Mazy hadn't laughed so much in…years, she decided. Burke Manes was a wonderful storyteller, especially telling tales of his own foibles. “Didn't you have a compass point to follow?” she said. “A reckoning device, something?”
“It would have done me little good. I knew which way was north. I just didn't know which direction I'd left my horse at.”
Mazy scratched at Pigs head, watched him sniff after a covey of quail. “But you got the elk home. You found your pack animal? You didn't have to consume it out on the trail?”
“Eventually,” he said. “Gave me time for pondering, wandering around in my own little southern Oregon wilderness.”
“Deep thoughts, I'm sure.” She liked that he used a word her mother was fond of too.
“In a way.” He grinned at her, a single dimple in his check. “I decided I knew why the Israelites were lost for forty years in a stretch of desert only twenty miles wide.”
“Why?” she said.
“Because the men refused to stop and ask for directions.”
Mazy doubled over in laughter again. “Oh, Mister Manes,” she said.
“Burke,” he said. “It's Burke, and I do hope I have the privilege of calling on you again. Seldom does a man have such an attentive audience.” I m sure—
“What's that?” Burke said, looking past her, holding his hand up for silence.
Mazy turned. She heard it now too, the clanging of the dinner triangle.
“Ruth must want us back there,” Matthew said.
“I wonder what's got that terrapin in such a tizzy,” Lura noted.
“Maybe somethings happened to Jessie,” Matthew said and started down the zigzag trail at a run.
At the house, Jessie was draped across the hitching rail with one hand, clanging as hard as she could against the iron with the other.
“Hey, hey,” Matthew said, holding her up. “We're here. How'd you get out here? Where's your mama?” He looked beyond her.
“She ain't inside,” Lura said, stepping past him to scan through the open door.
“He. Took. Her.” Jessie gasped each word. “He. Took. Her.”
“Who? Who took her?”
“Buggy tracks,” Seth said. “Fresh ones.”
“That man,” Jessie said, and she wept. “Zane Randolph.”
“Ma. You, Mariah, Mazy, you stay with Jessie here,” Matthew ordered. “Boys, grab up our mounts.”
“I'm going with you,” Mazy said. “I'll take Ruth's Koda.” They raced to the barn, bridled up. Mazy swung to ride astride, bareback. “Hold the gate,” Mariah and Matthew shouted as one. When Mazy rode through, she spied a new horsehair rope. The one Ruth had been working on, she bet. She leaned, grabbed it, and kicked Koda to a gallop.
He hadn't even felt a need to rush. This was so delicious. He'd been calm. He had kept to his plan. It was sped up a bit; he'd had little time to let Ruth squirm, to let the realization of what he'd do to her fester within her. He'd squeeze from her every gold eagle she had earned. And then he'd take her life. He supposed he was fortunate no one else was there, though he would have loved to see the face of the man he'd bested once and for all. The child having seen him dampened things a bit. No matter. Even the drizzle couldn't drown his ecstasy, his triumph.
He'd keep her…no. He'd pull aside, finish what he started, then bury her in the timber.
The buggy slid on the road, and he realized the drizzle had turned the trail to muck. He didn't need this now. He certainly didn't want to get stuck in muddy ruts with Ruth beside him. He lifted the buggy whip, snapped it against the horse and shouted to keep the animal moving. He had that stream to cross, and then he could make it to the outskirts of Jacksonville, ride on through to One Horse Town. The Chinese and Kanaka would pay no attention to a woman left in their garbage heap. That would give him time to revive her, savor her terror before he finished his dessert.
Now that he'd decided, he couldn't make the horse move fast enough. He struck it again and mud flew up, pitting his hat. The horse slowed, and that was when he felt more than heard hooves thundering behind him.
Rain pelted their faces. “They're up ahead!” Matthew shouted, and he leaned forward on his horse. The Quarter-Pather seemed to tighten up, then explode in response to Matthew's knees. They could all see the buggy ahead. And beyond Mazy could see the creek Burke had said was called Daisy when they'd splashed through it early that morning. It was running full now. Even up onto the grassy bank. A tree had washed down, leaving the branches and roots tangled around a boulder and smaller rocks. It was right where the ford was. Too narrow for the buggy, she thought. He'd have to stop. They'd have him! And Ruth, too.
“What's he doing?” Seth shouted.
Mazy blinked. The rain came almost sideways now, the wind blowing with it. She felt blinded and lifted her skirt to wipe at her eyes. Could that be? He was trying to drive the buggy into the swollen stream, into the rush of the water.
“Hold back!” Matthew shouted. “Let them be! The mans crazy!”
They pulled up, the horses breathing hard.
Randolph pushed again, the poor buggy horse rearing, stepping backward while he whipped it forward. “Go! You blasted horse! Go, I say!”
The animal was frenzied now. Pig ran past Mazy, barking, which added to the sounds of rain, the splatter of mud, a screaming horse being driven beyond its limits.
“No, Pig!” Mazy called out. The dog stopped, but the buggy horse went on, entered the water. Zane drove it into the ford, into the branches and leaves being swept along, catching the wheels in the net of tree root and rock. “It's too narrow!” Mazy shouted.
Her words gave no halt to his effort. Water rose up to the horses belly. It tried to rear, tried to move back, then lunge forward. They all watched as though in slow motion: The horse broke through the web of branches held firm there while the buggy pitched up on one wheel and came down jammed in the rocks. Zane jolted forward, and Ruth spread as limp as a whip across him and the box.
The horse pulled, attempted to rear, twisted by the harness and stiff side rods. It gave one last effort, the filly s throe shifting and tipping the buggy more. Zane appeared to be skewed deep into the wedge of the rock, his movement hampered by an unconscious Ruth.
“Ruth!” Mazy shouted. “Ruth! Can you hear us?”
Matthew had dismounted. He plunged, high-legged through the raging water, his knife drawn.
His leg! His leg was caught! And not The Stub. The good leg, his only leg. What was that? A bone! A bone exposed in his good leg! He felt numb like he had been in the river when the brat and that Indian woman had left him behind. Horses, always horses and women ruined him. Ruth moaned. He could hear his own raspy breathing. He had pushed too hard. He could have had it all legally. Why had he pushed the horse? Her fault. Ruths fault. His cane with the stiletto knife drifted toward him, caught in Ruths arm hanging limply across Zane s body. He looked up and saw a man in the water. A blade in his hand. He grabbed Ruth tighter.
What is that idiot doing? Trying to cut the reins? The harness free? What difference does it make? The animal will diel That must be Ruth's man! The horse cant live. Why is he bothering with it? Why isnt he helping me? Iù a trick! He wants Ruth. He's moving to grab Ruth.
“Get my leg out! You fool! Idiot! Can't you see? Leave the horse be! Help me! “
He was coming closer. Yes, here he was.
“Pull up, under my arms. Do that!” Zane shouted to him. But the man was reaching for Ruth. “Dont bother with her.” He grabbed at his cane, pushed the man back with it.
“Let her go, and I'll be able to help you!” Ruths man shouted at him. He moved here and there, climbing above and around, yanking and pulling, trying to free Ruth from Zanes grasp. The pain seared into Zanes brain. “No! Get a rod, something! Anything. Free the leg. Free the leg!”
“Its wedged, I tell you. Its broken. Cant you see the bone? I cant get you out unless you give Ruth to me so I can cut you free!”
“What?”
Ru
ths man came closer, almost over him now, holding a heavy knife. He was close enough to hear even over the noise of the horse screaming, the rage of the water, and a dog barking, barking. “You 11 die unless I get your leg free. I can try to saw it off! Let Ruth go so I can reach it.”
“My leg? You want to saw my leg?” Cut my good kg?“I'd sooner die,” Zane shouted. Ruth caused this, all of this. Dear Ruth.
“You will,” he was told.
Zane lunged for him then, felt searing pain from his leg to his back.
“Its wedged, I tell you! Give me Ruth, and I'll cut you free.”
The fool. Free? With two bad legs? Free? He could not carry out a plan with one bad leg; he could do nothing with two.
In that moment Zane knew what he would do.
He pushed at Ruth. The suddenness of it threw the man off balance, Zane grabbed for the heavy knife, used his own cane with one hand to hold Ruth in the swirling current, her white throat exposed.
“Ruth!” Zane heard the man yell as he struggled to stand against the current and slick rocks and roots. The man reached for Ruth, couldn't touch her.
Zane held the knife high, a warning. His knuckles on the blade were white as his broken bone. He controlled nothing now except this one thing—the thrust of a sharp knife. Then with his cane, he pushed Ruth into the stream, let his cane go. All that was left was this. With a singular force he plunged the blade deep into his chest.
Even from the bank Mazy could see Ruth's body twisting out of their reach in the water. She was faceup now, an arm tangled, then loosened. Matthew was so close, but the current pushed her out beyond his reach.
Help her, help her, help her. She spoke the prayer, squeezing her hands against the reins, then felt the rope.
“Matthew!” she screamed to him. “I'll toss the lariat!” She flung the coil, holding one end. It fell short. Ruth groaned, the water reviving her.
Burke rode up beside Mazy. “Let me toss it,” he said as she pulled the line back in to make another throw.
But Pig had other plans. He grabbed the line being pulled back, ran partway down the shore then lumbered in, swimming with his nose high, in seconds at Ruth's side, the rope in his dark mouth.
“Ruth! Look at Pig!” Matthew shouted, and Mazy watched as her best friend's hand gripped the lariat still held by Pig.
Burke and Seth began pulling, and by then Matthew had come close enough to lift her from the waters of Daisy Creek.
“He was a bad man,” Jessie said.
“Yes, he was,” Ruth told her, holding her close back at home. A blanket draped Ruths shoulders. The rest of them stood near the stove, like stiff woolen socks drying out. “But even he couldn't stop you from getting help.”
Jessie cried then. “I was just so scared,” she said. “So scared. He hurt you. I had to make my legs work.”
Matthew came to her then, and he wrapped his arms around them both, and Ruth thought she might have heard him stifle a sob. She pushed back.
“Are you all right, Matthew?” she said. He nodded, thumbed his eyes. She pushed the section of white hair that faded into the black away from his forehead. “Thank you. Mazy said you tried to save…him, too.”
“I was trying to get to you. He…I wanted him to let you go. I couldn't get to you except through him.”
“It was like a horrible dream,” Ruth said.
“I didn't want you somehow blaming yourself for his dying in the river,” Matthew said, his words clipped short.
“I wanted him dead,” Ruth said quietly. “My being sent to jail for it would have been worth keeping Jessie…and you safe.”
“Why didn't you tell me, Ruth? We could have come up with some other plan.”
“Love means not telling all you know sometimes,” she said.
“He'd have made you into something you never could be, Ruth. This place, your life, none of it's worth the price you were willing to pay for the likes of him.”
“It wasn't for him. It was for my family. All of you.”
Matthew held her closer, his other arm rubbing Jessie's shoulder. “It isn't ever going to be easy living with you. I've already resigned myself to that. But when I think of living any other way, I come up empty. You're all I ever wanted, Ruth. That, and family, these kids and maybe a handful of our own.”
“I should have told you what he was planning, to take half if not all of everything. Then he said he'd use the law to get Jessie, too. But I could only see one way out, and I knew you would have stopped me.”
Matthew said, “You don't have to stand up to people like that by yourself. There is always another way. We are never alone. I hope to prove that to you over the next fifty years. Even independent women have limits, Ruth. It takes a strong woman to accept that.”
They sat at the fireside, consuming the cobbler Mazy had made. The sheriff had said he'd be out later to follow up on the suicide at the creek. Just the thought of it, of this day, caused Ruth to shiver. She stood to stoke the fire when Mariah burst in.
“There's a mare foaling. She's having trouble.”
They headed for the barn, even Jessie, wobbly as a young colt. The mare was down, laboring hard.
“I massaged the mare's opening with some of ma's lard, but it didn't do anything,” Mariah wailed. “I couldn't keep her walking.”
“She can't go much longer,” Ruth said, exhausted after this day.
“You should have called us sooner. Let's try to pull the foal,” Matthew said. “Must be a big one.”
Ruth reached inside, slipping her fingers and a rawhide strand around the unborn foal's feet that they could barely see. Matthew pulled then, the twine attached to a rope that strained against his broad back. Nothing.
“I don't want her to die,” Mariah said.
“We're doing out best, Pipsqueak,”
But the mare raised her neck, snorted and moaned, lay back down. Finally she just gave up. Mariah hovered at the horses neck, talking and crooning, urging her to hold on, but she exhaled and was gone.
“Time to let go, Pipsqueak,” Matthew told her.
“No!” Mariah said. “No!” Matthew leaned over the girl whose arms wrapped around the mares neck like a child holding a feather pillow, wanting to sink in and disappear.
“Can we save the foal anyway?” Mazy said.
“The baby wont make it,” Ruth said. “There's no sense.”
Mariah wailed again.
“We'd have to cut it out and even then—”
“You had your horse cut up after he died, so what's the diiference?” Mariah sobbed, her chest heaving against the side of the horse.
Her words pulled at Ruth's heartstrings.
“We might have a chance, Ruth,” Burke said. “If we worked fast. The nose is nearly out, feet too. I actually think the thing is breathing. On its own.”
“Keeping orphans alive—” Ruth began.
“We could try,” Matthew said. “Ruth?”
“You don't do anything unless Ruth says,” Mariah yelled at him.
“I do what I think is right, Mariah,” he said. “That's what a brother does for a sister, what a man does for his family.” To Ruth he said, “Some things are worth doing regardless of how they turn out.”
Ruth hesitated then risked. “All right. I'll try to get some of the colostrums, from the mother's bag.”
“That's my job,” Mazy said.
“Jason, round up Lura's goat. Put her up on the lard barrel there, so she's the right height for this baby to suck the goat's milk when she or he stands. If it stands. We might have enough milk to keep the baby going. Burke, can you take the rope, let Matthew cut the baby out.
Ruth and Mazy worked swiftly, the reddish milk from the dead mare filling the bottom of a bucket Ruth held while Matthew sliced up through the belly of the horse.
The foal slipped out, slick and looking more like a newborn kitten than something that would stand taller than any of them if it lived.
“Its a stud colt,” Matthew said.
>
Ruth cleaned its mouth with her fingers, let it suck against them. They wiped the clear sack from its coat, while she encouraged the colt to stand. Mazy poured the colostrum into a glove with a hole in it, to reward the baby as soon as it stood firm.
“Hell need to be fed every few hours, Mariah,” Ruth said. “Put to that goat, or well milk it and glove feed it.”
“He's alive,” Mariah said.
And so are we, Ruth thought. One more rock climbed over. One more memory made.
The colt made a rocking motion as though it wanted to stand, and they helped it up, still rubbing its body with a rough towel, the way a mother might lick it with her tongue.
“I think he can do it alone,” Burke said. “Mrs. Bacon, get your glove, then lets bring him over to that goat.”
The colt sniffed and bunted. The goat bleated. And then with a little help, it jabbed against the udder of the goat that Jason held. The goat turned to look at the colt, went back to chewing the hay Ned and Sarah and Jessie had placed before it.
“You know,” Ruth said, her eyes glistening. “He looks a lot like Jumper.”
“So you'll be heading back with Seth then?” Burke Manes asked Mazy. The rain still drizzled onto the shake roof, but Mazy felt warmed by her shawl and Burke s presence as they sat beneath Ruth's porch.
“He's anxious to leave in the morning,” she said. “Someone special waits for him in Sacramento. And I have people to arrange passage for, getting them north. Lura will be a big help here when the Celestials arrive. And those Ayrshires might just be missing me though Oltipa and little Sula and the others have taken to them too.”
“Seth said you've risked much for people you dont know.”
“Most of us don't even notice them, the Indians or the Chinese. I rail against that because each Yurok or Wintu or Hoopa or Cantonese bears something…distinct about them. To me. But others see them like similar stones they can dismiss.”
“It should make it easier to move people in and out without notice that way,” Burke said.
“I hadn't thought of that. But yes.” She nodded. “‘No eye has seen—’”