No Eye Can See by Jane Kirkpatrick
“You understand?” he'd asked her as he slowed the stage near the high inside bank. It was almost level with the stack of boxes and valises of the passengers riding inside. It was the best plan he could come up with while trying to manage the ribbons, maneuver the stage, think ahead to the best spot where there'd be confusion with the jostling yet slow enough for her to leap without them wondering, and still have an inside edge with some manzanita for cover. He was glad Randolph had taken the drivers side of the stage at the window, had yelled up to David so he knew where the big man sat.
She'd nodded once, her eyes speaking gratitude. He slowed the stage a bit more, almost pulling the team to a stop. His arms strained at the ribbons. It was a change for the animals; he could tell they were confused to be slowing in this unusual place.
Her hand pressed firm on his shoulder to steady herself. He hadn't dared look back as she made her way over the luggage. He thought now that the look she'd given him as she nodded had been one of uncertainty or fear instead of thanks. Then she'd jumped. David glanced back once to see if she'd slipped down or headed up or what she'd done. He thought he saw her dress disappear around the tree roots, but he couldn't be sure before the stage began the corner.
He memorized the landmarks. A large yellow pine pocked by the acorn woodpecker making a line of holes up the thick bark, the tree branded with dark rows of circles. Roots gnarled out like an old crones hand, holding what was left of a gouged-out bank supporting the pine.
He turned back quickly, kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. He cracked the whip and the horses surged.
The space beside him felt empty now. He began to think of what he'd say how he'd say it. The stage company would be liable for the loss of what the man would claim was luggage. He could only hope that would be the man's only response and not that he wanted to pursue the woman. David clenched his jaw.
What if that man pursued her? David hoped he hadn't underestimated him. Still, he could recover his investment through the stage company. A reasonable man would surely take that tack and not some vengeful action to bring the woman back.
David would convince Hall and Crandall that he would pay the man's loss from his own wages. No, it wouldn't cover the woman's “nature earnings” as Randolph might point out, but maybe he could remind the man that she was a troublesome sort, spitting at him and all. No, he wouldn't mention that detail. Men like Randolph didn't like to be reminded of humiliation. He had to make sure that her disappearance didn't come out as humiliation, at least not Randolph's. David would claim he should have kept a better eye on the woman; that he should have been able to take those corners without slowing so much that she had a chance to jump.
Randolph would see that forcing the stage company to pay would be a good way to recover what he'd invested without having the trouble of “handling his luggage.” Surely he'd be pleased to be relieved ofthat.
David snapped the cracker of the whip next to the ear of the near horse, preparing it to speed up the next grade. Scrub oak and yellow grasses sped by them. He might lose his job. Unless he convinced everyone that he didn't really have control over her. “She just took right off, leapt over the valises and headed for the hills. But she was my responsibility,” David would add. He'd sound sad. “I lost a valuable. Have to make good on that, and I will, sir. I will.”
That was what he'd say. It was mostly true. She'd taken the leap herself, he hadn't pushed her or helped her spring from the top of the coach. It was all her. She was her own free spirit. She wanted out—and who wouldn't?
He'd just leave out the part about his plan to come back to bring her food.
Shasta City
Suzanne heard the wagon approach and the women call out her name. She'd found Tipton after she returned from the land office. Tipton couldn't stop talking about the attention she'd received from the men, chatter that increased with the arrival of the others.
“You should have waited for Seth to go with you,” Adora whined. “So headstrong, you are. I would have thought you'd learned. There are consequences to setting your course without regard to following a wise guide.”
“Tipton is nearly grown,” Suzanne defended. “Both of us took new—”
“I can be your tour guide, now, Mama. I can,” Tipton urged.
Suzanne said little after that. She held Sason in her arms and nursed him, a linen spread over her chest and his head. She knew she had a smile on her face.
“You're looking like a canary-eating cat,” Mazy said, sidling up next to her.
“You can hear me purr?” Suzanne said.
Mazy bumped her hip gently with her own while Suzanne wondered at her own decision not to tell them all just yet what she had found.
At the Kossuth House, a large hotel with a bakery and confectionery attached, the women pulled the wagon up. Ruth waited until all the rest had stepped down and out so only she and Jessie were left inside.
“We're going to go out now,” she told the girl. “I'll help you stand, and I'll hand you these crutches. You'll need to swing yourself to the back, sit, swing your legs around and dangle your good one over the backboard. I'll be out there to lift you down. Ready? We're going to have fun.”
“I want Mariah to help me. Not you,” Jessie said.
“Mariah has already left. She's going inside to get some sweets. You can do that too, if you cooperate.”
“No. I want Mariah. Right away.”
Ruth didn't think Elizabeth knew one thing about rearing a child like Jessie. This girl liked being in charge. There wasn't a smidgen of fear in her face as she sat there, arms across her pinafore, eyes the color of cattails snapping back at her. Jessie, afraid that she could make adults do things? Not likely. She loved the power, relished the control.
“Jessie.” Ruth tried again. “We have a long road ahead of us, you and I, if we cant find some way to travel amiably with each other. Now, either you let me help you, or we stay right here and miss the party. Those are the choices.”
The girl stuck her lower lip out.
“It's one or the other.” Silence. “Come on. I'm ready for a change, aren't you?”
“I want Mariah,” the girl repeated.
It was how they spent their day.
On the Red Bluff Trail
At the first staging station, David Taylor stopped the team. Hosders walking fast made their way from the barn to the coach, began unhitching the horses. They'd come thirteen miles, a good days run for the team pulling the heavy Concord. It was only half of David's day. His heart began to pound as one of the agents opened the door and Randolph rolled out, brushing at his white suit, straightening his cape and hat.
David stayed sitting at the seat above, deciding height and distance might be a good position from which to begin.
Randolph looked up. His eyes narrowed, he stepped farther back.
“Where's my luggage?”
“Not here,” David said. His voice cracked and he swallowed. “Couldn't bring the team to stop, they were so headstrong to get on in.”
“I've little interest in your incompetent driving. Just tell me where my luggage's gone.”
David cleared his throat. “Jumped right off a while back. That's what I was telling you. I couldn't stop the team to let anyone know.”
“Send my property down. At once.”
The others had stopped talking as they stepped out of the stage, aware of the intensity of the conversation if not the subject.
“She isn't here,” David said. He called then to one of the hostlers. “We've got a passenger disembarked on route.”
“She was no passenger,” Randolph said, his eyebrow raised, his voice even and low. “Property. Chattel. For which you were responsible.”
David wished the other passengers would go inside. An audience always raised the tension level of a disagreement.
“I'll have your job for this,” Randolph said, “Maybe more.”
“I believe you're the one who wanted her to ride atop,” the man with the cane said, brushin
g at his arms, dust puffs deserting him as he came off the stage.
“He insisted she be untied.” Randolph said, turning on the stranger.
“She had to be free to hang on, balance herself,” the woman said. “The stage company isn't a penitentiary, after all.”
“It surely is not that, madam,” Randolph said.
“Just file a claim with the Hall and Crandall,” the man said and tapped his cane on the ground. “They'll pay something for lost luggage. I'm going inside, out of this heat.” Then he fanned his face with his hat. “Amazing for October.”
As he checked his whip, David felt the stare of Randolph. He shouted down to the hostler, unhooked the leather belt, stood, then swung himself down. He landed in the dirt beside Randolph, aware again of the looming size of the man.
“You performed this deed on purpose, didn't you?”
“Don't know what you're getting at, mister,” David said. “Excuse me.” He turned his back and walked toward the team of horses, ran his hands over the rump of the near one, patted him. The puff of dust that rose made David cough, just as it always did.
“Misguided charity?” Randolph had moved close behind him, and David noticed the change from rage to smooth in his voice.
David turned, stared into the narrowed eyes, the stone face, the straight nose.
Randolph smiled then. “What you are is a thief, no different than a highwayman. You've set your own pattern. After I'm finished with you no one will hire you to man a stage or anything else. You're no man at all.”
David blinked, his heart thudding in his chest.
Too quick, Randolph grabbed for David's neck scarf, then yanked at it, his breath hot, his wrist twisting, closing the air at David's throat. He pushed David up against the horse, who sidestepped as spotty lights flickered before David's eyes. From a distance he heard a sucking breathing—before his world went black.
10
Ruth pulled the dress off and stuffed it into her bedroll. She jammed her legs inside Zane's old pants, and topped it off with a plaid shirt. She still wore the heavy boots she'd had on beneath her dress. Then picking up the floppy black hat, she pushed it over the twist of hair at the top of her head and stomped out across the meadow to the line of trees that skirted the grazing place. Dressing like a proper mother hadn't made a whit of difference in earning Jessie's respect. In fact, it seemed to make it worse.
The women had laughed at her “refreshing her ladylike ways,” as Lura called it. She'd liked being part of the fun even if some of it was at her expense. She hadn't taken everything so seriously. She was trying to be less serious, she was. And they'd joked about every little thing—the condition of their fingernails, how the face powder felt strange after so many months without it. Nervous little chuckles, she thought, of excitement, floating around them like butterflies at a spring puddle. They told stories. They celebrated time without having to yoke oxen and miles to make.
But perhaps Jessie misunderstood it. She'd sat glum, her face unmoving. She hadn't even laughed when Adora told Ruth she'd better watch how she sat once she put hoops on or the residents of Shasta would see all the way to China. Maybe seeing her “auntie” enjoying herself gave Jessie just one more reason not to listen to her.
They'd spent the afternoon in the wagon. All they saw of Shasta was the view out through the oval of the canvas puckers. The child had not budged. Ruth couldn't leave her there alone, and the rest scattered, looking at shop windows, going into the bookstores—there were two, she noticed—and making inquiries about places to call home. They'd come back refreshed, excited. She had simply fumed.
She'd stick with men's clothes from now on—and her own plan. She'd find a place for the horses and farm the children out. She'd had time to think of that, at least. Jason might like to help Seth when he went back out to bring in another wagon train—though that might not be until next year. It'd be nice for the boy to have time with a man about. Ned might assist…Elizabeth, what with her bad hip and all. He could run little errands for her. He was a helpful child. Sarah? Surely Suzanne would be needing someone. Why not Sarah? Or maybe Lura and Mariah would make a good home for young Sarah. And then there was Jessie. Only Mazy would be strong enough—and kind enough—to take that one on. Ruth knew one thing for sure: They'd be best off with someone else. Jed and Betha would have understood. It wasn't as though she was keeping her own child with her. They all had to go. For their own protection. Hadn't her mother said exactly those words to her all those years ago?
“Just picking him up,” Zane Randolph said to the agent who came up behind him and pulled on the boy's scarf until he sat. He had acted in haste. A momentary lapse. “Heats too much for him. Perhaps you need another driver.”
“David?” the agent said. “He's one of our best.”
“He lost a valuable of mine, and now he appears to be unable to continue. If that's your best, this California is poor indeed.”
“Just go inside and describe your lost baggage and catch yourself a bite to eat. Stage'll head out in fifteen minutes.”
“That I doubt,” Zane said as the man slipped past him, headed toward the jehu.
This could work out well. He could develop it into something lucrative. Pick up vagrants, set them on a stage as luggage, arrange for their untimely departure and file a claim. Yes, it had possibilities, something to add to his string of investments as he was beginning to think of ways of building up California treasure. The boy might not do it, but other drivers could be convinced—for a percentage of the profits. The boy would likely try to pay the claim back; he was that naive.
This piece of luggage had cost him, though. He'd paid high for her, and now she was gone, along with his plan to hire her out to a needy woman, take her wages while she cleaned and tended someone—like the blind woman. For that inconvenience, the jehu deserved something. A bad word dribbled here and there that the boy couldn't counter, like an untreatable cough turning into a fatal pneumonia. Soon, it would seem the boy had always been irresponsible, wasn't trustworthy. Zane knew how to slowly undermine a soul.
Once inside, Zane signed his name on the complaint with a flourish of the pen. He wrote his address down as Shasta, where he'd like the money for his loss sent. He'd be meeting Greasy near there in a day or two. Then, his appetite whetted, he ate a full lunch, remembered the delicacy of the blind woman, thought of Ruth and the way he'd chisel at her. Soon. He must be patient. He smiled, then stepped back into the stage.
Missy Esther beamed. Mei-Ling could see the older woman's broken tooth when she smiled large as a porcelain bowl. They sat around the fading fire, repeating little stories. Spoke kindnesses. Crises reached and crossed. It was late, maybe midnight, and still they hadn't found a way to say good night. Mei-Ling's thoughts fluttered like a butterfly lighting on a flower, beautiful yet soft. Soon, she would meet her husband. Soon, the bees would be home. This was their last evening gathering as a group of widows and women who came together across the plains. Mei-Ling had suggested Sister Esther look after her drawing of the beehive frame, once almost lost on the desert, once stained by Esther's ink.
“Despite my poor care of your patent drawing—and after I made such a fuss about your not keeping it secure—I find your trust in me miraculous and redeeming. Thank you. I will keep it safe until we reach Sacramento and you hand it over to your new husband.” The tall woman bowed at her waist, enough so Mei-Ling could see the top of her little black cap, and then the strings, when she straightened, tied tight beneath her chin.
“I just don't like this, truth be known,” said Adora, the whining woman who sat on a chair taken from the sideboard, the pointy toes of her feet facing the fire. Darkness as black as the dog named Pig surrounded them. The dog lay on his side, snoring.
Only the firelight danced across their faces. All of the women had pulled out capes and blankets and shawls to wrap around themselves. October came on wet wings, quiet, like a bat.
“We all went into Whoa Navigation and pondered the to
wn. Had our fete at the confectionery, didn't we, Sarah?” Elizabeth spoke. “We knew we was all needing to split up. Celebrate what we have and then move on. Just hard to go to bed now and know tomorrow'll be all different.”
“One of us found something worthy,” Tipton, the girl with yellow curls, said. She nodded toward Missy Sue.
“I wish things could stay the way they are,” Lura said.
“You're always wishing, Ma,” Mariah said.
The whining woman wiped at her eyes with a lace-edged hanky. “When we turned around way back there, after the storm, I thought we'd all make our homes right together. We could live in the wagons ‘til we got a house built big enough for us all.”
“Adora, I can't believe you'd want to live with me and my brood,” Ruth said.
“Well, I—”
“You come a ways, Adora, thinking we could all live in the same house. That's hospitality with a capital H.”
“We can give that to each other no matter where we lay our heads to sleep,” Elizabeth said. “We'll always be family, won't we?”
“Nothing stays the same,” Mazy said.
“I'm just glad we had what we had when we had it,” Elizabeth said, patting her daughter's shoulder. “What makes a home is not letting yourself get all distracted with what don't matter much, just remembering things to be grateful for. Pile up enough gratitude and it'll spill out. Then you get to give it away. That's when you're truly at home, when you got enough to give away.”
“People could accommodate a little, and we could live in the same house,” Adora persisted.
“Accommodation House,” Elizabeth said.
“Sounds like a sign for a boardinghouse.” Mazy smiled at her mother.
“The Warm Hearth.” Elizabeth formed a square in the air with her hands. “ ‘Friendly Accommodations and the Hospitality of Home.’ It could work.”
“Too long,” Lura told her. “Won't fit on a sign. What the sign says is real important, Elizabeth. I'm pretty sure about that. Did you notice that one store in Shasta? ‘Good Goods and Right Prices.’ Now there's a sign.”
She'd nodded once, her eyes speaking gratitude. He slowed the stage a bit more, almost pulling the team to a stop. His arms strained at the ribbons. It was a change for the animals; he could tell they were confused to be slowing in this unusual place.
Her hand pressed firm on his shoulder to steady herself. He hadn't dared look back as she made her way over the luggage. He thought now that the look she'd given him as she nodded had been one of uncertainty or fear instead of thanks. Then she'd jumped. David glanced back once to see if she'd slipped down or headed up or what she'd done. He thought he saw her dress disappear around the tree roots, but he couldn't be sure before the stage began the corner.
He memorized the landmarks. A large yellow pine pocked by the acorn woodpecker making a line of holes up the thick bark, the tree branded with dark rows of circles. Roots gnarled out like an old crones hand, holding what was left of a gouged-out bank supporting the pine.
He turned back quickly, kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. He cracked the whip and the horses surged.
The space beside him felt empty now. He began to think of what he'd say how he'd say it. The stage company would be liable for the loss of what the man would claim was luggage. He could only hope that would be the man's only response and not that he wanted to pursue the woman. David clenched his jaw.
What if that man pursued her? David hoped he hadn't underestimated him. Still, he could recover his investment through the stage company. A reasonable man would surely take that tack and not some vengeful action to bring the woman back.
David would convince Hall and Crandall that he would pay the man's loss from his own wages. No, it wouldn't cover the woman's “nature earnings” as Randolph might point out, but maybe he could remind the man that she was a troublesome sort, spitting at him and all. No, he wouldn't mention that detail. Men like Randolph didn't like to be reminded of humiliation. He had to make sure that her disappearance didn't come out as humiliation, at least not Randolph's. David would claim he should have kept a better eye on the woman; that he should have been able to take those corners without slowing so much that she had a chance to jump.
Randolph would see that forcing the stage company to pay would be a good way to recover what he'd invested without having the trouble of “handling his luggage.” Surely he'd be pleased to be relieved ofthat.
David snapped the cracker of the whip next to the ear of the near horse, preparing it to speed up the next grade. Scrub oak and yellow grasses sped by them. He might lose his job. Unless he convinced everyone that he didn't really have control over her. “She just took right off, leapt over the valises and headed for the hills. But she was my responsibility,” David would add. He'd sound sad. “I lost a valuable. Have to make good on that, and I will, sir. I will.”
That was what he'd say. It was mostly true. She'd taken the leap herself, he hadn't pushed her or helped her spring from the top of the coach. It was all her. She was her own free spirit. She wanted out—and who wouldn't?
He'd just leave out the part about his plan to come back to bring her food.
Shasta City
Suzanne heard the wagon approach and the women call out her name. She'd found Tipton after she returned from the land office. Tipton couldn't stop talking about the attention she'd received from the men, chatter that increased with the arrival of the others.
“You should have waited for Seth to go with you,” Adora whined. “So headstrong, you are. I would have thought you'd learned. There are consequences to setting your course without regard to following a wise guide.”
“Tipton is nearly grown,” Suzanne defended. “Both of us took new—”
“I can be your tour guide, now, Mama. I can,” Tipton urged.
Suzanne said little after that. She held Sason in her arms and nursed him, a linen spread over her chest and his head. She knew she had a smile on her face.
“You're looking like a canary-eating cat,” Mazy said, sidling up next to her.
“You can hear me purr?” Suzanne said.
Mazy bumped her hip gently with her own while Suzanne wondered at her own decision not to tell them all just yet what she had found.
At the Kossuth House, a large hotel with a bakery and confectionery attached, the women pulled the wagon up. Ruth waited until all the rest had stepped down and out so only she and Jessie were left inside.
“We're going to go out now,” she told the girl. “I'll help you stand, and I'll hand you these crutches. You'll need to swing yourself to the back, sit, swing your legs around and dangle your good one over the backboard. I'll be out there to lift you down. Ready? We're going to have fun.”
“I want Mariah to help me. Not you,” Jessie said.
“Mariah has already left. She's going inside to get some sweets. You can do that too, if you cooperate.”
“No. I want Mariah. Right away.”
Ruth didn't think Elizabeth knew one thing about rearing a child like Jessie. This girl liked being in charge. There wasn't a smidgen of fear in her face as she sat there, arms across her pinafore, eyes the color of cattails snapping back at her. Jessie, afraid that she could make adults do things? Not likely. She loved the power, relished the control.
“Jessie.” Ruth tried again. “We have a long road ahead of us, you and I, if we cant find some way to travel amiably with each other. Now, either you let me help you, or we stay right here and miss the party. Those are the choices.”
The girl stuck her lower lip out.
“It's one or the other.” Silence. “Come on. I'm ready for a change, aren't you?”
“I want Mariah,” the girl repeated.
It was how they spent their day.
On the Red Bluff Trail
At the first staging station, David Taylor stopped the team. Hosders walking fast made their way from the barn to the coach, began unhitching the horses. They'd come thirteen miles, a good days run for the team pulling the heavy Concord. It was only half of David's day. His heart began to pound as one of the agents opened the door and Randolph rolled out, brushing at his white suit, straightening his cape and hat.
David stayed sitting at the seat above, deciding height and distance might be a good position from which to begin.
Randolph looked up. His eyes narrowed, he stepped farther back.
“Where's my luggage?”
“Not here,” David said. His voice cracked and he swallowed. “Couldn't bring the team to stop, they were so headstrong to get on in.”
“I've little interest in your incompetent driving. Just tell me where my luggage's gone.”
David cleared his throat. “Jumped right off a while back. That's what I was telling you. I couldn't stop the team to let anyone know.”
“Send my property down. At once.”
The others had stopped talking as they stepped out of the stage, aware of the intensity of the conversation if not the subject.
“She isn't here,” David said. He called then to one of the hostlers. “We've got a passenger disembarked on route.”
“She was no passenger,” Randolph said, his eyebrow raised, his voice even and low. “Property. Chattel. For which you were responsible.”
David wished the other passengers would go inside. An audience always raised the tension level of a disagreement.
“I'll have your job for this,” Randolph said, “Maybe more.”
“I believe you're the one who wanted her to ride atop,” the man with the cane said, brushin
“He insisted she be untied.” Randolph said, turning on the stranger.
“She had to be free to hang on, balance herself,” the woman said. “The stage company isn't a penitentiary, after all.”
“It surely is not that, madam,” Randolph said.
“Just file a claim with the Hall and Crandall,” the man said and tapped his cane on the ground. “They'll pay something for lost luggage. I'm going inside, out of this heat.” Then he fanned his face with his hat. “Amazing for October.”
As he checked his whip, David felt the stare of Randolph. He shouted down to the hostler, unhooked the leather belt, stood, then swung himself down. He landed in the dirt beside Randolph, aware again of the looming size of the man.
“You performed this deed on purpose, didn't you?”
“Don't know what you're getting at, mister,” David said. “Excuse me.” He turned his back and walked toward the team of horses, ran his hands over the rump of the near one, patted him. The puff of dust that rose made David cough, just as it always did.
“Misguided charity?” Randolph had moved close behind him, and David noticed the change from rage to smooth in his voice.
David turned, stared into the narrowed eyes, the stone face, the straight nose.
Randolph smiled then. “What you are is a thief, no different than a highwayman. You've set your own pattern. After I'm finished with you no one will hire you to man a stage or anything else. You're no man at all.”
David blinked, his heart thudding in his chest.
Too quick, Randolph grabbed for David's neck scarf, then yanked at it, his breath hot, his wrist twisting, closing the air at David's throat. He pushed David up against the horse, who sidestepped as spotty lights flickered before David's eyes. From a distance he heard a sucking breathing—before his world went black.
10
Ruth pulled the dress off and stuffed it into her bedroll. She jammed her legs inside Zane's old pants, and topped it off with a plaid shirt. She still wore the heavy boots she'd had on beneath her dress. Then picking up the floppy black hat, she pushed it over the twist of hair at the top of her head and stomped out across the meadow to the line of trees that skirted the grazing place. Dressing like a proper mother hadn't made a whit of difference in earning Jessie's respect. In fact, it seemed to make it worse.
The women had laughed at her “refreshing her ladylike ways,” as Lura called it. She'd liked being part of the fun even if some of it was at her expense. She hadn't taken everything so seriously. She was trying to be less serious, she was. And they'd joked about every little thing—the condition of their fingernails, how the face powder felt strange after so many months without it. Nervous little chuckles, she thought, of excitement, floating around them like butterflies at a spring puddle. They told stories. They celebrated time without having to yoke oxen and miles to make.
But perhaps Jessie misunderstood it. She'd sat glum, her face unmoving. She hadn't even laughed when Adora told Ruth she'd better watch how she sat once she put hoops on or the residents of Shasta would see all the way to China. Maybe seeing her “auntie” enjoying herself gave Jessie just one more reason not to listen to her.
They'd spent the afternoon in the wagon. All they saw of Shasta was the view out through the oval of the canvas puckers. The child had not budged. Ruth couldn't leave her there alone, and the rest scattered, looking at shop windows, going into the bookstores—there were two, she noticed—and making inquiries about places to call home. They'd come back refreshed, excited. She had simply fumed.
She'd stick with men's clothes from now on—and her own plan. She'd find a place for the horses and farm the children out. She'd had time to think of that, at least. Jason might like to help Seth when he went back out to bring in another wagon train—though that might not be until next year. It'd be nice for the boy to have time with a man about. Ned might assist…Elizabeth, what with her bad hip and all. He could run little errands for her. He was a helpful child. Sarah? Surely Suzanne would be needing someone. Why not Sarah? Or maybe Lura and Mariah would make a good home for young Sarah. And then there was Jessie. Only Mazy would be strong enough—and kind enough—to take that one on. Ruth knew one thing for sure: They'd be best off with someone else. Jed and Betha would have understood. It wasn't as though she was keeping her own child with her. They all had to go. For their own protection. Hadn't her mother said exactly those words to her all those years ago?
“Just picking him up,” Zane Randolph said to the agent who came up behind him and pulled on the boy's scarf until he sat. He had acted in haste. A momentary lapse. “Heats too much for him. Perhaps you need another driver.”
“David?” the agent said. “He's one of our best.”
“He lost a valuable of mine, and now he appears to be unable to continue. If that's your best, this California is poor indeed.”
“Just go inside and describe your lost baggage and catch yourself a bite to eat. Stage'll head out in fifteen minutes.”
“That I doubt,” Zane said as the man slipped past him, headed toward the jehu.
This could work out well. He could develop it into something lucrative. Pick up vagrants, set them on a stage as luggage, arrange for their untimely departure and file a claim. Yes, it had possibilities, something to add to his string of investments as he was beginning to think of ways of building up California treasure. The boy might not do it, but other drivers could be convinced—for a percentage of the profits. The boy would likely try to pay the claim back; he was that naive.
This piece of luggage had cost him, though. He'd paid high for her, and now she was gone, along with his plan to hire her out to a needy woman, take her wages while she cleaned and tended someone—like the blind woman. For that inconvenience, the jehu deserved something. A bad word dribbled here and there that the boy couldn't counter, like an untreatable cough turning into a fatal pneumonia. Soon, it would seem the boy had always been irresponsible, wasn't trustworthy. Zane knew how to slowly undermine a soul.
Once inside, Zane signed his name on the complaint with a flourish of the pen. He wrote his address down as Shasta, where he'd like the money for his loss sent. He'd be meeting Greasy near there in a day or two. Then, his appetite whetted, he ate a full lunch, remembered the delicacy of the blind woman, thought of Ruth and the way he'd chisel at her. Soon. He must be patient. He smiled, then stepped back into the stage.
Missy Esther beamed. Mei-Ling could see the older woman's broken tooth when she smiled large as a porcelain bowl. They sat around the fading fire, repeating little stories. Spoke kindnesses. Crises reached and crossed. It was late, maybe midnight, and still they hadn't found a way to say good night. Mei-Ling's thoughts fluttered like a butterfly lighting on a flower, beautiful yet soft. Soon, she would meet her husband. Soon, the bees would be home. This was their last evening gathering as a group of widows and women who came together across the plains. Mei-Ling had suggested Sister Esther look after her drawing of the beehive frame, once almost lost on the desert, once stained by Esther's ink.
“Despite my poor care of your patent drawing—and after I made such a fuss about your not keeping it secure—I find your trust in me miraculous and redeeming. Thank you. I will keep it safe until we reach Sacramento and you hand it over to your new husband.” The tall woman bowed at her waist, enough so Mei-Ling could see the top of her little black cap, and then the strings, when she straightened, tied tight beneath her chin.
“I just don't like this, truth be known,” said Adora, the whining woman who sat on a chair taken from the sideboard, the pointy toes of her feet facing the fire. Darkness as black as the dog named Pig surrounded them. The dog lay on his side, snoring.
Only the firelight danced across their faces. All of the women had pulled out capes and blankets and shawls to wrap around themselves. October came on wet wings, quiet, like a bat.
“We all went into Whoa Navigation and pondered the to
“One of us found something worthy,” Tipton, the girl with yellow curls, said. She nodded toward Missy Sue.
“I wish things could stay the way they are,” Lura said.
“You're always wishing, Ma,” Mariah said.
The whining woman wiped at her eyes with a lace-edged hanky. “When we turned around way back there, after the storm, I thought we'd all make our homes right together. We could live in the wagons ‘til we got a house built big enough for us all.”
“Adora, I can't believe you'd want to live with me and my brood,” Ruth said.
“Well, I—”
“You come a ways, Adora, thinking we could all live in the same house. That's hospitality with a capital H.”
“We can give that to each other no matter where we lay our heads to sleep,” Elizabeth said. “We'll always be family, won't we?”
“Nothing stays the same,” Mazy said.
“I'm just glad we had what we had when we had it,” Elizabeth said, patting her daughter's shoulder. “What makes a home is not letting yourself get all distracted with what don't matter much, just remembering things to be grateful for. Pile up enough gratitude and it'll spill out. Then you get to give it away. That's when you're truly at home, when you got enough to give away.”
“People could accommodate a little, and we could live in the same house,” Adora persisted.
“Accommodation House,” Elizabeth said.
“Sounds like a sign for a boardinghouse.” Mazy smiled at her mother.
“The Warm Hearth.” Elizabeth formed a square in the air with her hands. “ ‘Friendly Accommodations and the Hospitality of Home.’ It could work.”
“Too long,” Lura told her. “Won't fit on a sign. What the sign says is real important, Elizabeth. I'm pretty sure about that. Did you notice that one store in Shasta? ‘Good Goods and Right Prices.’ Now there's a sign.”