With Endless Sight

by Allison Pittman

  “Is this true, Belinda?” Daddy asked. He seemed much less threatening than before. Almost deflated.

  “We’ll meet up with him,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “There’s a settlement just north of South Pass. He’ll be waiting for us there.”

  “Or,” Daddy’s eyes took on the twinkle he had passed on to his son, “we’ll be waiting for him, by golly! What was the wager?”

  “The what?” I said.

  “Just bragging rights,” Phoebe said. “That lasts a lot longer than money.”

  “Especially in Chester’s hands,” I muttered as Daddy took his seat again, smiling in unmerited admiration of his son.

  It was stifling inside the stagecoach at full noon when the horses slowed to a walk, then stopped altogether with no station in sight. I poked my head out the window and could see the coach road clearly marked in the short grass that covered the flat land. There were mountains jutting up miles away in every direction, and I felt like the last of a handful of berries left to shrivel in the bottom of a very big dish.

  “The next stop’s not for at least another twenty miles,” Whip shouted down. “Goin’ to rest the horses here. May as well rest yourselves too.”

  We piled out one by one, and I raised my arms to let the summer breeze blow all around me, cooling the sweat on my face.

  “That fellow packed a marvelous dinner for us.” Mother lifted down the wicker hamper I’d shared my seat with. “More of those delicious little plums, I believe. Biscuits and”—she rummaged around—“can you believe it? Cheese!” She lifted a little bundle covered in white cloth to her nose and inhaled. “How wonderful!”

  “Well, my love,” Daddy planted a little kiss on her ear, “had I known it took only a lump of goat cheese to make you this happy, I could have saved a bundle not buying that little bracelet you’re wearing there.”

  Mother turned her head and returned a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I’m just happy I don’t have to choose between the two of them.”

  We’d stopped on a gently rising hill. Just at the base of it, parallel to the coach road, a thick grove of trees promised a much cooler place for a picnic. But Mother had already spread out a blanket and arranged the food. More alluring than the shade, though, was the sound of a swift-running stream. My burning throat nagged for a drink.

  “I’m going to get some water.” I reached for the crockery jug. “Phoebe? Anybody want to come with me?”

  “Wait just a minute and you can take the horses.” Daddy disengaged from Mother and looked up at Whip, shielding his eyes with his hand. “You ready up there?”

  “Ready? Oh, yeah.” Whip seemed distracted, and he continued to stare off into the distance for quite a few seconds before slowly climbing down to unhitch the front team.

  He took forever with the complicated mass of leather and buckles, and I turned toward the stream. “I’m dying here,” I said. “Phoebe, you can bring the horses down to the water.”

  “Aw, I hate horses.”

  “Well then, isn’t it a blessing that they probably hate you too?” I called out over my shoulder, stopping only when I heard my mother call my name. “Yes, Mother?”

  “You really must try to be more kind.”

  “Sorry, Mother. Sorry, Phoebe,” I called, mustering all the sincerity I could. Mother smiled broadly and waved me off.

  When I reached the stream, I fell to my knees and scooped great, cold drinks in my hands. The water poured down my throat, down my face, soaking the neckline of my dress and my sleeves. I poured handfuls of it over my head and felt instantly cool—cold, even, as the breeze wafted over me and caused my teeth to chatter.

  “Hurry up!” Phoebe’s sullen voice came from behind, and when I turned, I saw that she held the reins of the two lead horses. “Aunt Ellen has the food all set out. And how nice of her to remind you to be kind to me.”

  “You are the most obstinate person I know.” I poured out the jug’s warm, stale water. “You decide to love someone, you love him. No matter what. You decide you hate someone? Same thing.”

  “I don’t hate your mother.” Phoebe stepped aside gingerly as the animals dipped their noses in to drink. “I simply stand amazed in the presence of her hypocrisy.”

  “Mother is just—”

  I am still not sure what I planned to say at that moment. Whatever it was got lost as the horses reared, squealing, and knocked me backward into the stream. The cold water took my breath, and in the flash and flurry of hoofs, I thought I saw Phoebe laughing. I was wrong. Her hand had flown to her mouth to silence a scream, and as I floundered out of the water, proclaiming my understanding of why she hated horses, she reached out and clapped that same hand over my mouth.

  “Hush!” She crouched down and brought me down beside her.

  Then I heard it too. Gunfire. Shots ringing out just a few yards away on the other side of these trees, where my mother was spreading out a picnic dinner.

  I lunged in that direction, but Phoebe held me back, whispering furiously, “Are you crazy? Get down!”

  I used all my strength to twist my mouth free from her grip, and we crouched together, our breathing quick and shallow. My skirt was heavy with creek water, my stomach was weighed down with fear, and I would have been perfectly content to spend the rest of that day—the rest of my life—concealed in that thicket.

  Until I heard my mother’s scream.

  From somewhere far away, Phoebe called me, telling me to stop, to come back to her, but hers wasn’t the voice that compelled me. I was pulled by the sound of my mother. The eloquent, refined speech I’d listened to all my life was now disjointed and desperate. I heard high, screeching wails, not words.

  Then I heard another shot.

  Then nothing.

  The branches I’d cleared away so carefully when I was seeking water now crashed against my face. When I came in sight of the stagecoach, my eyes immediately sought out the blanket where I’d last seen her preparing our lunch. But the ground was covered with all kinds of blankets scattered all about the clearing. Then I saw that these weren’t blankets at all, but our clothing. There was my blue dress. Mother’s brown poplin. Daddy’s green shirt with the regrettable ink stain on the cuff. I’d packed all of this away myself. I’d helped lash it all to the back of the coach. The sight of it poured stones into my shoes.

  Then the corner of the bright red riding blanket came into view, then more as I saw my mother lying upon it. She was pitched forward, her face dropped into the blanket’s dusty wool. The only movement was the afternoon breeze toying with one corner of her upturned skirt.

  “Belinda! Go back!”

  I turned to see my father standing behind the coach’s open door. Had it not been for the tuft of hair lifted straight off the top of his head, I might not have recognized him at all. Much of his face was obscured by his derringer leveled straight at me.

  “Daddy?”

  All the pieces scattered around me failed to make a complete picture. My father holding a gun; my mother slain. My eyes trailed away from my father, up the coach to the driver’s box where Whip should have been, sipping from his flask, yelling at all of us to get ourselves back in the coach to hit the trail. But of course he wasn’t there. He’d been unhitching the horses when I left. Only two of them remained now, prancing nervously in place, and when my attention was drawn to the uneasy movement of their hoofs, I saw Whip lying on the ground, face up, bright red staining his shirt.

  Still, none of this explained why my father was pointing a gun at me. That is, until I felt a sharp blade press against my throat and my body press against someone who held me immobile in the crook of his elbow.

  “Now, mister,” he said, “I’m not even gonna ask you to drop the gun. You just look at me and your little girl here and tell me where the money’s at.”

  Daddy kept the gun level. “I told you, I’ve given you everything.”

  “And I’ve told you I know there’s more. What you got here ain’t hardly worth my tim
e. And it sure ain’t worth that woman’s life.”

  “Oh, Daddy, I’m so sorry.”

  I felt the slightest sting of the blade against my skin, and the man behind me hitched me hard against him. He stretched his other arm out, and suddenly I was looking down a pistol’s barrel, aimed at my father.

  “I’m only askin’ you to make the job quicker for me,” the man said. “I can rummage around all this as quick as you can, but I’m givin’ you one more chance. Tell me where the money is.”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  The man holding me seemed just as surprised at the intrusion as I was, for he loosened his grip just enough for me to turn my head and see Phoebe standing in the midst of our scattered belongings.

  “He doesn’t know because it isn’t here,” she continued. “His son, Chester, took it. All of it. And he rode off with it last night.”

  I felt the man behind me slump, just enough for me to wrest myself from his grip. At that second, a shot rang out, and I heard him fall behind me. I ran to my father, who dropped the smoking gun to the ground beside him and took me into his arms. Something broke inside me, and I clutched his shirt, feeling it wet against my cheek.

  “I’m so sorry, Daddy—so sorry—I should have told you—”

  “Hush, hush.” He extended me comfort and forgiveness through his very embrace. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. I just—Phoebe—” I turned to look for my cousin, but she wasn’t where she’d been standing. Instead, she was running toward the man who’d held me and who was now struggling to his feet.

  “Get in the stagecoach,” the man said, wavering his gun between Phoebe and me. “Now.”

  Even as he kept his gun trained on us, his eyes wavered, looking between us and a figure riding toward us, whose thundering horse created a massive cloud of dust in its wake.

  “Do what he says, girls,” Daddy said, and his authority was the only encouragement I needed.

  Phoebe and I scrambled in on the floor, barely closing the door before the sound of hoofs came to a stop. Then we heard the voice of the rider saying, “Well, well, little brother. Looks like you’ve been busy.”

  “Looks like,” said the man who’d held me hostage. “It’s a wash, though. Nothin’ here.”

  “What’s he talkin’ about?” the rider said. “Where’s the money?”

  “I told him I don’t know,” Daddy said. “Apparently I’ve already been robbed. By my own son. Better luck next time.” The bitterness in his voice spoke of a man on the brink of surrender.

  “Be careful, mister,” the first man said, and I thought I heard a hint of gentleness in his voice.

  “I could say the same for you,” the rider said. “This boy of yours. You didn’t know he took your money?”

  “No,” Daddy said.

  “He’s lying,” the one with the knife said. “The boy’s headed south. To Denver.”

  “That true?” the rider asked.

  There was a long hesitation before my father’s shaking voice said, “Yes.”

  “Well then, mister, I don’t figure you’re much good to me.”

  I heard the unmistakable click of a gun being cocked, an explosion of noise, and laughter. Even as I looked up to see the smoke drifting just outside the stagecoach window, it was the sound of the laughter that haunted me. Phoebe and I clutched each other, and it was only because of the pressure of her hand on my mouth that I didn’t scream.

  “What do you say, Laurent?” the rider said. “Feel like headin’ to Denver?”

  “Nah. You know I ain’t one for the big towns.”

  “Suit yourself, Brother.” I heard the scrunching of leather as he mounted his horse, then the sound of hoofs as he rode away.

  Phoebe and I still held each other on the floor of the stagecoach. My ears rang and my eyes and throat burned. There was nothing real about what was happening around me. Nothing had made any sense since my last sip of water. Even now, as the coach door flew open and this stranger grabbed my arm and hauled me out, lifting me over the slumped form of my father. He was shouting questions into my face, questions I couldn’t answer because I couldn’t hear. This scene around me was all vapor, a mirage mingled with the clearing smoke. I hung, limp in this stranger’s grip, waiting for truth to rematerialize.

  Then I heard Phoebe say, “You can’t kill her.”

  He threw me roughly to the ground, and Phoebe came to me, took me in her arms, and ran her hand in comforting circles on my back. When she spoke, I felt like I was a little girl again, curled up in my mother’s lap at the close of some big dinner party as she talked over my head with her friends about things I couldn’t begin to understand.

  “If you ever want to see that money,” Phoebe said, “you need her. She’s the only one who can lead you to her brother.”

  “Get up.” He once again pointed his gun at us.

  I obeyed out of numb resignation more than fear, helped up by Phoebe’s strong arm. He put his free hand to his mouth and whistled, calling a saddled horse to his side.

  “Now get her up there.”

  He gestured with his gun for Phoebe to help me into the saddle, and I didn’t balk until my foot was in the first stirrup.

  “No!” I backed away. “We can’t just leave.”

  “It’s going to be all right,” Phoebe whispered close to my ear. “He’s been shot, he’s bleeding. He’ll be dead before sundown. Just do what he says, Lindy.”

  “But what about—”

  “There’s nothing you can do for them now, Belinda. They would want you to be safe. They loved you.”

  “This is all my fault.” I fell against the horse, taking strange comfort in the warmth of its flank. “All my fault.”

  “You couldn’t have known—”

  All of a sudden, Phoebe was yanked away from me by the man who stood behind us, holding the reins of one of the horses from the team.

  “You get up on this,” he said.

  “There’s no saddle,” Phoebe said.

  “And there’s no reason to keep you alive. I’m just feelin’ generous. Grab a blanket or something and climb on up there and let’s get goin’ before somebody comes ridin’ along to join us.”

  “You’ll have to help me,” Phoebe said with such a matter-of-fact tone one would think the two had been arguing with each other for years.

  She turned to the scattered items strewn about, and the man turned to me. I tried to hold his gaze, but I looked continuously over to Phoebe, who was sifting through piles of garments. When she made her way back, I thought I saw the familiar cuff of my winter coat peeking out from beneath the blanket she carried.

  She didn’t think we were coming back.

  Minutes later, she was throwing a blanket over the horse. She and the man squatted down to catch her foot. He emitted such a cry of agony as he lifted her that I thought for sure he’d spook the horses anew. Once he’d finished, he put his hands on his knees and bent low, spitting pinkish foam into the dust at his feet and breathing heavily for a full minute before turning his attention to me.

  That was the first time I missed an opportunity to get away.

  13

  The land that once flew by in a blur of color seen through an open window now took on texture and dimension as the horses picked their way over the rough terrain ascending the foothills of the mountains that, just hours before, seemed miles away. We’d left the main trail immediately, heading straight north. I learned this from Phoebe when we were allowed a few minutes’ privacy at a stop to rest the horses.

  “How do you know?” I whispered, standing guard between her and our abductor.

  “The map,” she said. “I looked at it every night with your father.” Then the pang of loss hit me. I’d kept my grief wrapped tightly around me, like so many linen cloths wound around my chest, wrapped around my head. I’d ridden for miles in stone silence, the weight of my parents’ killer heavy on my back, listening to his labored breath rasping down my neck
. The cool breeze on my face complemented the growing ice within me, and after the first initial burst of speed, the horses had been slowed to a plodding pace, hypnotic in its rhythm. Each time the thought of my father or the vision of my mother entered my mind, I held my grief a little tighter, knowing there would be a better time to cut it loose and let it fall away.

  And this was it.

  A rushing noise filled my ears, and I fell to my knees. I gathered my skirt in my hands and brought the wadded material to my face and pressed it hard against my eyes. I poured my unvoiced screams into this depth, keeping them safe within the folds. I sobbed until I shook, exhaling deep, jagged breaths until I was desperate for another, and when it came, it mingled with salt and dust. So I choked and gagged and dropped my skirt away from my face and turned to spit out the bile that had been fighting for release along with the rest of my pain.

  “Oh, God!”

  None of the prayers I’d learned in Sunday school fit the vastness of this moment. This didn’t seem like the time to thank Him for His blessings or to offer myself as His humble servant. It was all fine and good to ask for His guidance when such came with a map and a father. But here I was with a murderous stranger and a self-serving cousin. How would He reveal Himself to me through them?

  Just over my shoulder, Phoebe was once again telling me that everything was going to be all right, that she had a pretty good idea of our bearings, that he was getting weaker by the minute, and if he didn’t bleed to death and fall off the horse, we could easily finish him off ourselves and make our way back to the main road. But her words whisked away in the mountain breeze, and the utter silence of promise settled in their wake.

  Be still.

  I closed my eyes against the glory around me and held up my hand to lay my fingers against Phoebe’s ever-moving lips. When she was silenced, I took it away and held both hands open in front of me, feeling the wind dance across my palms.

  “Father God,” I said, but the words were blown back to me, and I knew I could never voice this prayer to Him. None of the rote phrases from the hymnals and prayer books could begin to touch my need. With every syllable stopped at the back of my throat, I railed against Him for taking my parents, leaving me—forsaking me—here in this wasteland, delivering me into the hands of an enemy. I told Him He was cruel, ignoring our prayers for safe passage. Fooling us with faith. Making us believe that, as His children, we were immune from the underhanded evil of this life.