Under a Painted Sky (28 page)

The chicken threat. West won't back down as long as Badge doesn't. I cannot move them to common areas of interest for they won't even listen to me.
Father, are you listening? Tell me what to do.

I once begged Father to rescue a cat stuck up a spruce. We dragged our ladder at least a mile and propped it against the tree. Once Father reached the cat, it ran up another ten feet. So Father climbed back down.

“We'll come back for the ladder tomorrow,” he told my teary self. “Cat just needs a way down.”

By the next day, the cat was gone.

“Badge,” I say. His head bleeds where West hit him. “Think of Jeremiah.”

“I said, move aside, if you value you's life!” yells Badge, causing spit to fly. I wilt under the heat of his fury.

“Jeremiah,” I repeat, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “What we did today.” I hold out my hands to him, still stained with blood.
Please take the ladder and climb down.

Badge's eyes flick to Jeremiah, still huddled over his mule, then back to my hands. His body is so rigid, his muscles tremble.

At last, he looks up from his sight line. “A life for a life, eh?” he says.

“Yes, a life for a life.” Behind me, West's breath escapes as a short gasp.

“Do I have his word?” Badge asks.

West doesn't say anything.

“West?” I call in a low voice, praying he will see reason.

Again, he doesn't answer. I count up my remaining options and realize I don't have any. Badge's pupils constrict, signaling the imminent squeeze of a trigger.

“Fine,” he says coldly.

Badge puts down his gun. “But if I ever see your face again”—he stabs his finger toward West—“do not think I will be so merciful.”

“Nor I,” comes West's surly reply.

The two glower at each other for three more counts of white-knuckled panic, until Badge finally tucks his gun back into his coat. In a few strides, he's with Jeremiah and their mule.

West and I watch them depart until the mule's footfalls grow too soft to hear. Trees whisper silently to themselves, and shed tears of leaves.

TEA. WE BOTH NEED A CUP OF TEA.

Father and I drank chrysanthemum tea to calm nerves, but since we don't have that, I fill West's cup with our blackberry brew.

West kicks at the ground and yells in frustration, walking in a rough circle with his arms wrapped around his head. “That was the Broken Hand Gang, wasn't it,” he states more than asks.

I push the cup at West. Then I stand back, wringing my fingers so hard, my joints crack.

He mutters a curse then, “I'm sorry.”

Dropping the cup, he grabs my hands. My heart pounds at the intimacy of it. All I can do is gape.

“You're trembling. What happened?” he asks.

I pull away. “The boy had a bullet in his leg,” I tell him in the calmest tone I can manage. “They needed help removing it.” I look down at my fingers, still stained with blood, too much blood. Suddenly, I wonder whether I did the boy more harm than good.

West's shadow reaches out to me. Reflexively, I step back. Like Franny, I somehow connected with his motion.

“Don't,” I say, unprepared for the moment, and in danger of falling for him again.

• • •

The next day, instead of going out, West sprints each horse across Eden, winding around pine trees and over shrubs. The sound of their hooves crescendos and diminishes as he takes them back and forth.

I examine the invalids closely for any signs of improvement. Their skin looks no less chalky, and I despair again of them ever leaving this mountainside.

Cay's eyes open and he blinks at me, trying to straighten his vision. After he swallows his salt water, he says, “I know why you smell good. It's okay.”

“What's okay?”

His eyes study my face so intently I begin to sweat, sure that he's figured me out. “That you're a filly.”

“A what?”

“A filly,” he whispers.

A girl? Or the common term for a man who enjoys the company of other men? I don't breathe. It must be the latter or else why would he use the word
filly
and not
girl
?

“I am not,” I say with mock indignation, playing along.

“I know it ain't my business. To each his own.” He grins. “But you run funny, and you ain't hairy.”

“Maybe you should save your air for breathing.”

“Plus, you used to stick around West like a burr.”

“A burr,” I repeat as my face heats up for real.

“Don't hold it against him, Sammy.” His eyes shift around like West could be hiding somewhere in a bush. “His father got soaked often and beat him oftener. Burnt quirleys on him.”

The round scars on his arm. Shock replaces my mortification.

“Once, he caught West drawing pictures. Called
him
a filly. His daddy beat him so bad, West didn't remember his name when the sheriff brung him to us. Asshole.” Cay's breath grows shallower.

“Shh. Stop talking.” I swab his face. His locks grab my fingers like the tendrils of a sweet pea.

After Cay falls asleep, I seek out the comfort of Paloma's snowy white mane. My thoughts are a jumble as I groom her, fresh from her run. When I brush against the direction of her hair coat by mistake, she jumps.

“Sorry,” I mumble, smoothing the hair back down. Then I rest my forehead against the slope of Paloma's back, letting my guilt pile up.

Did you think your father's words were true because of me? And you still saved my life twice, even killed the cholera man so I wouldn't have to.

Father always said,
Give a man a mask if you want to hear the truth.
But even with a disguise, I could not be honest. Now it is too late.
You will never trust me again.

I swipe my eyes with my sleeve and busy myself with my patients, whether more for their sake or mine, I can't be sure. After giving them their salt water, I wash Andy's hair using our frying pan as a basin. She hates to be dirty. She falls asleep as I wrap her head in a rag I warmed by the fire.

• • •

In the late afternoon, West shoots a turkey that wandered near our camp. I avoided him all day but now get to my feet as he approaches.

Dark half-moons underline his eyes since he refused to wake me again for last night's watch. There are a million things I want to say to him, but my stubborn tongue refuses to port them out of the tunnel.

“Let me,” I say lamely, holding my hand out for the bird.

“'S all right. I'll do it.”

“No, you should rest.”

“I rested enough.”

“Well, someone better cook it or I'm getting up and doing it myself,” says Andy.

I gasp and drop down by her side. Her eyes are clear and her face, tranquil. She stretches her arms over her head and pats at her hair wrap.

“How come I got this woman's rag on me?” she asks in a loud voice, then slyly winks at me.

“Andy,” I cry out.

Peety opens his bloodshot eyes and squints. “Sammy, you write my eulogy yet? I hoping you could say, ‘Pedro Hernando Gonzalez, he rode his horse to the end.'”

“More like, ‘He rode the end of his horse,'” mumbles Cay, though his eyes are still closed.

I touch both of their foreheads, which are cool again.
Oh, Father, I think your salt mix worked.
I choke back my emotion.

“You three are worse than a herd of acorn calves,” West says.

• • •

Andy and Peety's appetites have returned. We spend the evening feeding them bits of turkey stew. Peety nods gratefully when I brush the crumbs off the front of his shirt with a rag. He likes to keep a neat table.

I sop a piece of skillet bread in soup and reflect on my Snake luck. Unlucky that I fell into the Platte River, but lucky I survived. Unlucky that the Broken Hand Gang found us, but lucky West wasn't killed. Unlucky about the cholera, but somehow, the people I care about are still breaking bread together. I suppose as long as everyone keeps surviving, I am up on my luck.

Cay, still queasy, just sips blackberry tea. “Now ain't you glad I took that wrong turn?” he asks in a weak but still playful voice. “Gave you a little vacation up here.”

West doesn't mention the visit from the Broken Hand Gang, and I follow his lead.

After a few bites of his dinner, Cay falls back on his bedroll and asks me to pull his earlobes again, so I oblige. Peety rises unsteadily to his feet, then gives every horse a kiss and a back-scratch. After licking her spoon, Andy joins him. West tidies the campsite. He moves slower than usual and yawns every minute, but he won't go to bed until the last cup is wiped.

Finally, Peety turns in, followed by West, who drops onto his bedroll without even taking off his boots. Cay, his head in my lap, has finally fallen asleep—along with my legs. Andy beckons me over to her bedroll. I unhook my legs and rub feeling back into them.

Andy's face has the bright sheen of someone with fever, but her head is cool. “I feel grimy.”

“Come on, I'll give you a bath.” She bats away my proffered hand and gets up on her own. I find our soap and rag and lead her upstream. The night is warm, and the dirt on my own skin feels like an extra shirt.

We stop at a shallow part of the stream where the water pools, and toss our hats onto an overhanging branch.

Andy strips off her clothes and wades into the water, arms held out to the sides. I wash her frock coat. She can cover herself with a horse blanket tonight and by morning, the coat should be dry.

She carefully sits on a rock, and splashes water on her face and over her shoulders. “Feels good to get clean again. Thought the next time I got wet I'd be in the River Jordan.” The six dots on her arm glow in the moonlight. She catches me looking.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, remembering the way she's been rubbing it the last few days.

“Itches now and then. But I think I figured out why God allowed Mr. Yorkshire to stick me with this nasty die.”

“Die?”

“He loved his dice. Six was his lucky number, though it always set him back seven.”

I stare at the square, wondering why I didn't realize it was a die before, especially considering how a single die figured so significantly in my own history.

“But I think six is
my
lucky number. Five of us, plus Isaac. I have a good feeling I'm gonna find him soon.”

“I hope you're right.” I plunk down next to her, hoping no fish bite my bottom. “You talked about your brothers a lot.” I lather her hair with the soap and scrub.

“That's 'cause I was dreaming about them.”

“What about?”

She smiles. “I was dreaming about the year before they split us up. Tommy was seven, He and Isaac used to play a game called Follow. Isaac would blindfold Tommy, and call, ‘Follow,' and Tommy would have to trust that Isaac wouldn't trip him, or lead him into the mud. Tommy was a good follower, never even stumbled.”

She churns the water with her hand. “But one day, Tommy asked to be the leader. He made Isaac wear the blindfold. Isaac only went two paces before he fell, though of course, there was nothing blocking his path but his own scaredyness.” She chuckles.

“Did you ever play the game?”

She stares hard at the space in front of her, like someone's there, though all I see is the river. Finally, she answers, “I'm still playing the game.”

As I puzzle out what she means, she says, “You and West took good care of us.”

“You gave us a good scare.”

“Serves you right for nearly drowning in the Platte. I guess we's even now.”

She disappears under the water. When she surfaces, she blows a stream from her mouth. Her skin is sleek and glassy, like an exotic river dolphin. “If anything had happened to me, you'd have told the boys about you, right?”

“No.”

“Why? They'd help you get to Mr. Trask.”

“They've done enough for me. Besides, I think I can find my own way now.” I start in on my own scalp, scrubbing hard.

Water drops off her thick lashes when she squints at me. “Maybe you could. But would you want to?”

I don't answer.

Her gaze drifts away, and I worry again that she's thinking about separating. I decide to tell her about our visit from the Broken Hand Gang. She listens, wide-eyed and motionless.

I finish my story. “We'll have to be careful. They may not mean us harm, but whoever shot Jeremiah might still be out there.”

“Yeah, you's right. We gotta be careful.”

• • •

Andy settles into her bedroll between Peety and Cay. We didn't move their bedrolls back in case they start feeling sick again. I heat our stew pot and turn it upside down to half-dry Andy's coat, then hang it on a branch to finish air-drying. By the time I fall on my own bedroll, I am utterly dragged out.

When I open my eyes next, night still wraps the land tight as a bud, unwilling to allow sunlight in just yet. I start to unfurl, when I realize West's arm is draped around my waist, and his face is buried somewhere in my neck. Is he awake? His arm feels too heavy, and his breathing too even. Each exhale kisses me.

My heart starts frisking about in my chest. If he awoke, would he be horrified that he's cuddling a boy? Or has he seen through my disguise at last?

The thought sends alternating cold and warm tingles down my back. Is
that
why Cay called me a filly? I stiffen, causing West's hold to loosen. He flops onto his back, releasing me, and I don't dare breathe. I turn around and my eyes trace down the dark feathers of West's eyebrows to the straight line of his nose, and then to his mouth, parted and inviting. His chest rises, then his breath
huhs
softly out. Still sleeping. Slowly, I exhale.

Cowboys ain't meddlers,
Cay said. They must have been waiting for us to tell them. I bet they figured out we were wanted criminals as soon as they knew we were girls. Yet they stuck with us.

I bite my lip as a wave of gratitude blurs my vision.