Under a Painted Sky

by Stacey Lee

  “God bless us, a falcon!” Badge exclaims, lifting his head. Jeremiah lifts his own eyes, falling for the distraction, and Badge nods at me. “Falcons are a special bird, Jer. Ain’t no one can catch ’em. Not even you with your bow and arrow.”

  My trembling pinkie probes the hole. I bear down on my own tattered nerves.

  “Jeremiah made friends with a couple of Cheyenne and they gave him a bow and arrow,” Badge tells me. “Made it special for him.”

  “Special, eh?” I push farther and Jeremiah hisses. Keeping my voice light, I ask, “Can you shoot a dandelion from thirty feet away?” Warm tissues close around my finger and blood runs along my arm. I force down the bile rising to my throat and soldier on.

  Jeremiah nods, lip trembling.

  “What about a dandelion seed?” I ask.

  “Ain’t tried,” he rasps.

  “Well then, I guess you’ll have some work ahead of you.”

  As gently as I can, I probe the walls of the bullet’s tunnel, past ridges and slick bumps, praying I’m not causing more damage. Jeremiah begins to whimper again, and Badge starts a hymn about Moses and the Promised Land. He has a bass voice with an even keel and a rich vibrato. It’s meant for the boy, but it steadies my own jangled nerves.

  Finally, just past my second knuckle, I brush the end of the bullet. I don’t talk so my concentration does not break.

  The boy’s eyes roll. I don’t have much finger space left, but I do my best to pull the bullet down by stroking it with my fingernail. There. It moves. Gently, I coax it backward.

  Soon, we see the end glinting in the daylight. I pinch it between my thumb and index finger, and pull out the crushed piece of metal. Quickly, I finish cleaning the wound.

  “You done good, Jeremiah, you done real good,” says Badge.

  Jeremiah stops crying and looks down at his leg as I clean it off. I roll the bandages around his thigh. Soon I’ve rolled enough so the blood no longer soaks through. Badge fetches him a fresh pair of trousers that smell like herbs. As Badge helps him into them, I ladle fish stew into two cups.

  Badge bows his head over his cup. “Bless this food, dear God, and this boy, who helped your poor servants in their time of need.”

  Jeremiah eats with his left hand. Badge waits until the boy finishes half his bowl before starting on his own. I don’t ask questions, since doing so would require answers in kind. Obviously, they’re outrunning the law up here. The less I know, the better. Still, it seems odd not to converse.

  “How long you played the fiddle?” asks Badge, saving me from having to think up a neutral topic. Now that the crisis has cooled, his face looks almost friendly with the high and protruding forehead that Chinese people believe indicates good fortune. His mouth still remembers how to smile, despite his hardship.

  “Since I was four,” I answer, not wanting to give out my age.

  “You got one now?” asks the boy weakly.

  “No, it drowned at the Platte River Crossing.”

  “We lost one of our own there, too,” says Badge, staring into his stew.

  I sit up, remembering the dead man we found at the base of the cottonwood. He was one of theirs after all?

  Badge puts down his cup. “We needs to be going.”

  He gets to his feet. Gingerly, he lifts Jeremiah into their mule’s saddle. One half of Jeremiah’s face bunches into a grimace, while the other half tries to remain strong.

  “Stew’s fine,” says Badge, shaking my hand, and putting his other hand on my shoulder. “Almost worth killing over.”

  A voice behind him suddenly yells, “Get your hands off him, before I blow your head off. I swear I’ll do it.”

  Jeremiah’s mule skitters out of West and Franny’s way, knocking Badge into me. We fall into a heap on the ground. Badge mutters a curse, then scrambles to a crouch. He eyes his gun, lying on a blanket by the campfire, five paces away.

  “No, West!” I scream. His horrified eyes fix on me and my blood-soaked shirt.

  “Sammy,” he cries as he slides off Franny. Then, to Badge, “You son of a bitch.” With the butt of his rifle, he whacks Badge in the temple. But at the last second, Badge dodges, and the weapon does not deal a fatal blow, only glances off his cheek. I lunge at West, trying to grab the rifle from him.

  As West and I struggle, Badge clambers toward our fire.

  “It’s not my blood!” I pant. “I’m fine, he doesn’t mean to hurt us.”

  West doesn’t hear me. He throws me off and aims his rifle at Badge, just as Badge raises his. Unlike when he pointed the gun at me, I know by his expression that this time, Badge will use it.

  Hastily, I jump to my feet and stand between them. “No, no, don’t shoot!” I babble as I look from one to the other, nearly crying in my panic. West’s chest heaves as he stares through the sight line of his piece.

  “Please, listen to me,” I beg him.

  “Move away, boy!” Badge orders, his voice now tight and angry.

  West tries to move to the side of me, but I get in front of him again. “I swear, out of my way!” he growls.

  The chicken threat. West won’t back down as long as Badge doesn’t. I cannot move them to common areas of interest for they won’t even listen to me. Father, are you listening? Tell me what to do.

  I once begged Father to rescue a cat stuck up a spruce. We dragged our ladder at least a mile and propped it against the tree. Once Father reached the cat, it ran up another ten feet. So Father climbed back down.

  “We’ll come back for the ladder tomorrow,” he told my teary self. “Cat just needs a way down.”

  By the next day, the cat was gone.

  “Badge,” I say. His head bleeds where West hit him. “Think of Jeremiah.”

  “I said, move aside, if you value you’s life!” yells Badge, causing spit to fly. I wilt under the heat of his fury.

  “Jeremiah,” I repeat, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “What we did today.” I hold out my hands to him, still stained with blood. Please take the ladder and climb down.

  Badge’s eyes flick to Jeremiah, still huddled over his mule, then back to my hands. His body is so rigid, his muscles tremble.

  At last, he looks up from his sight line. “A life for a life, eh?” he says.

  “Yes, a life for a life.” Behind me, West’s breath escapes as a short gasp.

  “Do I have his word?” Badge asks.

  West doesn’t say anything.

  “West?” I call in a low voice, praying he will see reason.

  Again, he doesn’t answer. I count up my remaining options and realize I don’t have any. Badge’s pupils constrict, signaling the imminent squeeze of a trigger.

  “Fine,” he says coldly.

  Badge puts down his gun. “But if I ever see your face again”—he stabs his finger toward West—“do not think I will be so merciful.”

  “Nor I,” comes West’s surly reply.

  The two glower at each other for three more counts of white-knuckled panic, until Badge finally tucks his gun back into his coat. In a few strides, he’s with Jeremiah and their mule.

  West and I watch them depart until the mule’s footfalls grow too soft to hear. Trees whisper silently to themselves, and shed tears of leaves.

  36

  TEA. WE BOTH NEED A CUP OF TEA.

  Father and I drank chrysanthemum tea to calm nerves, but since we don’t have that, I fill West’s cup with our blackberry brew.

  West kicks at the ground and yells in frustration, walking in a rough circle with his arms wrapped around his head. “That was the Broken Hand Gang, wasn’t it,” he states more than asks.

  I push the cup at West. Then I stand back, wringing my fingers so hard, my joints crack.

  He mutters a curse then, “I’m sorry.”

  Dropping the cup, he grabs my hands. My
heart pounds at the intimacy of it. All I can do is gape.

  “You’re trembling. What happened?” he asks.

  I pull away. “The boy had a bullet in his leg,” I tell him in the calmest tone I can manage. “They needed help removing it.” I look down at my fingers, still stained with blood, too much blood. Suddenly, I wonder whether I did the boy more harm than good.

  West’s shadow reaches out to me. Reflexively, I step back. Like Franny, I somehow connected with his motion.

  “Don’t,” I say, unprepared for the moment, and in danger of falling for him again.

  • • •

  The next day, instead of going out, West sprints each horse across Eden, winding around pine trees and over shrubs. The sound of their hooves crescendos and diminishes as he takes them back and forth.

  I examine the invalids closely for any signs of improvement. Their skin looks no less chalky, and I despair again of them ever leaving this mountainside.

  Cay’s eyes open and he blinks at me, trying to straighten his vision. After he swallows his salt water, he says, “I know why you smell good. It’s okay.”

  “What’s okay?”

  His eyes study my face so intently I begin to sweat, sure that he’s figured me out. “That you’re a filly.”

  “A what?”

  “A filly,” he whispers.

  A girl? Or the common term for a man who enjoys the company of other men? I don’t breathe. It must be the latter or else why would he use the word filly and not girl?

  “I am not,” I say with mock indignation, playing along.

  “I know it ain’t my business. To each his own.” He grins. “But you run funny, and you ain’t hairy.”

  “Maybe you should save your air for breathing.”

  “Plus, you used to stick around West like a burr.”

  “A burr,” I repeat as my face heats up for real.

  “Don’t hold it against him, Sammy.” His eyes shift around like West could be hiding somewhere in a bush. “His father got soaked often and beat him oftener. Burnt quirleys on him.”

  The round scars on his arm. Shock replaces my mortification.

  “Once, he caught West drawing pictures. Called him a filly. His daddy beat him so bad, West didn’t remember his name when the sheriff brung him to us. Asshole.” Cay’s breath grows shallower.

  “Shh. Stop talking.” I swab his face. His locks grab my fingers like the tendrils of a sweet pea.

  After Cay falls asleep, I seek out the comfort of Paloma’s snowy white mane. My thoughts are a jumble as I groom her, fresh from her run. When I brush against the direction of her hair coat by mistake, she jumps.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, smoothing the hair back down. Then I rest my forehead against the slope of Paloma’s back, letting my guilt pile up.

  Did you think your father’s words were true because of me? And you still saved my life twice, even killed the cholera man so I wouldn’t have to.

  Father always said, Give a man a mask if you want to hear the truth. But even with a disguise, I could not be honest. Now it is too late. You will never trust me again.

  I swipe my eyes with my sleeve and busy myself with my patients, whether more for their sake or mine, I can’t be sure. After giving them their salt water, I wash Andy’s hair using our frying pan as a basin. She hates to be dirty. She falls asleep as I wrap her head in a rag I warmed by the fire.

  • • •

  In the late afternoon, West shoots a turkey that wandered near our camp. I avoided him all day but now get to my feet as he approaches.

  Dark half-moons underline his eyes since he refused to wake me again for last night’s watch. There are a million things I want to say to him, but my stubborn tongue refuses to port them out of the tunnel.

  “Let me,” I say lamely, holding my hand out for the bird.

  “’S all right. I’ll do it.”

  “No, you should rest.”

  “I rested enough.”

  “Well, someone better cook it or I’m getting up and doing it myself,” says Andy.

  I gasp and drop down by her side. Her eyes are clear and her face, tranquil. She stretches her arms over her head and pats at her hair wrap.

  “How come I got this woman’s rag on me?” she asks in a loud voice, then slyly winks at me.

  “Andy,” I cry out.

  Peety opens his bloodshot eyes and squints. “Sammy, you write my eulogy yet? I hoping you could say, ‘Pedro Hernando Gonzalez, he rode his horse to the end.’”

  “More like, ‘He rode the end of his horse,’” mumbles Cay, though his eyes are still closed.

  I touch both of their foreheads, which are cool again. Oh, Father, I think your salt mix worked. I choke back my emotion.

  “You three are worse than a herd of acorn calves,” West says.

  • • •

  Andy and Peety’s appetites have returned. We spend the evening feeding them bits of turkey stew. Peety nods gratefully when I brush the crumbs off the front of his shirt with a rag. He likes to keep a neat table.

  I sop a piece of skillet bread in soup and reflect on my Snake luck. Unlucky that I fell into the Platte River, but lucky I survived. Unlucky that the Broken Hand Gang found us, but lucky West wasn’t killed. Unlucky about the cholera, but somehow, the people I care about are still breaking bread together. I suppose as long as everyone keeps surviving, I am up on my luck.

  Cay, still queasy, just sips blackberry tea. “Now ain’t you glad I took that wrong turn?” he asks in a weak but still playful voice. “Gave you a little vacation up here.”

  West doesn’t mention the visit from the Broken Hand Gang, and I follow his lead.

  After a few bites of his dinner, Cay falls back on his bedroll and asks me to pull his earlobes again, so I oblige. Peety rises unsteadily to his feet, then gives every horse a kiss and a back-scratch. After licking her spoon, Andy joins him. West tidies the campsite. He moves slower than usual and yawns every minute, but he won’t go to bed until the last cup is wiped.

  Finally, Peety turns in, followed by West, who drops onto his bedroll without even taking off his boots. Cay, his head in my lap, has finally fallen asleep—along with my legs. Andy beckons me over to her bedroll. I unhook my legs and rub feeling back into them.

  Andy’s face has the bright sheen of someone with fever, but her head is cool. “I feel grimy.”

  “Come on, I’ll give you a bath.” She bats away my proffered hand and gets up on her own. I find our soap and rag and lead her upstream. The night is warm, and the dirt on my own skin feels like an extra shirt.

  We stop at a shallow part of the stream where the water pools, and toss our hats onto an overhanging branch.

  Andy strips off her clothes and wades into the water, arms held out to the sides. I wash her frock coat. She can cover herself with a horse blanket tonight and by morning, the coat should be dry.

  She carefully sits on a rock, and splashes water on her face and over her shoulders. “Feels good to get clean again. Thought the next time I got wet I’d be in the River Jordan.” The six dots on her arm glow in the moonlight. She catches me looking.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask, remembering the way she’s been rubbing it the last few days.

  “Itches now and then. But I think I figured out why God allowed Mr. Yorkshire to stick me with this nasty die.”

  “Die?”

  “He loved his dice. Six was his lucky number, though it always set him back seven.”

  I stare at the square, wondering why I didn’t realize it was a die before, especially considering how a single die figured so significantly in my own history.

  “But I think six is my lucky number. Five of us, plus Isaac. I have a good feeling I’m gonna find him soon.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I plunk down next to her, hoping no fish bite my bottom
. “You talked about your brothers a lot.” I lather her hair with the soap and scrub.

  “That’s ’cause I was dreaming about them.”

  “What about?”

  She smiles. “I was dreaming about the year before they split us up. Tommy was seven, He and Isaac used to play a game called Follow. Isaac would blindfold Tommy, and call, ‘Follow,’ and Tommy would have to trust that Isaac wouldn’t trip him, or lead him into the mud. Tommy was a good follower, never even stumbled.”

  She churns the water with her hand. “But one day, Tommy asked to be the leader. He made Isaac wear the blindfold. Isaac only went two paces before he fell, though of course, there was nothing blocking his path but his own scaredyness.” She chuckles.

  “Did you ever play the game?”

  She stares hard at the space in front of her, like someone’s there, though all I see is the river. Finally, she answers, “I’m still playing the game.”

  As I puzzle out what she means, she says, “You and West took good care of us.”

  “You gave us a good scare.”

  “Serves you right for nearly drowning in the Platte. I guess we’s even now.”

  She disappears under the water. When she surfaces, she blows a stream from her mouth. Her skin is sleek and glassy, like an exotic river dolphin. “If anything had happened to me, you’d have told the boys about you, right?”

  “No.”

  “Why? They’d help you get to Mr. Trask.”

  “They’ve done enough for me. Besides, I think I can find my own way now.” I start in on my own scalp, scrubbing hard.

  Water drops off her thick lashes when she squints at me. “Maybe you could. But would you want to?”

  I don’t answer.

  Her gaze drifts away, and I worry again that she’s thinking about separating. I decide to tell her about our visit from the Broken Hand Gang. She listens, wide-eyed and motionless.

  I finish my story. “We’ll have to be careful. They may not mean us harm, but whoever shot Jeremiah might still be out there.”

  “Yeah, you’s right. We gotta be careful.”

  • • •