The man shouted something inaudible but kept riding.
“He couldn't have known, Tipton. Its all right.”
“I thought Seth said they treated ladies with special dignity here.”
Suzanne sighed. “Maybe it's because we're so early.”
“You mean they might think we've been up all night? That we re—”
“No. We certainly do not appear to be women of negotiable affections,” Suzanne said. “Not with three children in tow.”
“I count two,” Tipton said.
“Of course you do,” Suzanne told her. She released her grip on Pig and pulled at the floppy bonnet that covered her face, tightening the strings.
“Well, he didn't need to be so rude.”
“I don't have the strength to challenge every thoughtless phrase sent my way,” Suzanne said. She adjusted her dark glasses.
“People ought to be grateful they can see,” Tipton said. “Here's a step.”
“Most of us aren't grateful until we lose something—or feel we might. Oh! Pig, wait! Where's he taking me?”
“Up the steps. Lift your skirts!”
“Pig! Wait!” Suzanne heard laughter, and once up the steps, the dog pulled her along a boardwalk. She brushed past people and smelled cigars and stale ale and the drift of fresh bread. She gasped, bumped against a railing, felt Sason bounce on her back and hoped his little head was secure against the pillow she'd fashioned. Clayton squealed. At least he kept up. Then the dog abruptly turned, slowed slightly as she felt a step then the dirt of the street. Tipton shouted behind her to let go of Pig and that she'd catch him up.
Suzanne did, chastising herself that she hadn't let go before. How stupid of her. She must have looked a fright. “What's wrong with him?” Suzanne called out. “Is Sason all right?”
“Leave that cat be, Pig!” she heard Tipton say.
It seemed an hour but was likely only minutes that Suzanne stood, Clayton's sweaty little palms pulling on her hand. With her now free hand reached behind her, she lifted the baby's board, moving it gently up and down. Breathless, Tipton came up to her. “Here's your dog. I've just sashayed around twenty men,” she said. “Danced through lines of pack strings and mules’ legs, past the door of a bookstore—I can hardly wait to tell Mazy—where your Pig chased a cat under another mule who leaped and bucked and left…well, something steaming in the street. Pig ran through it. But the cat's safe, and I've got him, Pig, I mean.” Tipton took a deep breath.
“I can smell what he got into,” Suzanne said. “Other than that?”
“He's fine. It was a great-looking cat. Has Pig never seen one?”
“He has now.”
“Well,” Tipton said after a pause. “We've acquired an audience, an admiring glance or two.” Suzanne heard the crinolines of the girl's skirt swish, felt the breeze Tipton's bonnet made when she bobbed her head. “Hmm,” the girl said. “Interest.” Suzanne imagined Tipton fluttering her eyelashes, and for just a moment she replaced her frustration with the dog's actions with a wistful memory, of when she'd been Tipton's age. She'd enjoyed the attention of young men. The image of Bryce came to her mind. She felt an ache inside her, a longing for what was and would never be again.
She blinked, took a deep breath, adjusted her dark glasses. “What are you wearing?” Suzanne asked.
“A green woolen dress with a jacket. Saved for a special occasion.”
“How did you know today would be that kind of day?” The scent of dried roses once stuffed into the folds of Tipton's dress drifted to Suzanne's nose as the girl apparently twisted and twirled.
“I didn't. But Elizabeth said we should celebrate little things more. And I think Tyrell would have made this a special day, my first trip into town. I'm smiling at a nice-looking man now, maybe twenty or so. Wearing a red plaid shirt. Oh, the old one next to him thinks I just flirted with him. They're bumping each other.” She clutched Suzanne's arm. “Oh, Suzanne, I'm so glad you asked me to come. I like the secrecy, our doing it together without the rest of them knowing. Clayton! Quit grabbing at me! I'm letting go of Pig,” she told her.
Suzanne reached for Pig's halter. The dog still panted from his run after the cat. “Clayton!”
“There's no reason to be sharp with him, Tipton. He's just a child. Curious.”
“Easy for you to say. You're not responsible.”
Suzanne flinched before she could stop it.
“Oh, Suzanne. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”
“Yours is the larger responsibility,” Suzanne said. She heard the coldness of her own words.
“But I didn't mean to, you know, say that.”
Suzanne hesitated. “I know,” she said. Accommodate, wasn't that what Elizabeth said they all had to do, not take things quite so personal and let hurt feelings keep them from being…focused. “Oh, what's that sound I hear, that rumbling? Is it a stage?” She swallowed, hoped they stood free of its run.
She felt Tipton turn. “Its a tenpin alley. Listen! Bowling! Imagine that.”
Suzanne laughed, liked the feeling of relief. “My brother used to play that back in Michigan, until our father found out. Ninepins was illegal.”
“In Wisconsin, too,” Tipton said. “But this sign says its tenpins.”
“So the emigrants brought the game with them and changed the rules to make it legal. This is a fascinating place, this California.”
“You don't think they'll think Claytons my child, do you?”
“Anyone in particular you want to be sure knows you're unencumbered?”
“What does that mean?”
“You're young and free to flirt, Tipton. A single woman. And I suspect you're lovely.”
“The men are smiling at us and adjusting their hats. Oh, one's coming this way. I'll just ask one of those fine-looking men,” Tipton said. Before Suzanne could stop her, Tipton had placed Clayton's pudgy palm back in hers and left, the scent of dried roses leaving with her.
“Wait—” Suzanne started, then stopped. She was alone with her children. Wasn't that what she'd always wanted?
Sacramento City
In the morning, David woke early, refreshed. He'd learned something yesterday, about being trustworthy, and he was up to the challenge. He spoke to the night driver about the road north toward Marysville at the fork of the Yuba and Feather Rivers. He would take the stage, mail, and passengers the fifty miles, exchange teams, then head up the red dirt road to Tehama. Another driver would take the route north to Red Bluff from there. David would rest the night and drive the next stage back to Sacramento. At least that was his plan.
“Got some additional…chattel for you, David,” the innkeeper told him when he entered the hotel lobby to grab a final cup of coffee and gather up passengers.
“Thought I saw you out there rustling around in the tack room last night,” David said. “Is that what I've got to load?”
The man handed David the mug of steaming coffee. “Ask him. Zane Randolph.” He pointed with his chin to a man dressed in white, a cape draped over his shoulders. David looked up into the mirror behind the bar, feeling his heart pick up a beat. The man sat tall against the round-backed hickory chair. He sat alone, and David recognized his eyes.
“What's he bringing?” David said, not seeing any leather valise beside the man.
“A woman,” the innkeeper said. “She's in the tack room. Or was. S'pect he'll be getting her out soon as you call the all-ready.”
David felt a binding in his chest as though he fought for air. His thoughts raced, his hands shook. He'd never experienced this, not when his father turned up missing, not when he found the letter from his uncle saying his mother had died. Not even when he'd confronted a cougar once as he urged the Concord around a slippery edge. But he felt it now, the short breath, blood pounding at his temple. His head buzzed as if someone had hit him up beside his ear. He gasped. Was this the certainty he'd asked God for?
With a sneer on his face, the big man passed. David watched him go to
the tack room as he gulped his coffee.
The Wintu woman was brought out, and now David could no longer tell himself there were no second chances, for there she stood, her eyes blinking into the daylight.
“You aren't getting ill, are you?” the innkeeper asked David. Then, looking concerned, he added, “We got six passengers. There's no way I can find a replacement.”
“I'm fine,” David said, setting his cup on the counter. He stepped outside.
“I thought perhaps we'd met before,” the man in white said, addressing David. He didn't extend his hand, but his voice held charm in it. “You were the one my prize here found so fascinating. Didn't you, my dear?”
The Wintu woman's eyes rose to David's, and he felt a piercing at the broken expression he saw. “Ma'am,” David said, and tipped his felt hat at her.
“So polite,” Randolph said. “What did you say your name was?”
“David Taylor,” he said, irritated by the squeak in his own voice. He had to collect himself. He had to make a plan. He'd been given a second chance!
He cleared his throat and said his name again.
“I'm guessing you want the outside seat,” the innkeeper said to Randolph. “Good view from up there. We don't have a man riding as guard.”
“There's room inside the coach for her,” a male passenger said, coming out of the hotel. “It seats six.”
A woman carrying a round wooden case stepped out next. She smiled absently at the Indian girl as the men parted to allow her to move through.
“The company will be more pleasant without her inside,” Randolph told the man, his eyebrow raised in protest. “The weather's lovely.” He gazed at the blue sky broken only by the dot of a seagull winging its way toward the Sacramento River. “And I'm sure our young jehu will find the company…admirable. Besides, the gentle lady would reasonably object to sharing seats with a heathen.”
The woman opened her mouth, closed it like a hungry fish, then scurried into the stage.
“Not unless her hands are untied,” David told Randolph. “She's not sitting up top with her hands roped. She needs to be able to hang on. We're going over some rough country.”
The big man paused. “How far north are you taking us?”
“The rope,” David said.
Randolph hesitated, then motioned to the innkeeper to loosen the rawhide that bound the Wintu woman's hands.
“Change drivers at Tehama,” David said. He was breathing calmly now. He hoped he didn't look as weak as he felt. “I'll be staying there. Another will take you on.”
“Until then you should have a merry time of it with this…girl. I think I'll call her…Hawk.” Randolph lifted the girl's chin. “Fitting, don't you think? With those watching eyes staring at you. They hold a wish in them. To just fly away.”
David pulled his gloves on slowly, forcing his mind to think. “Get ‘em loaded,” he told the clerk, who nodded, then hustled the passengers into the coach.
David walked around the Concord, the horses, checking one last time for any harness cuts, anything unusual in the tack or carriage. He spoke to the animals, looked at legs and feet, and then back to the luggage, loaded. He checked the passenger list the innkeeper showed him then, a finger and a nod toward the man. Zane Randolph, it was a name he knew he'd not forget. The man's body cast a shadow over the woman. Something about him reminded David of an animal, tensed and unpredictable.
“He won't go ‘til all the luggage is secure and folks are settled in,” the innkeeper told Randolph.
“Then let him load this last piece.” Randolph pushed at the woman. “She's not so very heavy.”
“You get on inside. Sir,” David said.
“After the woman's loaded,” Randolph growled.
The two men stared at each other. David nodded to the clerk, then, “I'll go up to the box.” He stepped, pulled himself up onto the high Concord seat, then turned to reach for the woman.
She raised her arms, let herself be lifted up, helped by the clerk, pulled forward into David's arms.
She was light as a leaf. Her hand, brown as an acorn, fit into his and gripped it, offered no resistance as she stepped into the box. David looked at her, tried to tell her she was safe, and must have communicated something for she didn't turn her eyes away. Then in one fluid motion, his wide hands around her rib cage, he lifted her again across the box and placed her on the seat next to him.
“You can ride shotgun, Hawk!” Randolph called up to her. “Marvelous!”
“It's safer than on the luggage,” David said to her, his voice low enough, he hoped, for Randolph to miss.
“Are you coming with us or not?” David shouted down. He heard activity below, felt the stage creak and ache with the weight of the big man stepping up and in. The innkeeper slammed the door, stood back, and signaled. David checked to be sure his whip was in the holder, tucked his pant legs into his calf-high leather boots, and adjusted the neckerchief around his neck. Never forget love and faithfulness. Bind them around your neck. He always thought ofthat proverb when he tightened his kerchief. This day, he said it as a prayer.
He inhaled a deep breath, loosened his neckerchief by two fingers to be able to cover his nose in case of a cloud of dust, straightened his dark bowler hat with a narrow nap brim, drawing it tight to his ears. Then he hooked the wide leather belt that would keep him on the seat if the road got rough.
“All set,” he shouted down to the passengers. David tucked the lap pad around the woman's legs to keep the mud from flying up onto her. He reached for the lines from the right side, spread the reins between the fingers of his near and off hands, three ribbons in each palm. Then raising the whip with his off hand, he told the passengers, “Sit tight.”
To the Wintu woman—just a girl, really—he said, “Hawk, is that what I'm to call you?”
“Oltipa” she said, patting her chest with the cup of her fingers. “Oltipa my name. It mean the same as spring”
David stared at the girl's sable eyes. “Like the season or something to drink? Water?” he asked. She looked confused and he shook his head. “It doesn't matter. Just good you understand a little English.”
“What's the holdup?” Zane Randolph shouted, his head leaned out the open window. “Lets get on with it.”
“Were heading out. Hang on, Oltipa,” David said so that only she could hear. He watched her grip the seat, noticed the red marks the rope had left at her wrists. She looked up at him and nodded once. He released the foot brakes, flicked the reins, and the stage lurched forward. The team knew the road north and they headed out, rattling their way through the streets.
All the while, David wondered, what could he do? When could he do it? And what difference would it make if he did set this young hawk free?
Shasta City
Mazy guessed things just changed when someone came or left—physically or emotionally. Children were not born into the same family as their brothers and sisters because the family shifted with each new arrival. A community did too, grew out in a different direction with each road carved, each building built. Even a marriage whipped itself up into newness—had to, she supposed, since its participants did. That was her marriage, all right. She'd be cautious about entering into that wilderness state again. Seth's apparent interest bothered her. She wasn't ready for that. She hated all the shifts. There were too many adjustments to make now, too many good-byes to say to be thinking of deeper hellos.
Mazy brushed at her hair, trying to get some shine that the months of alkali had stolen. Besides, Seth had a fondness for dice and racing. She'd already loved one man who failed to put her ahead of some hidden passion. She wouldn't risk that again. Seth even pointed out the “Bear and Bull Baiting” sign at Charleys Ranch when they rode by it. “There's money to be made at events like that, money to siphon in a dozen different ways,” he'd said.
“How could you engage in that? I'd give anything to have my dairy bull back, and in California they take the few bulls they have and put them
against a bear?”
Seth had sounded wounded. “They aren't dairy bulls. They're beef stock, lots of them raised right here just for the ring, just like bulls in Spain. Guess I won't be inviting you out to Charley's anytime soon.” His observation had ended the conversation but not her thoughts about the complexity of this man. So gentle and insightful and yet dense as a post at times.
Mazy rubbed the back of her neck. She'd be so glad to have her own mattress, under a roof where she could turn and twist at night without fear she would wake her mother or whoever else shared her tent. She shivered, then dressed and stepped outside.
Today they would all go in to Shasta. She looked around their encampment and saw Ruth, already up and dressed…in what? A calico dress and a shawl? Mazy waved at her and smiled when she noticed the woman's whip hanging limp at her side. She was a unique woman. Mazy knew a comfort wrapped inside Ruth's presence. She watched their patterns and habits developed over six months of joining. From having walked across a continent together, they created a basket formed of bonds that would never be broken.
Even Mazy's mother no longer seemed quite so eccentric. She supposed she should be wary of what new childish adventure Elizabeth would undertake next. First she'd tamed an antelope, then the antelope had bounded off at Deer Flat, forsaking the easy feed and comfort they promised for companionship closer to its own. She missed that old Fip. She guessed she just had a heart for animals. She missed Pig, too, even though she saw him daily. That would change too now.
Ned had sniffed a bit at Fip's departure, then in a day he became philosophical, remembering the fun the pronghorn had brought and saying he hoped Fip wouldn't end up as someone's stew. Mazy smiled. Children had such a fresh perspective on change.
Shasta forced another. She just needed to settle into a new routine. She had an idea of just what she wanted in her own brand-new little nest. And once it was truly her place of belonging, she'd let herself feel the anger, loss, and disappointment that she'd harbored all these months and finally grieve Jeremy's betrayal. Then maybe she could remember the good times, the joys they'd shared. And she could move forward to the pleasant places God had promised in the Psalms.