Under a Painted Sky

  13

  I AM THE LAST TO WAKE, BESIDES THE SUN, WHICH still hides beneath cloud blankets and makes them glow like embers. I cannot move. Every muscle in my body screams with pain, even the ones I didn’t think I’d used, like the ones in my toes. Groaning, I gently ease myself up and peer toward the east. Several wagon circles lie two or three hundred yards farther down the river, small as bracelets. There’s no movement on the trail.

  A few feet away, Andy pulls her needle through the hem of her coat. She doesn’t notice me yet. Her top teeth clamp down on her tongue as she works. Cay and West sit with their backs to me. In front of them, the horses graze on their breakfast as Peety wanders among them, murmuring assurances and rubbing noses.

  West writes in a journal, though by the flicks of his wrist, I think he’s actually sketching. Craning my neck, I make out an incomplete drawing of his horse, the sorrel, Franny. A quarter horse like Princesa, Franny wears a blond coat with no dark spots and a flaxen mane. Assuming they do sell horses at Fort Kearny, they won’t be as fine as these. West’s drawing is remarkably true to life, and full of motion, the muscles and sinew rendered in complicated hatch marks and shading. Only an artist could reproduce an animal so convincingly.

  Peety scratches Franny’s withers, causing her to nicker and blow out her lips. “Mi reina, eres la fuente de mi ser. Te quiero con toda mi alma.” My queen, you are the fountain of my being. I love you with all of my soul. He kisses Franny on the nose.

  West looks up from his journal. “I’m a jealous man, Peety.” He closes his journal and slides it into his shirt pocket, then gets to his feet. “Come here, Franny.” He clicks his tongue, but she does not budge.

  Peety’s full lips thin into a grin. “Can I help it if the ladies love me?”

  “’Cause ya smell like horse, that’s why,” says West.

  Peety smirks. “Oh no, mi amigo, not smell like a horse. Built like a horse.” He taps his pelvis and then notices me. “Mira, Chinito’s not dead after all. You need some help, my friend?” He walks toward me, arm outstretched, but I wave him off.

  “I’m fine.”

  Despite the vaquero’s initial aloofness, I find him to be the most warmhearted of the three boys, one eye always watching out for Andy or me as if we were part of the remuda.

  I try not to wince as I start to stand. Quickly, Andy replaces her needle in her saddlebag. “We’ve got to come up with something better than berry-picking,” she whispers as she helps me up.

  All three boys are watching us. I clear my throat. “It is not custom for Chinese and, er, Africans to make water in public. In fact, it’s disrespectful to . . . our ancestors.”

  Andy nods as she holds herself tightly.

  West glances at Cay, who looks at Peety. Just when I think my teeth are going to crumble from clenching them so long, Cay, chewing a carrot, says, “Where you wet the weeds is your personal business, boys. Me here, I just try not to stand by Peety. He drips on his boots most the time. It’s disgusting.”

  I follow Andy to the river. Unlike mine, today her gait is even, with no hint of saddle soreness. Either she’s good at hiding her pain or she has legs of iron. We duck behind a cluster of high grass tinged purple on the ends. The air no longer feels damp, but the morning is already warm, even with no sun out.

  “You did well yesterday on Princesa,” I say. “I think you’re catching on.”

  “You mean hanging on. That was like riding a witch’s broomstick. But look at what I did with my witch’s cape.” She unbuttons her coat and holds open the flaps.

  Vent holes have been cut under the arms and finished with a whipstitch. She turns around. “And the back.” I run my hand along the center of the rough fabric and find more vent holes hidden in the seam. There’s even an opening underneath the collar.

  “Ingenious,” I say.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Very clever.”

  She snorts. “If I was real ingenious, I wouldn’t get back on that four-legged death trap.”

  “Once we get to Fort Kearny, we can get horses of our own.”

  She nods. “Be even better to keep on with these boys and get the horses. That Cay’s gonna keep you well fed as long as there’s girls on the trail.”

  “You can’t be thinking about leaving so soon?”

  “No, not yet. But Harp Falls might come up sooner than later.” Her mouth twists into a smile and she knocks her hand against mine. “Don’t worry, Sammy. I won’t go without telling you.”

  That doesn’t reassure me much. We’ve only known each other a few days, but I can’t imagine life on this trail without her. I chew on my lip. Maybe I’ll find Mr. Trask before Harp Falls. He’ll share Father’s plans with me and return Mother’s bracelet, freeing me to help Andy search for Isaac.

  “Besides, that waterfall’s probably not for miles and miles,” Andy says lightly. “You might have to put up with me longer than you think.”

  • • •

  Cay and West have already mounted their horses by the time we return. Peety’s straightening the blanket under Princesa’s saddle. The bay slides back and forth, seeming eager to get on the move. “You ready, Andito?” asks Peety.

  “That horse is twitchy as a pair of thumbs,” says Andy. “I think Sammy wants a turn.”

  I nod vigorously, not wanting to repeat the battle of the saddle with West. “Everyone wins.”

  Peety shakes his head. “Andito and Princesa are good for each other. You’re a tenderfoot”—he points to Andy, then steers his finger to the bay—“and she has tender feet.”

  Andy throws me a dark look and I give her a fierce nod of encouragement. She pushes up her coat sleeves, not seeming to notice when they fall back down. Then she marches right up to the horse. “Okay, she-devil, let’s do this.”

  The bay emits her customary scream when Andy approaches. Peety holds the horse’s harness as Andy, grimacing, hauls herself up. Princesa tosses her head a few times to snap at some flies, but Andy stays seated.

  Today I ride with the leaders, Cay and Skinny. The bossy pinto marches like a drum majorette, head high, steps as measured as a clock’s tick. Cay focuses more on what’s around him than who’s in front of him, and that, together with Skinny’s longer barrel, means a less tense ride for me. I almost enjoy my view up here in the front.

  We walk along the Little Blue, whose rivulets run in all directions like veins. Despite my sore backside, I fidget in my seat, again wishing we could go faster. But when we ford the river to follow the trail northwest, I’m simply thankful Andy and I don’t have to splash through the muddy water on our own. Even at its shallowest spot, the water oozes up to our soles, and I keep my feet high so my boots don’t get soaked.

  By midday, the land begins to stretch upward like a roll in the fabric of the flat prairie. A glade of pine trees gives the hill some extra height. Besides a few shadowy clouds lurking behind the pines, the sky is clear. It’s the exact sky Father and I left behind in New York, such a deep blue, if you reached high enough, you could lose your hand in it. If only we hadn’t left, Father might be drilling me on my Latin verbs under a sky such as this, and I wouldn’t have nerves like a jackrabbit.

  As one of only two Chinese families in New York, which though few, was at least twice the number in St. Joe, Father and I were more a curiosity than a threat. People mostly left us alone. Sure, we met our share of bigots, casting their eyes in our direction every time something went amiss, like when cherries disappeared off someone’s tree—never mind all the crows in the area. But for the most part, people respected Father. He could speak their language, and he made it his business to bridge differences.

  I always dreamed about us returning to New York, opening up a music conservatory. I would teach violin, he would teach the other strings, like the cello and banjo, and we would get someone to do the woodwinds. Without Father, the thought of g
oing back to New York leaves me hollow.

  The sound of thunder shakes me out of my thoughts. But it can’t be thunder with that placid blue sky. West comes up beside us, staring hard at the pine trees. Earthquake?

  I rub my eyes. Pouring out from the forest before us are dozens, maybe hundreds of livestock, tearing down the trail at top speed. The bovines and equines lead the charge, trailed by goats and a few pigs. They’re stampeding right toward us.

  “Holy Moses,” cries Andy, wobbling in her seat.

  I grab the brim of my hat and bounce up and down. “Let’s get out of here. What are we waiting for?” I twist around to face an unusually quiet Cay.

  Peety grabs Princesa’s reins. “Princesa never done stampede before. Vámanos.” He quickly leads Princesa and Andy to a column of limestone ten yards ahead of a lone oak tree on our left. The limestone column rises up sharply like a shark’s tooth.

  “Why aren’t we following them?” I ask.

  “Cowboys never run from a stampede,” says Cay.

  “Says who? I say we get the hell out of the way, too,” says West.

  “We’d be doing someone a huge favor by catching their animals,” pleads Cay. “Maybe that someone has a daughter and some friends.”

  “That ain’t a good reason,” says West. “We got a few of our own friends to worry on.” He glances at me.

  “They’re tough,” says Cay. “Come on, the remuda needs some practice.” Without waiting for a reply, Cay taps Skinny with his heels. She moves toward the solitary oak.

  “This is your stop,” Cay says to me, halting Skinny.

  “I can’t outrun them,” I wail, poking a tenuous toe toward the ground.

  Cay locks his knee under mine. “Not down, dummy, up.” He looks up at the branches. “You can climb a tree, can’t you?”

  If I can’t, I am not going to tell him. “Shouldn’t I wait by Andy?”

  “They’ll run you over if they get behind that wall.”

  “But what about Andy, what if—”

  “Don’t worry, stampede won’t run down a horse. Usually. Let’s go, they’ll be here soon!”

  He grunts as I step off his thigh, and then onto his shoulder, reaching up to catch a branch. Cay helps boost me up, but desperation gives me a final push. Soon I’m swinging like a trapeze artist. I hook my legs around another branch, grab the trunk, and scramble up even higher, toward the oak’s sturdiest arm, my muscles straining. Finally, winded, I lie flat along the branch and look down below.

  To my left, behind the limestone column, Andy sits stiffly atop Princesa, tugging the reins as Princesa tries to follow Peety and Lupe. West peers up at me. Franny fidgets underneath him. “This ain’t one of your brightest ideas,” he tells Cay. Then he curtains his frown with his bandanna.

  “Let ’em run,” yells Cay.

  My perch twenty feet above the ground, while not comfortable, at least gives me a good view of the action.

  “Heeyaw!” yells Cay, leading the boys off. They wheel back in the direction we came.

  The din of charging animals increases until they finally tear by under me, mooing and shrieking. Their frenzied stomping causes my tree to shake and kicks up a cloud of dirt in my face, but I cannot spare a hand to wipe it off. I clear my vision by blinking and twitching.

  With panicked livestock hot on their heels, the boys lead the chase down the prairie. West flanks Cay on the left. Some of the fleeter animals nose past, but the boys dig in and gain the ground. Then West swerves Franny farther left to slow down the animals in front, cutting close enough to give each animal a shave.

  I glance at Andy, who’s still tucked behind the limestone column. She waves at me.

  A pair of longhorn cattle charges toward West. Sunlight glints off the wicked curve of their horns.

  “Pull out,” I cry, though he is too far off to hear me. West’s hat twists. He sees them. Incredibly, he edges Franny closer.

  “No!” I moan. “The other way.” Another moment and—I squeeze my eyes shut. Then I pop them open again.

  The longhorns veer off! Franny screams in victory, winner of the battle of the nerves.

  Peety runs down a pack of animals in a flat-out race west. He overtakes them, then pulls Lupe up hard, waving his arms and yelling to bring them to heel.

  Meanwhile, Cay zigzags Skinny in front of a hot press of confused livestock. The lead ox matches Skinny in length, its compact body like a barrel of brown fur. Devilish spikes protrude from its head.

  It will gore him for sure. I can’t watch, yet now I can’t close my eyes.

  Cay lengthens the distance between his turns, and eventually, the animals slow. Those behind must also decelerate. Then he begins circling the herd, and Peety and West do the same. Together, the boys cinch the animals into a tighter bunch.

  Soon, the whole herd’s moving like a merry-go-round, save for the animals in the middle, who’ve come to a standstill, rolling their eyes and bellowing in bewilderment. I rest my cheek on the branch and let out my breath.

  As the cowboys continue ringing the herd with an invisible line, Peety begins to sing, his rich voice carrying across the noise of the herd. Cay and West feed the lines back to him after each stanza.

  Hey little missy,

  Little missy,

  With the waddle.

  Tell me if you wanna

  Little pony with a saddle.

  Wait for me

  Until I make it

  Back from the battle.

  Bring ya back

  The horns of the

  Longhorn cattle.

  I stretch my neck to look for Andy. Princesa’s getting friskier and has crept to the edge of the limestone. The horse flicks its head and Andy sways. She recovers her balance, but nearly loses her hat.

  Clouds have started to collect above us, blocking out the sun. They stick together like dirty snow by the side of the road. A flash storm must be on its way, which might have caused the stampede. Father says animals can sense weather before humans. I inch backward. If I can reach the trunk, I can shimmy down, then stand by the limestone with Andy. The animals graze calmly as the boys serenade them. No one’s going to run me over.

  A sudden jolt of lightning turns the sky hot white, freezing me in my tracks. Father used to tell me that lightning was the flash off the drunk man’s whiskey bottle as he stumbled across the sky. I brace myself for the arrival of his angry wife wielding her rolling pin. Moments later, thunder roars across the prairie. I quake against my branch, four years old all over again.

  The livestock scream in panic. And like that, like the saying goes, all the cats explode out of the bag. The animals run in every direction, sometimes falling over each other in their hurry to escape.

  As Peety and Lupe gallop past us, Princesa surges so abruptly that Andy drops the split reins. She grabs on to the apple. “Stop! Whoa!” yells Andy. The horse ignores her and starts off after Peety.

  Holy moly. Princesa is joining the stampede.

  “Whoa, Princesa!” I yell. “Peety!” I yell at his departing backside. But he doesn’t hear me through the din of animals.

  “Peety!” I scream. Cay and West are too far away to hear or help. “Peety!”

  Princesa enters the fray, tail and head held high. Approaching traffic slows her, but she continues to thread her way to Peety, still twenty feet ahead. The reins drag in the dirt, and Andy can’t fetch them without falling off. She slides too far one direction, and I draw in a horrified breath.

  At the last second, she corrects her saddle position. But now she’s sliding too far the other way. Princesa snaps at a passing mule. The mule turns around and kicks at Princesa, who dodges the kick, and suddenly, Andy’s in the dirt.

  A longhorn charges from Andy’s left, its horned head waggling up and down with each loping stride. She doesn’t notice it. With one h
and on the ground, and one hand over the top of her hat, Andy looks wildly about her at the animals flying by.

  “Peety!” I scream again, using every bit of air in my lungs.

  At last, Peety turns his head. He sees the riderless Princesa tailing him, then finally spots Andy trying to get to her feet. Quickly, he pirouettes Lupe on one hoof, and they sprint toward Andy. Frozen in place, she stares, open-jawed, at the longhorn barreling toward her.

  The vaquero reaches out and scoops up Andy by her belt, somehow managing to hold on to her with one arm until the great Andalusian has cleared most of the animals.

  I let out a shaky breath of relief. Andy can’t ride that unpredictable horse anymore. Maybe Peety will let her ride Lupe instead. I watch them move away from me until the throngs of animals swallow them up.

  Cay and West pick up their pace, forcing the animals to stay on the merry-go-round.

  Again, I start inching backward, tired of this tree and wanting to get down before I fall.

  Another flash of lightning blinds me. My legs start shaking, then my whole body. But it’s not me, it’s my tree. Something crashes to the ground: a burning branch. I look up and behold hell where heaven should be. Dear God, my tree is on fire.

  14

  ANOTHER FIERY BRANCH DROPS RIGHT PAST MY head. I open my mouth, but I’ve already used up all my screams.

  The first branch burns out, but flames from the second begin licking at the trunk. Now my tree burns on both ends. A fresh wave of panic makes my hands slick with sweat. With a shock, I realize that if I don’t clear out, I’ll be burned alive. Like Father.

  My mind cries for my body to drop. Broken legs still beat burning alive. Maybe I would just twist an ankle. Move! I free one leg, then the other, and now I hang from the branch like laundry. My fingers grip the rough wood as tightly as I can, but they’re slipping. Splinters pierce my flesh, and holding on is torture.

  The boys yell something I can’t make out over the roar of the fire. Smoke steams the tears off my face as they form. I shorten my breath to keep the smoke out of my lungs, but that makes me thirst for air.