Under a Painted Sky (8 page)

SLEEP DOES NOT COME EASY TO ME, BUT BEFORE I
know it, I awake to the sound of male laughter and the tantalizing smell of bacon. Scrambling to sit up, I try to make sense of where I am. West's brown eyes pin me like a bug from where he sits two yards away near the fire, chewing a fingernail. I stretch my eyes back down the trail. If the deputy's still after us, he hasn't caught up yet.

At least the wind has died, leaving behind a morning crisp as a water chestnut.

“It's gonna be a good day,” says Cay, wiping tears of laughter from his face. He gestures in front of him, then rests his hand on the top of his head. “Bacon in the pan and a Mexican fried egg.”

Twenty paces away, Peety helps Andy off the ground, cursing loud enough for me to hear his Spanish. The great gray mare stands beside them.

“What happened?” I ask, my alarm raising the pitch of my voice to girlish levels.

“Our wrangler's introducing your friend to the remuda,” says Cay.

I yank on my boots. “The remuda?”

“What we call our horses. That gray one he just fell off is Peety's Andalusian, Lupe, and she's the easy one.”

West stops biting his nail and flicks his finger to the sky. “He ain't hurt.”

Sure enough, Andy brushes off her trousers and says something to Peety. His curses stop abruptly. Andy marches back to us, arms swinging high. Peety takes a moment to rub Lupe's forehead, then trots after Andy.

I breathe out a sigh of relief, though a moment later a new worry starts up where the old one left off. How would Andy know how to ride a horse? I never considered the matter before now.

Cay pinches a slice of bacon from the frying pan and devours it whole. “He's a good coosie even if his caboose don't stay on his cayuse.”

My nose wrinkles. “What does that mean?”

With his mouth full, Cay answers, “A coosie is who cooks for you, a cayuse is the animal that carries you, and a caboose is what you should never wave over a stinging nettle.” He peers into the frying pan and glances up at West. “Wrestle for the last piece?”

“Sammy didn't get one.”

West keeps his gaze trained on a spot around my nose. My first reaction is to demur. I've been taught to never take the last piece for myself, which Chinese people consider very impolite. But to these cowboys, such a gesture would probably go unappreciated. They would simply assume I wasn't hungry, which isn't the case at all.

Why stand on principle when it'll just give people the wrong idea?

I take the bacon, stuffing the whole strip into my mouth just like a boy might do. It is wondrously good.

As Andy and Peety draw near, I hear Andy say, “He understands Spanish, so don't think you can fool Him with that cussing.”

Peety stomps around our fire. “
Chico
pretend he know how to ride horse,” Peety tells us, waving his hands at Andy.

“Well, it was a long time ago,” Andy shoots back, brushing off her sleeves.

“
Estas loco.
How are you going to ride Princesa?”

“Ain't I gonna ride her double with Sammy?”

Peety glares at her. “Princesa only takes one rider, and you are bigger than Chinito. Sammy, you ride with West and Francesca today.”

By Francesca, I guess he means West's sorrel. It's a tough call as to who's the most disappointed—Andy, me, or West. The deal was for us to ride Princesa together, but if we protest, the boys might get suspicious. Andy picks her face up the quickest. “Fine,” she says gruffly.

“You ever rode a horse?” West asks me.

I stop picking at the hem of my shirt and raise my chin.

“I know how to ride,” I say coolly. I don't mention that my only steed was our compliant mule, Tsing Tsing, back in New York who only had two speeds: slow, and slower.

West tucks his lower lip under his top, like he drew the shortest straw. He busies himself tacking his sorrel alongside Cay and Peety. I kneel beside Andy, who is rearranging the items in her saddlebag. “You okay?”

“He's a stubborn man, that Peety,” she grumbles. “I ain't got no business riding that frisky she-devil by myself.”

I cluck my tongue in sympathy, remembering well how fiercely I gripped Father's hand the first time I sat upon our gentle Tsing Tsing. “You want me to ask if I can ride Princesa and you go with West?” I ask a bit too eagerly.

“'S okay,” she says darkly. “They might change their minds about taking us if we fuss too much. You got more waist than me, tie a shirt 'round your middle to even things out.”

I do it while Andy knits her fingers together, casting glances at the sky. Yellow clouds, backlit by the coming sun, trek over the horizon like cat prints.

“You're sixteen, which means you were born in 1832, right?” I ask.

She stops praying. “I guess, though don't ask me the day, 'cause I don't know. Why?”

“That's the Year of the Dragon, the most powerful of the twelve animals on the Chinese calendar.”

“Most powerful?” She slits her eyes at me.

I nod.

“What animal are you?”

“Snake.”

A wry smile touches her lips. “You don't say?”

“Each sign has its strengths and weaknesses,” I say under my breath.

She tilts back her head, causing her hat to fall forward. “Tell me the bad news first.”

“Dragons are sharp-tongued, stubborn, and overconfident—”

She cuts me off. “Move on to the good stuff.”

“They're also creative and independent. And when they put their minds to something, they always succeed, which is why they're so powerful. Mother was a Dragon. She made Father speak only English to her so she could learn the language. Took her three months.”

“I already figured you's mama was bright as a sunbeam,” says Andy. “But she ever try riding a horse?”

“If Princesa starts fussing at you, just remember dragons eat horses for dinner.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Doesn't strike me as Christian to be a dragon. The ones in the Bible were always up to no good. Now go do your business while I say my last prayers.”

• • •

Princesa belts out a high-pitched squeal, almost like a human scream, as Andy approaches her.

“Princesa,” says Peety in a stern voice, pointing his finger at the horse's nose.

The screaming dies down, and Peety helps Andy into the seat. Immediately, she grabs the saddle horn.

“No holding apple!” says Peety, gesturing at the saddle horn. “Trust your legs.”

“I trust my legs, just not what's under them.”

Princesa jerks her head back. Andy wobbles but instead of grabbing the apple, she grabs Princesa's mane, causing her ride to rock in irritation. She'll fall off for sure, maybe break her leg. Then what?

As Peety pries Andy's fingers out of Princesa's mane, I clear my throat. “Maybe I should ride Princesa today, and Andy can go with—”

“Come on,” grumbles West from behind me. “Don't keep Franny waiting.” He forms his hands into a sling and boosts me up onto his sorrel. Her back is cushioned only with a blanket since Peety moved her saddle to Princesa. Then West climbs on in back of me, while I scoot as far forward as possible. Franny accepts the arrangement with a snort and a sigh, and I swear West does, too. His tongue clicks and away we go.

When Peety and Andy catch up with us, she's still holding on to the apple, sitting straight as a bottle on a rocking barrel. Her face is frozen in concentration. I curl my pinkie at her in our secret sign. Even if she disapproves of dragons, she will hopefully still consent to being a rattlesnake. She barely lifts her eyes to me.

West lets Franny drift behind the others. The horses kick up clouds of dust, which hang in the air for us to pass through. I pull my handkerchief up to my eyes.

The land changes underneath our feet as we travel, first pebble and sand, now grass tall enough for me to graze my hand over. Every now and then, some animal, probably a prairie dog, disturbs the rhythm of the waving blades with a rattling sound.

If the authorities dispatched men to come for us, they will catch up soon. How big was the bounty? The sweeter the prize, the faster the flies will find it. My stomach bunches like overworked
bao,
the little white buns we fill with sweet beans. If you knead the dough too long, the
bao
shrivel around the filling and become paperweights.

My back cramps, so I unbend it, placing my heels on the fat pads of Franny's shoulders. West tries to keep his distance from me, aiding my efforts to keep my waist away from him. We might as well be trying to run up opposite hills of polished jade in our socks. When we bump in the middle for the third time, he mutters, “Dang it.”

Ears burning, I scoot forward again. Why do I offend him so much? Is it because he doesn't want to sit so close to a boy—or because he doesn't want to be too near a Chinese boy? He does not act jumpy and irritable around Andy, or glare at her. That must be it. A yellow man bested him at cards or took his best hat in a gamble, and so he hates us all. Fine, I think, steamed now.

Franny yelps as West, scooting back again, heels her in the kidneys.

Peety notices. “Don't hurt
mi tesoro
Francesca. West, you are a
bruto.
Apologize.”

“Sorry, Franny,” West mutters.

West is forced to slide closer to me. I pin my elbows to my sides and scoot forward again. Andy's still holding her posture erect, but at least one of her hands has let go of the apple.

A dust mote flies into my eye, and I dig it out with a knuckle. “Might we move up alongside the others? I can barely see.”

“Franny and I always ride the drag.” He offers no further explanation.

“The drag?”

“The back.”

“Why? It's filthy back here.”

He snorts. “It's got the best view.”

“If you like looking at horse derrières.”

“Dairy what?”

“Derrière, from the Latin root,
de retro,
meaning ‘of the back.'”

“In Texas, we just call them butt-tocks.”

My ears begin to cook once again.

“When we're moving a herd, riding drag lets me scope for problems, like coyotes,” he says, real low and hissy-like. “You'd be surprised how many freeloaders are out there, trying to catch a meal.”

That last part strikes the final match under my collar. Last I checked, they were the ones sharing our snake. I slide forward as much as I can and do my best to shun him.

An hour later, we pass two caravans. Each wagon train is a lively mix of people and livestock—mostly mules and oxen with the occasional pig or flock of chickens. The pioneers generally wear the same getup: bonnets and full-sleeved dresses for the women and plain shirts and trousers with suspenders for the men.

Mr. Trask is too far ahead to be part of either of these caravans, but I still find myself combing the crowds for him from the shadows of my hat. Brown thinning hair and mustache could describe half of the men I see. At least his red suspenders might stand out. I also keep an eye out for Andy's brother Isaac, even though finding him means I will lose Andy, a dismal thought.

“How many miles do you go a day?” I ask the grump at my back.

“At this turtle pace, we'll be lucky if we break fifteen,” he says in a surly voice. “Usually it's twenty or thirty.”

I ignore his unpleasantness. “How do you know?”

“Experience.”

I clamp my lips together. How very helpful.

After a moment, he adds, “People leave mileage markers, but you have to look for them.”

“Where?”

“On tree trunks, rocks, whatever they can scratch on.”

“Does your
experience
tell you how many miles to California?”

“Nope. But Cay's map does.”

I grind my teeth.

“Which road you taking to California?” he asks.