decided to beat the postman south and just show up.”

“And here you are,” Mazy said. “Marvel give you any trouble?”

“You ever know a bull that didn't?” Matt laughed. “Kept our cows busy.”

Ruth thought he had a nice laugh, full and deep. And Joe had called him “Matthew” not “Matt.”
How old was he, anyway?
Ruth thought. She looked away.

“Is my ma around? My sister, Mariah?” he asked then.

“They're…working,” Mazy said. “Your mother is quite an enterprising soul.”

“Ma?”

“We have some stories to tell you,” Jason said. “She's in the gold fields.”

“Ma?” Matt repeated. He put his hat back on, held the reins lightly in his crossed hands. “My quiet little mother?”

Mazy laughed. “Your sister's with her, along with Suzanne Cullver. Remember her? They're entertaining in the gold fields. People change in a year. Your mother sure has.”

“And you've grown a foot,” Matt told Jason. Ruth thought Jason stretched even taller with the boy's, no, the man's notice.

“I'm helping Mazy with the milking,” he said. “And I might get to go with Mr. Forrester if he brings some wagons in next month.”

“Good for you. Looks like lots of changes.” He smiled at Ruth, then twisted in his saddle to scan the meadow. “Good choice, Miss Martin. Good stack of grass hay you put up, too.”

“Its Ruth,” she said. “Ruth Martin.” She looked away, almost shaky.
What was this about?
“Let's get you men something to eat. You must be starved what with all that time on the trail.”

“For a lot of things,” Matt said, looking straight at her.

Too many people. Too many. Zane felt a thudding in his head. He pinched at his nose. This must not unravel. Not now. He had to make a plan. He'd take the girl when Ruth was at work at the paper. Yes. When the others were milking, he could go into the house and get the child. He'd have to chloroform her to put her out. And he needed to leave something behind—the perfect thing to let Ruth know that Jessie had gone with her father. Ruth deserved to know, so her confusion could twist and turn into a paralysis of fear and powerlessness. He knew that progression. Had known it, over and over again.

“He wasn't a nice man, Ma,” Mariah told Lura. “We can't be letting people come back here with Suzanne and the boys. Not safe.” The evening cooled the hot day, and the women stood outside the wagon, letting the still air dry their skin.

“I didn't
let him.
He pushed by, said he
had to
see Suzanne, couldn't live unless he personal-like gave her his gold nugget. Don't you be telling your elders what's what, missy,” Lura said, then, “What was I to do? It was the size of my fist.”

“Keep him out,” Mariah said. “Suzanne spent almost two hours talking to him. I told him to leave. She did too. Pig growled every time he got too close.”

“Well, see, Pig took care of her.”

“But he could have shot Pig, hurt the boys. Hurt Suzanne. He only left when he was ready, didn't care what we wanted.” Mariah hesitated. “I was scared, Ma, not just for them but for me. For you.”

“Some of these people forget they're human,” Suzanne said. “There's no law anywhere near. They know no one can make them account for what they do—they have to be gentled out.”

“And the whisky—”

“It's all right,” Lura told her. “We'll get you a gun.”

“Mariah's right. We've got to prepare better. Not be letting this happen,” Suzanne said.

“Did he give it to you, then?”

“What?”

“The nugget, of course.”

“Yes,” Suzanne said. She was too tired to manage this argument—one of many between Mariah and her mother. “He did. But I gave it back.”

“What?”

“It came with conditions,” Suzanne said. She sank into the chair, wanting to take her corset off, get out of the powdered wig she wore for this latest performance. She was tired. Too tired. She'd been so happy before going on stage. She'd sung, then declaimed from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems that Mariah had helped her memorize.

Then this intrusion, this violation, happened. Almost as it had occurred with Wesley—someone violating a boundary she'd put up, walking right through it. She took a deep breath, felt herself biting her lip. Pig pushed his head against her, and she scratched his ear. “You're tired too, aren't you?”

“What conditions?” Lura persisted. She helped Suzanne lift the wig from her head.

“Marriage,” Suzanne said. “He proposed marriage.”

“Oh. Well, that's nothing new.”

Free of the wig, Suzanne reached for Pig's halter, turned and stepped inside the wagon.

Suzanne heard shuffling. Someone followed her. She smelled Lura's perfume, heard her move as though she looked to clear a place to sit. “He was good-looking,” Lura said then. “You couldn't see that, but he had a good tailor. And money. Nugget tells you that. Want me to help with your dress, there?”

Suzanne nodded. “He was also very persistent. He didn't listen to what a lady told him, which was no, thank you’ in as many different ways as I could. “

“But it could be your way out,” Lura said. “Listen, you can't keep this up forever, Mariah's right about that. But you could…betroth yourself to one like that. Not marry, of course, but accept money. For wedding plans. I heard about a woman who did that. Maybe even accept the interests of another someplace farther on. Wouldn't really be cheating.”

“Ma!”

“You still listening? Go to bed, child,” Lura told Mariah. “A woman's got to use what she's got, to survive,” Lura continued. She lifted the dress from Suzanne, untied her hoops at the waist. “All I've got is my business sense. So I'm putting that to production, here.”

“You have cattle in Oregon, Ma,” Mariah reminded her. “That might be a better life.”

“Shush. This is a bird in the hand.” She turned back to Suzanne. “You, you got your looks and talents. Why, you could even marry and divorce if you don't like them. Mariah? You still out there, Mariah? Go get your ma a glass of water,” she said, and Suzanne heard the girl leave. “Now listen,” Lura said. “I've had a few proposals myself, so I know it's not hard to get them. You got to work them right, though. Think on the grounds for divorce in California. There's six or seven. We could find one that'd fit when the time came. And you'd get half of what he had.”

“Lura…I…my mind is as soft: as a pretzel right now. I don't have another ounce of energy. Let's talk in the morning.”

Lura handed Suzanne her nightdress. She felt the thin chemise cool her shoulders. “You just think about this. Couldn't happen anywhere else but in California, right now, with all this gold and hardly any unhitched women about. Timing's everything. Don't want to hold out too long. You'll need a lacier nightdress if you're getting married.”

“Lura, please.”

The woman left, and Suzanne wondered if it wasn't performing that tired her but this Mad Mule Canyon that just made everyone mad.