Under a Painted Sky

by Stacey Lee

  Annamae hitches one shoulder a fraction. These men, boys really, except for the Mexican who looks a few years older than his companions, both outnumber and outweigh us. If we refuse, they may take our supper anyway, maybe even our gear, light as it is. In the second it takes me to process this, I hear myself say, “On one condition.”

  My voice sounds too high so I tune it to my lowest pitch and add bluster. “If we let you share our supper, and a good one it is, will you let us double ride your bay to the Little Blue?”

  Green-Eyes drapes an arm over his saddle. “Must be one helluva supper. But you’ll have to ask the vaquero,” he replies, nodding to the Mexican.

  The Mexican does not speak as he tugs off his sleek riding gloves. The gray horse and the bay push their noses at him. He rubs each of their faces in turn, not acknowledging me.

  The one with the scars on his arm watches me being ignored. “That means no,” he says, his voice clear and smooth like freshly steeped oolong tea. His voice. It’s the man whose horse nearly collided with me when I tripped yesterday.

  “He doesn’t let just anyone ride his caballo,” he continues. “Gotta prove yourself.”

  I go still as a pinecone as his sorrel drifts around me. Does he recognize me? He only saw me from the back after I fell. Then again, I could have erred. I don’t budge a muscle as he inspects me.

  “Oh, come on, get a wiggle on, compadre,” Green-Eyes says to the Mexican. “I’m about to die of hunger.”

  The Mexican takes out a brush and starts to groom the saddleless bay. The Mexican has not looked at me once, though the bay casts me a gimlet eye. With her long legs and proud bearing, she moves as gracefully as a gazelle, clearly outmatching me.

  Still conscious of the scarred man appraising me, I lift my chin and ask, “¿Cómo puedo probar?” How do I prove my worth?

  Green-Eyes chokes out a laugh. Annamae’s pupils slide from one side to the other, like she’s not sure she heard right. Finally paying attention, the Mexican swaggers toward me like a Spanish bullfighter addressing a cow that has wandered into the arena: posture erect, nostrils flared, eyes bemused.

  “Hablas Español,” he murmurs. “Si Princesa te quiere, entonces tenemos un trato.” I translate in my head: If Princess likes you, we have a deal.

  I sigh. So I must let this royal beast bite me before I can trade a ride to the river for our supper, which must be cold by now, not to mention dusty. I don’t have much of a choice, seeing that I stepped into this pie to begin with. Plus, I’ll happily take a horse bite over a hemp collar.

  I shade my brow to sneak another glance at Annamae. She curls her pinkie at me and mouths the word rattlesnake.

  Princesa pokes her nose into the grass. I have not moved more than three paces toward her when she lets out a scream so shrill that I fall hard into the dirt. Dear God, it must be the Snake in me. Horses dislike people born in the Year of the Snake. I scramble backward, and Green-Eyes slaps his knee and hoots, lighting my face on fire.

  Annamae covers her mouth with her hand, then quickly drops it.

  The Mexican rests an elbow on the gray horse’s withers, the silver rosettes trimming his black trousers and jacket winking at me in unison. The scarred man peers down at me in the dirt.

  I catch my breath and steel myself for another attempt. Laugh at me, will you? Then I have an idea. Earlier, I tucked my violin case in an indentation of the stone wall, and now I fetch it. Opening the case, I remove the tin I keep handy for the children’s lessons. Palming the contents, I march back up to the snotty-nosed bay.

  The mare stands an arm’s length away. Annamae rises to her feet.

  “Pretty horsey,” I croon.

  “Princesa sólo entiende Español,” says the Mexican in a low voice.

  I sniff, doubting horses understand human language at all, Spanish or English. To be safe, though, I give a rough Spanish version of, “If you let me pet you, I will give you this sweet,” and hold out my hand.

  In my palm, five peppermint candies melt into one pink blob. Princesa whips her head up and squeals again, blowing hot grassy breath all over me. I shrink back and shut my eyes. Her mouth crashes down onto my open hand.

  Princesa smacks her lips noisily. I snatch back my hand, which thankfully is still attached to my arm, and whimper in relief.

  Princesa noses around for more sweets. I scratch her forehead and see her ears flick.

  The men whoop, and the Mexican adds a cry of “Ay ay ay!” from somewhere in the back of his throat.

  Green-Eyes drops next to our fire. “Well, I guess you boys got yourself a mount. I’m Cay, short for Cayenne Pepper. That’s my cousin West.” He nods at the scarred man. Then he waves a gloved hand toward the Mexican. “That’s our wrangler, Pedro Hernando Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria Gonzalez.”

  “He prefers Peety,” says West.

  The Mexican salutes us with two fingers.

  “I’m Sam, and that’s Andy.”

  Annamae nods solemnly. I must only think of her as Andy from now on, so I don’t err.

  “Pleased to meet you, kids. Let’s chew.”

  The men grab skewers and are about to partake when Andy exclaims, “Ain’t you gonna say grace?”

  West cocks an eyebrow at Cay, who clears his throat. “Well a’course, we were.” Cay closes his eyes. “Dear God, bless this snake to our bodies and please let it not be the one from your garden.”

  Peety suppresses a laugh, and West says, “Amen.”

  Andy glares at the brim of her hat but doesn’t comment further.

  The snake is chewy, dry, and full of bones, but I eat my whole portion. Andy and I copy the boys by blowing the snake bones into the fire. I drink from our canteen, but Andy pulls it away before I get a chance to slake my thirst.

  “We got lots of water, chicos.” Peety hands me his canteen. “Drink up.”

  As I get my fill, it occurs to me these boys might make decent traveling companions. Not everyone would share his water with a Chinese person, or a black person, for that matter. Maybe we can get them to take us farther than the Little Blue.

  Cay casts a doubtful eye toward Andy. “You a gold rusher? I ain’t seen a black one before.” A healthy dusting of gold whiskers bristles on his face as he chews, and there’s a solid curve to his cheek.

  “Well, today’s your lucky day,” says Andy, crossing her arms in front of her. “Haven’t you heard of the Compromise? Lots of us goin’ west.”

  She’s referring to the Missouri Compromise, which forbids slavery in the north, save the exceptional state of Missouri.

  “That so?” Cay’s eyes hop to me. “What about you?”

  “I’m an Argonaut, too. You?” I make my voice deep and hope I sound as confident as Andy.

  “No,” answers West in a voice laced with contempt. “We’re cowboys.”

  I decide this West must not have recognized me after all. After his initial scrutiny, he barely casts me another glance, which gives me the chance to study him.

  Though his perfect eyebrows and straight nose could have inspired Michelangelo, his flaws interest me more: the frowning mouth, the slouch of his lean and muscled frame. His triangular earlobes run straight into his face, indicating a troubled life, unlike his cousin Cay, whose earlobes are fleshy and unattached, meaning things come easy to him. His head tilts down often, his dark hair casting shadows across his fair skin, shadows that draw me in like a secret. When he catches me studying the constellation of scars on his arm, he rolls his sleeve back down.

  Cay lifts his chin. “Just moved one thousand head to St. Louis. Pioneers can’t buy ’em quick enough.”

  “So why you on the trail?” asks Andy.

  Before answering, Cay glances at West, who frowns at him. Then Cay says, “We got a job in California.”

  “You two look a little young to be out this late,” West cuts
in. A lock of hair the color of black walnut falls into his eyes, which he takes care of with a flick of his head.

  Andy crosses her arms. “We’re old ’nuff. Sam’s seventeen, I’m eighteen.”

  She overshoots a tad.

  Cay and Peety react like someone poked them in the ribs.

  “Guess they grow us bigger in Texas,” Cay says, not bothering to erase his grin.

  Peety looks back and forth from Andy to me. “Not much fur on your cheeks, chicos.”

  I start to touch my cheek but snatch it away when Andy gives me a hard look.

  West sticks a blade of grass between his teeth. “Travel light, too.”

  “How come yer English is so good?” Cay cuts in. “Never heard a Chinaman speak regular-like. Matter a fact, never seen a Chinaman outside a circus.”

  “Same reason as you. I was born here.”

  “Born here? How’s that possible?” He scratches his chin.

  “My father was an orphan. French missionaries found him when he was thirteen and brought him to the States.”

  “And your Español?” asks Peety.

  “Father owned a translation business back in New York.”

  “What’s that?” asks Cay.

  West leans back on an elbow and blows a fly that wanders by. “Don’t be a dunderhead. It’s like, the Spaniard tells the Frenchie, ‘I’ll trade you a barrel of olives for that bottle of per-foom, you snail-eating bastard,’ and Sammy’s daddy tells the Frenchie what the Spaniard said. Right?”

  I’m distracted by the way West drawls out his long e’s to long a’s, changing my name to “Sammay.” Cay does it, too.

  I blink. “Right,” I say gruffly.

  “So what other tongues you speak?” asks Cay.

  “Latin, French, Cantonese, and enough Portuguese to start a conversation.”

  “But not finish it?”

  “Not with words.” I pat my gun.

  This gets a laugh. Cay squints his green eyes at me. “Say something in Cantonese.”

  “Nei goh ha-pa yau di se.”

  He repeats it. “Well, poke me, I speak Chinese. What does it mean?”

  “‘You have snake on your chin.’”

  Another laugh from all except West, who is chewing on the grass again.

  Cay takes it in good measure. “All right, you goneys.”

  “Who wants the jaw?” asks Andy, holding up a stick with a razor-edged bone dangling off the end. “Snake jaw’s a lucky charm. You might need it if there’s no moon tonight.”

  Both Peety and Cay raise their hands, but West makes a tsk sound with his tongue.

  Cay gets down on his stomach and elbows. “Settle by wrestle.”

  Andy covers her mouth with her hand.

  Peety lays a horse blanket on the poky yellow grass in front of Cay. Hitching his trousers, he carefully lowers himself onto it.

  “Oh, c’mon, prima donna, your pantaloons are already filthy,” says Cay.

  “Pantalones,” Peety corrects. “Pantaloons is what you wear.”

  The two clasp hands and start pressing. After a good half minute of evenly matched straining and grunting, Cay summons a burst of strength and pushes Peety’s arm to the ground.

  “I let you win, hombre,” gasps Peety, rolling onto his back. “’Cause you need more luck than me.”

  “I get more lucky than you, you mean. Who’s next?” Cay shakes out his arm and looks at West.

  West snorts. “I make my own luck.”

  “Chicken,” says his cousin.

  West’s jaw twitches. Then he tosses aside the blade of grass and shakes his head.

  As he positions himself in front of the grinning Cay, I wonder at the power of a single word to goad males into doing things they don’t want to do to acquire things they don’t want to have. I would never fall for that.

  Biceps bulge and in under five seconds, West slams Cay’s arm into the dirt.

  “If I didn’t have to wrestle that buffalo that came before you, I’d a won for sure,” says Cay.

  Andy holds the stick with the jaw out to West. “Here you go, and good luck.”

  “Hold on, now,” says Cay. “He needs to wrestle one more to make it fair.”

  His eyes slide to me. I nearly choke on my greens, knowing I will be eating my thoughts for my next course.

  8

  EVEN IF I REFUSE TO ARM WRESTLE, SOMEONE will issue the chicken threat, and I will have to do battle anyway.

  “Sammy, c’mere,” orders Cay.

  I drag myself over. This is madness. Neither of us even wants the darn thing.

  I get down on my stomach, opposite him. Andy smashes her clasped hands up to her nose, praying, I think.

  A tiny dent appears in the side of West’s cheek. I hood my eyes and try to look fierce. The others crowd around us for the final match, or mismatch.

  “I’ll try not to hurt you,” I mutter.

  A warm wind kicks up, throwing dust into my eyes. West folds his callused hand over my cold bony one. He has guitarist fingers, slender and strong, the kind that might be nice to hold under different circumstances. What am I thinking? I shake those thoughts from my head and focus.

  “Your hand’s kind of soft,” he says.

  “I’m a musician,” I say scornfully. “Of course it is.”

  “Shouldn’t you be out giving lessons?”

  “Shouldn’t you be out branding cows?”

  His thumb twitches.

  Since one of his arms equals two or three of my own, I will never win this on brute strength. So I keep my elbow as close to my side as possible to add my body weight to the fight. Might as well throw a twig in front of the locomotive.

  “On the count of three,” says Cay. “One, two, three!”

  I pull down a fraction before he says three, gaining an inch in my corner right out of the gate by bending my wrist over his. But a second later, he flicks out the kink. When I look up, he is watching me, not his arm. I might as well be wrestling a hitching post.

  “C’mon, Sammy,” says Andy, at least playing along with the sham. “Send him home.”

  “I’m boring, West,” says Peety, faking a yawn. “Why you want to play with babies?”

  I redouble my efforts, crooking his wrist again. He gives me some slack, though I wish he would just ax the chicken already. When I’ve depleted all my strength, he crushes me.

  “Ow,” I whimper, as my shoulder grinds against its socket. I grit my teeth and roll it out. The boys take turns slapping me on the back.

  “Ain’t a square match,” says West, tucking the jawbone into Cay’s hatband.

  “You noticed that, did you?” snipes Andy.

  West cocks an eye at her, then shakes his head. He and the others spread their bedrolls.

  “Time for ropes,” he says.

  “What do you mean by that?” asks Andy, glaring. We both feel the same way about ropes these days.

  He unwinds a length of cord. “Rattlers don’t cross hemp.”

  Andy sucks in her breath and stops glaring. No doubt West wonders how a couple of greenhorns like us expect to survive the wilderness.

  “’Course, ain’t many rattlers in the towns, if you’re still on the fence . . . ” He trails off.

  Andy and I don’t have bedrolls, just our extra shirts, so we bundle them into pillows and settle down on the hard earth. Despite my layers, I feel every blade of bluegrass, every lobe of sow thistle, to say nothing of the gravel. I chuck the bigger rocks aside, though doing so just makes the smaller ones more obvious.

  To my right, West shakes out his bedroll, with Cay on his other side. I expect Peety to lie beside Cay, but he spreads his blanket right by Andy. West lays the rope in a circle around all of us.

  A chorus of yips starts up, coyotes celebrating a kill, but even wo
rse than the coyotes is the wind. It started as a dry breeze, but now it pulls at me, sucking the moisture from my lips and eyes. It blows through the cedars in a dissonant chord that rises and falls like the wheezing of croupy lungs. I resist the urge to scoot closer to Andy. She’s looking straight up at a rift in the clouds where a red moon has appeared, a bullet wound in the dark skin of night. Father said the moon changes color when bad luck is near.

  “Looks like the moon did show up,” says Andy. “A red one, too.”

  “What’s that mean?” asks Cay, sitting up.

  “Never you mind. It’ll scare ya.”

  “Oh, come on,” says Cay. “The only things that scare me are hairy caterpillars. The ones that look like someone’s mustache fell off and is crawling away.”

  Peety cranes his neck toward Andy. “You got a story? Please tell us.”

  Andy sits cross-legged. The boys arrange themselves around us.

  “Anyone heard of Harp Falls?” Andy sweeps her gaze over each of us. No one has. She pulls her coat more securely around her, then begins.

  “A prince was born with everything a man could want, good looks and wealth. Never had to work for much. One morning after a night of whoring, he wakes up lying in a haystack, not even sure how he got there.”

  “I hate it when that happens,” says Cay, flapping the brim of his hat up and down.

  West leans back on his hands. “Yeah, but you ain’t no prince.”

  Andy ignores them. “He’s thinking what a sorry sap he is, when he hears music so sweet it makes him weep. A woman’s voice, out of nowhere, says, ‘I’m the harp at the top of the waterfall. Find me, and you shall have everlasting joy.’

  “‘I don’t see no waterfall,’ he says. ‘How do I get to you?’

  “‘Follow my music,’ she says. ‘The way will not be easy. But listen for my voice, and you shall have me.’

  “So the prince sets off, but before long, a group of men attack—chain him up and throw him in the river. As he starts sinking, he remembers the harp. He hears her sweet voice again, and suddenly, the chains fall away.”