Under a Painted Sky

by Stacey Lee

  He nods the signal, and I pick up where he leaves off. To begin, I make my playing sweet and easy. I scan heads for Mr. Trask, but cannot see much beyond the front row, where a line of girls stand pining over Jack, their mouths forming little O’s of adoration.

  So I jump up on the barrel.

  The song picks up pace, and now my fingers are a blur. I use the momentum to ricochet bounce off the top of my bow and add several triple stops—three strings played at once—the move that Mr. Trask paid fresh tangerines to hear. Come on, Mr. Trask.

  I rest, and now Jack’s fingers go fuzzy. His female fans multiply and start screaming. One even cries, “Marry me!”

  Shielding my eyes from the bonfire, I scan the crowd from my higher perch. I don’t see the grocer from New York, but I do make out the boys under the oak tree, and they whistle and whoop when I find them. I salute my bow their direction, then rip out my solo. The remuda’s cries spread like wildfire and soon the whole crowd’s cheering for me.

  Something’s wrong. My head feels too light. Damn, my hat! I must have knocked it off with that last triple stop. The show must go on, but not under present circumstances. I drop down off my perch.

  Jack stops playing and takes the baby violin out of my hands. I scramble after my hat. One of the pioneers picks it up and hands it to me. I grunt out a thank-you.

  When I return, lid in place, Jack is positioning the baby fiddle under his chin. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Though he scratches the bow and falls off pitch, his screaming fans don’t care.

  “You gonna let him boss you, Chinito?” yells a familiar baritone.

  I groan under the weight of two hundred eyeballs, all expecting a good fight. If I don’t get back into the ring, I might as well ditch this hat and tie on a bonnet. The boys start chanting my name, and now everyone takes up the chant. “Sammy, Sammy!”

  I cringe. If he is here, Mr. Trask will find me now, or I can assume he’s gone deaf. I snatch up Jack’s banjo, and jump back onto my barrel. I strap Father’s favorite instrument across my shoulders, and a hush descends over the crowd. The banjo’s bigger than Father’s, at least fourteen inches in diameter with a heavy rosewood fingerboard, and it probably looks like it’s wearing me rather than the other way around. But I’ve got hot coal in my firebox and I’m ready to go full steam.

  I don’t have a pick, and my nails are ragged, so I bite off my sleeve button, then set it on the strings. Andy’s going to kill me.

  Some of the screaming girls now clamber over to my barrel. Maybe I look tall and dashing up here. Eat your heart out, Jack.

  I finger out a simple roll. Sounds good, time to move the show along. When my turn comes up for the solo, I double the tempo and punish that drunken sailor to within an inch of his life. My right hand works the strings like a spider in its death throes. I might even sound better than Jack, judging by audience reaction.

  By the time the song’s over, my clothes are damp, but I am glowing. My barrel vibrates under the noise of the pioneers’ cheering and clapping. Remembering my task, I sink back on my heels and survey the crowd one last time.

  No Mr. Trask. It was a long shot.

  I climb down from my perch.

  “You ride your strings hard,” says Jack. “How ’bout we take a sip of lemonade together?”

  His eyes brush over me like maybe he would rather take a sip of something else, and that something is not the girls gawking at him.

  “My—my—friends will be looking for me,” I stammer, pushing the banjo at him. “But thank you anyway.” His gaggle of admirers swallows him up.

  Andy trots up to me, holding a stack of tin cups. “That was genius. You almost caused a fire up there.”

  Dr. Highwater walks up behind her, hand extended toward me. “Best music we’ve had on the trail since setting out.” His warm two-handed handshake reminds me of Father, who shook everyone’s hand as if it were an honor. “Even better than the clarinet-and-harp duo we saw last week at Fort Laramie.”

  “Did you say clarinet?” I ask.

  “Yes. It’s not my favorite instrument but—”

  “The man, was his name Tucker Trask?”

  “I only caught his first name, but it wasn’t Tucker.” He kneads the knuckles of one hand with his thumb.

  I bow my head to hide my disappointment. “Well, it was nice meeting you and your daughter.”

  “Theodore,” he says. “That was his name.”

  I snap my head up. Theodore, of course! How could I forget such an important detail? Tucker was just a nickname.

  “Did he say where he was going?” I ask, not breathing.

  “I didn’t speak to him directly. But he did tell the audience he was going to teach at a conservatory.”

  Conservatory? The barren west coast offers no such thing, at least not to my knowledge. He might as well have stayed in New York for that. Unless he—

  I stare at the blue jay feather in the doctor’s hat as the pieces click together. Mr. Trask played woodwinds: clarinet and some flute. I dreamed of opening a school of music one day where Father and I would teach strings, but we needed someone to cover the woodwinds.

  I sway and feel Andy’s arm bump me back into place.

  “You okay, son?” Dr. Highwater asks.

  I nod and dig the nails of one hand into the palm of my other to shock my face into holding still.

  The doctor continues. “Do you know him? He set out before us by at least a week so my guess is he might be at the Parting of the Ways by now, unless he detoured. On horseback, you could probably catch him. He did have a few wagons on his train.”

  After thanking the doctor profusely, I stumble after Andy to a table assembled from a length of wood and two stumps. She ladles lemonade into a cup and puts it in my hands. “What’s a conservatory?”

  “A music school,” I tell her quietly as the tears well in my eyes. “I always wanted to open one. Father was bringing us to California for me.”

  She clucks her tongue. Behind her, the crowd parts to let through Cay, Peety, and West. Cay pushes Peety, laughing, and Peety pushes him back.

  “I’ll hold ’em off,” Andy says, shooing me away.

  I scamper away, seeking out a quiet place to think. Behind a dark row of wagons, I collapse onto a saddle-shaped boulder. Independence Rock floats like a white whale on a dark sea.

  What a pig-headed, ungrateful daughter you had, Father. My sorrow pours out in a deluge of tears and stuttered gasping. I clutch myself and rock back and forth. When the storm finally passes, I stick my face in my lap and blot my eyes with my knees.

  Feverish now, I remove my top shirt, the faded blue flannel, and drape it across the grass.

  Oh, Father. I will make it up to you. I will open that conservatory like you wanted for me, for strings and woodwinds. Did you hear me play tonight? I still have my fingers. But I may need to take a detour first. You understand, don’t you?

  Yuanfen. Fate between people. Perhaps it works between people and objects, too, since objects carry a bit of their former owners, just like Lady Tin-Yin. Maybe one day, Mother’s jade bracelet will find me, and we can all be together again.

  I unbutton my next shirt, and since I can’t take that one off, I fan myself like a seagull winding up to fly.

  “Well, well. ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth,’” says a voice from behind me.

  32

  I NEARLY JUMP OUT OF MY REMAINING WARDROBE.

  Cay holds out the front of his shirt like a basket as he approaches.

  “‘But the righteous are as bold as a lion.’” I finish the Biblical proverb for him, willing my heart to slow down.

  The scent of tangerines lifts my spirits.

  Cay plops down and hands me one from the pile in his shirt.

  “Where did you get these?” I gasp. I haven’t seen a tangerin
e since we left New York. If it weren’t for Mr. Trask, we would never have been able to afford those fragrant orbs, which are considered lucky by the Chinese, since the word for tangerine sounds like luck.

  “Angelina.”

  Naturally, a girl. I skin my fruit and block out the prying moon. When it comes to tangerines, I do not care if the treasure was won through ignoble means. Little sacs of sweetness burst like liquid sunshine, and I chew very slowly to make mine last.

  The moonlight plays with the blond tendrils at the nape of Cay’s neck. They beg for fingers to wrap around, the way certain vines need to be swung on.

  “When’s your birthday?” I ask.

  “January sixth, 1830.”

  Just as I suspected. Tiger. “So what happened to the doe?”

  “Angelina? I brought her back to her mama. You see, I’m learning.”

  My eyes catch on a red mark on his neck right above the collarbone. A love bite—fresh, too. A flush travels over my face.

  He catches me looking and winks. “Didn’t say I was perfect.” After swallowing his last wedge, he sucks the juice off his fingers, one by one. “You know, I think God does an okay job evening things out with his people. Sure, some folks draw a bad lot. But the average person has about the same amount of tricks and troubles.”

  “Seems about right.”

  “Take you, for example. God gave you arms of twine.”

  “Thanks again,” I mumble.

  “But then he gives you the power to move people.”

  “People are born to dance.”

  “No, I mean, move them. West’s been daunsy all week, dandered up, probably at me. When you picked up Jack-a-Dandy’s banjo and put him back on the shelf, suddenly West starts laughing. None of us knew you could play the banjo. But then he starts crying. Oddest thing.”

  A rush of longing stirs my soul, crowding out my breath. The memory of our brothy kisses tears at my resolve. I put the peel to my nose to ward off the heartsick, and to stop my mind from wandering in a direction it should not go. “Banjos are deeper than people think. So what are Cay Pepper’s tricks?”

  “The good Lord gave me the power to catch sparrows. I know you think my head’s too big, but I’m speaking plain. West has the same gift.”

  “I noticed.”

  He catches me in his green eyes, and I quickly don my mask of nonchalance, but I cannot seem to break away. It is like being caught in Narcissus’s mirrored pond.

  “Trouble is, finding a girl is still a tricky situation, like choosing a hat.” He flips off his hat and sweeps a finger along the edge of the brim. “Like, maybe you’ve had your eye on a fine-looking French number, but when it finally falls onto your head, it loses its appeal.”

  Poor French Mathilde never had a chance.

  He rehats his head. “Or maybe you’ve been told all your life that bison felts are the only hats worth wearing. And when something different comes along, say alligator suede, even though it’s the most worthy thing you’ve seen in your life, you might leave it in the window”—he taps his chin—“until you realize no other hat will fit just right.”

  As I try to figure out who could possibly want a hat made of scaly alligator hide, I don’t realize he’s staring at me. A grin lurks under the neutral line of his mouth. What exactly is he saying? “Er, so you’re through with the French girls?”

  He laughs and rolls out his neck. “What I’d really like is a girl with fire. The kind you can warm your hands on without getting burned. Mischief must be her middle name, so things don’t get dull. That’s all.”

  “A little fire and mischief. That can’t be too hard.”

  “You would be surprised.” He rolls over and lifts his applebright eyes to the stars burning above.

  • • •

  Early the next morning, Andy and I tidy up behind the dense sagebrush.

  I hold her coat while she whacks the fabric clean of dirt with a broom of dried sage. “Isaac taught me this one. The herbs take out the odor, see?” She finishes whacking her coat, then starts on my shirt, with me still in it.

  “Wait, let me take it off, first!” Whack.

  Her mouth tightens. “I decided to go with you to find Mr. Trask.”

  A lump forms in my throat as fast as if I’ve swallowed a pebble. I leave the shirt on. “What? Are you sure?”

  “Uh-huh.” She shakes the branches at me. “Wouldn’t sit right with me if we didn’t try to catch him. We’ll fetch your bracelet, then double back to the Calamity Cutoff.”

  “Thank you, sister.” I can’t resist hugging her.

  She tolerates it for a moment, then pushes me away, as she always does when I show her too much affection. “What are we going to tell the boys once we get to the Parting?”

  A pang of sadness leaves me speechless for a moment. “They already know you want to go to Harp Falls. I’ll just say I’m going with you.”

  “What if they want to come?” Again, she starts whacking my shirt, this time faster and harder until a piece of sage goes flying.

  “They’ve got gold to find.”

  Andy snorts at my non-answer. If the boys do want to come, we’ll have to tell them the truth, a truth that has grown many heads like the chimera. My concern over the boys’ welfare wars with my own cowardice and my feelings for West, which persist even after I’ve tried to convince myself I do not have feelings for him. I don’t know what to do, and apparently neither does Andy.

  Sighing, she tosses her whole bundle of sage into a bush.

  “Africans and Chinese take a long time to build their log cabins,” says Peety, sneaking up on us with his stealthy Rat feet.

  “Lord, give me patience,” mutters Andy, and she stalks out of the brush.

  • • •

  After a morning of riding, Cay leads us off the main trail up a narrow road. “This will save us a few days of travel. That means we’ll get to the gold sooner.”

  Andy glances at me. I shrug. Cay has never steered us wrong before so we dutifully follow.

  “How do you get one of these land grants in California, Peety?” asks West from the drag.

  Peety glances back. “Not sure. I think you go to the governor in Monterey and just ask.”

  Cay swivels around in his saddle and rides backward. “We ain’t going to Monterey. We’re going to the first river we find and digging in a pan. Besides, we got no money for land.”

  “I think it’s free,” says Peety.

  “There ain’t nothing free in this world except bad ideas.” Cay crosses his arms over his chest and leans slightly back, a defiant twist to his mouth.

  No one speaks for a moment. Then West’s voice casually breaks across the silence. “We’d have to build a fence. If we work hard, we could get our first herd out by next summer.”

  Cay crushes his hat to his head. “Dang it now, that wasn’t the original plan.”

  “What do the chicos think?” Peety slows Lupe to walk alongside Andy. “Andito?”

  “Well . . . ” For a tense moment, I think she’s going to tell them the truth, that we won’t be going with them to California. Instead, she says, “I think we’ll know when the time comes.”

  The answer sounds so sage, Peety doesn’t even ask my opinion, for which I am grateful.

  The path begins to cut into the side of a mountain stuck with tall pines. Loose gravel makes the trek slippery. Peety suggests we dismount to make the passage easier on the horses, so we do it. Everyone fastens his rope around his waist, holding the lariat in a ready-throw position. But not me. I rub my shoulder, which aches from playing a too-small fiddle. Roping throws my arm out of joint, and so I have no future there, especially if I hope to be back on my instrument someday.

  “My arm hurts, and I’m just as likely to hang myself as save myself,” I tell Andy when she asks me where my rope is.


  She purses her lips and I see her eyes catch on something behind me. Probably just West glaring at my hard head. I pick out the pine needles caught in Paloma’s mane.

  Not two seconds later, the hiss of a lariat cuts through the air. It lands right on top of me. Now I’m the stump. I wriggle my arms out, face burning, but I don’t acknowledge him. Hitching my shoulders, I soldier on after the others.

  The narrow passage ends, and we start to remount. Then Cay’s voice echoes in the canyon. “What the hell?”

  A man Father’s age sits on the ground, leaning against a fallen chair on one side of the trail. He clutches a wooden cross. The sun-blistered skin of his face and scalp practically glows against the white of his Sunday shirt, and he’s soiled his trousers.

  Cay kneels by his side. “Your friends leave you here? That ain’t right.”

  “Oh my Lord,” says Andy, rushing to the man’s other side, me on her heels.

  “How ’bout some agua?” says Cay. The man’s canteen is slung in the dirt, unlidded and empty, so Cay gives the man a sip from it.

  “Wait, Cay,” says West. He rushes up to knock the canteen from his cousin’s hand. “Back out. Don’t touch him.”

  We all gape at West. “He has cholera,” he says. “Look at his eyes.”

  The man’s orbs are sunk into his skin like two olives dropped in vanilla pudding. They stare into space, glazed and green. He is not going to make it.

  Cay freezes. West yanks him back to his feet. “Let’s go.” His mouth presses into a grim line.

  Cay and Peety remount, but Andy and I hesitate.

  “Vámonos, God will take care of him.”

  “Ain’t you got some whiskey, Peety?” asks Andy.

  Peety shakes his head. “All dry.”

  Andy touches her palms together. “God bless you, and take away you’s hurt.”

  I should follow Andy back to the horses but I’m caught by the man’s blanching fingers, grasping at his cross like it is the only thing holding him to this world. His lips quiver as he moans.

  He knows we are leaving him. I clasp my own throat, though I’m not the thirsty one.