Emily's Fortune (7 page)

The doors closed. The horses snorted again. But just before the stagecoach started to move, a man with silver-black hair and weasel eyes and a tiger tattoo on his forearm came running from the inn and leaped up onto the seat beside the driver. The bugle blew, and off they went.

Emily felt as though she could not breathe.

As the other passengers cried, “We're off!” and waved goodbye, she turned and stared at Jackson. Was this a trick? Had he known all along that Uncle Victor was going with them? But Jackson looked worried too.

“It's okay, Eli,” he whispered. “If he knew it was
you, he would have grabbed you back at the inn.”

“Gracious sakes!” said one plump sister, her orange curls bobbing as she spoke. “Wonder who's the handsome man in the black boots, riding up there beside the driver?”

The first of the rumpled-looking men facing her answered, “It's my guess he bribed the driver, because nobody rides up there without an invitation.”

“Back at Callaway's, he said he was looking for a runaway niece,” said the second man. “He thinks she might have got off at Fort Jawbone. Going to look for her there, I guess.”

“But, my! Doesn't he have a fine mustache!” said the second grown sister, who had bright painted lips. “We're on our way to Redbud. How far are you three men going?”

“We're heading west to dig for gold,” bragged the third man. “Oscar, Angus, and Jock, that's us, and I'm Jock. Who might you ladies be?” He lifted his shirt and scratched his belly.

The sister with the orange hair made a face and held
a handkerchief to her nose. But the sister with the bright red lips answered, “I'm Petunia and she's Marigold.” And then, to be polite, she turned around and asked the old man behind her his name.

“Eh?” said the old man next to Emily, cupping one hand to his ear.

“What's your name?” asked Petunia, more loudly.

“Muffit,” he shouted back as though no one else could hear either. “Mortimer Muffit.” And he nodded off.

No one seemed the least bit interested in learning the children's names, because as Luella Nash used to say, children were best seen and not heard.

As Marigold and Petunia turned their attention to the window, the three rumpled men began talking among themselves.

“How long you figure before we get to Deadman's Belch?” Jock asked the others. “That'll be the halfway point.”

“Not Belch, stupid,” said Oscar. “Gulch! Deadman's Gulch.”

“It's a long way yet,” said Angus. “Got to go through
Snakeville and Bull's Eye, then down Lantern Hill to the ferry.”

Emily hardly knew what she was afraid of most. She was glad to be leaving Callaway so the Catchum Child Catchers couldn't get her. But even the thought of Deadman's Gulch or a place called Snakeville wasn't as frightening as the thought of living with Uncle Victor for the rest of her life. She felt sure that he would send her off to a horrid boarding school while he went to work spending her money. She had heard the servants talk about such things back in Miss Nash's big white house, for they had worked in other places.

To comfort herself, Emily took Rufus out of his box and let him crawl around in her lap. The good thing about sitting in the last row was that the people in front of her couldn't see her turtle. The old man beside them opened one eye and watched for a minute, then nodded off again.

Jackson was swinging his legs and accidentally kicked the back of the seat in front of him. Marigold cast a scolding look over her shoulder and said to her
sister, “For charity's sake, I hope that fine man in the black boots finds his niece, but if he does, he'd better not try to squeeze her in here. Two squirming children are enough.”

Emily cupped her hands over Rufus to hide him.

“And what
are
your names, boys?” Marigold asked.

“I'm Jackson and he's Eli,” Jackson answered.

“Well, just don't do a lot of squirming back there,” the woman said. “Your brother seems a bit shy, if not backward, but let's hope he doesn't whine.” She turned forward once again.

What Emily had hoped was that once she left Callaway's Inn and her uncle behind, she could be Emily again. That in one of the way stations, she could change out of Jackson's scratchy britches and put on her dress and petticoat. That she could take off Jackson's cap and cover her short scruffy hair with the little blue bonnet.

Now she knew she would have to go on being Eli for a long time. How could she keep pretending that she had been kicked in the head by a mule?

As the stagecoach bounced along, Emily began to realize that the backseat was probably the most uncomfortable of the three benches, for she felt every bump in the road. When the coach turned a corner, however, everyone was tossed this way and that.

Once, when the horses made a particularly sharp turn, the three rumpled men fell over on each other.

“Your boot's on my foot!” complained Jock.

“Your foot's on my leg!” said Angus.

“And your leg's in my lap!” said Oscar, pushing them back into place.

After many hours and many new teams of horses, the stagecoach stopped long enough for the passengers to go inside a way station for a quick supper of beans and biscuits.

“C'mon, Eli, get some supper,” Jackson said loudly as he climbed out of the stagecoach, wanting Uncle Victor to hear.

Silently, Emily followed behind Jackson, her eyes hidden beneath the flat cap, but once inside, when
she finally looked up, she found she was sitting directly across from her uncle at the table.

What in
shootin' shivers
would Emily do now?

“D
idn't know you boys would be aboard,” Uncle Victor said, in a voice like a rumble of thunder.

“Didn't ask us,” said Jackson, reaching for a biscuit.

“Where you headed?” Uncle Victor asked.

“Don't rightly know,” Jackson answered. “Figure the driver'll tell us where to get off.”

“Now, that's strange,” said the man with the tiger tattoo. “Even orphans should have some idea of where they're going.”

“It's all I can do to keep track of my brother,” said Jackson. “Figure we'll get there soon enough.”

“What's wrong with the lad?” asked Oscar from his end of the table.

“Got kicked in the head by a horse,” said Jackson. “Never been right since.”

“Thought you told me it was a mule,” said Uncle Victor.

Thumpa thumpa thumpa
, went Emily's heart.

“Horse…mule…whatever it was. I weren't there. Just heard our ma screamin', and from then on, he could never speak a word,” Jackson explained.

“Well, they ought not to send children out on the road by themselves, orphans or not,” said Marigold. “Something happened to them, who would ever know?”

Who indeed? Emily had another terrible, horrible thought: if something
did
happen to her, the ten million dollars would go to Uncle Victor, wouldn't it?
He
would be the next of kin. Just a simple little accident out here in the night and, as Jackson had said, she might not get to Redbud at all.

•   •   •

It was dark after they'd finished eating. When they went back to the coach, the driver had turned down the backs of the three benches so that there was one large platform where all eight people could sleep—nine now, including the man with the tiger tattoo. The drivers had changed, and the new one wanted no one up there beside him as they rode.

This, Emily found, was even worse than sleeping four or five to a bed at Callaway's Inn. There wasn't room to turn over, and each time the coach hit a rock or a tree root, her head rose from the floor and banged back down again. The two sisters groaned and complained, but the elderly man was squeezed against one end of the coach and seemed to be sleeping soundly.

About midnight, they neared Lantern Hill. When they reached the top, the driver sounded several notes on his bugle to announce their approach to the ferryman, who would carry them across the river. But the horses were so eager for a drink that they galloped all the way down the steep hill. On top of the coach,
trunks slid this way and that. Inside the coach, bodies rolled and bumped against each other.

“Get your elbow out of my belly!” Oscar yelled to Angus.

And Angus yelled to Jock, “Get your backside out of my face!”

The stagecoach, in fact, was a bit top-heavy. When it stopped, the ferryman ordered all the men and boys out to help guide it onto the raft.

“You too, Eli,” Jackson whispered, and Emily, who was sleepily rubbing her eyes, climbed out beside Jackson.

The ferryman slowly led the nervous horses onto the raft. He told the men and boys to stand along the back and sides of the coach to make sure it didn't tip over once they started across the river.

Emily felt a chill as she and Uncle Victor passed each other in the darkness. For a moment she stumbled, but she managed to catch herself before she fell into the river. And she thought about how easy, how very easy, it would be for Uncle Victor to get rid of her forever if he knew who she really was.

•   •   •

It was early morning when they reached Fort Jawbone, and all the passengers went inside. Emily was wide awake now. She nervously waited for Uncle Victor to find out that Emily Wiggins was not there. Then, perhaps, he would give up the chase and go home, wherever that was.

As they ate the cold meal that was provided for them, Angus said, “Better eat hearty, mates. Last good meal we'll have for a long while, you can bet.”

“It'll be beans and bacon from here to California,” added Oscar.

“And maybe some wormy bread,” put in Jock, wiggling his fingers. Emily was glad she wasn't going all the way to California.

But Uncle Victor wasn't interested in eating. Emily watched him go from one person to the next at Fort Jawbone, asking if anyone there remembered an eight-year-old passenger by the name of Emily Wiggins who had come through on a stagecoach two days before.

“Can't say that I do,” one of the workers told him. “We get a few orphans now and then on their way out west, but I don't remember that there was a young girl on the last coach.”

“Well,” growled Uncle Victor. “Maybe she didn't come through, then, or maybe she's given me the slip. I'll have to go on to Redbud and see if I can find her there.”

Emily's breath seemed caught in her throat, and she almost choked on a biscuit.

No! No!
She could not stand it! Riding with Uncle Victor three more days and three more nights, pretending to be a boy? How would she go that long without speaking? Would she even have a voice once she got to Aunt Hilda's? But again it was time to board.

“Eli!” Jackson called. “Come on!”

A new driver leaped up to the driver's seat and the whip cracked. Sitting in the back again, Emily fed Rufus a fly Jackson had caught, and looked into his tiny face.

“Dear little friend,” she whispered. “Only a few more days and I'll never put you in a box again. We'll be at Aunt Hilda's and you'll have all the grass you want. I'll make you your own little pool, and the sun will shine on you every day.”

Rufus looked up at her and blinked his eyes. He crawled over to the old man's leg, and Mortimer Muffit didn't even notice.

“We're off!” Jock chortled as the carriage rattled across the ground.

“No turnin' back now!” said Angus.

“We're headed for Deadman's Gulch, and the best part of the trip's behind us,” said Oscar.

But the two grown sisters were all aflutter because the tall man with the tiger tattoo was riding inside the coach now, on the very bench where they were sitting, the only spot left.

“Oh, Mr. Victor!” Marigold purred, adjusting her bonnet. “I do love the way your mustache curls.”

“And
I
love the way your shiny boots shine!” crooned Petunia.