“It’s nice to meet you officially, sir,” I say, then I add, “About your friend, I’m . . . sorry.”
Muskrat remains expressionless. Finally he says, “Good.”
I flinch.
“What did you bring, Lee?” Jefferson asks quickly, indicating my bucket.
“Slop bucket. In case I need an excuse to be out. But also . . .” I hold out my hand to display the mashed biscuits. “Some food.”
“Oh, sweet Lord!” Tom exclaims. He grabs one and shoves it into his mouth like a man starved.
Jefferson gobbles another just as greedily. Muskrat carefully pinches a biscuit from my fingers like a fine gentleman. Mary declines. “I’ll make extra tomorrow, too,” she says with a little grin.
“I don’t know how much time I have,” I say.
“To business, then,” Tom says. “Muskrat is planning an escape for his people. He needs our help.”
“Uncle Hiram isn’t paying any of you, is he?” I say to Muskrat. “He’s keeping you here against your will, like he is me.”
“No,” Muskrat says. “Not like you. You, he keeps in a fancy house and a fancy dress with fancy food and someone to cook and clean. Us, he keeps penned up like hogs, rolling in mud with only rotting leftovers to eat.”
I’m glad the dark hides my burning cheeks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Muskrat holds up his hand, and the look he gives me could wither winter wheat.
“The man Dilley killed was one of their elders,” Jefferson says.
“Yes. Just because I gave . . .” My voice breaks. “Gave him some sugar water.”
Tom says, “Dilley’s been working himself up to kill Indians ever since we set out from Missouri. He was just looking for an excuse.”
“He will kill more,” Muskrat says. “If we do not first starve.”
“They’re getting sick,” Jefferson adds. “The Missouri men are feeding the Maidu poisoned potatoes, the ones they use to absorb mercury from the gold amalgam. The Maidu know they’re poison, but when a body is hungry enough, it stops caring about that sort of inconvenience.”
My face is burning even more angrily now. All this time, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get away with Tom and Jefferson. Never once did I consider that someone else might need help, too. Even less did it occur to me that someone else might help us.
“I have a friend,” Muskrat says. “A ranchero who will shelter us if we can just get to him. But he won’t move openly against Westfall. We have to rescue ourselves.”
“Mary overheard something yesterday,” Tom says. “Go on, Mary. Tell Lee.”
“Abel Topper was angry with Frank for killing Ezra,” she says. “Ezra was very respected. He couldn’t work much, but everyone else worked harder when he was around. Frank said he would just find another. That he could kill as many diggers as he liked because they had a raid planned soon to fetch more from a nearby Nisenan village. And then . . .” Her eyes widen and she leans forward. “Then he said that a fellow in Sacramento is now paying a bounty for Indian heads and that some of them, the old and weak, would be worth more dead than alive.”
I’m as woozy as if I’d just gulped a gallon of laudanum.
“Lee?” says Jefferson.
“It’s true,” I say. “Hiram told me about the bounty just today.”
“We have to get them out of here,” Tom says. “They’re so sick now. It’s only a matter of time before Dilley kills the rest, with Hiram Westfall and Abel Topper looking on and doing nothing to stop it.”
“How?” I ask. “What do you want me to do?”
“We don’t know yet,” Tom says.
There’s a silence, and then Muskrat says, “We need a distraction. Something like one of the feast days at the mission. Like Estanislao used to make.”
“Who was Estanislao?” I ask.
“A great leader of the Yokuts tribe, and an alcalde at Mission San José. When Spanish rule became cruel, he led an army and attacked the missions. The Yokuts followed him, the Chumash, others, including my own father. Because Estanislao had been an alcalde, he knew exactly when the missions would be distracted and easy to attack.”
“There might be a thanksgiving celebration,” Tom says. He looks at Muskrat and Mary. “It’s a harvest feast. Not everyone observes it, but Hiram might. I’m pretty certain Reverend Lowrey does. He mentioned it during one of his sermons when we were on the trail.”
“Hiram and my daddy were raised near Boston,” I say. “It was something we always celebrated in our house. So I bet Hiram will observe it, if only because it’s a chance to show off how important he is to everyone else.”
“Hiram ordered extra supplies, including whiskey,” Mary said. “Very special. Locked up. We are not supposed to touch them before he orders it.”
“That sounds like thanksgiving,” Tom says.
“So when this harvest feast happens, we escape,” Muskrat says.
“That’s a when, but not a how,” Jefferson says. “We still need a plan.”
I nod. “We should get a message to our people in Glory. If the Major and Jasper and Becky knew we were held prisoner, they’d come after us.”
“And get themselves killed or end up just like us,” Jefferson says.
“He’s not wrong,” Tom says. “But if we don’t come up with a good plan, or if things go awry, that might be our only hope.”
I think of the Joyner children, sweet Andy and little Olive and the tiny baby girl who doesn’t even have a name yet. I think of Hampton working so hard to buy his wife’s freedom, and the Major pining for my friend Becky while doing everything he can to help. I remember Therese, her skin burning in the desert, and that gives me a flash of Martin, lying on the ground, unable to move, whispering his last words. I shiver. I don’t want to put my friends in danger again. Not for anything.
“So what do you want me to do?” I ask.
“Listen,” says Mary. “Watch.”
“For now,” Tom adds.
“And don’t give anyone your water,” Muskrat says, in a scathing enough tone that I guess he figures me for a dimwit who’s bound to do something stupid, no matter what. But I see his point. The first time I acted impulsively, a man died. Muskrat and Mary have been here longer, have been planning longer, and maybe the best thing I can do is trust them and listen to what they say.
“Will we meet again?” I ask. “It’s not easy to sneak out—”
“It’s harder for the rest of us,” Mary snaps. “Trust me on that.”
I clamp my mouth shut. How did they all manage to sneak out for this meeting? My uncle said something about Jefferson and Tom being tied up at night.
“We need to get back,” Jefferson says, and Tom nods. “Working in that slimy mudhole is hard enough without a good night’s sleep.”
“You’re sure you’re both all right?” I ask. “Are they hurting you?”
Mary frowns at me, and I realize I’ve messed up again. The foremen are whipping the Indians, even killing them, and all I can think about is my friends. I glance at Muskrat, but he is looking away from me, into the darkness.
“Nothing we can’t handle, Lee,” Tom says, but his voice lacks conviction.
“Next time we are to meet,” Mary says, “I’ll signal by cooking cornbread biscuits with bits of apple for breakfast.”
“Okay. So, in the meantime, I just watch? And listen?”
“That’s our brilliant plan,” Jefferson says. “For now.”
“We know when we’re going to do it,” Tom says. “So we all sleep on it and figure out how.”
“Come for a visit,” Muskrat says, in a calm, quiet voice that is more of a command than an invitation. “Ask your uncle to show you. You should see.”
He doesn’t need to say what I should see. He wants me to witness the condition of his people, to understand how they are suffering. “Okay.”
“Now, we leave,” Mary says. “One at a time.”
Muskrat gives her a quick nod and then
backs away into the darkness of the trees before anyone else can move. He’s in the most danger, so it makes sense for him to go first.
“My turn.” Tom reaches up and clasps my shoulder. He opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind. He leaves, creeping around the stable, in a direction opposite to Muskrat’s.
“Leah, go,” Mary orders.
I start to tiptoe back toward my uncle’s cabin, but a hand grabs my arm and spins me around. Jefferson yanks me against him and leans down, breathing into my hair. “Stay safe, Lee,” he whispers. I could stay here like this forever, his chest warming mine, his lips against my scalp.
Instead, I wrap my arms around him and squeeze tight for the barest moment before reluctantly letting go. “You too, Jeff. I . . .”
“You what?”
“Just be safe.”
He regards me quizzically as I back away, and I stare at his precious face until I’m distant enough that not even the moonlight can help me make sense of it.
I crouch down and hug the shadows, hoping I’ll return as easily as I came. But my neck prickles all the while, as though spying eyes are watching my every move.
Chapter Sixteen
I make it back without incident, and I sneak inside with only the barest squeak of the door. I lower my slop bucket gently to the floor of my bedroom. Even after I’ve shucked my boots and pulled the quilt over my shoulders, my pulse races and my mind is too busy for sleep. It’s near dawn when I finally drift off.
The sound of the bench scraping the floor awakens me, and I lurch up with a start. I’ve almost slept through breakfast.
My stomach growls in response to the scent of flapjacks as I hurry to dress and smooth my hair. Right before swishing aside the curtain, I pause to collect myself, straightening my spine and taking a deep breath.
My uncle looks up from his breakfast of flapjacks and honest-to-God maple syrup. “Good morning, sweet pea,” he says, and his voice is as flat as the grassy plains.
“Good morning, Uncle Hiram.” Mary has already set out a place for me. I sit opposite my uncle and carefully spread the napkin across my lap, trying very hard not to notice the way his eyes follow my every movement, like he’s a coyote and I’m a juicy, helpless rabbit.
“You had an adventure last night,” he says.
My heart stops. Every sound in the cabin is a clanging cymbal in my ear. The scrape of his knife against his plate, the sizzle of flapjacks on the stove, the creak of Hiram’s bench.
At the stove, Mary is frozen like a statue, wooden spoon hanging in the air. Hiram turns toward her, a question in his eyes, and Mary becomes suddenly engrossed by the frying pan.
“An adventure?” I manage lamely.
“You were seen leaving the cabin,” he says, still eyeing Mary. His voice is as dark as midnight.
“Oh, that,” I say, waving my hand as if it were nothing. Surely he can hear the way my heart pounds in my throat? Surely he sees the fib making gooseflesh of my skin? “My slop bucket was full. Couldn’t sleep for the stench.”
He frowns.
“Oh, Uncle, I apologize!” I say. “I shouldn’t mention such things at the table. Mama would tan my hide if she heard.”
“You were gone a long time,” he says.
Who saw me? Who told? Hiram did say I would be watched. I guess I wasn’t imagining it after all, when I felt someone’s gaze creeping along my neck. What else did this mysterious person see?
I force myself to breathe. What if I’ve gotten my co-conspirators in trouble?
“It’s true,” I admit, after too long a pause. “I couldn’t remember exactly where the outhouse was, and I didn’t want to dump it anywhere near the cabin.”
Mary places a plateful of flapjacks in front of me, and I give her a grateful glance. With my fork, I spear a lump of food and shove it into my mouth, as if the conversation is over and I’m a girl with nothing to hide.
As I chew, I look anywhere but at my uncle, and my gaze rests on Mary, who is back at the stove frying up some more. But that’s not a safe place to gaze either, because I can’t help but compare this tiny, quiet-seeming girl to the one I met in the dark who spoke perfect English and ordered us around like she was born to it. And I can’t help but think of her with all the men in camp, and what that might mean. After talking to her last night, I know her even less than I did before.
I force the next bite down, though my appetite has fled.
“Tonight, you’ll be tied to the bed,” Hiram says.
“What? That’s not fair! You said you wouldn’t hurt—”
He raises a hand to forestall argument. “My word on this is final. After a few days of good behavior, you may earn back the privilege of sleeping untied.”
I’m about to protest further, but his glare deepens.
“I know you think me cruel and unreasonable,” he says in a perfectly measured tone. “But know one thing: I love you. I love you, Leah, like you were my very own.”
I fight to keep my first bites of breakfast down. It feels like worms are crawling around where my food ought to be.
Hiram smiles. “You will come to love me in return. But don’t worry; there is no hurry. I know children need time for these things, and I am a very patient man.”
That’s not what Mama and Daddy said about him, but I know better than to speak my piece.
He rises from the table. “Wilhelm will escort you anywhere you want to go today,” he says, pulling on his gloves. He reaches for his coat and hat. “Even if it’s to the outhouse to dump a slop bucket.”
I remain frozen in place as he bends down and plants a kiss on my forehead that leaves a cool, wet spot on my skin.
“I’ll see you later this evening, my darling girl,” he says, and finally, finally he leaves.
I grab the napkin from my lap and rub at the spot where he kissed me, rub and rub as though he’s left a poison that will burn my skin. Tears prick my eyes, and I’m still rubbing when tiny dry fingers close around my wrist, stopping me.
“We’ll figure something out,” Mary says softly, even though we are alone. “Don’t go to pieces on me.” For the first time, I sense sympathy in her gaze. Maybe a little openness.
I nod up at her.
“It always feels like that,” she says. “When they touch you.”
I swallow hard, not wanting to think about it too much. “Well, we’re getting out of here.” I say it in the tightest whisper, as though even the walls have ears. “Both of us.”
“Yes,” she agrees.
I straighten my shoulders, take up my fork, and doggedly force myself to down more tasteless flapjacks.
I find Wilhelm standing sentry outside the cabin door.
The sky is low and dark with gray clouds, the air thick with chilled moisture. Wet mud sticks to Wilhelm’s boots. It must have rained before dawn.
By way of greeting, I say, “I have some extra flapjacks. Cooked just right by Mary. You want some?”
After a pause, he nods once, sharply.
I hand him the bundle I had already prepared, wrapped in a napkin. He shoves it into his coat pocket for later.
“I’d like a tour of the camp today, Wilhelm,” I tell him. “Every bit of it. Mr. Westfall wants me to continue to familiarize myself with our operation.”
He doesn’t wear a hood today, and I can see his eyes clearly—cold and hard as deepwater ice. His scarred lips are pulled into a frown, but he offers his arm to me.
I take it gingerly, as if I’m about to wrangle a viper, but when nothing awful happens, I clasp it a little more firmly, and together we step down from the porch.
“I’d like to see where the Indians live,” I say.
He pauses, as if considering.
“They do the majority of our labor in the mines, so if I’m to familiarize myself with everything, I need to see them.”
He grunts, which is downright loquacious of him, and guides me off to the left, toward the Chinese tents.
The tents are mostly empt
y. I figure everyone is at work, either in the mine or down by the creek, classifying all the ore being brought out and ground up by the arrastra. But a few folks remain behind. We pass a man hammering at a horseshoe; on a table beside him are more horseshoes, along with pickaxes, all in various states of wear. An older man with white hair and beautifully embroidered trim on his long shirt sits inside an open-faced tent that is filled with glass jars on shelves. Each jar holds something unfamiliar. One contains a bright red plant with spread leaves, another something soft and pink—maybe pigs’ feet? He stares at me as we pass, his gaze shameless and appraising.
The older man is the only one who stares. Everyone else becomes deeply involved in their current task, clearly avoiding me.
There are no other women, and there is no sign of Mary.
Beyond the Chinese tents, the land slopes downward toward the creek edged in cottonwoods and willows. A slick, muddy path takes us through the trees and opens up onto the muckiest, sorriest, most godforsaken stretch of water I ever saw.
Thirty or so men are scattered about—Chinese, Indians, and whites—all squatting with pans at the edge or knee-deep in muck with their shovels. The water is thick brown gray, the banks devoid of vegetation. Everything is coated in mud—the miners’ pants, the boulders lining the creek, forearms, pans, and even a long wooden rocker. The air smells of swamp and piss.
It’s an easy mistake, to dig down into a creek bed without giving the water a place to go. It accumulates, like in a swimming hole, except churned up with dirt and mud, making it nearly impossible to see. And based on the smell, everyone is squatting to do their business in this sorry mudhole of a creek instead of taking it to an outhouse or privy trench where it belongs.
I’m deciding whether or not to have a stern talk with Hiram about this when I notice that all work has ceased. Everyone is looking at me.
“Why are they staring?” I whisper to Wilhelm, before remembering that he never answers back.