Under a Painted Sky (15 page)

A chill snakes up my spine as I brood over what they might have done if I hadn't pulled the trigger. How did they plan to use that rope? Tie us up like the boys tied them, or worse?

My skin is clammy and I rub my arms hard to bring life back into them. I still don't know how to reload my gun, let alone shoot straight. Andy doesn't even have a gun. Who knows what other criminals we might encounter? We might not be so lucky next time.

I distract myself by searching out markers to tally our mileage. I find them in tree trunks and rocks and sometimes on paper staked to the ground. Two weeks until Fort Kearny, one-third of the way to the Parting. So far, I have spotted five men with firecracker-red suspenders. By the time I reach the Parting, I will be an expert.

The air thins, so we camp early to give the horses and ourselves a chance to acclimate. We settle near a narrow finger of blue on a sandy area scattered with bundles of switchgrass.

That night around our campfire, I unholster the Dragoon and hold it before me. My face flushes even before I speak. I stand tall and clear my throat.

“Um, does anyone know how to—er—load this?” I stammer. This will cost me their newfound respect, but I have to know.

West's mouth tucks back on one side. Cay whispers to Peety. Peety whispers to West. Andy, scrubbing a pan out with sand, starts to scrub harder, scratching the silence.

I hide my embarrassment under a scowl and reholster the Dragoon. Maybe I'll go jump in the river now. I turn on my heel.

“Sammy.” Cay calls me back.

“What?” I ask in a gruff voice. Now all three boys are grinning at me.

“How'd you like to learn to be a cowboy?”

I stare, openmouthed. Andy stops scrubbing her pan.

“You, too, Andito,” says Peety, licking the last of Andy's cobbler from his spoon.

FIRST NIGHT OF COWBOY TRAINING: FIREARMS.

After a day of dusty travel, we are camped in a clearing surrounded by wild plum trees. Clusters of pink and white flowers already show tight buds of fruit, which Andy used to spice up the pigeon stew. All around us is a flaming sky, reflecting a recently departed sun. Ten paces from the fire, Peety brushes Princesa's teeth with a corncob.

Cay stands in front of us, spinning his Colt around his finger so fast it blurs. Andy, picking burrs out of her new horse blanket, rolls her eyes at me.

It should've been obvious a long time ago that Cay was not born in the Year of the Rabbit like West, but in the Year of the Tiger. The Chinese New Year starts later than the Western calendar year, which means Cay must have been born in early January, when it was still the Year of the Tiger. He's fearless, but a show-off, which leads to recklessness. Yet he could charm the spots off a leopard, so people will follow him regardless. It doesn't hurt that the beauty of Tigers makes them difficult not to watch.

West leans against one of the trees, stripping the leaves off a slender twig. “Stop playing to the gallery. You're going to teach them bad habits. No one spins his gun if he values life and limb.”

“Sourpuss.” Cay reholsters his piece. “Now kids, the two rules of cowboy brotherhood are: keep your sense of humor, and leave the meddling to women. We had a boss once who liked to stick his nose in everyone's business. You try to cut out a steer and he takes up half your time showing you he can do it better. Or, he'll try to stir up trouble by telling you that your girl was kissing Hank What's-his-face. That kind of person just gets his teeth knocked out, and I'm not sorry I did it, either.”

West slices his branch through the air with a snapping sound. “Even if it turns out your girl
was
kissing Hank What's-his-face.”

Grimacing, Cay dismisses his cousin with a wave. “Now, Andy, you choose first, because I guess life didn't hand you a lot of first chances. Who do you want to have as your teacher? Sourpuss, or me?”

Andy looks from West to me and her eyes become sly. “I guess I'll go with the teeth knocker.” She gets up from her spot next to me. “Don't have too much fun,” she drops in my ear. Then she and Cay are making tracks away from the campsite.

I erase all signs of delight from my face. West gives me a hard look then tosses his stick away. Kneeling, he loads his rifle as easy as a reflex, then slings it over his back. He cocks his head to say,
Follow me,
and sets off in the opposite direction from Cay and Andy.

Peety nods at me. “Good luck.”

The soft chatter of foraging birds and squirrels replaces the thick Scottish brogue of curses in my head as I pad after West. He walks with the ease of someone with places to go but time to get there. I'm entranced by the fluidity of his movement, like the way he bites on his finger and then flicks it skyward to make a point, to test the wind, to show he's thinking. How he plucks a stem of grass and places it between his teeth.

Yellow doesn't blend with white. “A single drop of yolk can ruin a meringue,” the headmistress of a music conservatory in New York told Father when she denied me admittance. Still, I can't help wondering how it would feel to walk a little closer to West, so that our shadows touched. Chinese people believe Rabbits and Snakes make for a propitious union, since the word for happiness,
fu,
looks like the two animals intertwined.

A tree with a fallen branch blocks our path. West sets a hand on the branch, then hops over in one easy motion, barely pulling his chambray shirt out from his trousers. I scale it with a lot more effort, then scamper after him.

We hike through a wooded area tinted violet. The humidity has lifted, and the cool breeze feels as lovely as a fresh sheet against my cheek.

West looks up. “This is the best time to hunt, when the animals are out looking for their suppers. 'Course, with a painted sky, light's not always good.”

I never heard anyone call the sky painted before, but it's the perfect word. Clouds outlined in gold streak across the firmament, casting uneven shadows over the landscape.

“My father said that artists see the world differently than normal people. I see a tree where you might see a collection of lines, shapes, and shadows.”

“I see a tree, too.”

“So it's not true?”

“It ain't true that I'm an artist.”

An unladylike honk bursts from my nose. “I've seen—” I halt, wondering if I should be admitting that I peek at his pictures when he draws.

His eyes slide to me. “Drawing's my way of keeping a diary. It don't mean anything else.” His voice is gruff, almost defensive.

“If you say so. But artists don't really have a choice in the matter. They create because they have to.”

He grunts. “Ain't a proper way to make a living.”

“Tell that to Michelangelo. He got more than three thousand ducats for painting the Sistine Chapel in Italy. That's about twenty thousand U.S. dollars.”

West blinks as if splashed by water, but doesn't lose his stride.

“The Tudor monarchs would hire a royal painter to follow them around, drawing pictures of them. Sometimes the king's painter was given a fancy title like Baron or Viscount.”

Leaves crunch, though I realize I am the only one stepping on them. West carefully avoids the tree litter without even looking at the ground.

“Of course,” I prattle on, “the king's minstrel was given a fancy title
and
a pretty wife.”

To my surprise, he chuckles, a strangely intimate sound that makes my heart flutter. “So I shoulda taken up the harmonica after all.” Stopping, he rests his hands loosely on his hips and sweeps his gaze around me. Then his amusement gives way to something more serious. “That stuff you said about not having a choice. Is it the same way with your music?”

“Yes. My father said I was born with a song in my fingers. I don't know who I'd be if I didn't make music. It's the only thing I ever wanted to do.”

“Besides gold rushing.”

“Of—of course . . . besides that,” I stammer. Then I shut my mouth, hoping I have not inadvertently given myself away.

Thankfully, he does not seem to notice my discomfort. His gaze drifts upward where a hat-shaped cloud is slowly stretching apart. “We best get started.”

We park on a bald spot of ground. He tugs the bandanna off his neck and spreads it between us. All we need is a basket and a bottle of wine. As I entertain my picnic fantasy, I don't notice him hoisting his eyebrows at me until he reaches over and lifts the Colt out of my belt. I have been struck stupid.

“How many times you fire this?” He lays the gun on the bandanna.

“Once.” I wish I still had hair to hide behind.

“So you didn't shoot a ‘moosh'?”

I grimace and shake my head.

Suppressing his amusement, he draws a pouch and two tins from his pockets and lays them next to the gun. His sleeve pulls back to reveal the first two scars on his arm, like two white fingerprints on the back of his wrist. The marks are not raised, like Andy's scar, but they share a neatness of form, as if they were made deliberately. I quickly look away before he notices me studying them, and add Yorkshire's powder horn to the assembly.

He opens the chamber of the Colt and starts filling the five slots with the objects on the bandanna. “First, pour the powder, then wad, bullet, ram it, grease, caps.”

I fill the last three slots. My hands shake, though I'm not sure what makes me more nervous, his close scrutiny of my fingers, or the possibility that I could kill us by mishandling the gunpowder. Finally, he takes the gun from me and puts it on full cock.

A mourning dove flutters about a bur oak forty paces to our left. He lifts the gun and sights.

“Don't shoot the bird!” I cry.

“Don't shoot the bird?” he repeats in disbelief, lowering the gun.

Somewhere in the distance, Andy fires Cay's gun, scaring off the dove. West drops his head back and closes his eyes.

“I'm sorry. I favor doves,” I babble, wincing at how girly that sounds.

He shakes his head. “Sammy.” Then he gives me the gun and pushes my hands toward a tree.

“What?”

“You favor trees?” he mocks.

I suck up my stammering and summon my gruffest voice. “Which leaf?”

“Start with that knot.” He points to a depression, wide as my hand, in the same bur oak.

The first shot goes wide and the second goes wider in the other direction. But now I have a feel for the iron, and by the third shot, I hit the knot right in the middle. Shots four and five follow right on its heels.

As long as I don't have to kill anything with a pulse, my hand is steady.

West squints at the tree and then at me.

I blow out the smoke that rises from the barrel. “What do you know? It works.”

• • •

Second night of cowboy training: riding.

Through a grove of sugar maples, Peety shows us how to turn on a half-dime, and how to handle a horse that bucks.

“Pull head up and move forward. It also helping if you give her compliment before you get on. Tell her she got nice smile, something like that.”

“You's kidding me?” says Andy. She draws her arms across her chest, then thinks better of it and drops them to her sides.

“Trust him, no horse ever threw Peety,” says Cay.

My mule loves to gambol even after a day of travel and an evening of riding exercises. After I tie her to a pink dogwood, she pulls the whole tree out of the ground chasing a butterfly.

While I spend my time trying to keep Paloma out of trouble, Andy works on overcoming her nerves with Princesa.

“Come on, ya horse, giddap already, can't you feel me kicking?” pleads Andy, giving Princesa another tap with her heels. Princesa drifts to one side, chewing the bluegrass near where Paloma and I are practicing our turns.

Peety wags his finger. “No begging. Order her to giddap.”

“I
am
ordering her,” says Andy.

“You are conquistador marching into battle, is that how you command your troops? Horse needs strong leader to feel safe.” He bats his hand at Andy and says in a girlish voice, “Please, if you do not mind me asking, let us go now.”

Andy's mouth falls open.

“I am just a little girl, so scared of my pony,” continues Peety in his high voice, pinching the sides of his imaginary skirt and tippy-toeing around. Princesa throws back her head and screams, a scream that sounds uncannily like a shriek of laughter.

That does it. Eyes bulging, Andy pulls back her shoulders. “I said, giddap!” She stabs in her heels.

Princesa cocks an ear. A moment later, she gits.

Peety drops his act and nods once. “
Exactamente.
”

After more drilling, Andy and I walk our mounts to cool them down. Peety strolls beside us. “Princesa came to rancho one day after her owner no want her. Says too much horse for him, too wild. But he's wrong. She's not wild, she's spirited. ‘Wild' means ‘I no care about what I do.' But ‘spirited' means, ‘I love what I do.' Big difference.”

• • •

Third night of cowboy training: roping.

We settle at the top of a grassy embankment, with basswood trees to our backs, and the trail below us. A ring of wagons lies on the other side of the trail, their oxen mowing down the scenery all around them.

Andy and I hunker side by side on the grass and watch Cay jump rope in front of us. Peety and West sit five paces away, playing poker and half watching Cay. West fans his cards with one hand, then refolds them by knocking them against his knee.

Cay stops jumping and ties a lariat. “Ropes come in all sizes but cowboy lengths are twenty or thirty feet.” The lariat makes a musical whipping sound as it spins.

Cay handles his rope as skillfully as if it were a lady, spinning it with either hand, even crawling through it without letting it touch the ground. After he finishes playing to the gallery, he shows Andy and me how to make six kinds of knots, including a sweetheart knot, which is strong enough to connect two ropes together as if they were one.