But even with her eyes closed she knew when he approached. Felt the sudden cooling as his shadow drifted over her. Sensed as his arm came down to snatch her from her hiding place.
Ketta screamed. Right up until Kuo smothered the sound with a hand that stunk of horse and dirt and maybe death. And still she fought, wriggling and twisting and garnering scrapes and bruises from beating herself against his saddle. The stone cuts bled again. Once she grabbed for the pistol in his belt and got roundly slapped for her pains.
In the end, none of it did any good. She was still his captive.
They rode out at a gallop, passing several of Patton’s loose horses that had stopped to graze on the sparse yellow grass. Chasing them into a run again, after a mile they slowed down, angling toward the conglomeration of tracks Frank and Milt had left. Those tracks now headed toward mountains rising blue in the distance.
“Stupid muck-eaters,” Kuo said. “They don’t even know where they are. Or where they’re going.”
Tug laughed. “Good riddance. We headed for the river, boss? Maybe we gonna catch a steamboat out of this country?”
Steamboat? Fresh terror shook Ketta. Nobody would come after her if Kuo took her away in a steamboat. Nobody would guess where she’d gone.
She hiccuped on a small sob. Probably nobody would even care. Except her mother, if Mama was still alive. And maybe Yester. Yes. She thought Yester would care, too. But not Big Joe.
“I’ll think on it,” Kuo said after a time, finally answering Tug’s question.
They abandoned the trail when they found a gully that led downhill over ground so dry and hard even Tug was confident no tracks would show. Some distance later they found a low point and climbed out of the gully. They went faster then, horses loping over even spots, slowing when gopher holes and erosion broke the earth. It didn’t take long to come upon Milt and Frank’s trail again.
Ketta’s whole body hurt from riding crammed between Kuo and the saddle. The sun beat down on her bare head. She was thirsty, too, and dirty, and hot enough to melt. Silent tears ran down her cheeks, tears she angrily brushed away.
“I don’t want to go on a steamboat,” she announced.
Kuo snorted; Tug guffawed.
“You go where I tell you, girl.” Her father gave her a shake that wrenched her neck.
“Take a switch to her,” Tug advised. “A few lashes will cure her argumentative nature.”
Kuo stiffened against her back. “She’s got spirit,” he said, almost as if he were defending her.
“She’s got sass, and that ain’t a favorable trait in a girl child. Need to beat it out of her. It’s a father’s duty.”
Ketta felt Kuo’s breath on the back of her neck. Hot and heavy. Angry?
At Tug? Or at her for embarrassing him in front of Tug?
“You know so much about being a father?” Kuo asked the black man.
“Hell, yes.” Tug grinned. “Got eight children.”
“Eight?” Even Kuo sounded a little shocked. “Where are they? I didn’t know you had a wife.”
“Who says I do?” Tug, riding slightly ahead, turned in his saddle and winked. “The children, they’re scattered here and there. It ain’t like I’m a man satisfied to stay in one place with one woman. Not for long.”
Kuo grunted.
Ketta despaired.
CHAPTER SIX: YESTER
Big Joe swung Rory around, acting as though he hadn’t heard Mrs. Patton’s question about the girl. About Ketta.
“Hurry it up, son,” he said to Yester. They all understood the message was meant for Fontaine and Nat, as well. “We’ll gather my horses and get them out of these good people’s hair.”
He turned back to the Pattons and tipped his hat. “I’m obliged to you for holding our stock in your pen. I take it kindly. If you’re up our way, stop by anytime. My missus will fix a fried chicken dinner for you.”
Patton nodded, but his missus tapped the stock of her shotgun on the porch floor. “The child?” she repeated. “What are you doing for her?”
“Why, nothing to speak of, ma’am. She’s my woman’s daughter, none of my concern.”
The rancher leaned down to whisper something to her, not that it had any apparent effect. She shook her head, as if disagreeing with him. Her lip curled as she eyed Big Joe, her sweeping glare taking in all of them.
Fontaine sat his horse, his expression placid, while Nat made faces at Yester. Yester pretty well guessed what Nat’s faces meant, too. His question was the same as Mrs. Patton’s.
“That isn’t right.” Her voice rose over whatever her husband was saying. “Any child is more important than horses. Even one . . .” The rest trailed off, inaudible.
Yester guessed he knew what Patton had said to her. Neither Ketta’s mixed blood, nor the way she’d come about, was much of a secret in this section of the country. People, when they got together, talked, and the account of the attack on the Noonan ranch all those years ago had been spread mouth to mouth all over the Northwest. He suspected there were some folks around who sided with his father. They didn’t know Ketta, though, how she was smart and funny and brave.
Big Joe glowered at the woman who dared question his actions. To Yester’s apprehension, his pa appeared to be swelling up like a toad frog. A sure sign of his temper rising. Finally, some modicum of common sense took over, and, avoiding the woman’s accusing stare, he reined his horse in a needless circle.
“Yester,” he said, all sharp and demanding. “Git.” At the last moment, he paused and spoke directly to the woman. “The girl, I’m telling you . . . she’s an abomination and none of mine. Ain’t any of my business, either. Anyways, we don’t even know she’s with them. For all I know she might’ve took fright and run off somewhere. She’s prone to doing that.”
Mrs. Patton took a step forward. “And I would ask why?”
“Why? I don’t reckon that’s anything to bother yourself over,” Big Joe said.
“A child is everybody’s business.”
Patton laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “The girl is with them,” he said to Big Joe. “I seen tracks. Looked like she’d tried to hide herself away, but it didn’t work.”
Big Joe shrugged and set spurs to his horse, making it dance in place. Over at the barn, two men poked their heads around the wide-open door. Tacked up horses showed inside.
Yester didn’t move except his breath going in and out and steadily deeper. “She’s my business,” he announced in an angry burst. “She’s my sister, and I ain’t leaving her with no damn Celestial outlaw.”
“Half sister.” Big Joe came near to shouting. “And a half-wit. Nothing to be proud of. Leave her with her own blood.”
“She’s my blood.” Yester’s own came near to boiling. “Mine and Ma’s. And she’s no half-wit. She’s smarter than any of us.”
“Smarter than you if she’s got you wound around her finger.”
Patton stepped off his porch. He motioned with his Winchester. “Your horses are just over that hill. Get ’em and go. I ain’t having my wife upset any more than she already is, and I ain’t mixin’ any in a stranger’s family matter.”
“Good enough.” Joe Noonan’s voice turned hard. “Hurry it up,” he ordered Yester and cantered off.
Patton eyed Big Joe’s retreating figure as he headed in the indicated direction. “He your neighbor?” he asked Fontaine as the scout turned his horse to follow.
“Yes.” Fontaine paused.
“Bet he ain’t a good one,” Patton said.
Fontaine’s lips twitched.
Yester hung his head as he and Nat fell in behind Fontaine, their horses plodding at a more restful pace. Why’d Big Joe have to be so damn mean and argumentative, anyhow, setting everyone against him without half trying? He’d been different once upon a time, or so Yester thought. He remembered his father playing with him, held in the saddle in his pa’s arms being taught to ride. Of Big Joe laughing and swinging Ma around like they were dancing.
Until the day that man took his ma and bloodied her. He never played like that again.
And then Ketta was born.
Ketta, who was afraid to even cry.
He turned in his saddle. “I’m going after her,” he shouted, but he was too late. The Pattons had gone inside and shut the door.
When they got to the remuda pen, Pa was already on the ground, examining hooves, rigging halters, and checking the overall condition of the recovered horses. All were well, except the one with the limp in its right foreleg, even if the sweat dried on them indicated hard use.
Big Joe was cussing up a storm. Overhearing, anyone who didn’t know him would’ve thought every animal ruined.
Fontaine shook his head. “He shouts to hide his responsibility for Ketta from himself,” he said to Yester. “Maybe he thinks he hides it from you.”
“I’m going after her.” Yester set his lips. “Don’t matter what Pa says.”
Fontaine nodded. “I understand.”
“I’m going with him, Father,” Nat said, looking worried.
At this, Fontaine hesitated. “Your mother . . .”
“He’s my friend.” Nat glanced at Yester. “And he doesn’t track as well as I do. He might get lost.”
“Will not,” Yester said.
Fontaine gave a little huff. “Have you supplies, Yester? Money? Ammunition for that rifle?” He indicated the beat-up old rifle in a scratched scabbard attached to Yester’s saddle.
“Got five dollars,” Yester said. “Got some ammunition, so I guess I can shoot me and Nat our supper.” He glanced at his friend. “Maybe I can’t track as well as you, but I sure can shoot better.”
Wisely, Nat avoided that trap. “You have five dollars?” He allowed surprise to widen his dark eyes. “Where’d you get it?”
Yester glanced at his pa, who was winding a piece of dirty white cloth tightly around the limping horse’s cannon. “I had two dollars, and Ma gave me three more before we left. Egg money, she said, to help me find Ketta.” He spoke low, so Pa wouldn’t hear.
Fontaine nodded. “Then you must do as your mother says. Mothers are to be obeyed.”
Except, to no one’s surprise, that didn’t quite jibe with Big Joe’s opinion.
Yester had dismounted and worked hard helping his pa prepare the rest of the horses for the trail home. Not until they all were ready did he broach the subject of Ketta’s abduction again.
“Ma asked me to,” he reminded Big Joe. “And I promised.”
“The woman is out of her head,” Pa raged. “Been that way for some years now. Ever since . . . Well, she ain’t thinking straight, and that’s for sure, otherwise she wouldn’t dream of sending her son, a kid, after a no-account abomination like a mixed-blood Celestial brat. Like to get him butchered, is what. Fellers killed those Chinks down on the Snake thirteen years ago had the right idea. Too bad they missed the one that showed up here.”
“What fellers?” Yester was confused. “What Chinks? What are you talking about? What’s this got to do with Ketta?”
“I’m talking about the one they didn’t shoot.”
No more enlightened, Yester shook his head, whereupon Big Joe pointed a dirt-encrusted forefinger at him.
“Never you mind. Get up on that horse, and head for home where you belong.” His voice gritted like sand on rocks. “Now. You’re not too old for me to take a strap to where it’ll do the most good.”
Unfortunately, and Yester knew it for himself, he’d been born with a stubborn streak. Maybe something he’d inherited from Big Joe. He shook his head. “We’re close behind them now. I figure on catching up by tonight. We’ll be home right behind you.”
“You ain’t going anywhere without I say so, sonny, and I’m saying get on that horse and head for home.” Big Joe’s face grew darker and more sullen by the minute, and even his nose seemed swollen, as though stung by a bee. His muscles flexed. “Now, afore I beat the tar outta you.”
Yester’s guts trembled, though he hoped none of that showed on the outside. “No, sir,” he said. “I can’t do it. Me and Nat, we’re going. Ketta, she’s my sister, even if only half, and that’s what counts.”
The blow to his face came so fast he hadn’t a chance to duck or, better option, to skip out of the way. He landed on his butt in dust made powdery by the churning of many horses’ hooves. Big Joe made to reach down and pull him up by his shoulder but hadn’t counted on Yester’s weight, added to in the last couple months. Yester easily twisted aside, scooting away as his father lifted a booted foot ready to thud into his backside.
“Cut it out,” he yelled at his father.
Pa affected not to hear, following as Yester scuttled out of reach.
Until Fontaine took a hand. Literally. “Enough,” the scout said, his arm catching Big Joe across the belly and holding there. His dark face was drawn down tight. “You make a mockery of fatherhood,” he said to Big Joe. “Your son honors his mother and his sister. You should be proud of this boy who vows to do a man’s job.”
The implication seemed to Yester as if Fontaine were saying Big Joe should be going to Ketta’s rescue. And maybe that he wasn’t much of a man.
“You stay out of this.” Big Joe wrenched at Fontaine’s arm like it was a bar of steel. “Ain’t none of your business.”
“It is my business when my son honors his friendship with your son by going along to help. Do I like it? No. I fear danger for both of them. But they will soon be men, maybe by the end of this quest. They have the right to choose their path. I will help you get your horses to your ranch and that is that.”
The two glared into each other’s eyes, Big Joe’s falling first.
But if Yester expected a blessing at this point, he was sadly mistaken.
“Don’t bother bringing the abomination back,” his pa said. “Don’t come dragging yourself home, either. I won’t have you, and I won’t have her. You take her part over your own pa’s, then you can have the keeping of her.”
“I don’t want to come back,” Yester choked out. “Except to see Ma. I’m sick of your meanness.”
“Don’t count on seeing the woman,” his pa said. “Could be she won’t be there, either.”
And with that, he stomped over to his horse and swung astride. “Hiya,” he shouted at the horses in his string and yanked on the lead.
Fontaine shook his head and touched his son’s chest above his heart. “Take care,” he said. “And take care of him.” His nod included Yester.
But Yester couldn’t see on account of the dust irritating his eyes and somehow filling them with moisture hard to blink away.
KETTA
Ketta’s insides trembled as the miles wound out behind them. And though she tried her best to remain upright and proud, she felt herself shrinking down smaller and smaller until she drooped over Kuo’s arm like a wilted flower.
Hours ago, not too long after they left the ranch where the outlaws had stolen the horses, Kuo had sent Tug on ahead to find Milt and Frank.
“Tell them we’ll meet at the cabin.” Kuo had sounded tired and angry. “Day after tomorrow.”
Tug eyed him with what Ketta judged to be suspicion. “Day after tomorrow? We could make it sooner. Why don’t we catch up with them and ride to the cabin now?”
Kuo shifted in the saddle. “I don’t like riding with them, that’s why,” he said. “And I’ve got something else to do first.”
Ketta lifted her head, relieved to hear Kuo say so. She didn’t like riding with them, either. Them, most of all, even more than with Tug.
A loud snort from Tug’s broad nose made her jump, but he was only laughing. “Kuo, you ain’t thinking. We get to the cabin, it’ll only be worse. They’ll be worse. They’re white. They don’t like men who got black or yellow skin. What you got to do is run ’em off. Otherwise, one of these days you’re gonna have to kill ’em. Or they’ll kill you.”
Ketta guessed Kuo couldn’t argue. At least, he didn’t, and after a moment he simply said, �
��Go on, now. Do like I told you.”
So, Tug, slapping the Percheron with the reins, galloped on out ahead, leaving her and Kuo to take a slower pace. After a while, Ketta noticed they were ambling in a different direction.
A long time later, or so it seemed to Ketta, Tug appeared again, and he was in no good mood.
“Just about didn’t find you,” he said, taking off his hat and wiping sweat from his brow and the side of his face. The Percheron was lathered. “Where the hell you think you’re going?”
“I told you. I’ve got some business to take care of,” Kuo said.
“Business? What kind of business?”
“Mine. In Lewiston. It don’t take us much out of the way.”
“The hell,” Tug said, settling more comfortably in his saddle. “Lewiston, eh? I like Lewiston fine. Like Portland better.”
Finally, as dusk cast out fingers of dark so that they rode first in shadow and then in light, they reached the top of a tall hill covered with low sage, rabbit holes, and sharp shale rocks. Kuo called a halt, then. Possibly because even Tug had started grumbling.
“Get down,” Kuo said to her. “Stretch your legs. Pee.” He handed her a metal canteen covered in a thick cloth. “And drink.”
Ketta looked around as she took a sip of water almost as hot as though it’d been heated on the stove and whimpered, “There’s no place to hide.”
“Go over there, on the off side of the horse.” He looked over at Tug, who was already unbuttoning his britches. “We will stand on the other side.” And louder. “With our backs turned.”
Tug snorted. “Reckon she’ll get used to looking at men soon enough.”
Kuo didn’t answer.
What did Tug mean? Ketta wondered. She often saw men, but she didn’t pee in front of them. Nor did they, she reflected, pee in front of her.
It was hard, turning loose, although from the sound of things the men had no such problem. Eventually she got the job done, and then there was nothing to do but go around to where the men paced slowly along the top of the knoll, scanning back the way they’d come. She watched them, staying close to the horse, who nuzzled her hair as if he might find it tasty.
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