He squeezed the boy he thought of as his son, then held the woman as well, briefly, the smell of sauerkraut rising around them.
“Two hugs in one morning,” Elizabeth said. “Sarah? You up, child? Come see this little one. Go now. Ben and I'll hold your hands in our prayers.”
David backed out, waved at the boy, whose face suddenly turned from the happy smile to the bubble of a lower lip, his eyes widen.
“Go on,” she said. “He'll be all right.”
David opened the door, picked up the dog. He'd take him along. He could help find her trail.
Elizabeth called out as he pulled the door shut. “That name, on the note. What was it again?” He told her. “I don't know why but it has a familiar ring. I'll have to ponder that.”
“I'm going home,” Suzanne said.
“You got the wagon most of the time, now. It's pretty much your home the way you want it,” Lura said. “I tried to make it right for you. The three of us are sleeping in the tent.”
“I understand. And I know you've meant well and that my coming along was my idea. I pushed you to accommodate the boys and me. And you have.”
“Listen. We're a team. We've made twice what we would have with just me sharpening knives, so I'm not complaining.”
Suzanne sighed. She and Pig had made their way to the shaded tree beneath which Lura worked with her whetstones and knives. Lura had shown her once, how one hand turned the crank and the other set the blade in just the right place for grinding. She smelled something hot and earthy and imagined Luras hands working, the swishing sound loud enough to make Suzanne wait before she spoke again.
“There,” Lura said. “Sharp as a diamond. Just as shiny, too. Move, Pig.”
“I intend to make a home,” Suzanne said. “But not in the wagon and not traveling on with the boys to mining towns.”
“Your playing and singing, they're gifts from God. I heard Sister Esther say that once and she ought to know. Cant misuse those,” Lura told her. “I'm sure that's some kind of sin to not put talents to work. Isn't there a Bible verse or something about using gifts and all?”
“I won't forget the music. But I've been given other gifts, too. My children, and the responsibility to raise them as safe and sound as I can. I need help to do that, much as I hate to admit it. I do. And I need to make better choices about where and what I expose them to.”
“Mariah's been good help.”
“Yes, she has.” Suzanne petted Pig's head as they stood, the stillness broken only by Lura's work. When the sound stopped, Suzanne said as gently as she could, “It isn't fair to her either, Lura. She should be in school herself this fall, learning and laughing and just being a child. Growing up, having fun. It's not fun to be watching after my boys. And me. To be up half the night fending off miners.”
“They're just being appreciative.”
“It's dangerous,” Suzanne said. “Even a blind woman can see that.”
Lura grunted. “So what'll you do?”
“Go back to Shasta first. Then head south, to a larger city, maybe, where I can get help for Clayton. I need to see a doctor. Find out why he isn't speaking more and what I can do about it. And then,” and here she paused to take in a deep breath, “I need to hire someone to take care of…all of us. All the time. Someone who will care about my children but not try to take them from me because they think a blind woman can't raise them, or shouldn't.”
Suzanne heard the sound of the crank winding up, the whetstone zinging against another knife. Lura stopped. “Get married, that's what I say. Put up with someone controlling your days so you can be sure your kids are safe. We could find a good prospect if we put our minds to it. And he could travel with us.”
Suzanne shook her head. “I'm going to Sacramento. I'll stop by Sister Esther's and have her help me find someone—not to marry, but for the children. I'll pay them to look after my children. And me, hard as that is to say out loud. I need a keeper same as them.” She sensed Lura's sadness, wanted to soothe it. “All this gold dust will help me find a worthy person I can pay reasonable at least through the winter. I'm grateful to you for that.”
“Can you wait to go back until maybe October? We've got lots of good towns to head into. Fact is, Ruth won't want Ned staying on with me without you around to keep him safe.”
“That's ironic. A man desperately in need would not hand a baby to me, and you think Ruth sees me as safe.”
“You lend…dignity to things, give folks the belief that they've entered into royalty almost, that pretty blond hair, the way you stand so straight, the backs of your hands making gestures while the rest of us just point. Ruth won't let Ned stay, I'm certain of that. Not with the likes of me.”
“I don't want to ruin your business plans, but I have to go back. Tomorrow.”
“Listen,” Lura said. “Mariah won't stay out here with me either without you around. Maybe we should all head south. Visit a few camps along the way. Maybe I could be that person for you.”
Suzanne didn't know why, but she thought this might be the first test of her true commitment to her new focus. She took in a deep breath. “I know your offer is given with great care, Lura. And I thank you for it. Still, I believe we've learned things about our differences while we've traveled together. I need…a person able to devote herself to my children and to me. And you already have a child and a dream for a business, and when Ruth heads north and catches up with Matt, you'll have your son back and will want to be free to be with him. And who knows, you just may fall in love with one of those miners yourself and marry. Then where would I be?”
“I'd never kick you out,” Lura said. “You're kin.”
“We see the world differently.”
“Difference is what makes life interesting,” Lura persisted, and Suzanne recognized in the tone of her words a small child, bargaining; trying to imagine saying what this other person wanted to hear so they could get their way.
“What did you say the law of this land was?”
“Bargain, bribe, or go without?” Lura rattled her knives, sniffed. “Guess I'm going without,” she said. “Well, you do what you want then. It won't bother me.”
Suzanne felt a twinge she wasn't sure what to call. Irritation, relief?
“I need for you to drive us back,” Suzanne said.
“I know that,” Lura said, blowing her nose. “I was just trying to bargain for when.”
David Taylor had changed horses, left his payment with the hostler whose eyebrow rose with irritation. “You'll likely lose your job, Taylor. Not showing up isn't taken lightly. We had to roust the whip who brought the stage in, and he wasn't none too happy about taking your long run.”
“I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't life and death,” David told him.
“Yeah?” the hostler said. “So can you take tonight's run?”
He shook his head. “I don't know when I'll be back.” He ran his hands through his hair, dirty with sweat and dust. “Do what you have to.”
“Getting a reputation, Taylor, and it's not a good one.”
David nodded, swung up on the horse. He stopped at Washington's and filled his saddlebags with food, filled his canteen, then headed out of town. Not a good reputation. All because he acted on his belief. Would he do it again? Yes, he decided, he would.
He rode with a prayer of “help-her, help-her, help-her,” as though it were one word, his wish that Oltipa would live. He was so grateful the boy was all right, that Elizabeth would tend him, that David had a next step. His mother always said not to get caught up waiting for faith enough to finish, only to find faith enough for that next step.
He wondered whether Oltipa thought the boy was dead, whether she knew the dog had gotten to him. He was grateful too, for that. And that he and the dog might just pick up their trail at the cabin. He patted Chance's head, his paws resting on the saddle's swell.
He just needed to find some small sign of their direction once he reached the cabin. Two choices north: the old
Sacramento Trail into the McCloud River area or the Yreka route, better traveled, over the Scott Mountains. Two other choices: south to Sacramento skirting Shasta or west toward Weaverville and the coast. Chances were slim he'd know for sure. But ye have not, because ye ask not. He thought that was the verse his mother quoted.
He smiled. He didn't realize how memorizing those verses could spur him forward like the good crack of a whip beside a horse's ears: telling him the direction, telling him which way to go and that he wasn't alone.
At the cabin, he tied his horse near the corral then began circling, wider and wider with each walk around the structure, watching for any excitement from Chance. Either the ground was so hard and bare or the breezes had laid flat the grasses, allowing no distinct tracks. Up the ravine, the rocks and water showed no signs they'd headed west. But no signs any other way, either. He thought he'd head south. Something about the man's enjoyment watching that first auction months ago made him think of Sacramento.
But he might imagine David would second-guess that and deliberately turn north. He found nothing to tell him either way. He was about to choose, just trust, when he heard the dog bark.
The dog panted and yipped, ran forward, came back. Chance's little tongue hung out, the size of Ben's palm and as pink. It stood out, surrounded by a black curly mustache and beard. “Show me,” David said, and Chance bounded out north. David mounted his horse and followed.
Ruth paced the room. “He had to have been here before. Do you think he might have hidden Neds harmonica and my hat…?”
Her eyes grew large.
“What're you thinking?” Matthew asked.
“The photograph…he scratched out my face. For him to just…to take her… right out from under me! If only I hadnt taken that job. If only I'd gone ahead and tried to find you, Matthew, find my horses, left this place. Gone to Oregon.”
“He still might have found you,” Matthew said. “Looks like he's been on your trail for a time.”
“I'm going to scratch his face,” Ruth said, “on a lithograph. Sam Dosh will let me print some, I know he will. And I'll put them up at the mercantiles in the region. Maybe of Jessie, too.”
“We could ride out and show it around. Give it to the postman too,” Matthew said.
“That could work. At least it would be something.” She heard Jason shout outside. She stood, went to the door open to the August dusk. “What? Who is it?”
“Looks like Elizabeth,” Matthew said. “She's got Sarah with her, and they're pushing their mounts. And they got a basket full of something.”
Within moments, Elizabeth was pulling up, huffing hard.
“It just didn't come to me right away, it just didn't,” Elizabeth said after she told them she'd explain in a minute about the baby named Ben. Sarah took the basket, barely able to carry it inside. “But then Sarah, bless this little cherub, she remembered the name. Zane Randolph. That's it, ain't it?” Sarah nodded.
“What about Zane?” Ruth said. Her shoulders stiffened. Her hands clenched at her side. “Have you seen him and Jessie?”
“Jessie? No, well, see, he come into my bakery a week or so ago. Said he was a friend of Suzanne's—”
“Suzanne's?” Ruth gasped. She'd brought danger to Suzanne, too?
“Said he knew her back in Missouri or Michigan or wherever she was from. And that she'd wrote to him to come visit. But after he left—”
“You didn't tell him how to find her?” Ruth felt her chest tighten, and her hands grew sweaty. She wiped them on her skirt but couldn't seem to get them dry.
“Don't know myself. But I told him you was working at the Courier. I didn't know. I thought you might know where she'd be singing. Well, then after he leaves, Sarah says he lied, that his name was Wesley Marks.”
Ruth blinked, sat, trying to weave it together.
“Shoulda told you before, but I forgot. Didn't tell Mazy either. That ain't the real trial. Today a stage driver comes in with this baby. Says someone has taken his Wintu wife, claimed her as a vagrant, he thinks, and he's off chasing them. Then he shows me the note left by the one took her. Says he has possessions with him, like he had more than one. And Zane Randolph signed it.”
Ruth felt lightheaded. She stared at Elizabeth, gazed around the room, the tentacles of Zane's mastery overwhelming.
Oltipa rode behind Jessie, the weight of her head and her great tiredness forcing her dark hair split by her braids onto the girl's head. She jerked away, then allowed her eyes to close, the drone of the Randolph man coming back to her like a mosquito refusing to light. More words than she understood, sounds taken by the wind as he talked back over his shoulder. She recognized beauties and learn and soft. David Taylor used those words too, but with a different meaning.
She looked down at her legs. They were covered in the tiny blue flowers clustered on pink stripes of the dress David Taylor gave her. Beautiful,” he had called her when she put it on and later when Wita-ela—Ben—first pushed up onto his knees and rocked back and forth as though to crawl to her, had reached at the “flounce.” David Taylor had clapped and shouted as she saw other white men do. His eyes sparkled and he said, “Look what our boy is learning.” His eyes showed tears. “Getting soft,” he'd said.
She did not like those words used by this Randolph man, about what his “beauties needed to learn” about their being “soft” from doing nothing through the summer.
The skirt of the dress bunched up on her legs, pushed between her and the child. My Jessie, her name was. Young. Scared but with eyes hard as marbles. Oltipa wished she had her grass skirt on so when she killed this Randolph man, she could move quickly, wouldn't be stopped by calico catching at her ankles. And if he killed her in her effort and she died, she would already be dressed for her ending.
“I wish his mouth would be quiet,” My Jessie whispered. Oltipa nodded, her chin bumping the girls head.
“I wish him dead,” Oltipa said. “For what he does to my boy.”
“You think your baby's dead?” My Jessie whispered. Oltipa nodded, fought back the pounding in her chest. “He missed the dog he shot at. Least, I didn't see him when we got hauled out to your horse. Maybe he messed up with the baby and he's all right too.”
The image of Ben smiling, crawling, arrived on wings of hope. She scolded herself then, for not paying attention to what she knew as real. The shaking and bruising of her baby while he screamed, that was real. The dropping of him, that was real. The silence when the light went out in the cabin, that too. He would have cried if he had lived, his eyes stayed searching for her through his tears. She would have heard his wails as they rode away. And they'd been gone now, two, three days. How could a small child live without someone to tend him, someone to hold him for safety and love? No, she would be honest with herself. Her family was gone, all gone. The thought made her as dried and wizened as the manzanita berries she saw clustered on the bushes.
“I'm hungry,” My Jessie said.
“You girls having a chat, are you? Regular little sisters back there. Not tired out yet? Not as soft as I thought.” He clucked his tongue. “Unfortunate,” and he rode faster, jerking the rope that bound them. At night, he gave them hunks of food they ate like animals, gobbling. He was smart to bind them. Oltipa would have found a way to hurt him if he hadn't.
She wished he had chosen the trail along the McCloud River where the Pit Indians raided for horses and food. Few white men traveled there now. They might have been freed by the Pit River people. On this Trinity trail north, none would interfere with a white man bound to a woman and child.
The Randolph man looked back, again smiling, a silk scarf blowing out in the hot breeze from his throat. Then he turned and faced forward. They rode down a steep ravine, the horses’ front legs sliding, back legs bending so that the animals nearly sat on the hillside as they slid down the slope. Oltipa lifted her legs in protection, the steepness pushing them forward toward the saddle horn, the rope wrapped around them loosened slightly in the
shift. She noticed the man held his right foot out higher, then quickly back. His foot must hurt.
Oltipa's thighs ached. She had rarely ridden, always a walker, gathering acorns and roots. David Taylor had given her the horse they rode on, but she did not know the animal's ways. They rode beside a stream. A trickle of water splashed up as they crossed it, then back again. Her eyes followed him, studied the horse's ways. Her thoughts plotted.
“How should we do it?” My Jessie whispered.
“I do it,” Oltipa said. “Silver spoon I carry will be sharp inside his eye. You run then.”
The man turned, his hand holding the lead rope high, the rough hemp pinching their arms. “Pretty steep,” he said as they climbed away from the little stream and headed up to a ridge where they could see mountaintops and timber, silver streams of water pressing out from rocks. They rode, one horse following the other, as though they were simply friends out riding. At the top, the ridge widened. Oltipa dropped her head again, rested her chin lightly on My Jessies head. She must think how to get free.
“Look awake,” the man said. “You, too, My Jessie.” He yanked on the rope.
“Not your Jessie,” the child whispered.
Oltipa looked up, scowling. Then her heart quickened. She recognized a rock! She'd seen it in the summer as she'd grown up. At the base of its gnarled gray and sunset yellow grew manzanita berries, ripened in the heat. Glossy dark green leaves could not hide their luscious fruit. She had picked them in season when they were dry and powdery inside. Here she'd mashed them on a rock, made them into a fine powder, a soup. And later, added seed-filled chaff to water and soothed her throat with the drink. Those dried old berries gave much!
Her digging stick had sunk into this dirt once, twice, many times. Beyond were lilies and wild onions found at another time of year— oltipa—spring. It was a distance from the river of her birth, but she knew this place. In late summer, her husband had climbed black oaks in the distance and had shaken the acorns like tiny pebbles covering the ground. Over there, she'd twined a basket, later served salmon in it in the fall. Her father had built a hut for them not far from here. She'd heard rain tap-tap into a steady rhythm on the cedar bark, and they'd moved toward their own river before the snows fell. A pam-hal-hk! A cave! Where she once looked out to see the rock formation. Her eyes scanned the shrubbery and trees.