Under a Painted Sky (32 page)

ANDY WEARS ISAAC'S BLUE-AND-WHITE-CHECKERED
shirt. We're standing on the banks of the Yellow River, far enough away from the falls that we no longer hear its pounding. The water, which fought me only a week ago, now moves guiltlessly along. Andy shows me the remains of her bracelet, which she found back at Isaac's camp. The rock with the hole is missing. “I think Isaac took it to Tommy,” she tells me.

A few days ago, Ian's body floated down the shore—well, most of him, his back broken and his belly split open. Later that same day, Angus followed, missing his head. I don't care to think about the details of his condition. Just as with Ty Yorkshire, one day I will have to answer for my role in his death, whether in this world or the next, and I can only pray that God will be merciful.

For now, I am content that God saw fit to keep my own body intact. Perhaps He has carved out a path for me whose general direction is up, despite troublesome corners, and perhaps luck is not a sticker in my boot after all. After a thousand miles of trail, it seems to me that good luck is always just a few steps ahead of bad, and maybe the amount one receives of either simply depends on the distance traveled.

We didn't find Isaac. I imagine that, like the falcon, Isaac flew away faster than death could reach him.

Cay holds a bouquet of wildflowers as we all stare at the river. “Dear God, I'm sorry I never knew the man, but he must have been a good one, since you cut him from the same cloth as Andy here.” He studies the bouquet. “I s'pect one day, when we do meet, he'll knock me sideways for risking his sister's neck during that stampede, and when that happens, I'll remember I had it coming.” He plucks out a single stalk of freesia and throws it into the river, then hands the remainder of the bunch to Andy.

Andy puts her nose into the bouquet and inhales. “Isaac, I know you's with Tommy now.” She sniffs and her eyes brim with tears, setting off my own. “The only reason I can figure you's up there and not here is 'cause Tommy needs you more than me.” Her voice breaks and a fat tear travels down her cheek. “Well. Take care of each other, boys. Amen.” She casts the whole bouquet into the river. The stems separate, and the river scatters them.

Peety enfolds her under his arm. After a moment, she shakes him off. “I think I'll go for a ride.”

“I'll come with you,” I say.

“Not a good idea,” says West, following so close he nearly collides with me when I stop. “The two of you pick up trouble like bad habits.”

“Agree. Plus, Chinita's wrist is broken. How she going to ride?” asks Peety. He sweeps his arm as he bows to Andy. “It will be my pleasure to accompany you.”

As he begins to whistle for Lupe, Andy tugs his fingers away from his lips. “Sammy and I will double ride on Lupe. I do know how to ride a horse, you know.”

“Well then, we'll follow you,” says West. “This is the Haystacks. You ain't the only criminals up here, you know.”

Andy throws up her hands. “We might take a bath.”

“Even better,” says Peety, elbowing West. The two of them start hauling up their saddles.

Groaning, Andy shakes her hat at them. “All right. But keep a hundred paces behind.”

Cay raises his hand. “I volunteer to be
le chaperon.
”

West swats him in the chest. “Sit down and watch the camp.”

With a grumble, Cay plops down into the grass and leans his cheek against his fist. “There's something wrong with this picture.”

The great Andalusian carries Andy and me toward the grass-covered hills. I twist around and see Peety and West following, small as ginseng roots. A family of bison grazes peacefully near a shallow slice of water with steam rising off the top. Their bodies are twice as big as longhorn cattle, tufts of blackish-brown hair sticking out in patches all over their hides. They don't even lift their heads as we pass.

A week of being waited on hand and foot has been good for both of us. Andy pulled a shoulder muscle wrestling me out of the pool behind the waterfall, all by herself. I don't remember any of it. She used a sweetheart knot in the rope that saved my life.

“Told you that knot was good for catching sparrows,” Cay had said.

“The boys showed up a few hours later,” Andy told me. “West wouldn't let you go, kissing you all over your face. I was afraid you was gonna suffocate. But I couldn't do much about it. I had my own
problemo
to deal with.” She didn't bother holding in her smile.

Lupe takes us to a pond surrounded by fir trees. The water sparkles like a sapphire brooch pinned to the earth. We dismount.

“This is one of those bubbly pools I was telling you about,” Anname says. “Come on, let's get in.”

I step out of Peety's new boots, which Andy had stuffed with socks.

She helps me undress. The rope tore up my hands, but they're slowly healing. We keep on our underthings just in case our two bad habits decide to check in. The pines stand guard and a swath of blue sky covers us.

We slip into the water. It's warm, almost hot. The steam rises in wisps the way down feathers do when you fluff the pillows. I haven't had a warm bath since, well, the day I first met Andy.

Her clear eyes focus on the ripples around her, like she's reading tea leaves. The bruises on her neck have turned yellow, and beads of water spread across her nose.

My chest tightens as I think about my guardian angel with the die branded on her arm. When God took away my father, he gave me a sister. She taught me how to be strong, how to thump my tail.

“That West grew a few inches,” she says. “Though he forgets how to work his feet when he's around you. I'd be careful.” Under the surface she goes.

I laugh. West
is
a new man, walking taller and whistling a lot. Every morning, I wake up tucked under his arm.

Andy reemerges and slings water off her head. “Peety asked me if I'd like to be the wife of a wealthy
ranchero.
Told me I wouldn't have to lift a pinkie 'cept when I drank my
chocolate.
Also said he didn't want children. His horses are his
niñas.
”

“What'd you say?” I ask.

“I said, it sounds boring.” She laughs, and the beads on her nose drip down to her cheeks. “Then he says, ‘You'll never be boring with me.'” She leans back and closes her eyes.

“And?” I coax, wanting to splash her.

She opens one eye. “And I said, ‘Okay, then.'”

I let out a yelp, and this time, I do splash her. She dishes it back, even though she knows I can only use one hand.

Then we float, side by side, and watch the animal clouds chase one another across the deep blue. I point. “Look, a dragon.”

Andy squints. “Looks more like a frying pan to me.”

She never did embrace her Dragon heritage. The dragon stretches out until it's two separate pieces, and soon it's nothing but ghostly wisps. “Just like life.”

“What?”

“The clouds. They never hold still. Sometimes you think you're seeing one thing, and a second later, the whole picture changes.”

“But we don't have to let the clouds change us for the worse. We can just let them roll over us.” She frowns and her nose begins to twitch. “If those Scots hadn't come along, you think Isaac would've jumped?”

“I think . . . ” I say slowly, “‘God makes our bodies want to live, no matter what our minds want to do.'”

“Yeah,” she breathes. In a sassier tone, she adds, “Those are some pretty wise words. Musta been someone ingenious told you that.”

• • •

For our final meal at the Yellow River, West catches a fat turkey, and Cay plucks it. Then we all sit around the fire while our vaquero puts Cay and West to work pounding cornmeal and water into dough.

“Making tortillas is ancient craft,” Peety says solemnly. “Roll, then pat”—he demonstrates—“and
he aquí.
” He holds up a flat circle of dough.

Andy and I are back to sitting with our legs together and not burping out loud, though I think I'll wear trousers for the rest of my life, even if I don't have to dress like a boy. I can run, tumble, and jump onto a horse in them with no problem at all.

“So if you knew the whole time, why'd you make that wager on the Little Blue?” I ask no one in particular, remembering how close Andy and I came to an unshucking.

Cay waggles his eyebrows. “Why do you think?”

“He didn't know until you fell in,” West says with a wry smile, picking a piece of gravel off his dough and flicking it at Cay. “Fool's gold is made for people like him.”

“Well, at least I knew before Peety.” Cay casts a glance to the vaquero.

“Sorry, hombre, I knew since the first night. I grew up with sisters, remember? Andita tried to button her jacket the wrong way. Sometimes, women's clothes have buttons on left, but men always wear them on the right.” With a hand sticky with dough, he gestures to the silver fasteners running down his jacket, then looks up at us. “You're not very good
chicos.
”

“And you told me you were starting to see face hairs on me,” Andy grumbles.

Cay pinches off a piece of his dough and pops it in his mouth. “Ain't that something. Turns out West and Peety are the real perverts in this bunch.”

West chucks a piece of dough at his cousin. “We didn't see a thing.”

“That we haven't seen before,” Cay smoothly adds.

Peety tries not to grin. West shakes his head. “Why don't we just make these tortillas before we have another broken hand gang.”

Andy snorts, but we both let it go. We
did
win the fishing bet, though I'm beginning to suspect that was more than just luck.

“Traveling with a wanted criminal won't be easy,” I say, with an eye toward Cay. “There may be more trackers, more lawmen, delaying our journey even longer—”

Cay cuts me off. “This is the frontier. Criminals are a dime a dozen. I'd say, if you weren't traveling with one, something's wrong with you.”

“We got some good-looking criminals on our side, eh, West?” says Peety, though he's looking at Andy.

West trots out a dimple. “We coulda done a lot worse.”

“All right, lover boys.” Cay groans. “Let's have a contest to see who can make the most. One, two, three, go.”

Dough starts flying.

“Takes many years of experience to do right,” says Peety, eyebrows flexed as he plies his next piece.

“I think you just stuck your thumb through yours,” I comment.

“Speed it up, blondie,” says Andy. “This ain't pat-a-cake. And you, the one named after a direction. Don't you know shapes? That ain't a circle, that's a square.”

Before someone throws dough at us, Andy and I fall back onto a stack of horse blankets laughing. We gaze at the horizon, a sweeping canvas of color and texture. The sun drops like a magic ball into a hat, leaving behind a trail of glitter in the blushing sky. It takes my breath away.

“The socks are back in the drawer again,” says Andy.

“Isaac and Tommy?”

“No. The remuda.” She smiles at me.

Yuanfen,
the fate that brings family together. My Snake weaknesses get the better of me, and my eyes grow misty. I never knew there were so many socks in my drawer.

But maybe you did, Father.

The trail's cold now, but I don't lose hope of seeing the man in the red suspenders one day.
Even if Mr. Trask and I never meet again, I will still open that conservatory for you, Father, for us, with or without Mother's bracelet.
After all, I flew off a waterfall. And the view at the top was so wide, and the outlook so handsome.

Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE
without the support of my dream team, and for them, I am forever grateful. To my agent, Kristin Nelson and her team at Nelson Literary Agency. Thank you for your tireless work, especially finding the perfect editors for
Under a Painted Sky
. To Jen Besser and Shauna Fay Rossano, for being those perfect editors.

To the talented Evelyn Ehrlich, Caitlin Swift, and Mónica Bustamante Wagner for whom the term “critique partner” falls woefully short. You are my kindred spirits, and both my book and I are better for knowing you.

Special thanks to beta-readers Abigail Wen and Ana Inglis. I am also deeply grateful for my dear friends Alice Chen-Hsi, Susan Repo, Angela Hum, and Jennifer Fan for keeping me sane, Jodi Meadows for her infinite wisdom, and Adlai Coronel and Bijal Vakil for keeping me laughing. To Mimi Chan for her amazing technical wizardry, and David Huang for his vast knowledge of antique guns. A big group squeeze for my fellow debut authors in the Fearless Fifteen and my girls at the Freshman Fifteen. A humongous thank-you to Eric Elfman, whom every writer should have in her back pocket. And to all the other folks who generously took the time to advise me on this book, in part or whole, my heartfelt thanks, as well.

To my big sister Laura for reading my book when it was just an awkward toddler, and to both her and her husband, Bach, for taking my kids camping so I wouldn't have to. I mean, so I would have time to write. To my little sister Alyssa and her husband, Tony, for supporting me in so many ways. To Dolores and Wai Lee, who put up with all my questions about Chinese philosophy and language.

To Avalon and Bennett. Every time I look into your sweet faces, I see the person I want to be. (And I also see a little bit of chocolate on them, so wipe that off, please.) And last but not least, to Jonathan. Thank you for encouraging me to do what I love, and more importantly, for keeping the remuda watered and fed, so I have time to write stories like this.

To my parents, Carl and Evelyn Leong, who always believed that I would be a doctor, but weren't surprised that I turned out a writer. Thank you for playing songs from the Old West for me, fostering in me a love of books, and showing me the right way to live a life. Finally, thank you to God, through whom all things are possible.