“Your skin is the same as some of the Southern peoples,” Rosie said, shrugging. “Your hair is just a little curlier, but who can tell about these things? Mama just thought you were sorda, since you just shrugged and smiled when she spoke to you.” She shook her head and pointed to her ears to clarify her point.
“I don’t speak Spanish,” I said, not at all put out. The tamales had been delicious, and the expectation of help had never made me feel lesser than Maria or any of her other women who worked the kitchen. Honestly, it had been nice to spend an afternoon helping those ladies cook up some food rather than tracking down a man to kill.
I’m pretty good with a knife either way.
Today when I walk into the kitchen area, Maria waves to me and yells something in Spanish.
I smile sheepishly. “Hola,” I call. “¿Cómo estás, Señora Maria?” That just about exhausts my knowledge of Spanish.
“Jane McKeene,” Maria says, giving me a toothless grin and saying my name very slowly. There is a shrewd look in her eyes, and I have the feeling that she knows more about me now than she did before last week’s mishap. “Sit. Eat.” She hustles over to a trestle table and makes a show of brushing off a spot. I sit while Salty snuffles at the ground near the boys. They laugh and chase him, half trying to pet him and half grabbing for his tail. He runs under the table and growls. No one appreciates the difficulty of poor Salty’s life.
A plate of food appears in front of me and I hold out my hands in the universal sign for being poor, but she waves me off.
“No dinero,” I say, insisting.
“Eat, eat,” she insists. “You must be hungry.” And then she mimics cutting with a knife to the other women in the kitchen, coupled with a spate of rapid-fire Spanish. The women gasp and a few cross themselves in the manner of Catholics. I now have no doubt that Maria knows exactly who I am. News travels fast.
“Diabla,” one whispers at me.
I raise an eyebrow. “What’s a diabla?” I ask no one in particular.
“She-devil,” a small boy says from under the table. I lean down to peer at him where he’s snuggled up to Salty. The boy has the lean look of someone used to being hungry.
“You know Spanish?” I ask him.
“Yes. My momma used to talk to me in Spanish, but she’s dead now.” His tone is matter-of-fact, and his gaze slides away from mine. “She-devil. It’s not a nice thing to say about someone.”
I shrug. “I’m not a nice person.” I dig into the plate of food, still half watching the boy. The meal consists of some kind of meat, beans, a couple of corn tortillas, and an orange. It’s a feast, and the boy scoots a bit closer as though the scent pulls him to me. I roll up a tortilla and hold it out to him. When he reaches for it I pull it back. “I’ll share this with you if you stay here and tell me what everyone is saying.”
He nods and then clambers up onto the bench to my left. He notices my arm only after he’s already sat next to me, and his eyes widen when he sees my sleeve, tucked up messily. “You don’t have an arm.”
I shake my head. “Nope. Lost it.”
“How?”
“Bit by a shambler,” I say, telling the truth for once.
“But shouldn’t you be dead, then?”
I nod and grin. “But I’m a she-devil, and we dance with the dead for fun.”
I share the plate of food with the boy, letting him eat his fill while I pick. He tells me his name is Tomás, and it brings me back to the last time I saw the Spencer boy, so long ago now; hearing that name again feels like an omen. From what I glean he’s a true orphan. His father is in the wind; his mother used to help Maria out in the kitchen here in exchange for room and board, but when she died a few months ago, he stuck around and Maria kept feeding him. Not enough, though. He’s skin and bones. But he’s not half bad at translating; he repeats for me everything said in a murmur, and if anyone but Maria notices, they are aces at pretending not to care.
Or, maybe, they actually don’t care. I’ve read the fraught history of this place, what I could find, and there is nothing easy about life here, even if the dead are fewer in number than in the East; I cannot be the only hard woman to stumble into this kitchen yard. The West is full of girls like me, victims of circumstance, or poor choices, or good old-fashioned bad luck. We harden into diamonds under the pressure, keeping our chins up and soldiering on. It’s one of the things I love about this wild land. In the East, the dead could get you just as surely as pneumonia or yellow fever—quick, quiet, hard deaths. But in California it would be bears or bobcats or maybe a claim jumper, all noisy, violent ways to go. California was a wild land full of strong, ferocious people, and I liked that.
Once the women have finished their work they begin to wander off, and Maria comes over, one of the older boys who spit the pig helping her to sit. The smaller boy next to me shrinks into my side, and I see the bigger boys eyeing him in a way I don’t like.
“They pick on you?” I ask.
“They said I’m not worth anything because I don’t have a mama,” he says. “I have no name, and my papa was a gringo. There ain’t no home for me.”
“You stay here next to me until they leave,” I say, because I am not above backhanding some sense into a kid if I have to.
I might be a monster, but even I’m not about to let some kid be terrorized.
Maria settles and offers me coffee, which I happily accept. Once it’s poured she gives me a toothless grin. “Callie came through this morning, told me you would probably be by to look for her. You two have a fight?”
Maria sees far too much. I shake my head, pushing aside my discomfort. “Actually, I’m looking for a man. Any of your ladies seen him?” I pull the bounty sheet for David Johnson from my dress pocket, unfolding it and handing it to Maria. She frowns and sucks her teeth, and then nods.
“I heard a rumor that Luz complained about a white man bothering her girls, getting a little rough. This could be him. Lots of money, not enough sense. Though, that’s every man.” Maria laughs, and I chuckle along with her.
“Luz’s is on the way to Stockton?”
“Yes. You want me to send word that you’re looking for him?”
I shake my head. This was a lost cause. I knew it before I even set out, but I suppose I’d hoped I could get a lucky break. Stupid, Jane. Just goddamn ridiculous.
Going after David Johnson would waste time I didn’t have. I had to get to Sacramento before Gideon Carr could disappear once more.
“Thank you for lunch, Señora Maria.” I take a chunk of leftover fat and drop it on the ground for Salty. The boy immediately sets in on the remaining beans on my plate, and I realize that he was trying to be polite and not eat everything before he knew I’d had my fill. For some reason, that makes me like the kid even more.
Maria hands me another orange from the bowl on the table and gives me one last toothless grin. “After I heard what you did to Perry, lunch is the least I can do. That man.” She says something in Spanish, and I look to my translator.
His cheeks go ruddy. “I shouldn’t say that out loud. I’ll get in trouble.”
“Good idea,” I say, tipping my hat to Maria as I stand to leave. She holds up a hand, stopping me before I go.
“I give you information and lunch, so you do me a favor.” It ain’t a question.
“What’s his name?” I ask.
“Richard Smith. He has a ranch toward the edge of town, heading north. He took liberties with Anna’s daughter,” she says. Her expression is mild, but the meaning is clear by the hardness in her voice. “His house has a blue door. He looks a lot like this man,” she says, tapping the wanted poster so I’ll get her point.
I nod, because I know the place. “Dead or alive?”
Maria gives me a gap-toothed grin and shrugs. “Use your knife.”
I stand and tip my hat at her, the same hat I’ve worn ever since I left Summerland, before scooping up the wanted poster and tucking it into a pocket. Maria is doing me a favor
, because I need the money. And I ain’t above trading one bastard for another.
One less monster in the world will always be a good thing.
Tomás stands as well, and it ain’t until I’m walking back through the orange grove that I realize the boy intends to follow me.
“You can’t come with me,” I say.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Because it ain’t safe.”
He lifts his shirt and along his side is a jagged scar, old but violent enough to stoke my rage.
“Those boys do that to you?” I ask, half ready to go back and teach them just what cruelty reaps.
“No, my papa, before my mama left him. He came back and killed her, and he said he was going to kill me, too. He slashed me, but I ran, and by morning he was gone.” He lowers his shirt. “You don’t know Spanish, and all of California speaks it. You keep me safe and I can translate for you.”
His logic is sound. The Californios, descendants of the Spanish invaders and the native Indian population, have managed to keep their traditions strong. Perhaps without the dead upending the world the ways of the Eastern states would have taken a stronger foothold out here, but as it is the places I’ve traveled have thus far felt more like Spain than Baltimore. Haciendas and ranches rather than farms and Georgian architecture. Most everyone I’ve met speaks at least a little English, but Spanish seems to be much more common; having an interpreter would be very useful.
But how am I supposed to care for a kid while tracking Gideon Carr?
Jackson appears behind the boy and gives him the once-over. He’s dressed in a flamboyant red waistcoat and dark suit, and he jerks a thumb in the child’s direction. “This kid is smart, and almost the same age as Lily. I think she’d like him. Plus, you know his father will eventually find him and kill him. Men like that, they can be slowed but they can’t be stopped. You gonna let that happen?”
I sigh and rub my hand over my face. “Okay, fine, you can come with me.” I point at his bare feet. “As soon as we get some money, we’re finding you a pair of boots. Now, you know where this Richard lives?”
He nods slowly.
“Good, you point the way.”
The boy blinks, and for a moment fear is writ large on his features. His eyes widen and his lips part as he realizes that he’s made a deal with la diabla, and for a moment I think he will change his mind and stay.
But then the boy sets his jaw. “You will want to go the back way, through the fields, otherwise he will shoot you before you even get close. Follow me.”
As we take our leave Jackson tips his hat at me and says, “This, Jane, is how you find your way back.”
I pull out my knife with a low chuckle.
I sincerely doubt that.
As the wagon train crested the Sierra Nevadas and the entirety of the Golden State was laid bare before our eyes, I knew that I had never beheld true beauty until then.
—William Meyers, A German Immigrant in the West, 1872
—KATHERINE—
Chapter 32
Notes on the Impossible
Traveling to Sacramento while protecting 150 souls is exhausting.
At night we sleep in shifts, everyone taking a watch, and it feels like I have barely rolled out my blanket and shut my eyes before I am being shaken awake.
“Your watch,” Sue says with a wide yawn.
“Thanks,” I mumble before climbing out of my bedroll and stumbling toward the low burning fire.
Every able-bodied adult in the wagon train has taken a shift, and as I walk toward the fire and the pot of coffee burbling enticingly, a few of the younger men try to catch my eye. I ignore them, focusing on pouring coffee in my cup, and Carolina sidles up next to me with a low chuckle.
“Even rumpled and half asleep, you still manage to turn heads,” he says, holding his tin mug out so I can fill it for him. I pour him a healthy measure, and when one of the dandies comes over with his cup held out and a flirtatious half smile on his face, I look him dead in the eye and return the pot to the fire.
Carolina, of course, is beside himself. He dogs my heels as I walk toward the perimeter of the Conestoga wagons, stretching my muscles and yawning widely as I finish waking. “You’re a heartbreaker, Katherine Deveraux.”
“That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them,” I say, blowing on my coffee before sipping it. There is chicory in the brew, and I drink it appreciatively while we walk. “I have already had to tell more than one of them that I am not interested in courtship, thinking about courtship, hearing about courtship, or talking about the possibility of courtship. What is it with men thinking every woman they meet must be half in love with them?”
“You can’t blame them, Katherine. You’re the prettiest face in three states, and it’s only natural for a man to want something beautiful in this life.”
I sniff. “Well, then maybe they should consider taking up painting instead of trying to wife me up.”
Carolina laughs, drawing looks from a few of the other folks nearby. I realize now that it is no accident most of the dandies have signed on to my shift. Drat. This is Doc Cornelius and his puppy eyes all over again.
Taking in the garb of the men on patrol with me, I am a bit surprised once more to see that not everyone in San Francisco was in as dire straits as Miss Mellie May. Quite a few of the men sport gold teeth and tastefully embroidered waistcoats, clothing better suited to a drawing room than the rough-and-tumble wilds of the trail. Still, the fact that they are here on the road with us is a testament to the fact that stacking up a bit of coin does not erase the hardship of being colored. When I was a child, the richest woman in the French Quarter was a dusky-hued Negro woman who was the daughter of a French viscount. That did not keep her from having to pay twice as much as white women at the market. It just meant the pinch did not bother her nearly as much. All the money in the world cannot make a colored person worthy to some folks.
I wonder yet again what we will find in Sacramento, and beyond, in this town of Haven. Yesterday, I stopped and chatted with a few of the folks I was watching out for, asking them what they had heard of this town. No one knew much, but one woman, a schoolteacher, had handed me a flyer.
“This was in the Voice of the Negro last month,” she said. I had heard of it; it was the only Negro-run newspaper in the West. “They’re looking for men and women to help with construction jobs in the town.”
The advertisement was a crude drawing of a town, complete with a water tower and a nearby lake. “Negro-Friendly!” was emblazoned across the top, and a list of needed trades as well as “Haven is happy to welcome all colored folks!” It looked like yet another town of Negroes trying to make a go at life in this new frontier. But they seemed overly eager for new citizens . . . and for some reason I cannot help but think of Summerland.
Carolina said the Survivalist ideology never much caught on in California, mostly because the robber barons and their survivor capitalism was too strongly entrenched; and the Negro population was too small, the Indian tribes too dispersed after the Spanish were finished terrorizing and exploiting them. The Survivalists never had much of a chance. But that did not mean California was without its ills. Those captains of industry were no better than the evils we had left behind. Just a different kind of paint on the same woes.
Now, as Carolina and I make our way around the perimeter of the camp, him telling me some story about a boy he once met in New York City before the Years of Discord, I am thinking on plots and threats and working my way through another small panic. Our wagon train is comparatively small; most families are sharing space because they’d had few enough possessions. I cannot help but think of how much these folks have already been through. Many people came west after they found their freedom—walking, working on steamers, whatever they needed to do to survive. They have already paid a steep enough price for a better life, and it is time they had it.
I refuse to let anyone fall into anything like Summerland, no way, no h
ow. Why, what kind of Miss Preston’s girl would I be to let these good, hardworking people flee San Francisco only to land in a hell of another sort? If Haven is just a Survivalist trap in disguise, a way for those dastardly sorts to lure hapless Negroes to their cause, then I will find a way to crush that town and undo those men.
How? I have no idea. But that does not mean I should not try.
It is what Jane would have wanted.
A shout goes up from the rear of the encampment, and Carolina gestures for me to check it out while he holds his position. I run over to find a couple of boys holding farm tools and poking at a man lying on the ground. A small shaggy dog stands a few feet away, barking excitedly.
“What happened to him?” I ask, as other folks begin to walk over.
“He just ran up and collapsed,” one of the boys says. “I think he’s dead.”
“Stop with the poking,” I say. “Is that your dog?”
The other boy shakes his head. “No, ma’am. He was chasing the man.”
People are starting to gather, too many. I gesture to one of the dandies who had been making eyes at me earlier. “Get everyone back to their places on the perimeter. It could be bandits, some sort of a trap,” I say. When they do not hop to I put my hands on my hips. “Sorry, was that last direction unclear?”
The man tips his hat at me, muttering as he goes, and instructs the other folks running up to do the same. A large man comes over—Doc Nelson, from the Capitán. As though I did not have enough vexation in my life.
“Miss Deveraux,” he says, slowing his gait. “I was wondering when we might have opportunity to converse again.”
“Dr. Nelson,” I say with a nod, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “I did not realize you were part of this wagon train.”
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