Some Kind of Courage

by Dan Gemeinhart

  “I hope you find Mr. Bishop, son,” Mr. Strawn said. “But I hope you don’t.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  Mr. Strawn spit into the dirt.

  “You’re a good boy. But Ezra Bishop is a very bad man. Dangerous. And if you do find him, you’ll be finding a world full of trouble.”

  “All I want is to buy my own horse back.”

  “Yeah. You got more money than he paid for her?”

  I looked away.

  “No, sir. I’ve got less.”

  Mr. Strawn’s eyes sharpened. It was a moment before he spoke.

  “Son, I’m glad you didn’t lose that pistol of yours. ’Cause if you end up buying your horse back from Mr. Bishop, it’ll be with lead and not gold. You keep your wits about you.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that. So I just shook Mr. Strawn’s hand and clambered up onto the horse.

  I looked down the road we were to travel. Somewhere down that road, not too terrible far away, was my sweet Sarah. With a pony under me I’d be able to cover ground fast. I could almost feel her neck against my cheek, almost hear the soft nicker she made when she saw it was me walking up to her. She was worth the trouble. She was worth the danger.

  Then I turned, suddenly remembering Ah-Kee.

  “Can you hold on to me with no saddle?” I asked. Ah-Kee just blinked up at me. “Well,” I said, leaning down to offer him a hand up, “we’re about to find out.”

  Turns out Ah-Kee really couldn’t hold on to me with no saddle.

  Luckily we made it over the ridge and out of sight of Mr. Strawn and the Indians before he toppled off the first time, landing with a clumsy thud in a slippery smear of mud. At least I hoped it was mud. A lot of horses had come over that trail recently.

  “You okay?” I called down. Ah-Kee barked a few angry words up at me, trying to wipe at the filth on his pants. I don’t know if they have curse words in Chinese, but if they do I reckon Ah-Kee was saying ’em.

  We got him back on the horse behind me, but it weren’t another quarter mile before I was sitting alone on the horse again, looking down at Ah-Kee brushing himself off. It weren’t the horse’s fault. She was small and her back was slick, and Ah-Kee just kept bouncing and sliding sideways until he was getting a good close look at the ground. To his credit he always hopped up quick, though, and we were still making fairly good progress by my reckoning. I kept that pony moving as fast as I could while still keeping Ah-Kee on her back for a reasonable amount of time, and I could feel Ellensburg and my own horse getting closer.

  It was after the fourth or fifth fall that Ah-Kee, still sitting on the ground with a scowl on his face, suddenly patted his pockets and gasped. His eyes went wide and he chattered up at me with high-pitched urgency in his voice.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked stupidly. He jumped up out of the dirt and dramatically patted his pockets, then held his hands out to me, open and empty. All at once I understood.

  His little bird carving. My heart sank. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it meant a great deal to him.

  I looked over my shoulder, up the trail we’d just come down.

  “Heck, Ah-Kee, I’m sorry. But it coulda slipped out on any one of your falls. It could be anywhere.” He must’ve gotten the sense of what I was saying because he shook his head vigorously and talked more forcefully, pointing back up the road. I saw his eyes start to glisten and I cursed, looking down the road toward Sarah and Ellensburg and then up the road toward all the muddy places where Ah-Kee had fallen. All I wanted was my horse back. That’s all. And it seemed like everything was working together to keep me from her. But looking down at Ah-Kee, covered in mud with desperate tears in his eyes, I didn’t have to think too hard to know what Mama and Papa would’ve had me do. I knew he didn’t have nothing at all in this whole world but that little black bird.

  I turned the horse around and held my hand down toward Ah-Kee.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ll find it. But then you gotta do some better hanging on so we can gain some ground.”

  We had no luck at the first spot we looked, but it was hard to tell whether it was because the bird wasn’t there or because we just couldn’t find one little black bird in all that brown mud. We didn’t fare any better at the second spot, but it was just a patch of bare dry dirt so the looking was quicker.

  The third spot was on a little hill spotted with scrubby shrubs. We both got on our hands and knees, crawling around and scanning the ground. I noticed every second how the sun got closer and closer to the horizon. I dearly wanted to avoid spending another night by a campfire, falling farther behind Ezra Bishop. If we could make it to town by sunset, I might have my horse back by dinner. I got a lump in my throat just thinking about it.

  It was right about then that I saw the bird, the glossy blackness of its stone shining dimly under a prickly bush Ah-Kee had rolled into after hitting the ground.

  “Ah-Kee! Ah-Kee!” I snatched the bird and spun around on my knees and held it out to him. He sprang at me like a mountain lion and grabbed the carving out of my hand. He rubbed it fiercely in his fingers for a moment like he was making sure it was really real, then looked at me and dove, wrapping me in a hug that knocked me back on my rear.

  “All right, all right!” I laughed, struggling to breathe he was hugging me so tight. “Ease up, Ah-Kee.” He gave me one last squeeze then sat back on his heels, looking at the little black bird. I thought for a minute, then pulled the white stone out of my pocket, the one I’d taken from Papa’s gravesite.

  I held the stone up so he could see it.

  “Lookie here, Ah-Kee. We both keep something special in our pockets.” I rubbed my thumb over the smooth face of the stone. “I suspect they’re memories for both of us.”

  Ah-Kee said a line or two, his voice quiet but strong. I sure wished I knew what he was saying, ’cause it sounded good. Important, even. I think I probably got the gist, though.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s good having a memory you can hold on to.”

  He held his bird out between his fingers, and I held my stone out, and we tapped them together, like we were doing a cheers before Thanksgiving dinner.

  “All right,” I said, standing up. “Now we got to make good time down this mountain, Ah-Kee. I’m after another memory I can hold on to, and she’s likely waiting for me in Ellensburg. You gotta hold on to me up on that horse as tight as you did down here a second ago. You ready?”

  Ah-Kee nodded and we helped each other up onto the waiting Indian pony. Ah-Kee’s arms gripped tight around my middle and we took off down the mountain, racing the sun to the horizon.

  We both held our memories tight in our hands, not trusting our pockets with something so important.

  * * *

  Ellensburg sat in the growing dark, lights shining through the windows and smoke curling out of most of the chimneys. The sun had set by the time Ah-Kee and me rode up the muddy main street into town, but only barely, and the sky was still lit up by the oranges and purples of its dying light.

  It was a bigger town than Wenatchee by far, but no bigger than it had been the last time I’d come through. Less than a year had passed, but it sure enough felt longer. An awful lot had happened since I’d last ridden up that horse-mucked street. Back then I’d been in a wagon with my family. Now I was on a borrowed Indian pony, with a Chinese boy’s arms squeezing the life out of me. He’d stayed on the horse, though, by God, and the pony’s feet had eaten up the miles.

  I was wasting no time. There were several hotels and bars and stables, and I was betting that somewhere among them I’d find Ezra Bishop and with him, my horse at last.

  I started asking folks that we passed, but either folks didn’t know Mr. Bishop or they weren’t willing to tell where he was. Some folks just shot a dirty look at Ah-Kee and kept walking without even answering.

  All of a sudden I heard Ah-Kee gasp. His arms let go of me and he dropped down to the ground, but on purpose for once. He held up a
finger to me, spoke a few urgent words, then scurried into a nearby store, still open and well-lit with oil lamps.

  My heart sank when I saw the sign for it. A Chinese laundry. Through the window I could see the Chinese man standing behind the crude counter. The door closed behind Ah-Kee.

  He’d found his own people.

  I’d known it would happen—heck, it was why I’d brought him along in the first place. But, truth be told, I’d gotten to like having Ah-Kee around. I wasn’t ready yet to go back to being all alone again. I cursed softly in the darkness.

  I was just about to spur the horse forward when I took one last look at Ah-Kee through the laundry window. He was talking to the man across the counter. He held something up, and I squinted to see it through the dirty glass. It was that bird sculpture again. The man answered back, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.

  To my surprise, Ah-Kee turned and walked back out to me.

  His face showed his disappointment. He held up his hand so I could help him back up onto the horse.

  “You coming with me?” I asked, sounding a bit happier than I intended. “You ain’t staying here, with your own people?”

  He just kept his hand up, waiting. His whole body spoke of sadness, standing there in the mud looking up at me.

  “I have no idea what you’re looking for, Ah-Kee,” I said as I reached down and lifted him up behind me. “But I sure hope you find it.”

  A few buildings farther up the street was a kind of trading post and general store, dark and closed. A man was just latching the front door when we came up.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “I’m looking for a man and I was wondering if you knew where he was.”

  The man looked us up and down. He was bundled up against the evening chill and seemed in a hurry to get home or to whatever saloon he was heading for.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ezra Bishop, sir. He’s a horse trader, of sorts.”

  The man’s face soured into a scowl.

  “Sure, I know Ezra Bishop. He was here this afternoon trying to cheat me on a load of furs. He’s gone now, though.”

  My head dropped and I almost swore out loud. I was sure making a regular habit of ending up where Ezra Bishop had just been. My body and mind were tired of this cross-country chasing, but my heart still pulled me along like a sled dog toward my pony.

  “Oh,” I said. “Thank you, sir. I don’t suppose you know which way he was headed?”

  The man pointed up the street, toward the fading light of the sun.

  “Thataway.”

  “West? Over the mountains to Seattle?” My heart did a double-drop. I had sworn I’d get Sarah back or die trying, and the second option was looking more and more likely if I was gonna have to head over the Cascade Mountains in October on foot.

  “Seattle? No, boy. Just right up there to the Robber’s Roost Saloon, three doors up. He’s stabling his horses there and staying in the little house out back. Still there, as far as I know.”

  My head snapped up and my heart set to racing. Sarah was three doors up the street. If I shouted she’d likely hear me. After three days of mountain passes and grizzly bears and Indian races, I was a stone’s throw away from my horse at last.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said quick, spurring the horse on. “Much obliged.”

  The horse couldn’t go fast enough up that road to make my heart happy. Ellensburg was a busy town, even at dusk, and we had to weave between men on horseback and wagons and people afoot. Then there it was, oil lamps burning in the windows and a rough hand-lettered sign above the door: THE ROBBER’S ROOST SALOON.

  As we rode up I craned my neck to see behind it, and sure enough there was a stable there, closed up for the night, and a shabby little cabin beside it. Smoke was coming from the cabin’s chimney, and through the one window I saw the shadow of a large man move in front of the fire.

  Ezra Bishop, the man I’d been seeking, was in that cabin.

  And in that stable, just waiting for me to find her and hug her and have her back, was my Sarah.

  My hands were shaking with excitement, and I sure enough wanted nothing more in the world than to just go straight back there and find her. I figured I could have her out of there in under a minute and be off in the darkness, back where I belonged with the horse that belonged with me.

  But I knew I couldn’t do that. I was no horse thief. Papa would never have allowed it. And besides, horse thieves weren’t looked upon kindly by anybody. If I was caught it sure wouldn’t have been good. I didn’t think they’d hang a twelve-year-old boy, but they’d be tempted. And I’d likely lose any chance I had of getting Sarah back.

  Ezra Bishop had bought and paid for her, and I s’posed it weren’t his fault that the seller had no right to her. I’d have to get her back honest or not at all.

  I steered the pony through the gap between the Robber’s Roost and its neighbor, around to the back. Through the stable walls I heard the snort of a horse, and I almost cried out. Could that be my Sarah, only inches away? I forced myself to calm down and think things through. It was a dicey situation for sure.

  I sat for a second on the pony, considering it all.

  “All right, let’s get down,” I whispered to Ah-Kee over my shoulder. “But be quiet about it.” I felt Ah-Kee’s head nod against my back, and we slid on down to the ground with as little noise as we could. Ah-Kee looked at me with big, questioning eyes. I wished I could explain it all to him. He didn’t even know we was after a horse at all, let alone a horse owned by a bad man who wasn’t likely to want to sell her to me for less than he paid for her.

  The cabin was small and dark, with a little covered porch out front. Quiet as I could, I led Ah-Kee around to the side, among some scattered tools where the shadows were thickest.

  “Stay here,” I said, motioning as clear as I could for him to crouch down and stay put. I didn’t know how Mr. Bishop felt about Chinese folks, but so far most white folks around here didn’t seem to like them. I didn’t want having Ah-Kee there with me to spoil the deal, and I didn’t want Ah-Kee in any danger, neither. “I’ll be back out here quick as I can, and then you and me’ll ride off together on the finest horse you ever saw.” I knew Ah-Kee didn’t know a darn word of what I was saying—I was saying it more for myself than for him. The truth was, I was scared so bad I felt like I was gonna lose whatever little food I had left in my belly.

  I could tell Ah-Kee didn’t like me leaving him there alone, though whether he was more worried about himself or me, I couldn’t tell. We’d already been through plenty together, Ah-Kee and me, and I felt awful alone as I walked around the corner of that cabin and up onto the front porch.

  I stood for a second looking at the crooked plank door. Through it I could hear someone big walking around inside. Even in that chilly evening air my palms and underarms were sweating like summertime.

  I heard Papa’s voice in my head. “If there’s something that’s got to be done, then the thing to do is just to buckle down and do it as best you can.”

  Mama piped in, too. “If you got a brave spirit and a true heart, Joseph, you can hold your head up and take on any trouble.” I didn’t know how brave my spirit was, but my heart was sure enough beating true for the horse my papa had bought for me and my mama had named for me. She was mine and I was there to get her, by God.

  I reached up with the bravest spirit I could muster and knocked three times firm on the door.

  There was a creaking of floorboards and then the door was jerked open roughly. It was dark inside and the huge, hulking shadow was backlit by a fire in the stone fireplace. I thought I recognized the burly shoulders, though, and the bushy black beard that stood out on the man’s face and hung all the way down to the second button on his shirt.

  “Ezra Bishop?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “Who the hell is asking?” a voice barked, drunk and already angry.

  The shadow swayed slightly from side to side before me. Even from outsi
de I could smell the familiar perfume of whiskey and someone who’d been drinking too much of it. I knew that stink well from my cursed days with Mr. Grissom.

  “My name’s Joseph Johnson, sir. I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

  “You what? Something that belongs to you? What are you saying, boy?”

  I realized my mistake immediately. I’d just knocked on his door and accused him of horse-thieving.

  “No, sir,” I rushed to say. “I meant to say you have something that I would like to buy. A horse, sir. You bought her, and I’ve come to buy her back.”

  The shadow stepped forward into the doorway, and I looked up into the face of Ezra Bishop. I’d had those black beady eyes and pockmarked face in my mind’s eye since the moment I’d found my Sarah missing. He was even larger than I remembered, a bulging giant of a man who filled the whole of the door frame. He was big as a bull, with a broad barrel chest, but he had the softness around his face and belly of a man who was too fond of his bottle and his bacon.

  He smacked his lips and rocked back on his heels. “You got money, boy?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I patted the satchel around my shoulder. “I’ve come prepared to pay you, fair and honest.”

  In an instant I saw the man before me change. His eyes cleared, his jaw tightened. The lazy looseness of his body disappeared.

  Before we’d left Missouri to come west, our neighbors’d had a dog. He was a friendly dog, all wagging tail and flopping tongue. But that was only with people. With other dogs he was truly a terror—he fought red-hot and without warning, and had killed more than one dog unfortunate enough to wander into his sight. I remembered petting him once, when he was lying about in the dust on a sunny day, panting happily. Then he saw another dog down the road a ways. His eyes had sharpened, and his shoulders bunched; the fur rose quiet and angry up his back, his tongue disappeared, and his teeth showed white. His whole body had gone still and ready, like the hammer on a pistol poised to fire. He’d been ready for blood.