They brushed past him, the man with kind eyes staring. Her ragged dress stretched across her legs, cutting into her thighs, exposing her limbs. She heard the heartbeat of her captor, racing; smelled the horse's sweat. Her hope flew away.
David worked the braid of the cracker draped over his thigh, but he saw only the Wintu woman's eyes. He'd bathed and shaved and changed his clothes and bathed again, somehow not able to get the smell and grime from his skin the first time. He ate his supper at the way station, and now he sat beneath the sloping roof of the stable, bent over his work. He heard a few pelts of raindrops on the tin roof and smelled the scent of horses mixed with the smell of old straw and manure. The rhythm of the spans of horses grinding grain in their teeth soothed his thinking, helped him return to routine. He'd be ready for the trip north to Red Bluff tomorrow, rested and ready.
But he couldn't get the Wintu woman from his mind.
He couldn't have bought her, even if he had more than a thousand dollars, which he didn't, and probably never would have saved, not on a jehus wage. A jehu. David smiled, then spoke out loud for the benefit of the horse. “And the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth fiir-i-ous-ly.” He always stretched out the last word of the verse from chapter nine, verse twenty, Second Kings, from which the drivers took their name. It was what the jehus were known for, driving briskly through rain-swollen streams or up snow-slickened grades, keeping their commitments, getting people where they planned to be.
Knights of the Whip they were called too, and sometimes “Charlie” if someone didn't know a fellows name. But jehu fit them best, he guessed. They were paid in wild and furious adventure more than currency; in living at the edge, in wondering what washout might appear around the bend, what bandit might decide to hold them up if he wasn't alert to places along the trail ripe for ambush. They took their wages in wit and risk, experiences that massaged the senses.
The woman's eyes came back to him. Some knight he was, letting her go like that. And yet what would he have done with her? He didn't know any jehus who had ties, who were married. Most were orphans, like him, and the stage owners said that was what they preferred: no complications then when someone died, as they did pretty regularly, now that he thought of it. A Wintu…girl and him. He brushed the shock of dark hair from his eyes, leaving behind the scent of leather. He hoped to shake away the image of her. The oil felt slick on his fingers as he rubbed it into the bridle.
He might have taken an advance against his wages, maybe. And if he had, he might have found someone who would take her in, care for her. He looked down and realized he'd worn an open blister onto the pad of his thumb with his rubbing, something he'd never done. He put his finger in his mouth, aware of the taste of leather and oil mingling with the torn flesh on his tongue.
But if by some miracle he had bought her, wasn't that saying he condoned the practice of selling flesh? Didn't that make him just like the slaveholders his father had railed against before coming to California? Wouldn't his purchase just add fuel and fire up the tribes that took captives? And what good was helping one poor Indian woman anyway in the midst of so many who needed it?
“It would be good for her,” he could almost hear his mother say. “No sense worrying about all the rest being too much to manage. You can just do what you can do.”
Just do what I can do, David told himself. He tried that with his sister and had failed, hadn't had the wherewithal to bring her to him when she was left all alone. He hoped she was happy. The Wintu's face flashed next to hers; if he couldn't care for his own sister, how could he expect to care for an Indian girl? Well, he hadn't seized his opportunity yesterday, and now she was gone and there was nothing to be done for it. He should not have been there at all. He held the Wintu woman in his heart for a moment, not exactly saying a prayer, holding her in his mind. Maybe she would feel again the thoughts sent when she lifted her eyes, when he almost made a bid. Maybe she would feel a wash of kindness in a world lurking with sin.
David looked over the whiplash, turning it in his hands. A good driver never touched an animal with a whip, not once; but a crack of it beside the horse's head told the animals to make shifts and moves at rapid speeds, sometimes with just seconds to avoid a hole or rock that would otherwise tip the stage over. And the cracker, thin little rawhide strips at the far end of the whip, always needed rebraiding at the end of a trip. Hung out there at the end of the whiplash, the crackers took the greatest hit. “Like some of us,” David said, “all frayed way out here at the end of things.” Still, those tiny threads did good, strong, important work. He wouldn't have managed the big teams without them. They just needed daily tending, doing what they could do.
Light from the kerosene lantern glinted off the band of silver that marked his whip handle. He'd had it custom-made by a silversmith now in Shasta. That's where his jehu money went. A horse nickered low from a stall behind him. “I hear ya,” David said, “I hear ya. Give me a minute and I'll come scratch.”
The horse nickered again, and David stood, leaned the whip against the stall, and reached to soothe his friend. It was his mother who'd showed him where a horse liked scratching most, on that bone between his ears. His mother was on his mind tonight, reminding him of the things that truly mattered.
He was glad his mother wasn't alive to see western people turn to slaving. Even the so-called Treaty of Peace passed last year at Major Reading's ranch up north had resulted in not a single Indian being protected from the masses. So what was the good of it?
“It's a beginning,” his mother might have said if she had lived to know it. “And sometimes just beginning a thing allows Providence to move it forward.”
But to what end? What good did Providence do bringing him and his father south, consumed by the gold rush, only for his father to just disappear one day?
“We just don't always know what's in store for us,” his mother said once. She patted flour into a ball that would raise and fill their little cabin with the scent of baking bread. “We just have to keep our heads.”
Keep our heads. No one seemed to be keeping a sane mind when it came to the Indians. His mother'd always had a heart for them.
At least his mother had never seen such an auction or known such a despicable law even existed. It was the only good thing David could think of about his mother's death. That, and that she'd never suffered. The doctor said the arrow that took her had been swift and sure, and she'd never known what hit her.
Zane rode the horse hard out K Street, away from the river to Second and then beyond, away from the laughter and jeers. He rode until the horse tired at last, until he could no longer hear the taunts of the crowd. They were crows calling now, nothing more. As soon as he was out of sight in the dusky night, he set that purchase down, hard, tied her hands in front of her, then led her with a rope.
“Perhaps walking a bit will put you into a better frame of mind,” he told her.
Knowing she was there pleased and calmed him. He controlled her with a rope long enough to let her to fall if she got too far behind, but short enough to make her wonder if the horses hooves might hit her as she breathed in the animal's dust.
By early evening, Zane tired of talking himself through the episode—that was all it was, just a minor glitch in his day. If the crowd remembered him at all, it would be for the size of his bid, not the foolishness of the woman. After all, it was she who was the captive, not him. And he had a plan for her. That was what mattered, not the jeers of faceless men.
A light in the distance told him they were nearing the city again. A way station, two stories high with a wide veranda and white picket fence, was set off the road just ahead. He could rid himself of this horse there and take the morning stage with the settled-down woman.
Dismounting, he looped the reins around the hitching post, satisfied that the horses head hung heavy with fatigue. Next, he untied the lead rope and pushed the woman up the wooden steps and inside, her hands still tied.
&
nbsp; “That…person cannot be housed here,” the innkeeper said, his eyes raised over tiny round glasses. “The diners…” he nodded to the side room where a few people ate a late supper.
Zane said, “Might I suggest the stable. Surely this…establishment has access to a livery.”
The clerk hesitated, stared at the woman. “She sick?”
“With child,” Zane added, deciding that even a heathen woman with child could be used to advantage.
The innkeepers eyes softened. “Oh. Well. I expect Mrs. Barnes would allow accommodation then, of some kind.” He looked thoughtful, adjusted his glasses.
“A locked tack room would be suitable.”
The clerk nodded. “No latch on it, but you could rope the door tight. No windows. See she stays tied or you'll be billed for what's destroyed. Pay in advance for your room and hers.”
“I've a horse to sell as well,” Zane said, his fingers clicking gold coins. “Can I leave that in your capable hands?” He held the eagles above the mans fingers, just out of reach.
“You can board him here. Charge you little or nothing for the work of feeding him and sending on the bill of sale when I find a buyer.” He snatched the coins Zane released, counted them. “Need a few more for the horse tending,” he said. Zane sneered, then handed over an additional amount, which the man pocketed, swift as a ferret.
“Excellent. I'm also seeking the agent for the stage north. Would that be you?”
“Yes sir. You wanting for two?”
“This is not a passenger.” He calmed his voice before he said, “This is chattel. Merchandise.” He flicked the glove of his hand toward the woman. “Luggage,” he said when the man frowned. “She'll fit just fine on top.”
“Not the way Hall and Crandle see her,” the clerk said. “Two tickets you got to buy if it's a living thing.”
Zane grunted, handed the man passage for two. “I trust we will be of little bother to you,” Zane said, “once this…package is stored.”
“Tack room and stalls're just beyond. Jehu's working his whip,” the clerk said, nodding toward the stable. “Just head to his light.”
8
David Taylor moved in and out of sleep, sometimes staring at the rafters of the bunkhouse, sometimes dreaming into his pillow, near the edges of awake. He'd finished his whip repair and turned in earlier than usual, noticing moisture sparkle against the kerosene lamp just as he stepped inside. He wasn't sure why he was so tired. Maybe the change in routine did it, maybe the thoughts of his mother, maybe the Wintu woman's eyes.
He was alone in the shedlike structure. The rope bed was a luxury after nights on just a board bunk. Hall and Crandall ran a good line, and he looked forward to seeing the drivers of the other two stages expected yet that night. “Three six-horse stages leave and return daily,” ran the ads. “The public may rest assured that the arrangements of this line, for speed and comfort, are unsurpassed in the world. Neither pains nor expense having been spared in procuring the BEST HORSES, finest CONCORD COACHES, and the most competent and CAREFUL DRIVERS.” It was a good company, a good life for a single man. The arriving drivers would catch quick sleep before heading on, but David still looked forward to the greeting, hearing about the road conditions north and any news of note. The other drivers wouldn't have a day to waste as David had, at least not for another week.
And he had wasted the day. He lay with his arms folded behind his head. He heard the scuttle of a mouse across the floor.
He was tired from trying to make sense of his inaction. He could respond quickly to risky situations on the trail. He anticipated places where a mud slide might happen following a rain, where the snowmelt could push high water, might shift the footing at a ford. Geography and the lay of the land—those he'd studied, and he felt he'd been a worthy student. It was in these human places where he struggled, the wilderness of relationship that took him down. The wilderness of the spirit challenged him too, he realized as he lay there, eyes cast toward the ceiling.
He'd failed in that realm the most by not standing up for the Wintu woman—or any of them at all—by not raising a ruckus against the treachery of the sales. He recalled a verse his mother sometimes quoted him. Something about doing for the little people—the least, she always said—being the same as doing for the Son of God.
Maybe this jehu term for him was more apt than he'd thought. The biblical Jehu had been a man who wiped out wrongdoing and treachery, all right, who was used by God to do it, but who never trusted God himself and had his own problems with morals and might.
Trust. What did that take? What about the drivers made them “competent and careful,” trustworthy enough for folks to put their lives into their hands? Reliability, that was one quality. Integrity, being what a person said he was no matter where or with whom he stood. Well, he had room to grow in that one if standing at a sale of human flesh was any indication. What else, he wondered? Meeting people who were different, maybe, without looking down on them. He supposed his moth-er'd had the market on that.
“Unconditional love,” she told him. “You just have to look and not be too quick to judge.” Goodness surely reflected in her fair face.
And…honesty, David decided. A fellow blew his trust real fast if he stretched the truth. Why should God trust him to do a work if he wasn't honest with himself?
Then the thought came to him from nowhere and from somewhere—he was worried about what folks would think of him. He felt his neck grow hot with the admission. He hadn't acted to save the Wintu girl, not because he thought the task too large or too futile to take on, but because of what people might have thought. That he was a little daft or something, trying to rescue an Indian, throwing good money after bad. Or maybe that he'd be judged as wanting her for himself, as that kind of man. That could have reflected badly on him. Maybe even cost him his job. “You'll have to hit me upside the head when you want me to be sure to pay attention,” he said out loud.
No wonder he was tired—wearing blinders took work. There was risk in learning to see.
He heard voices outside. One of the horses nickered low. A thumping sound or two followed. David walked to the door that opened onto the covered porch where he'd worked his whip earlier. His stocking feet felt the grit of sand tracked in as he peered through the square window. He didn't see anyone, but he noticed a shaft of light cut the river fog. It came from the tack room. The innkeeper must have been placing something there for shipment in the morning. It wasn't the usual practice.
David wondered if he should dress, see if the clerk needed any help.
Not likely, or he would have asked, David decided.
He yawned. He could sleep now somehow, knowing that if he had another chance, he'd take it, sure. God could trust him. He moved away from the window just as the light went out.
Shasta City
“Begin with the streets. Are they wide, narrow, straight, or are houses just plopped here and there?” Suzanne asked. She tried not to sound frustrated. “Go slowly. I'm trying to count and concentrate.”
“Picture a teacup,” Tipton said. “We're walking down the middle of it, headed west. Going uphill. Feel it in your legs? There are stores, one row, on either side. Maybe more at the end of the street. The road dips south. Looks like houses that way too. Hills just start right up behind the hotels, and smell the bakery? Pines, oak trees—they look like—and twiney shrubs and brown grasses surround all kinds of houses, if you can call them that. Just a hodgepodge of dwellings on rounded hills that had trees on them, but they're all cut down. Stumps stick up around. No streets, really, just trails twisting like tired snakes. Snowcapped hills above and beyond that.” Tip ton turned slowly in the street. “Wood houses and canvas tents farther up. Looks like maybe a spring coming right out of rock. Right here there are lots of stores, but you can hardly see the road for all the mules and horses and pack animals and dogs and wild-eyed looking people. Most of them look as though they haven't seen either women or a washtub for weeks.” Suzanne laughed
. “And, oh, there goes a whole string of animals heading out with no one leading them! Hear that? They're being chased now. The packs are slipping left and right, and the animals are kicking up a storm. Little birds are scattering after them. Must not have used diamond hitches. Tyrellie said those would hold no matter what kind of wild-eyes you faced.”
“Mules or the men? They're both equally wild-eyed, no doubt,” Suzanne said.
Tipton sighed. “Tyrellie would have liked this place, I think. I miss him, Suzanne. As much as if we were married. Despite what Mama says. It was real, our betrothal. Look out! Clayton!”
“What is it, Tipton?”
“You stay close! Your mother's hanging on to Pig, and she's got your little brother. She can't take you, too.” The boy whined. “Don't be complaining.”
Suzanne wondered if she should have asked someone else to go with her for this first trip into town. She hadn't wanted all the women with her. Adora went on and on about Suzanne “needing help,” and she'd overheard Mazy and Seth talking about “taking chances,” with Suzanne's name brought up as a poor example. She thought she'd done right well taking her children for a walk. And what if she did mix things up in the wagon? So did everyone else, she imagined. A wagon wasn't like a home where a person could put their things away and expect them to stay right there.
She wanted to experience the town so when she joined the others as they oohed and aahed, she'd be better able to keep up with their conversations. But Tipton troubled her now. She was just a child herself, her sharp tongue directed at Clayton. The girl described things well, but she was fluttery. At that moment, Suzanne felt as though she had three children to look after.
A horse with the scent of a hard lather brushed against her, shoving her into Tipton and the boys.
“Get out of the way. Are you blind?” a sharp-toned rider yelled.
“Hey,” Tipton shouted after him. “She is blind. Are you?”