Whispers (21 page)

My arms were around his waist and only the anchor of his solid body kept me from sliding to the ground. His chest rose and fell with his steady breathing. His voice was gentle when he talked to the horse, but he did not speak to me, nor I to him. What would I say? Perhaps I was wrong to have tried to slit your throat and thank you for not cutting mine?

When he deposited me back at the camp, Chick and Meaira were there to help me. Honey brought me food. Athena fussed around Sawyer and then cared for his horse. I heard his deep
thank you
and the hint of a smile in her welcome. I’d only heard her use that tone with Chick. After he’d eaten, Sawyer took his bedroll and moved to the other side of the fire. The rest of us slept beneath the tarp by the wagon. It seemed exhaustion took all of us, or maybe it was the sense that we weren’t alone this night, that there was someone to watch over us. Ironic, that the someone was Sawyer McCready. When I awoke the next morning, he was gone.

***

WE ate a cold breakfast of biscuits and bacon and then finished packing the camp to move out.

They did not speak of Aiken Tate, and I could only guess at their relationship. Where had he been all this time? Was it possible that he might not return at all? Meaira paced and watched the horizon with a desperation I only partly understood. We were stranded with a wagon and no horses. But it seemed she was anxious about more than that. She was agitated and irritable and snapped at the others for no reason until at last she stalked off to sit by herself. After awhile, Honey joined her. I didn’t know what had happened to have her so upset.

Chick went to work on a party dress she’d been sewing. She was very proud of her efforts, but her skill did not quite match her enthusiasm. Darning and sewing the family’s clothing had been my chore since I was ten, and I could stitch a suit of armor if the need called. I feared that her feelings would be hurt should I offer to help, but she was more than happy to let me fix her clumsy stitches and embellish her gown. The cotton fabric was not so fine as the cut and style of the garment, but the dark rose color would look lovely against Chick’s skin.

“
Where will you wear such a dress?” I asked her as I stitched in tiny beading to the gathered bust.

Chick turned her round eyes on me, considering before she answered. After a moment she lowered her voice and said, “Athena say don’t tell you our business.”

“
This dress is your business?”

Chick shook her head. She leaned forward and spoke softly. “It what I wear when the men come.”

I tried to keep my expression blank, but my surprise must have shown on my face. Chick looked for Athena and saw her down by the river, bent over her washboard. Honey and Meaira sat on the small hillside not far away. Watching for the Captain or Aiken, I thought.

Satisfied that no one could hear, Chick said, “You cain’t tell I said.”

I shook my head. “I won’t.”

“
We’s fancy girls.” She gave a nod, her expression prideful. “Not yet. Now we work the fields, wherever Aiken tell us.”

I didn’t know much about fancy girls, but I’d never thought of them as field laborers. I said as much.

Chick laughed, covering her smile with her hand as she did. “I mean we’s
in
the fields, not working them.”

I still didn’t understand and I felt embarrassed and stupid under her knowing eyes. I was older than she, but not so world-wise.

“
Aiken, he take us from place to place. He got us, but he don’t have nowhere to put us, see? Not anymore. Used to be we was in Atlanta, but Aiken got run off. Now sometime we not even in a town. Just someplace where men be.”

There was no hiding the horror I felt at her words.

“
Ain’t so bad,” she said. “He gots a tent and the men is nice. Usually.” She looked down, picking a long blade of grass and pulling it apart with her fingers. “Sometime theys old,” she said. “Sometime they smell even though Aiken make ‘em take a bath.”

“
Why do you do it, then?” I asked.

“
What else I gon’ do? It not as bad as working cotton. My momma did that. She die ‘fore I was ten. Aiken take me in then and I do dishes and scrub floors `til I was older. Some nights my hands be bloody from it.”

“
And now…Aiken is…?” I didn’t know how to word it.

“
He own us.”

“
Slavery isn’t legal anymore, Chick,” I said, thinking perhaps it was possible she didn’t know this.

“
Murder neither, but it still get done.”

Her words brought forth a rush of images ... my grandmother’s broken wheelchair... my brother. Chick squeezed my hand, pulled me back to her.

I said, “Why don’t you run away?”

Chick looked at me and her eyes were much older than her thirteen years. “I got no place to go.” She shrugged. “Nothin better waitin’ for me later. I can do this here, elst I can do it in some town for someone else who maybe treat me worse. I don’ want to work no crib.”

I didn’t know what she meant.

“
See, the old whores, theys in the cribs. That what they call the place they work. Cribs. They nasty, but once a whore get used up, that’s all that left them.”

“
Is that—this kind of work—your only choice?”

Chick shrugged. “Athena, she used a work all day, half the night for people who barely gave her enough to eat. Least here we goin’ somewhere. We ain’t hungry. We better off than most.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“‘
Sides, I like it when they choose me. The young ones always do. Me and Honey. They likes us best.”

Again, I knew my face had betrayed my thoughts. Chick dropped her eyes and spoke to the ground between our feet.

“
Athena say you cain’t know how things is for us. She think you look down on what we do. Think us trash.”

“
No, Chick,” I said, touching her hand, “I don’t understand it, but I could never think anything but good of you.” And it was true. Chick was sweet and kind and despite what I’d just learned, I thought her innocent. Someone who needed to be taken care of. But that was foolish of me, I supposed. It was I who was naïve and needed to be cared for.

“
You ever work for someone?” she asked.

“
For my family but no, not for someone else.”

“
Folks treat their dogs better than a person who need help. Just ‘cuz we ain’t slaves don’t make us people to them. Aiken, he ain’t good, but he better than a lot. And things gon’ get lots better soon,” she said fiercely. “Now Captain ‘round. He give us a place. He take care us.”

“
Does he ... own you as well?”

She shook her head. “I wish he did. First, he didn’t want nothing to do with us, but Aiken, he smart. He show him we be good for the saloon. We be real good.”

“
How did Sawyer and Aiken become partners?”

“
I don’ know. Honey, she think Aiken trick him. She think Aiken cheat Captain. She say Captain a good man. Not the kind to join the likes of Aiken Tate.”

“
If he wasn’t above joining Lonnie and Jake Smith, I don’t think his standards are as high as you imagine.”

“
Honey smart. She say he good, he good.”

If I was honest, a part of me agreed.

I asked, “How about the others, Chick? How did they come to be with Aiken?”

Something over my shoulder caught her attention and froze her expression into wide eyes and open mouth. I looked. Athena stood right behind me. Her eyes seemed to blaze with anger as she looked from Chick’s guilty face to mine.

“
He comin’,” she said.

I turned around and looked to the horizon. Honey and Meaira did the same. Meaira stood, wringing her hands as she watched. There was a hunger on her pale face that confused me. She looked feverish. None of the others seemed to notice, nor was there welcome in their seeking eyes or any of the caged excitement that had preceded the Captain’s arrival.

Honey stopped in front of where I sat. “I hope you don’t plan on attacking Aiken like you did the Captain,” she said.

I shook my head.

“
That’s good. You don’t want to make Aiken mad.”

I set Chick’s dress aside and stood, joining the uneasy vigil that awaited his appearance.

“
You do what he tell you,” Athena said, her voice dark as maple syrup.

I’d prepared myself for a man larger than Sawyer, more menacing than ten Sawyers. But Aiken Tate was a petite, dapper man. He had bright, blue eyes and a smatter of freckles across his nose. He wore a small hat that perched jauntily on his head and a three-piece suit in gray pinstripe. He was dusty, but looked more a businessman than the devil I’d been warned about.

On a lead attached to his saddle were two other horses that looked to be of stock breeding. Work horses. I’d wondered what drew the wagon. Now I knew. It made no sense to me why he took them rather than leave them with the wagon, but I had to assume he had a good reason for what he did.

He swung off his horse and Chick dutifully went to take the reins. Athena had a plate of biscuits and bacon waiting and hurried to serve him. There were no niceties accompanying her efforts, however. Just as there was no string of rabbits for her stew.

Aiken’s small, bright eyes buzzed over and lighted on me like a bee to a flower. “Well, well,” he said, smiling to show a mouthful of crooked teeth. Still, there was something vaguely charming about the lopsided smile and the sparkling blue gaze. If it weren’t for the apprehension that seemed to flutter between the other women, I might have liked him on sight. “Who are you?” he asked.

My mouth was dry as I answered. “Ella Beck.”

“
Ella. That’s a pretty name for a pretty lady.”

His voice was not deep, like Sawyer’s, but it was pleasant. Everything about him was pleasant. “What brings you to our humble quarters, pretty lady Ella?”

“
I’m lost. Saw— Captain McCready has agreed to take me to the next town with you.”

Aiken’s smile widened. “He’s a good man.” He looked around, then asked, “Where is he?”

Meaira stepped forward, laying a hand on Aiken’s arm. “He said he’d ride ahead and meet up with us tomorrow. He said we should start as soon as you got here. Did everything go okay in town?”

There was something in the intensity of her gaze that I couldn’t decipher. Aiken ignored her question as he moved to sit on the crate and eat. I realized that though at first sight I’d thought him a small man, my impression had been erroneous. He gave the illusion of being slight, but in fact he was of solid build.

Meaira followed him like a dog expecting scraps. “Aiken?” she said, her voice edged with need. “Did…. Do you….” She couldn’t seem to get it out. Aiken gave her a few more tortured seconds of trying before reaching in his pocket and pulling out a small bottle.

He held it out but when she reached for it, he pulled it back. “You have to make it last,” he said.

She nodded. “I will. I promise. I will.”

Her eyes fixed intently on the bottle. He held it away for another moment before handing it over. Meaira’s smile lit her face. “Thank you, Aiken.”

Athena said, “Everything ready for us to go.” and gave Meaira a look I didn’t understand.

Aiken nodded. “We got a good twenty-five miles to go today. There’s a boomtown sprung up between here and Diablo Springs. I hear they ain’t seen a woman for months out there. We’ll be more’n welcome to settle aside them all.” He nodded at Athena. “Get the wagon harnessed and let’s get a move on.”

I saw Meaira disappear in the wagon. After a few moments, she came out again. As I moved to help with the last of the crates, I watched her. She seemed strangely disoriented.

“
Laudanum,” Honey said from beside me. “Aiken keeps her stocked.”

As if hearing us, Meaira hung her head and turned away.

We moved out within the half hour. Athena drove the team from the wagon. The rest of us walked alongside. Aiken rode up ahead, leading the way and keeping the pace.

When my family left Alamosa, I’d walked then, too. After the first week my legs had become strong and my body had adjusted to the toil. We’d had to strap my grandma to the back in her chair because the terrain was too rough for her to wheel over. I’d trudged along beside her, describing the scenery for her as we moved forward. She would comment on my description after we passed. It became a game for us, me stretching my mind for new ways to say green or wide open or breathtaking, Grandma, trying to envision it from my narrative alone.

Thinking of it now brought a lump to my throat and the grief that I’d yet to acknowledge swamped me. I didn’t cry tears, but I mourned with every step. I’d lost my entire family. I was alone in the world.

It was early afternoon before Aiken allowed us a break. Athena started a fire and warmed last night’s beans, but there was no room for hunger in the blackness of my soul. I took water and moved away from the others. I felt Aiken watching me with his bright eyes, but he didn’t say anything. When we moved on again, I fell in step, but I was numb and silent. I’d escaped the Smith brothers, survived the wilderness on my own for days, faced off with a man to be reckoned with, but now that I was somewhat safe, I wanted to give up. I wanted to lie down and die.