Under a Painted Sky

by Stacey Lee

  “Maybe they didn’t have time to dig deep. Or maybe they didn’t have shovels.”

  “He looked killed to me,” Andy says. “Surprised they left his boots. Maybe whoever did it thought they were dirty.”

  “Well, they were pretty muddy.”

  “I don’t mean dirty that way. Some people think touching a colored or his things will get ’em dirty.” She removes her hat and fans herself with it even though people can see us. Then she relids her head and sighs. “I’m just glad it wasn’t Isaac.”

  I nod. “Should we tell someone? Maybe he’s part of the Broken Hand Gang.”

  “Just ’cause he’s colored don’t mean he’s part of that gang, you know.” Her tone is not accusing, but I still feel the sting.

  She goes on. “Anyway, who would we tell? And why?”

  I steer Paloma between a couple of tents and concede the point. No one’s going to care about a dead black man. Poor fellow. He came all this way to end up under a tree. At least someone took the time to carve a cross. That means someone cared about his soul.

  We pick our way through the pioneers and are scouting for a good place to camp, when we see the boys flying down the trail. They draw up their panting horses beside us.

  “Time to go, kids,” Cay cries, straining his eyes behind him. His shirt is buttoned wrong.

  West curses as he pulls up behind him. Cay holds his hands out to his cousin. “I’m sorry, okay? How was I supposed to know she had six brothers?”

  “You gotta chase every skirt you see?” says West, glowering.

  “I don’t chase ’em. They just fall into my lap.”

  “That’s the last time I’m doing that,” says West, pulling Franny to the water’s edge. We all follow him.

  “How deep goes that water?” Andy squints at the inky lane.

  “Don’t worry, Princesa likes agua.”

  “I ain’t thinking about her.”

  Cay stands up on his stirrups for a better look down the trail. “If it gets too deep, stand up.”

  Andy crosses her arms. “I knows you’s joking with me.”

  “Ain’t joking. C’mon, c’mon! Let’s wiggle.”

  “Fine,” says Andy. “You go walk on water first.”

  “All right, I will.” Cay digs in his heels. “This is what we call a Skinny dip.”

  Andy goes next, followed by Peety and West.

  Paloma paces the shoreline, not sure if she wants to do this after all. The remuda—both horses and riders—peers back at me. “Come on, girl, it’ll be an adventure, you can tell your children about it one day,” I plead to her.

  “Mules no have children, Chinito,” says Peety. “Let’s go, Paloma.”

  But she will not go.

  West tugs his rein to signal Franny back, but Peety holds out an arm.

  “Trust me, Paloma, you can do it,” says Peety. Then he spurs Lupe onward, and the remuda follows. The distance between us increases until the sound of the rushing river drowns out the horses’ splashing.

  The faint sound of yelling reaches my ears. Six men on mules clamber down the trail, six matchsticks with their flame-red hair flying in all directions. The brothers.

  One yells and points in our direction. Fear blows her icy breath down my neck. I’m not the one being pursued, but when six angry men run at me from behind, I don’t fuss with details.

  “Giddap!” I cry, digging in my heels hard. Paloma charges forward. The remuda stops again to yell encouragements as Paloma and I slog toward them.

  Finally, two hundred feet out, I glance back to see all of the men pacing the shoreline. One shakes his fist at us.

  “I’m okay,” I gasp when we catch up. I try to affect an air of reckless indifference despite my heaving chest.

  “Move,” West barks at Cay. We move.

  • • •

  The water’s surface shifts the rays of the setting sun like hands sifting through cut jade stones. Five hundred feet out, the depth increases, and water seeps through my boots. I hiss in my breath at the chilly temperature, but my brave steed plows on. Good girl.

  The boys sling their saddlebags onto their backs. I do the same with Lady Tin-Yin, wishing I had had time to wrap her in blankets. A single drop of moisture can ruin the sound completely.

  A few hundred feet remain. When the water comes to my thighs, I realize the boys have climbed up to standing, their steeds not even pausing as they ferry them across the depth. I rub my eyes, hardly believing their ability to balance.

  “You kidding me?” exclaims Andy.

  “Real men stand,” Cay ribs her.

  Andy looks back at me and bumps her forehead with her fist. Idiots. I show her my palms and shrug.

  “Don’t worry, I would never do that,” I mutter to Paloma.

  Andy hauls up her legs and crouches on her saddle. What is she doing? She must have misread me as being up for the challenge. I groan, realizing I must once again eat my words. When will I learn never to say never? Andy can chop her own turnips tonight.

  In front of me, West hooks his thumb inside his trousers pocket, one foot in front of the other at a slight angle.

  “Maybe it’s not as hard as it looks,” I tell Paloma, more to convince myself.

  West cocks an ear back toward us. “I think you should stay put.”

  Now I have to do it. He did not say that to Andy.

  I hoist up my anchors, then kneel.

  “Sammy,” says West in that stern, exasperated way he has of saying my name.

  This is as far as I go. I can save my face by not soaking my behind. I hug Paloma’s neck, my tail hanging somewhere in the air. Who cares? I’m in the back anyway. Peety approaches the other shore.

  Paloma takes a wrong step and screams. She staggers under me, and I cling to her neck. With jerky movements, she tries to regain her footing, but she cannot find solid ground, and I’m unbalancing her further.

  She lurches too far to the left. Oh! The freezing waters immerse me up to my shoulders. I have to let go.

  “You can do it!” I cry out. “Stand—”

  My mouth fills with water, and I spit it back out. A bolt of terror stabs through me. The current is wrenching me away, thick and unyielding like a layer of blubber. I kick, paddling my arms, but something weighs me down. Lady Tin-Yin. No!

  I flail with all my might to reach air.

  But I waited too long. The violin’s strap is tangled around my neck, so sink with her I must. As the river’s icy fingers drag me down, I almost laugh as I realize I’m managing to drown myself after all.

  23

  WEST IS KISSING ME. I’VE DREAMED ABOUT THIS for weeks, how his mouth would taste and feel. Except in my dream it always happens in the moonlight, and he does not pinch my nose.

  Andy pushes my chest, which has been covered with a blanket. Smart girl.

  Oh, West, you are so dear up close. My eyelids shut, and I wait for him to kiss me again.

  “Sammy,” he says with a note of desperation. Hm? My eyes flutter open again, and I notice he is all wet. Even his eyes drip, splashing my face every time he blinks. Were you swimming?

  Suddenly my chest caves and I suck in air like a newborn. I turn my head into his lap and empty my insides.

  • • •

  The next time I open my eyes, Paloma is drooling on my face. I’m wrapped in shearling, lying on a bed of horse blankets. Shaking out the fog in my head, I prop myself onto my elbows. I’m resting at the top of an embankment, shaded by the long branches of a hemlock tree whose leaves hang like green sleeves on bony arms. A hundred paces out, the boys are helping some pioneer men drag their wagon out of the water. Beside them, two other wagons dry in the mid-morning sun, their contents neatly arranged along the grassy shore. I don’t see Andy.

  “Oh, Paloma,” I gush as I remember our near drowning.
“You are an exceptional creature.” I hold up my hand for a kiss, and she gives it to me.

  The lifting sun erases the last tangles of morning fog, though the wetness remains, invisible and heavy.

  Andy appears, holding two of my shirts, dried stiff. She must have had to take off my clothes, dry them, and re-dress me. She drops to the ground next to me. “You almost died. But you didn’t. You remember what I said about body over mind?”

  I nod weakly, then run a hand through my shorn locks. “They didn’t find out, did they?”

  “Almost. West wanted to rip off your shirts when we pulled you in, but I stopped him. Told him you’d catch lung fever if he did that.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “I’m just glad you didn’t leave me all alone here. What would I do with three cowboys who can’t carry a damn tune?” She falls silent and puts a fist to her mouth.

  I put an arm around her shoulders and offer my sleeve. “Oh, sister. I’m sorry to have worried you.” She pushes away my sleeve and blows a few times into a handkerchief from her saddlebag. Though I dread the answer, I finally ask: “Is Lady Tin-Yin gone?”

  “Lady who?”

  “My violin.”

  “Yeah, she’s gone.”

  I press my sleeves into my own eyes.

  Andy clucks her tongue. “Come on, we gotta keep our canteens watertight,” she says gently.

  I nod, but can’t stop my chest from quaking. Lady Tin-Yin was almost sixty years old. My grandfather—Pépère, as I knew him—carried her through the Battle of Montenotte, Napoleon’s first victory in Italy. There, she soothed the minds of the wounded and mourned the passing of the dead. Father played her to quiet his colicky Snake baby. Objects have pasts that cling to them, which means she was filled with positive energy.

  Now she is gone, and only one thing remains of my past: Mother’s jade bracelet. Of course, I may never see that again, either. By the time I find Mr. Trask, he might have already sold it.

  Andy’s warm eyes are wide with concern. She pats my knee. “I’m sorry, Sammy. If you’s daddy was here, he wouldn’t give that violin another thought, he’d just be happy to see you alive.”

  She is right, but I can’t help feeling I let Father down, once again. Taking a deep breath, I wrestle my tears back into their corners. “Tell me what happened after Paloma fell.”

  I brew the coffee as she talks. My head feels light and my hands shake as I measure out the beans.

  “We all saw you sink. Cay and West dove off their horses and swam after you like a coupla otters while Peety and I brought in the remuda.

  “They found you on the bottom with your strap ’round you’s neck like pigging string. Pulled you up, but you was out cold. Didn’t breathe water, though, you held you’s breath good. West breathed for you. Hope you were awake for that,” she teases. “Then you spat up on him.”

  “You don’t think he could tell?”

  “Ain’t sure.” She holds her chin and watches as the boys shake hands with the pioneers. “I bet he’s sipped nectar from more than his share of willing flowers, but unless one of them flowers also had a sipper, nah. Lips is lips, ’specially if they’s blue with cold and fulla river slime.”

  I wipe my mouth on my sleeve.

  “Though, if he does still think you’s a boy, maybe he’ll feel like a plucked rooster for a bit.”

  “He’d have done the same for Peety or Cay,” I say quietly.

  She leans her head to one side and squints. “You’s right on that. These are some fine horses we found.”

  I pour the coffee, then add sugar to all but West’s cup since he doesn’t favor his sweet.

  The boys return from the river.

  “Good to see you above snakes,” says Cay.

  “Snakes?” I ask with some alarm.

  “Alive, kid,” he replies.

  Peety drops down next to me, his eyelids heavy and the corners of his mouth pulling down. “Lo siento. Es mi culpa.”

  “How is it your fault?” I gape.

  “Not looking back for you . . . like Esme.” His shoulders begin to twitch.

  Esme again. Andy slides her eyes from Peety’s to mine. Before I can puzzle Esme out, Cay slides in on my other side. “It’s not his fault, it’s mine. I parade too much.”

  West glares at Cay, then grabs his cup and leans against a tree. “That ain’t it.”

  Cay drops his chin to his chest. “And sometimes I lead with my horn instead of my head. You understand, right?” he pleads with me.

  My nose wrinkles as I try to make sense of what he’s saying.

  West answers for me. “Of course he don’t understand, he’s a”—he glances at me, then angrily looks away—“a kid. You ain’t a farmer, you can’t go planting your seeds every time you see a field, or you’re gonna get us all killed.”

  “You plant more seeds than me,” says Cay.

  “Not in the fields with the no-trespassing signs.” West stabs his finger toward the river.

  A vein pops out of Cay’s neck. I try to chip at the ice that’s formed between the cousins. “It’s no one’s fault but the river’s. You both saved my life, and I’m nothing but grateful.”

  Peety sniffs loudly. A hug would be too girly, so I punch him in the arm, which I quickly realize is also girly. I punch him harder.

  “Ow, chico,” he cries, still not smiling.

  I do the same to Cay.

  “That’s all you got?” His face relaxes.

  “And West,” I say, “I also—”

  He takes a sip of his coffee and spits it out. “You call this coffee?” he snaps at me. “It ain’t coffee, it’s wagon grease.” He dumps the brew on the fire and heads back toward the river.

  “Plucked rooster,” Andy whispers in my ear, then gives me a solemn wink.

  After we finish our coffee and bacon, I find a quiet spot by the river to say good-bye to Lady Tin-Yin. You were my first friend. When none would pick me for their rounders team, you kept me company, giving me a voice that made people laugh and cry. I’m sorry we won’t be opening that music conservatory together after all.

  My fingers twitch, already missing the feel of her smooth contours in my hands.

  Andy comes up beside me. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t. She simply stares with me at that bloated body of blue.

  My violin is not the only thing we lost. Half our food supply also lies at the river’s bottom. However, all of our hats washed ashore earlier this morning, to everyone’s amazement. It is easy to get attached to a hat.

  Before we saddle up, West unties a sack and tosses a book at me. “Got this at the fort so you don’t have to keep taking my tally book,” he says brusquely.

  “Thank you,” I say to his back.

  “No one sounded very sure about Harp Falls,” he tells Andy.

  She nods. “Thanks for asking.”

  “But we did get a new map,” he says, handing her a folded bundle of paper. “It’s pretty detailed. Maybe your waterfall’s on there.” He fishes something out of his pocket. The gold rings. “The cash covered everything. Got these appraised, though. Two hundred dollars each. Pretty sum.”

  While the boys collect the horses from the river’s edge, Andy and I pore over the new map. Instead of the simple lines of Cay’s old map, this one has shading and other topographical renderings. It also includes sketches of landmarks like Independence Rock—the halfway point on our journey.

  Andy traces her finger down the trail, then stops at a mountain range north of Independence Rock, two hundred miles in the opposite direction from the Parting. “What do these words say?”

  “Haystack Mountains.”

  She points to a wavy line that runs through the mountains. “What about this one?”

  “Yellow River.”

  After pulling the map c
lose to her face and then away again, she taps her finger at a spot. “That looks like a waterfall to me.”

  I squint at the series of squiggly lines that intersect the river. “Or maybe it’s just how the mapmaker drew the river. It’s unreliable. There’s not even a name.”

  “You see any other markings like that?”

  I examine the page in detail. “No, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a waterfall.”

  “Uh-huh. And what’s that say?” She points to the pass that leads to the Yellow River.

  “Calamity Cutoff.”

  “You’s pulling my string.”

  “No. Now tell me that’s not a sign you shouldn’t be going that way.”

  She snorts. “Probably someone’s favorite cow died there. A real calamity.”

  • • •

  In the late afternoon, we enter a lush playground with dense thickets of American plum. Giant dogwoods drop their petals on us as we pass and golden currant dabs the landscape with a honey-like scent. I inhale greedy lungfuls, letting the scent soothe the ache from my lost violin.

  West hasn’t spoken to anyone since this morning.

  Peety spots muscadine grapes ripening alongside a babbling stream and cuts off the vines most heavy with fruit, attaching them to the saddles so we can eat as we ride. They dangle like tiny green bells. When the juicy orbs explode in my mouth, I swear I never tasted anything as good.

  Maybe life just tastes sweeter after you’ve licked death.

  24

  APRIL MARCHES INTO MAY. THE DAYS GROW LONGER and the weather loses its wet-dog feel. We gain more ground in the winding hills that slow the wagons to the speed of sap. The emigrant men brace the carts so they don’t tip over as they zigzag down the slope. We haven’t seen any more dead bodies, smashed fingers, or law enforcement in the two weeks since we left Fort Kearny.

  The more I try to dissuade Andy from pinning her hopes on the map’s squiggly-line markings, the more convinced she becomes that they’re her waterfall. So I stop pushing. If Dragons are pushed too hard, they will fly away.

  The boys scare birds out of the trees and throw up pinecones for us to shoot. Moving objects are much harder to hit than tree knots, but we improve slowly. Andy practices throwing her rope around any oblong shape she can find, but since most of the terrain is grassland, she usually just ropes Peety riding in front of her.