Then someone in the audience sniffles, and the spell breaks. Together, we clap our blistered and calloused hands. We shout. We stamp at the dirt like horses. A wide-brimmed hat gets passed around, and we throw in what we can spare for a tip. For me, that’s a half-dollar, which I’ll probably regret tomorrow. My gaze travels to the edge of camp, and there’s Odette. She isn’t shouting or clapping. She’s quiet and still. She’s staring at James, who is leaning toward Farrah, brushing back a strand of her copper hair and whispering something in her ear.
With that gesture, Odette and I both know that something has happened. It happened in the handful of days since I last saw James in the cool kitchens of the Gonzales house. He’s now convinced of my plan, the plan to move in on Farrah. Maybe he saw something; maybe he found something.
Whatever it is James says causes Farrah to laugh, high and bright. I look away, scanning camp for a distraction. The crowd has started to thin. The foremen all trudge back to their section of camp, and the night guards take their stations. One of the house workers guides Bell away. Some jimadors make their way through the dark to the bunkhouses. Others, like Leo and Raoul, set to work rebuilding the bonfire for those not yet willing to succumb to sleep. Bruno’s nearby, watching because he can’t offer help, his large arms crossed over his wide chest, his gaze serious and focused on the growing fire. His injured hand is wrapped in burlap.
I weave through the crowd in his direction. As I approach, he sees me and smiles.
“How’s your hand?” I ask.
“Better. The aloe helps. It’s hard to work with it wrapped up, though.”
We pause for a moment, neither of us knowing what to say.
“You’re not going back to your bunkhouse yet, are you?” I ask.
“I wasn’t sure. Do you want to stay up for a while?”
Yes. The answer is yes. This night has my nerves buzzing and my skin feeling like it’s shimmering.
“Did you know I play the violin?” I blurt.
“I did not.” His smile gets wider. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
“I’m mostly self-taught. I haven’t played in a long time, though.”
Bruno nods his head in the direction of the wagon. “That must have just brought out a lot of memories then.”
I make a noise, something between a sigh and a huff, before following the direction of Bruno’s gaze, the place where the musicians played, holding us all in thrall. James is there, leaning over the now partially dismantled drum kit, holding out a coin and chatting with the drummer. After a moment, the drummer hands over one of her sticks and palms the coin. James straightens up, beaming, and faces camp.
“What’s he doing?” I hear Bruno ask.
“I don’t know.”
“Your attention!” James calls out. “If I could have your attention for a moment!” Some of the jimadors stop and shift their focus to James. Some ignore him. Some call out colorful curses. James goes on without missing a beat because that’s what James does.
“Come on up here, young lady,” he says.
The young lady to whom James is referring is Farrah. If it were Odette, she would duck her head and act coy, but Farrah does no such thing. Instead, she marches up out of the crowd and takes her place next to him. She checks her posture—delicate shoulders thrown just slightly back, chin tipped just slightly up. She’d be the paragon of the proper, stoic lady if it weren’t for the grin she’s obviously biting her tongue to fight back. She doesn’t sway tonight. She can stand on her feet just fine.
James holds up the drumstick. “Five cents says I can’t hit this stick with my knife from this young lady’s mouth from fifteen paces.”
For a moment or two, there’s silence.
“I’ll take those odds!” Leo shouts, winding his way through the crowd. He stops in front of James and deposits a nickel at his feet. “This young lady is a blue-blooded chicken, and James here has some of the worst aim I’ve ever seen. He can barely cut the spines off a maguey. And those things don’t even have legs.”
I laugh, just barely, at one of the oldest cons in the book. I don’t know how much steel Farrah has in her spine, but James’ aim has always been true. Even in the dark. Even at fifteen paces.
James leans in and says something to Farrah. She opens her mouth just enough for James to slide the tip of the stick between her teeth, which results in several vulgar hoots from the jimadors.
“Ooh, remember not to get scared and bite too hard,” Leo says loud enough for everyone to hear, eliciting another round of laughter.
More people shoulder through the growing crowd in front of James, and a small pile of coins starts to form at his feet. I lose count of the total, but I know that it’s way more than James and I ever got when we did this trick together.
James crouches down and pulls his knife from his boot. Even in the dark, its white-bone handle gleams. He counts off fifteen steps and does an about-face. The crowd waits, expectation etched on their faces. They look to James, then Farrah, then back to James. They want something from him, and a part of me thinks it’s not that they want him to hit the stick, despite the pile of coins indicating otherwise. They all know who this young lady is, and they’d bet a nickel to see—by accident—her cheek flayed open or the tip of her nose sliced off.
Odette, too, has worked her way to the front of the crowd. She leans to one side, favoring her injured foot. She’s looking to James, silently pleading for him to notice her, but he doesn’t. I bet Odette would pay more than a nickel, that she’d sacrifice larger chunks of her flesh, to see Farrah struck down right before her eyes.
“Can he do this?”
I startle. I was so fixated on James that I forgot Bruno is still next to me. “He won’t miss. He never does.”
James pulls back his arm, quick like always, and releases. This is a view I’ve never seen: knife spinning through the air, end over end. The blade smacks the wood of the stick, causing it to splinter. It breaks nearly in half before it’s pulled entirely from the soft grip of Farrah’s teeth. There’s a gasp from the crowd, meager applause, and a loud, exaggerated curse from Leo. James stoops to pick up his coins from the dust, a smile on his face.
When we do that trick—every single time we do that trick—my heart is beating like mad. I know James will never miss, but I worry. I worry about myself. What if, for some reason, I take a sudden step, or cough, or sneeze, or something in the far distance catches my attention? Each time, after James’ blade goes whizzing by, it takes me a moment to get my heartbeat even, to loosen my nerves.
Farrah, though, just stands there, ever calm. She doesn’t have her hand on her chest to confirm the beat beneath. Her eyes aren’t widened, stunned that she’s cheated injury or worse. When the steel of James’ blade hit the wood inches from her face, she didn’t even flinch, and her eyes, they never closed. Her lids never fluttered.
“Brave girl.” There’s admiration in Bruno’s tone.
I want to disagree, but I can’t.
Odette steps closer to James just as he stands from collecting his winnings. She says something I can’t hear, and his resulting smile is forced. He puts his hand on her arm, squeezes once, releases her, and then turns away.
Odette drops her head, and my heart pinches in sympathy. I know that gesture and its total lack of feeling. It kills me sometimes, how good an actor James can be.
FOURTEEN
I’m one of the first ones up and moving the next morning. The mess kids are just starting to throw hunks of chopped mesquite wood in a pile to make the fire. This early, the sky is divided: near the horizon it’s pale blue, up higher it’s ink black. It’s cold without full sun.
Some of the troupe members are also awake, fixing up their horses, packing their wagons, or just milling about, waiting. The violinist is sitting on a low stool, wrapped up in a wool blanket. She lifts her head when she hears me approach. Her coil-curly hair was once very dark, but it’s now shot through with gray. I don’t want to
stare too long, but I could swear her eyes are different colors: one black, the other light blue. They are two-toned, just like the morning sky.
She pokes at the small fire she’s tending with a stick. “Can I help you?”
“I was wanting to go through your goods,” I say. “Maybe make a trade.”
“You have anything of value on you?”
“Depends.”
The woman makes a dismissive little wave, giving me permission to climb into her wagon and hunt through her junk.
A tinker’s wagon consists of treasures and trash: dolls; doll parts; wrappers from old candy, pressed smooth and flat; books; books with no covers; just covers with no books—mostly pulp and romance novels, featuring drawings of sultry women with hair and clothes in various states of disarray; coffee mugs boasting the names of diners and companies I’ve never heard of; cables and cords all wound into knots the size of my head; buckets of charms, coins, keys, what look to be small bones, buttons, and pins; and, strung up above my head, dozens—maybe hundreds—of origami birds in all different colors.
I crouch, riffling through a bucket of baubles and coins, until I find one I like, one that’s not too scratched or dulled: it’s a gold circle, about the size of a silver dollar. A hole is punched through it, close to one edge. Etched onto its face is a boat, its prow tilted slightly upward and its sails full of wind as it bounces across choppy water. On the flip side is a place name, partially obscured: ---ster, Massachusetts.
I grin. James and I don’t give each other gifts very often, but this is perfect—something to keep in the pocket of his shirt, near his heart, to remind him of our grand plan of going East.
I stand, my head knocking against something. I push aside the paper birds and see the violin. It’s used, obviously—there are wear marks around the chinrest and on the fingerboard—but the strings seem alright, and the hair on the bow that hangs next to it isn’t completely frayed. All in all it’s a good instrument, begging to be played. I don’t know if I’ll ever really play again, but I remember the thrill I got when I first received my violin, when it was laid across my two open palms.
With the violin and James’ little ship charm in my hands, I jump down from the wagon. The woman is still at her fire, though now she’s focused on a pot of boiling water.
I set my wares down in front of her and pull my bandanna from my waistband. I shift away in the attempt to hide its contents, but the woman is quick. She stands, leans over my shoulder, and picks at the chain of one of the necklaces.
“This one,” she says.
I nudge her hand away. “Not that one.”
“Yes, that one. Those other necklaces are cheap, and I don’t want any of your dirty field coins.”
Lane’s necklace is the thing she wants. It’s the one that shines the brightest, the one with the most delicate gold wire twisted into coils, and studded with tiny flecks of blue topaz. It is the last physical thing I have of hers, and I swear when I hold it in my hand, I can smell the bitterness of the tall grass that we used to lie in side by side in the summers all those years ago.
Camp is now fully waking up. I hear the mastiff barking and the shuffling of more feet. The wind picks up. The smell of horse and unwashed bodies pours out of the woman’s clothes, wiping out my scent-memory of Lane in the grass.
I miss my sister, but she’s long gone. I could hold on to her necklace forever, but that’ll never bring her back. What’s important is the future: my and James’ future together.
I hand over the necklace, and before it can even glint once in the rising sun, the woman has tucked it into her pocket. She sits back down on her stool and adds coffee grounds to the now-boiling water. I assume the woman and I are finished. I gather my things and turn to go, but then I hear her ask: “Did you come from Truth or Consequences?”
My hollow stomach twists.
“Pale blue shirt,” she says, stirring the grounds. “Mixed blood. Dark hair. Taller than average.”
“That could be lots of people.”
“Carries jewelry and her money in an old white bandanna in her waistband.” The woman pauses. “We came from there not too long ago, three weeks maybe. They told us to keep an eye out. There’s a reward.”
I make a move that’s too sudden, and the woman holds up her hand. It’s marked with callouses, though hers tell me she’s never done fieldwork. “I don’t care about whatever happened,” she says. “But others out there do, alright? Can I offer you advice?”
I’m silent, so she continues.
“If you were smart, you’d leave this ranch. We’ve been through a lot of places, and I can tell you that things here aren’t right. There’s talk of a witch.”
I study this woman’s dual-colored eyes. I guess there’s no reason for her to lie. Maybe she’s just trying to be helpful, or maybe she sees a younger version of herself in me.
Of course I want to leave the Real Marvelous, but that’s not the easiest thing to do, now is it? Leaving requires money and careful timing. I can be quicker. I can cut more maguey. James can slide his way deep into Farrah’s heart and her house, and work on scoping out its corners, on finding little things of worth that we can take with us when we go. When we go soon.
The woman glances at the violin I’m holding. “Can you play?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Yes.”
“This camp is no place to hide,” she says. “You can come with us. We’re short-handed. We lost a girl last week, second violin.”
I’ve never had much luck, so I’ve never had reason to believe in it. But the timing of this caravan coming to the Real Marvelous and the second violinist’s death—that can’t be anything but good fortune, as pure and lovely as reaching into a pocket and finding a forgotten dollar.
“I have a cousin,” I say. “I can’t leave without him.”
I know what the woman’s going to say before she even says it. There goes my luck, picked up and tossed. “There’s only room for one.”
“I’m sorry, then. But I appreciate your offer, and the warning.”
I STASH THE violin in a dark corner of the stables, and that morning, for the first time ever, I’m in the very front of the coa line. I get a good tool, so sharp it’s like the maguey cuts itself. I work hard all day. I don’t get tired.
FIFTEEN
“You’re upset.”
It’s been a full day and night since the travelers with the caravan put on their show, and Leo is helping me get Britain ready for her morning ride. “I don’t see why. Bell obviously appreciated her gift.”
Appreciated. Right. After I’d presented her with the instrument, she’d gasped, For me? Then she opened her mouth real wide and let out a scream so loud and high-pitched the dog down at camp started barking. It was possibly the first time I’d actually seen her happy—ecstatic, exuberant—as opposed to bricked up and guarded like she usually is. Bell then cradled the violin against her chest and disappeared inside the house so she could “hide it somewhere safe for later.”
“My mood has nothing to do with Bell,” I say, tightening Britain’s girth.
“James then?” Leo asks. “He do something to tick you off?”
“I haven’t seen James in a while.” I avoid eye contact with Leo by pretending to struggle with one of the straps on Britain’s stirrups. The ship pendant is still wrapped up in my bandanna, and I feel stupid carrying it around all the time, waiting. “So he hasn’t been around to put me in a bad mood.”
“Maybe the fact that he hasn’t been around is exactly what’s put you in a bad mood,” Leo replies. From over his shoulder, I can see Bell emerging at long last from the house and trotting in our direction. Leo leans in and lowers his voice. “You know, you’re not the only one here keeping a secret. He told me about your plans. About going East.”
Leo’s right. We all have secrets here, and we keep them hidden away the best we can, nested deep down, shoved into the mazes we’ve created inside
ourselves. They are safe there.
“Sarah Jac,” Leo says, attempting to read what I’m sure is a pinched and wary expression. “It’s okay.”
It’s not okay. I don’t know what Leo knows. He’s being cryptic, and I don’t like it. I’ve been feeling panicked and vulnerable ever since yesterday morning, when the traveler woman passed along her warning. That feeling has been multiplied by the fact that I haven’t been able to find James and tell him about it. Now it feels like Leo has me backed into a corner. My mind jumps to what happened outside Tulsa. I have to stop this—cut this guy off, cut him out.
“I quit.”
Leo blinks, takes a step back. Bell has come close enough to hear and stops in her tracks. She’s confused, understandably.
“I don’t want to work here with the horses or that girl anymore.”
“Wait.” He holds up his hands, palms facing me. “First of all, I don’t think you have a choice about that . . .”
Leo is calling out my name, telling me to wait, that I have it all wrong, but I’m already gone, jogging back to camp in the direction of the coa line.
CUTTING MAGUEY WHILE I’m angry is good for me. It keeps me focused. So, all in all, I’m having a banner morning until Eva comes up during the water break and accuses me out of the blue of being a traitor.
That’s what she says—that’s all she says—as she glares at me: “Traitor.”
I wait a second, thinking she’ll go on, but she doesn’t.
“What are you talking about?”
She sticks her finger in my face. I can see its callouses, its bluntly cut nail. “You’re in cahoots with the family in the house.”
“In cahoots?” I raise my tin cup to my lips and peer over Eva’s head in the direction of the mountains. “Is that what you just said?”
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