No Eye Can See (49 page)

Ruth fast-walked to the house, Jason nearly running beside her. “We looked everywhere. Thought maybe she took a picnic or something. Or went with you.”

“That scamp, that…” Ruths dress kept catching between her knees, threatening to trip her. “Cantankerous dress,” she said, stomping into the house.

It was still and warm inside, despite the shade trees. Ruth walked around the room, looking for some clue, some hint of what this child had come up with now, meant to drive her crazy.
She couldn't hide all day. She must have gone exphring But where, why?

Ruth walked out the back door, toward the privy. The cat sat curled on the board with the soap, the grinding stone Jessie used for a mold lying on the grass. “How'd you knock that heavy thing off, Miss Kitty?” Ruth said. Ruth squatted down to retrieve the stone, set it back on the board. She gazed around. Nothing, no hint. Had the child run away? Did she believe no one cared for her? Maybe she interpreted being stuck with Ruth as a punishment while Sarah got to go away.

The cat stood, arched into a purr. Ruth absently stroked its striped back, running her hands out to the end of its tail. She heard it mew, looked down.

When she saw it, her face turned hot and her heart sank.

“Well, Hawk,” Zane said. He pivoted awkwardly on one foot. “This is a rare moment. Sit over there,” he directed then, quick with his words while his hand pointed with the revolver. “You ve made a difficult day forme, my Jessie.”

“Not your Jessie,” she said.

“Oh, but you are, you are. And you'll have to do a bit more for me
since you've broken my toe.” He turned to the woman. “A lost possession returned is more treasured than when originally obtained. And today I have two such treasures.” The baby cried.

Zane's eyes moved quick to the sound of the boy, noticed the lamp stand, a book or two, things brought in by another. A rocker moved near the baby. The Wintu woman was being kept—but not against her will. “David Taylors managed my baggage well.” The woman's eyes shifted ever so slightly with the stage driver's name. “So you aren't keeping yourself, then? I was right. Ah, this is sweet revenge indeed.” He sighed. “I'd love to spend the evening with you basking in this domestic scene, but I fear that gunshot just might bring someone back. And so I suggest we ready ourselves.”

He grabbed at the boy the woman held at her hip. He ripped him from his mothers arms. The child screamed, his face reddening as he wailed.

“You,” Zane said, pointing with the gun to the woman as her hands reached for her son, “get the rope from my saddle.” He pushed her from the child, who shook as he wailed. “Go!” he shouted, then almost sang out sweetly, “You come right back, or I'll be forced to deal with this child the way I know how.”

She tried to touch him, and Zane struck her. “Still a bold one, aren't you?” Now he pushed the boy's head, his fingers like long snakes pressing against the boy's face, close to his
eyes.

“Ello, ello, “
she whispered, her fingers to her lips. “No, no.” She pulled herself from the floor and scuttled past Zane through the door.

He knew David Taylor might be back, and he debated about waiting, anticipating the pleasure in watching the jehu's face when he came through the door and saw him, this woman again under his control. He wanted him to see that. But he wanted something else more, liking this taking and retaking game better than dealing with mindless men like Greasy managing the claims. He liked this…and imagining Ruths terror.

He ran his tongue over his lips, decided. “You, my Jessie, find what food you can and put it in a sack.”

“No,” Jessie said.

Despite his toe throbbing, he lurched toward her and struck her with the back of his hand. “You do what I tell you,” he said. Tears filled the girls eyes, but she held her sob, pressed her fingers to her cheek while she dug in the cupboard for cans.

When the Wintu woman returned, rope in hand, he told her, “Find me something to scratch a note on.” He motioned for paper. “I want to be sure when that jehu returns
home
he knows who it is that's intruded.”

David carried the payment with him, the monthly installment owed to Mr. Hall. He'd thought about quitting the Baxter stage line and trying to work full-time on the claim his father had abandoned, maybe locate a dry digging where the wet ones hadn't paid. Placers not far away had proven rich, the gravel giving up color enough to support one man at least. Maybe there'd be enough to support him and his family. He smiled. His family.

He could have worked the streams more when he brought food and milk out each week for Oltipa and Ben, maybe pick up extra to repay Mr. Hall faster. He did usually take a pan out and swirl the water up, almost over, the slanted edges as he squatted, watching the boy as he sat in the mud and splashed. Once or twice they watched a raccoon washing itself on the other side of the creek, and the boy pointed. He was quick to notice things.

“Its a raccoon.” A person would have thought he had fathered the boy himself.

Yes, he could have worked harder to find some hidden bar or coyote down some random hole hoping it would lead to his fortune. But when he came over the rise at the end of his run, when he dropped
down into the gulch where the cabin sat, digger pines and live oaks draping over the roof, when he rode around to the front, saw lilies shooting up green beside the door, the last thing he wanted to think of was working a claim.

He wanted to ride low in the shy glances Oltipa gave him when he handed her the sacks of food, feel the weight of the boy when he lifted him and know that here was something good he had done, something that had made a difference, even if tomorrow they left him, even if they never came back. Here, he had left a mark.

He was pleased about the dog, Chance, coming back too. The little thing kept the rats down. At least after the dog disappeared, not long after the baby was born, they noticed the rodents seeking shelter in the heat of the cabin. David spent more time than he wanted stuffing holes with rags and shakes that the rat would eat through before he returned. He'd have to chink it good before winter—if they were to stay there through another. It was one thing with just Oltipa there. She was tough and sturdy. But with a baby, a long winter might be too much even with all the wood he had chopped and stacked.

He felt the currency in his vest pocket. Maybe he should work on Hall's sympathy a bit more. At least that's what he thought he'd experienced when he'd paid him last month. The old man had coughed and cleared his throat and said something about “not really necessary, David.” But he'd taken the money. He should try to negotiate the debt. It would be nice to have the weight of it from his shoulders.

Still, he'd made an agreement. He'd been well paid for that decision despite losing his job. Oltipa's look and the boy's laughter were more than enough compensation. He shook his head, wishing his work days went as quickly as the days he spent with Oltipa and her boy.

Dusk approached. He'd be taking the stage run leaving that night and wasn't far now from Shasta, the trail nearly all downhill coming into town from the northwest. He pressed his knees into the horse, thinking to make up a little time. He was always lagging when he left, he noticed, and hurrying fast coming home.

He pulled up on the reins. “Sorry, boy,” he told the horse. He twisted in the saddle. “Thought I heard something.” Then, “What're you doing all this way, Chance?” he said when he noticed the dog.

He stepped down off the horse, thinking as he did that he'd have to take the dog with him now or be too late for the stage run. He had no time to take him back. “Tongue all hanging out. You've been on a hike, little one, haven't you? Why'd you chase me?” He picked up the dog. When he did, he felt the ooze, blood seeping from the little dog's side.

The monster kept them bound. My Jessie—the name Zane Randolph called the child—rode in front of Oltipa. He'd wrapped another rope around them both, had that rope attached to his own horse. He could feel any effort they might make to shift or slip away. Oltipa felt the coldness of the child's back through the ache of her own hands, the coldness of her own heart. He had killed her child. He had killed Ben.

Oltipa could hardly stay awake now, but to sleep meant losing a chance for escape, for revenge. It meant betraying her child, her now lost child.

Zane had first secured the girl's hands, then led her to the horse tied outside, his body sideways in the door. “Be civil and stay right there now,” he had said and smiled. Always a smile. Then he stepped back inside, grabbed Oltipa, tied her arms behind her. He must have thought they were secure because when he stepped close to the baby on the floor, Ben pulled on the man's pant legs, screaming, each scream piercing through her. Then Zane kicked at him. He grabbed Ben with both hands then, lifting him by the shoulders, his fingers sinking into the smooth flesh of her son who was raging now, screaming, jolted as though dragged across a rough road. Zane shook him, yelled at the boy. “Silence or I will silence you! What I should have done already.” A twitch in the man's eyebrow, strange breathing, like a wounded deer,
made Oltipa fear his mind had gone away, could not stay with the challenge given by a small, frightened child.

She'd felt a surge of fiiry then, so powerful and full of protection that she slammed herself into him, jammed her hands against his side using all her force, sure that if he dropped the baby it would be safer than if he shook the child to death.

Zane lurched forward with the blow, one arm letting loose the baby to swing at Oltipa, the other pinching Bens little arm as he dangled. Zane missed her. She struck at him again with her body, and this time he released the child, who landed on his bottom, the sound of flesh hitting the floor a crack like a shot. Ben screamed while the back of Zane's hand struck her, the pain of the blow to her face nothing compared to the pain of her child's cries, cries she could not comfort.

Zane headed for the child, who was sitting, leaned over into his sobbing, shaking with each new raging scream, his legs straight out, his hands stiff before him, his eyes a thin dark line of terror.

“Leave him,” Oltipa said then.

“What?” Zane turned, the sound of her voice breaking into that distant place. “What?”

“You cannot travel with the child. Leave him. Take us. A child's death brings trouble you do not want.”

The man scowled as though she'd put new fire into his rage. Oltipa feared it was this that may have saved
their
lives, but not her child's. He stared at the crying baby as though far away, as though remembering another time. He breathed like a gut-shot deer, raspy and sharp. Then quick as a weasel, he twisted back to Oltipa and grabbed her. He pulled the tie that bound her arms until she whimpered, then led her out, lifted her onto the horse behind Jessie, and bound them together with the rope. He returned inside, carrying a lantern and a sack of food. He caught up Oltipa's horse and saddled it, then forced the women onto the mare's back. He tied his own horse to them. His last act before mounting and leading them into the night was to set the lantern back in the cabin.

It went dark inside. The baby whimpered anew, sobbing and screaming a high pitch Oltipa had never heard before, of terror and confusion and rage. She longed to go to him, grateful he still lived enough to cry, powerless to make it stop.