Under a Painted Sky (27 page)

I rub each of my charges' legs and backs. Then I take out my bow and notch the arrow. Fitting the point into the arrow rest on the grip, I try to shoot fish in the stream. My aim is steadily improving. Last week, I hit a dandelion from thirty feet away.

I wound a trout, which I throw in the pot along with some wild parsley I found upstream. Maybe Andy's Snap Stew will comfort us. The fire releases plumes of gray smoke when I throw on a chunk of pine with too much sap, and I use a rag to clear the air.

Andy whimpers and I rush to her side. I find her with one arm linked through Peety's, her fingers kneading her sleeve where her scar with the six dots lies. The vaquero still slumbers. Andy's eyes are clear though her face is drenched with sweat.

She sighs when I place a cold rag on her forehead. “Go tell West the truth. You two go on before you catch what's-it we have. I'll take care of the boys. Ain't got nothing better to do.”

“Shut it, Andy. I'm not going anywhere,” I growl, hoping my harsh tone hides my distress.

I swear she rolls her eyes at me, then lowers her voice to a whisper. “When the master's son drowned Tommy's baby pig, Tommy didn't cry. He scooped that pink ball out of the rain barrel and gave it to Isaac. ‘Bury him for me,' he tells Isaac. ‘Soapy needs you to help him get to heaven.'

“Isaac buried Soapy by the craggy tree. Carved a cross on the trunk so God would know where to find him. Tommy sat by Soapy's grave all morning, looking through the stone with the hole.” She pulls her arm out of Peety's and presses her palm to the rag on her forehead. “If I don't make it, I need you to tell Isaac one day what happened. I'd sure hate him to think I died a slave.”

“Hush. We still have a lot of trail to cover before the end. You're not going to die up here. I won't let you.” I hold her hand to my cheek.

“But here's where I always wanted to be. Free.” The shadow of a smile crosses her face. “Promise it.”

“I promise.” I pull her hand away so she cannot feel the tears streaking down my face.

• • •

Sometime in the late afternoon, my skin crawls, like ants are marching up and down my legs and arms. I check my surroundings, but see only a lone falcon, wobbling on an air current. So I finish scooping the fish bones from the pot. But I cannot shake the sense that someone is watching me. I let it build for another moment then whip around.

Not twenty feet away, two black men stare at me, one from the top of a mule. The first, a young man of about twenty, has a good few inches on West, with hawkish eyes that don't blink, and lips that pinch tightly together, causing his forehead to bunch over his brow. He's wearing a buckskin coat only a shade lighter than his own skin, and underneath that, a white-and-blue-checkered shirt. The one on the mule leans forward over his animal's neck. He is more a boy than a man, with a long face and a nose like a baby butternut squash. I've seen their faces before. The index and pinkie finger of the Broken Hand Gang.

MURDERERS. AND WE ARE ALONE UP HERE.

How did they find us?

My heart sinks when I remember the gray smoke from our fire.

My legs lose all feeling, and my tongue petrifies. The only part of me capable of movement is my mind, which jumps like a cricket in the cage of my head.

They don't yet see the others lying by the stream. I have to lead them away. But I can barely work my lungs, let alone walk. I have solidified, as if I have looked upon the Gorgon Medusa and turned to stone.

Pull it together—the others depend on you.
You are a rattlesnake and you have a bite. I unholster the Dragoon. The pearly handle slips in my sweaty grip, but I hang on. “Don't come any closer!” My voice comes out weak and raspy.

The man removes something from beneath the flap of his coat. A gun, long as his forearm, with a black nose. He points it at me with more conviction than I point mine. He steps closer. “And if I do?” he rumbles.

Good Lord, could I really shoot this man?

Step by step, death comes for me, steady as a plow. The twin sinkholes of his eyes trap me, rendering me motionless once again and I forget all about being a rattlesnake. All I can think about is how I am the easiest catch on the prairie, not even a moving target.

When the man stands only spitting distance away, the queerest thing happens. I see myself in him: hunted and outraged. Set upon a dishonest scale. They are runaway slaves, just like Andy. As bad as my luck has been, I know there is no worse life than one that is not your own to live. No, I could never kill a slave in cold blood.

But how can I protect us?

Father called himself a translator, but he was much more. He was a negotiator, a diplomat. When the German farmer and the Spaniard restaurateur were at loggerheads for the price of bratwurst, Father always moved the conversation to areas of common interest. What were the preferred methods for cooking? Did beer or wine best accompany the meat's richness?

Stop struggling, and you will find common ground.

I drop my gun, shaking, back to my side.

The man flexes an eyebrow. The nose of his weapon dips, then rises, like he's trying to decide where to put the hole.

Then, miracle of miracles, he uncocks his gun.

I nearly fall over in relief.

“Never seen a yella before,” he says.

“You going to kill me?” My voice goes high. Curse my idiot's tongue. Might as well ask a bear if I should season myself up before becoming dinner.

“You got something worth killing for?”

“No,” I say quickly, then curse myself again. Now he thinks I'm hiding something. “But my fish stew's half decent.”

A puff of air blows through his nose and his chest twitches. Is he amused? Provoked?

The boy sniffs and runs his sleeve across his face. Only now do I notice his pant leg is torn and bloodied, and his teeth clenched. He looks younger in person than in his Wanted picture, with no facial hair that I can see, and no bump on his throat.

The man eyes my pot. “You by you'self here?”

If I say no, he might hurt the others. But I can't say yes, when it's obvious I've made enough fish stew for a pod of whales. While I root around for the best answer, it dawns on me: Just tell the truth. “My companions have the cholera.”

“Where are they?”

“By the stream.”

In five steps, the man overtakes me and peers down the length of the stream at the blanketed forms of Andy, Peety, and Cay, twenty yards away. Their heads are half covered with the wet rags I've placed on their foreheads.

“Well then, we won't be staying long,” he says, returning to me. “How 'bout we have ourselves an understanding? We won't kill you, if you let us borrow your fire and some clean water. Do we have a deal?” He extends his hand for a handshake.

Even though I suspect he's just humoring me, I solemnly shake his hand, pumping extra hard to make up for my scrawniness.

The man helps the boy off his mule and to our fire. Blood glistens on the fabric of the boy's trousers near the thigh, soaking through at an alarming pace. Beads of sweat trace a path around his high cheekbones and trembling upper lip. He sucks in air through his nose, then hisses it out through the spaces of his gritted teeth.

The man carefully cuts away the trousers, exposing a large wound below the boy's hip bone. Quickly, I fetch clean rags and boiled water, plus the bandages and salve that Cay bought in Fort Laramie.

“Disease gonna set in if I don't get out that bullet,” the man tells the boy.

The boy shakes his head, his eyes large with terror. “It hurts. Don't do it, Badge.”

The man glances at me when the boy says his name. “Shh, it's gonna be all right.”

Now the boy starts whimpering. “I says, don't do it. Just leave it. Ain't gonna help.”

Badge starts sopping up blood with the rags. “What did Paul write to the Romans about suffering?”

The boy's eyes flick to me. “Don't remember.”

Badge helps him out. “‘Suffering leads to patience, and patience, to experience, and experience, to—'?”

“Hope?” The boy gasps.

“That's right, and without hope, we ain't got no business in this world.” Badge sighs and looks at his right hand. It's nearly as big as my foot, the fingers wide and muscular. Then his eyes cut to my own hands, tiny by comparison. The boy begins to cry.

Badge fetches a bottle from his saddlebag and uncorks it. The sour scent of fermented hops stings my nose. Badge holds it to the boy's lips, but the boy pushes it away and covers his face. His tears leak through the cracks between his fingers.

The sight of his suffering, and his shame at crying makes my head throb, filling my own eyes with hot tears. It is indecent, grotesque even, that someone could shoot a child.

“I can do it,” I hear myself say.

Badge narrows his eyes at me. Slowly, I show him my bow hand, wiggling what I always considered to be bony digits. “My fingers are nimble, and it will hurt less.”

The boy uncovers his face. His eyes are so swollen they appear shut.

“I have a lot of experience with these fingers,” I tell him. “The mayor of New York once gave me a whole silver dollar for playing ‘The Peddler's Waltz' on my fiddle. Said my fingers were as nimble as spider legs.” I smile and hope the story improves his confidence in me.

He bites down on his trembling lip, and looks at Badge. Badge nods at him.

The boy buries his head in his arm and bobs his head up and down.

I pour the spirits on my hands and rub them together. Then I pour some on a rag. “This will sting, but that's a good sign. It means things are getting clean.”

When I touch my rag to the wound, the boy gasps.

Badge takes his hand. “Squeeze my hand, Jeremiah.”

The boy squeezes, but when he sees me wiping my pinkie, he shrinks back into Badge.

“God bless us, a falcon!” Badge exclaims, lifting his head. Jeremiah lifts his own eyes, falling for the distraction, and Badge nods at me. “Falcons are a special bird, Jer. Ain't no one can catch 'em. Not even you with your bow and arrow.”

My trembling pinkie probes the hole. I bear down on my own tattered nerves.

“Jeremiah made friends with a couple of Cheyenne and they gave him a bow and arrow,” Badge tells me. “Made it special for him.”

“Special, eh?” I push farther and Jeremiah hisses. Keeping my voice light, I ask, “Can you shoot a dandelion from thirty feet away?” Warm tissues close around my finger and blood runs along my arm. I force down the bile rising to my throat and soldier on.

Jeremiah nods, lip trembling.

“What about a dandelion seed?” I ask.

“Ain't tried,” he rasps.

“Well then, I guess you'll have some work ahead of you.”

As gently as I can, I probe the walls of the bullet's tunnel, past ridges and slick bumps, praying I'm not causing more damage. Jeremiah begins to whimper again, and Badge starts a hymn about Moses and the Promised Land. He has a bass voice with an even keel and a rich vibrato. It's meant for the boy, but it steadies my own jangled nerves.

Finally, just past my second knuckle, I brush the end of the bullet. I don't talk so my concentration does not break.

The boy's eyes roll. I don't have much finger space left, but I do my best to pull the bullet down by stroking it with my fingernail. There. It moves. Gently, I coax it backward.

Soon, we see the end glinting in the daylight. I pinch it between my thumb and index finger, and pull out the crushed piece of metal. Quickly, I finish cleaning the wound.

“You done good, Jeremiah, you done real good,” says Badge.

Jeremiah stops crying and looks down at his leg as I clean it off. I roll the bandages around his thigh. Soon I've rolled enough so the blood no longer soaks through. Badge fetches him a fresh pair of trousers that smell like herbs. As Badge helps him into them, I ladle fish stew into two cups.

Badge bows his head over his cup. “Bless this food, dear God, and this boy, who helped your poor servants in their time of need.”

Jeremiah eats with his left hand. Badge waits until the boy finishes half his bowl before starting on his own. I don't ask questions, since doing so would require answers in kind. Obviously, they're outrunning the law up here. The less I know, the better. Still, it seems odd not to converse.

“How long you played the fiddle?” asks Badge, saving me from having to think up a neutral topic. Now that the crisis has cooled, his face looks almost friendly with the high and protruding forehead that Chinese people believe indicates good fortune. His mouth still remembers how to smile, despite his hardship.

“Since I was four,” I answer, not wanting to give out my age.

“You got one now?” asks the boy weakly.

“No, it drowned at the Platte River Crossing.”

“We lost one of our own there, too,” says Badge, staring into his stew.

I sit up, remembering the dead man we found at the base of the cottonwood. He was one of theirs after all?

Badge puts down his cup. “We needs to be going.”

He gets to his feet. Gingerly, he lifts Jeremiah into their mule's saddle. One half of Jeremiah's face bunches into a grimace, while the other half tries to remain strong.

“Stew's fine,” says Badge, shaking my hand, and putting his other hand on my shoulder. “Almost worth killing over.”

A voice behind him suddenly yells, “Get your hands off him, before I blow your head off. I swear I'll do it.”

Jeremiah's mule skitters out of West and Franny's way, knocking Badge into me. We fall into a heap on the ground. Badge mutters a curse, then scrambles to a crouch. He eyes his gun, lying on a blanket by the campfire, five paces away.

“No, West!” I scream. His horrified eyes fix on me and my blood-soaked shirt.

“Sammy,” he cries as he slides off Franny. Then, to Badge, “You son of a bitch.” With the butt of his rifle, he whacks Badge in the temple. But at the last second, Badge dodges, and the weapon does not deal a fatal blow, only glances off his cheek. I lunge at West, trying to grab the rifle from him.

As West and I struggle, Badge clambers toward our fire.

“It's not my blood!” I pant. “I'm fine, he doesn't mean to hurt us.”

West doesn't hear me. He throws me off and aims his rifle at Badge, just as Badge raises his. Unlike when he pointed the gun at me, I know by his expression that this time, Badge will use it.

Hastily, I jump to my feet and stand between them. “No, no, don't shoot!” I babble as I look from one to the other, nearly crying in my panic. West's chest heaves as he stares through the sight line of his piece.

“Please, listen to me,” I beg him.

“Move away, boy!” Badge orders, his voice now tight and angry.

West tries to move to the side of me, but I get in front of him again. “I swear, out of my way!” he growls.