Under a Painted Sky

by Stacey Lee

  “‘Breathing is underrated.’” I repeat Father’s words. Then I draw in deep breaths for him to mimic.

  He turns his face in to my neck and inhales.

  Andy returns with her sewing kit and rags. She offers Peety’s flask to West, but he clamps his mouth shut and returns to my neck. After she cleans the wound, she sews, her hand steady and fleet.

  West gasps at the first poke, his nose grazing my ear. Then he falls silent. When she finishes, my face is wet on the side where I hold him. He has gone limp, and I gently set him back to the ground.

  The other boys settle the remuda and now stand over West, Cay with his hands in his pockets, and Peety staring down, his face tight.

  “We can’t stay here,” says Cay. “The vultures will come soon, and they’ll spook the horses.”

  “We can’t move him,” I protest. I won’t risk losing him now.

  “We’ll move him farther upstream, away from these dead stallions.” Cay squints at the dark heaps in the distance. “No one can sleep with a dead horse nearby. Trust me on that.”

  Everyone looks at me. Andy bobs her chin ever so slightly.

  I let out my breath and nod.

  “Maybe we say something for those caballos before we going,” says Peety, wiping his brow.

  We all remove our hats.

  “Dear God, we’re sorry we had to return your stallions to you earlier than you expected,” Cay says. “They couldn’t help being who they are any more than we can, I s’pect. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and all the rest.”

  “Amen,” adds Andy. “Let’s go, then.”

  Peety strings up the remuda while we carefully position West on a blanket. Then we each lift a corner.

  We carry him up the stream until the stallions are out of sight, then camp under a pair of cottonwood trees that lean toward each other, providing a green canopy. Andy helps me remove West’s bloody shirt, then she takes it to the stream. I press some rags to his chest, still oozing blood. He may require more stitches. But not now.

  Peety sets about the currying, staring at nothing. Cay also falls silent. The one who takes charge is Andy.

  “You, blondie, you thinking of growing roots? Pick up some sticks. And you, brownie, you’s brushing those horses bald. Haul some water.”

  Cay decides to ride out to Fort Laramie that night. We need a doctor, medical supplies, and food. His green eyes shine too bright against his ashen face.

  “Wait until morning,” I say in a low voice as he packs up Skinny.

  He digs a knuckle into his temple. “We’ve done night rides before.”

  “You’re tired, and so is Skinny.” I hope I don’t sound too motherly.

  He gives me a lopsided smile and kicks off.

  26

  I FALL ASLEEP BY WEST’S SIDE BUT WAKE WHENEVER he moans. Finally, when the sun travels over my face, I rise. The prairie is a shadowed landscape clotted with shrubs like giant mushrooms. With the trail out of view and no one around, the world seems foreign, as if we’ve arrived at a country where we are the only inhabitants. It relieves me to be out of the scope of lawmen, but it is a fleeting comfort. We cannot hide out here forever.

  Peety takes West’s rifle to go hunting, and Andy accompanies him. Before they leave, I ask them to look out for wild yarrow. Father always applied the cooling yarrow to my bumps and scrapes. Maybe it will bring West some relief.

  When I start to change his dressings, he winces. I show him the whiskey but he presses his mouth into a line and turns away.

  “Okay. What about a story while I clean your scratch?” He does not protest so I press on.

  “Father and I were about the only Chinese people in the state of New York when I was growing up. Mr. Wong owned a bakery down the street from us, but he did not have family. So whenever we went out, people paid attention.

  “When I was six, someone brought a menagerie to town.” I pause as I realize that was almost ten years ago to the day. I turn sixteen next week. “I begged Father to go, but he didn’t want to take me, probably fearing we would become another exhibit for people to point and stare at. I was born in the Year of the Snake—”

  I pause when the ghost of a frown flits over his face. “It’s not a bad thing,” I add. “A Snake brings good luck.” I don’t mention that I’m the exception. “Anyway, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge, you were born in the Year of the Rabbit.”

  He chokes on his disbelief, I suspect most men prefer to think of themselves as something more ferocious than a rabbit, and I let him finish his coughing before continuing. I muse that, despite their lovable appearances, Rabbits are uncomfortable talking about feelings, and if matters turn personal, tend to hop away. Of course, West can hop all he wants, but he won’t be getting too far in his condition.

  “Snakes don’t like to be told no.”

  More throat clearing ensues, which I ignore.

  “So Father gave in and took me. While I was counting zebra stripes, a crowd of children gathered, but they didn’t care about the zebras. They were staring at me.

  “‘I bet it feels like rope,’ said one little girl. She was talking about my hair, which had grown so long I could sit on it. Father always combed it so gently before braiding it, like Peety does the horses’ tails.”

  West lifts an eyebrow and a zing of panic shoots through me. I sweep my hand through the air in what I hope is a gesture of indifference. “All Chinese boys wear long braids, you know. It’s just the style.”

  His eyebrow settles back down and I hurry on with my narrative. “The girl’s father told her, ‘Nope, it ain’t like rope, it’s like a snake, and it will bite you, so leave it alone.’

  “She could not resist. She edged toward me, but I didn’t turn around. And then, when I could almost feel her hand reaching for my hair, I spun around real fast, and yelled, ‘Boo!’

  “She screamed and ran away. Everyone laughed at her, instead of me, especially Father.”

  West starts to chuckle, but the movement triggers a spasm of pain. His face screws up, and I put a cool towel on his head until he relaxes again and closes his eyes. I wish for him the kind of sleep that Homer called a ‘counterfeit death,’ delicious and profound.

  • • •

  A while later, Peety and Andy bring back a prairie chicken. Peety and I follow Andy to the stream after watching her plunge the bird in boiling water.

  She hands the chicken to Peety. “Go.”

  “Ay, too hot, Andito,” says Peety, bouncing the bird in his hands.

  “Don’t juggle it, just pluck it. A deal’s a deal,” says Andy. She winks at me. “I caught it, so he’s doing the cooking today.”

  Then she pulls out a bouquet of feathery gray leaves from in the back of Peety’s belt. “Here’s your weeds.”

  I thank them and rinse the bunch in the stream. “He’s hurting,” I say as I pound the yarrow into a poultice with a rock. “What do you think about slipping him some of your whiskey, Peety? I know he does not want to drink it, but this is an emergency.”

  “No, chico. You cannot do that,” he says, ripping out feathers.

  “Careful! You’s gonna take off the wings,” protests Andy.

  “Ees okay, chicken no using them no more. West had uno problemo with the spirits, the whiskey.”

  “West?” I repeat, as if we could be talking about someone else.

  “He was only ten, maybe. His papa don’t like nobody, blacks, reds, yellows, not even his own son. Even after Cay’s family took him, papa still hurting him in here.” He taps his heart with his fist. “Maybe he don’t want to live no more. Maybe there’s too much hurting inside and can’t be fixed.” He stops plucking. “So, he runs away many times. Cay always find him, passed out somewhere with a bottle. Not always good stuff either, you know. Sometimes, very bad stuff. Puts demons in your mind. Maybe those demons easier than ones papa
put there.”

  My chest burns, like someone poured in poison. Andy takes the chicken and finishes plucking it.

  Peety wipes his hands on a rag. “This happens until he’s fourteen and old enough to work at El Rancho. West finds peace with animals. But those demons are always there in the bottle. So he don’t go near it. You understand now?”

  I nod, then return to West’s side with the poultice. He seems to be stable for now, no fever that I can tell, though his face is pale as death. I watch his eyelashes flicker in deepest slumber, and wonder at the wounds that tear at him from the inside.

  • • •

  Peety doesn’t want an audience when he makes dinner so Andy and I sit by the river. The water tumbles by, blissfully unaware of the suffering upon its shores. Yellow grass and tangled reeds gain footholds on the opposite bank where the ground is less rocky.

  “You’s gonna freeze like a gryphon statue hanging over West.” Andy cuts her eyes to me. “Don’t look at me like that, I know what a gryphon is. Lion body with an eagle head that’s always stuck out like it’s gonna pounce. Ungodly things. Miss Betsy had a statue of one she made me clean every day. It got real dirty between the claws, even though it never caught anything.”

  We dip our toes in the water. “What kind of demons do you think West’s father put in him?”

  “The worst kind, is my guess. Child’s supposed to depend on his parents. Better to have no daddy at all than one that hurts you.”

  “But his daddy’s been gone for years.”

  She kicks up her foot throwing water across the stream. “Your head’s like a room and when you’s forced to stay in it, you gotta deal with all the trash that’s left in there.”

  Andy reminds me of you, Father, and your infinite wisdom. “You think everyone has trash?”

  “Yep, I do. Even the ones whose head you think is empty, like Cay. Bet he’s full of it.” She grins, and I feel my cheeks lifting, too.

  Peety calls us back to the fire, where the horse blankets have been folded in three neat squares for sitting. Between two of the squares, a bouquet of purple blazing stars blooms from one of West’s empty boots.

  Andy eyes the floral arrangement with a bemused expression. “You got a lady friend in town?” She makes a show of looking behind herself at the miles and miles of empty prairie land.

  Peety chuckles. “I got no lady friend.” With his handkerchief, he whacks at the folded horse blankets, then gestures toward them. “Please sit in my best chairs.”

  Andy and I plunk down, and he proudly hands us steaming mugs of soup. “I put in a surprise for you.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asks Andy.

  Peety grins. “If I told you, it’s no surprise.” He kneels beside us and digs into his soup, even though it’s still steaming.

  I watch him carefully blow his spoon, then I ask, “Who is Esme?”

  The vaquero lowers his mug to his lap. “Esme.” He stares into his soup as if seeing a memory. “She is the youngest of my four sisters. They’re all trouble, but Esme worries me the most. The other three, they will make good Mexican wives one day, but not Esme.” He looks up from his lap, lips curved into a sad smile. “Please, enjoy your soup.”

  I stir my cup, wondering about this youngest sister, and something round comes to the surface. As Andy brings her own mug to her lips, she looks at my spoon. Abruptly, she sets down her cup, nearly scalding herself. She runs to the river.

  Peety’s broad face splits open in confusion. “He don’t even try it.”

  I show him the onion on my spoon. It still wears its papery peel, like he just dropped it in recently. “You put onions in the soup.”

  “I found in my bag. Three of them for three of us.”

  I remember the onions I put there from Cay’s lumpy sack back at the Little Blue. Sure took him a long enough time to find.

  “He doesn’t like them,” I explain. “It’s not your fault.”

  I hurry over to Andy, with Peety on my heels. She hugs her knees to her as she glares at the river.

  “I’m sorry, Andito,” says Peety. “I ruin your dinner for you.”

  She waves us away, so we return to the fire. I try my best to finish my soup, raw onion and all, just to make Peety feel better.

  • • •

  The next day, West’s temperature spikes, and I alternate bundling him up with fanning him down. Andy simmers a new soup, this time with no onions. A layer of fat swims on top. But West has no appetite for it and only takes a few sips of water. When he slips into sleep, his pain follows him and he cries.

  “She didn’t do it,” he gasps during one nightmare.

  I take his hand, clammy and trembling. The two scars on his wrist peek out from under his sleeve, gleaming like the eyes of a ghost. I match my fingertips to them, and they feel hot under my touch.

  He opens his eyes and squints at me, like he is trying to remember who I am. “Sammy?”

  “Yes.”

  Then he fades back into unconsciousness.

  Every hour I put the cup of broth to his lips, but he will not take it, not even with me spooning it to him. Eventually he stops sweating and his eyes lose focus.

  “West,” I call to him. His eyes slit open for a moment. “You need to drink something, or you will . . . ” I can’t say it. “Please?”

  Still, he does not drink.

  Later that night, I beg sleep to open her doors to me. She leads me to a barren field. West and I face each other dressed as two knights, wearing armor too heavy to shed. The earth opens and swallows him. I clutch his hand just like that day we wrestled, but he is slipping from my grasp.

  • • •

  When he refuses to drink again the third day, I want to shake him in desperation. “Come on, drink, or I might do something reckless.”

  Nothing.

  Peety and Andy took the horses out to graze and will not return for another hour. The late-morning sun hides in a tepid curdle of clouds.

  I shuffle to the water. A random trail of stones lines the shallow stream. I roll up my trousers and step out of my boots. I remember Father walking a path of stones. He said it helped him sort through problems. A balanced body balances the mind.

  I step up onto a steady rock with my right foot and hold my left in back of me.

  Problem one: the faraway Mr. Trask.

  I had accepted the possibility that I might never find him when I decided to go with Andy, even if she still hasn’t accepted my company. Yet I held out hope that I might cross paths with the grocer before Calamity Cutoff, especially now that we are so close. With every passing moment, however, he slips farther from my grasp. And with Lady Tin-Yin gone, the loss will be doubly bitter.

  A twinge of sadness stirs me again as I remember Father, his face full of hope as he told me, “I have great plans for us. We might even see a mermaid!”

  I grimace and pass to the next stone.

  Maybe Mr. Trask has experienced some delays of his own. We can’t be the only ones.

  Water laps at my foot. I cannot stand here forever. I move to the next stone, one that requires me to leap and catch my balance again.

  Problem two: West will die if he does not drink. I nearly fall into the stream but hold out my arms to steady myself and hop onto a larger rock. Pain, not just physical, seems to have stolen his sense of self-preservation. I felt the same way, not long ago.

  I wobble too far to the right and step onto the next stone. Balance. Think.

  Angry tears prick my eyes as I remember the assault that pulled me out of my despair. Ty Yorkshire’s hand over my mouth. I inhale and pass to the next stone, a sharp one that wobbles.

  Forcing Ty Yorkshire’s moth eye out of my head, I replace it with West’s handsome visage. We all have secrets, don’t we? Secrets that can destroy us, one way or another. Yours are buried deep, too
deep for me to reach.

  I pass to the final boulder. There I stand on both legs and close my eyes, not easy, I realize, when I almost fall forward. I sway again but grip the boulder more firmly with my feet.

  I have kept secrets from you, and still you saved my life, twice. And now that your secrets threaten to kill you, it is my turn to save you from the fire, even if it means you will learn the truth about me.

  I open my eyes and drop from the boulder into the cool stream. Time to make good on my threat.

  Once I get back to camp, I kneel next to West and comb the hair off his face. His eyelashes flutter. “May you forget this, or at least forgive me if you do not.”

  Then I fold my hankie into a square that I use to press down his chin.

  I sip the broth and hold the salty warm liquid in my mouth. Lifting his head, I press my lips to his, not lifting my mouth until he opens his to take the broth. His moan catches in my throat as his parched mouth warms under mine. I don’t care if he finds it distasteful, only that he swallows the broth.

  He does.

  Then I do it again.

  This time, when my lips slide over his, his mouth parts easier. I release another sip, a tiny amount so I don’t choke him. When I lift my head, he is gazing at me. He drops his eyes to the cup in my hand. More.

  Though I think I can revert to the spoon now, I don’t want to. My pulse beats fast as a hummingbird’s. Did he recognize the truth when it kissed him on the mouth? The way he looks there now, his eyes soft and searching, tells me maybe. My body floods with warmth, and all my boyish resolve melts away.

  Two more mouthfuls, and then three. As I feed him the last drop and begin to pull away, his lips follow mine for a fraction of a second.

  The empty cup drops from my hand and lands with a tinny thud beside us at the same as time he collapses back onto his bedroll. Still close enough to feel his breath on my face, I open my eyes to his, shrouded in pain. He turns his head away.

  27

  CAY RETURNS IN THE LATE MORNING AS PEETY, Andy, and I drink our coffee. We crowd around him as he slides off Skinny. His bloodshot eyes take in his cousin, sleeping again, this time peacefully. Shortly after Peety and Andy returned, West drank another two cups of soup by himself.