Like a River Glorious (14 page)

But even if we could escape, where would we go? I have no idea where Frank has taken us. I suppose fleeing in any direction is better than sticking around and waiting to see what my uncle has in store.

Just thinking about my uncle brings such a cramp to my belly that I set the cup down and clamp my hands over my mouth. This is it. The thing I've dreaded for so long. The man who killed Mama and Daddy has gotten me alone and defenseless. Maybe he's right outside that door.

The quilt is whisked aside, and I jump, almost spilling my coffee. But it's just Mary again, with some rags to mop up my puddle.

She drops the rags in front of me and makes a wiping-up gesture. When I don't do anything, she mimes it again, more vigorously. Not knowing what else to do, I strain against the ropes at my ankles and reach for the floor with my still-tied hands. I try to wipe up the puddle, but the angle is all wrong and I mostly just smear it around.

“I'm sorry,” I tell her again, even though I'm not sure she understands.

She doesn't bother hiding her disgust as she gathers the soiled rags. “Eat,” she says. Her voice is high and musical, and I wonder if she's even younger than I thought, maybe fifteen.

“I'll try,” I say. “It's hard with . . . this.” I hold up my wrists, indicating the ropes and screaming red burns on my skin beneath them.

Mary scowls, and I'm not sure what she's scowling at: that the bonds are on my wrists in the first place or that I'm complaining about them. She puts her hands together like they're tied and makes an eating gesture, as if I'm too addled to figure it out myself.

She leaves me to try it, and I give it a splendid effort, poking
at the eggs, nibbling the bacon, smearing bits of biscuit around my plate. I feel better than I did before, and I manage to keep a few bites down.

I look around the room again, for my things this time, and I spot a small chest at the foot of the bed. Maybe my knapsack is inside. I suppose it would be too much to ask for my guns to be there, too.

The curtain is whisked aside again, and I look up, expecting Mary, but oh, dear Lord, it's my uncle Hiram, dressed all in fancy black, bearing down on me like a storm cloud.

I spider-crawl backward on the bed until my spine hits the wall.

“Hello, sweet pea,” he says in that sleepy Milledgeville drawl.

I
t's like nails on a slate, hearing my daddy's name for me out of my uncle Hiram's rotten mouth. It makes me so angry I almost forget to be afraid. “Where are Jefferson and Tom?” I demand.

He frowns. “Wasn't my plan to bring them here, but don't worry. They're fine. I expect they'll be put to work soon enough.”

“Doing what?”

“I'll have Mary heat up a bath for you. I want you clean and dressed like a proper lady.”

“I'll dress however I want.”

“You'll dress how I tell you. Or your friend, the Cherokee boy, will regret it.”

“If you hurt him, I'll kill you.”

He cocks his head and folds his arms across his chest, studying me. Up close, I can see that he's not quite so fancy as he was before. The elbows of his fine jacket are wearing
thin. His black leather holster is now scratched and dirty. A not-quite-matching patch is sewn into one knee of his trousers, and his boots are scuffed and flecked with mud. He had a hard journey to California, just like the rest of us.

“You have a great future here, sweet pea. With me. Reuben let you run wild as a colt, but no more.” His voice turns sympathetic and soft. “I know how hard it is to change your ways. But I promise, you will be happy here. We just need to give it time.”

He leans down and grasps my arms, peering at my raw, welted wrists. I try to wrench them away, but he is too strong.

“I'm sorry about this, my girl,” he says. “I did not intend for any harm to come to you.”

Rage makes a red curtain of my vision. “Of course you did. You've intended nothing but harm from the beginning. You killed my parents. Stole everything that was mine. And now you're worried about a few little rope burns? Go to hell.”

He releases my wrists, sighing. “Not everything is as it seems.”

“True. I mean, here you are, standing and talking like a human being, when the truth is you're a venomous snake worth naught but the sharp edge of a shovel.”

The blow is so sudden and vicious that my neck snaps to the side and funny lights flash in my eyes. It's a moment before I can get a breath, and when I do, I realize that blood is collecting on my tongue.

I spit it out onto the quilt; it's going to stain, for sure and certain. “I thought you didn't intend harm.”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

I hate him. God forgive me, but it's the truth.

“And now,” he drawls lazily, “I'm going to give the exact same blow to your friend Jefferson. Except he'll get my fist instead of the back of my hand.”

My belly heaves, and the tiny bit of breakfast I was able to get down threatens to come back up. If he's willing to wallop me, his own niece, what would he do to Jeff? “No,” I gasp out. “Wait.”

He cocks an eyebrow, waiting. Oh, he looks so much like my daddy it's an actual pain in my chest. Except when Daddy looked at me that way, it was because I had amused him, or made him proud.

“I'll wash up. I'll wear whatever you want.”

He smiles, looking smug as a cat with a helpless rat. I've revealed too much, I realize with a sinking gut. Jefferson is my greatest weakness, and now Hiram knows it.

“Glad to hear it. Once Mary fills your washtub, I'll untie you. Don't even consider trying to run. You're to stay inside this cabin at all times, unless accompanied by me or Wilhelm. This camp is well guarded, and everyone knows you are not allowed to wander. If you try, Jefferson and the other one will be shot. Do you understand?”

I have a thousand questions—What is this camp? Where are we? Who is Wilhelm?—but more than anything, I want him away.

“I understand,” I whisper.

“Good. Finish your breakfast. Mary will be back shortly.”

I stare after his back as he departs.

I've killed deer, squirrels, a few pheasants, and more rabbits than I can count. Could I kill a person? The idea doesn't set right with me, but if I'm ever going to do it, I know just who to try it out on.

The breakfast tastes like grit in my mouth, but I gradually force it down. Mary drags an oval-shaped copper washtub through the doorway while I eat. She returns every few minutes with a kettle of hot water, which she dumps inside.

A bath. A real bath. Inside the finest cabin I've seen in months. Becky would trade her red-checked tablecloth for a bath like this.

True to his word, my uncle returns when the tub is full and cuts the ropes with a long knife. For an instant, the cool skin of his fingers slithers across my wrists, making bile rise in my throat.

“Now wash up,” he says. “Thoroughly. I'll have Mary bring some new clothes.”

I'm not too keen to undress in this place, even if I'm given my privacy. I wait until his boot steps fade. Then I shuck my clothes as fast as I can, step over the edge, and sink into the hot water. It's so hot my skin turns bright red, and there's barely enough room—I have to bring my knees to my chest to fit inside. But after days of riding tied down with little more than laudanum for sustenance, it feels like I'm absorbing the hot water into my thirsty bones.

Mary left me a bristle brush and some soap, and I get to
work scrubbing everything, paying special attention to my face and dirt-encrusted fingernails. I soap down my hair and dip beneath the water to rinse, then finger comb it as best I can. Strands of hair come away from my scalp and float like water bugs on the surface. I keep combing, and more hair comes away. Then more. I decide to leave my hair alone.

I'm scrubbing my armpits when Mary strides in again. I whip my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them to cover myself, sloshing water over the side and onto the floor. But Mary keeps her eyes averted. In one hand is a bucket of rinse water. In another is a heavy bundle of clothing, which she dumps onto the bed.

Without a word or glance, she leaves.

As lovely as the hot water feels, I don't like being naked in this place, and I need to finish up. Carefully I wash the rope burns on my wrist. The skin is open and weeping, and soaping it up stings something fierce, so I go about it gently but quickly.

I listen to make sure no one is coming. Then I grab the rinse bucket and stand. I pour half the water over my head to get excess soap out of my hair, the rest over my neck and shoulders.

When I step from the tub, my skin turns to gooseflesh and the floor is icy cold on my feet. I stare down at the floor for a few seconds, marveling. Real plank floors instead of hard earth. A real bed instead of a bedroll. A real glass window. A copper washtub. Spare linens and clothes.

Sure, my uncle stole an awful lot of gold from me before
he left Georgia, but I can't figure how he managed to put together such a fancy place so quickly. Or how he can afford to keep a servant. Or hire men like Frank Dilley.

Something strange is going on, and I aim to find out what.

I grab the towel and wipe down, then I shake out the bundle of clothing. Everything needs to be pressed, but it looks brand-new—a clean corset and drawers, stockings, petticoats, and a dress.

The corset and drawers go on with surprising ease. I don't cinch the corset tight enough to be fashionable, but I don't give a fig for fashion right now. I do care about being able to run at a moment's notice.

The last time I put on petticoats was for Mama and Daddy's funeral, more than nine months and two thousand miles distant. I force myself not to think about it.

I lay the dress out flat to get a look at it, and my heart nearly tumbles out of my chest.

I've seen this dress before. I'm sure of it.

It's made of midnight-blue calico, with tiny yellow stars that are actually flowers when you peer close enough. The fabric is gathered at the shoulders, forming pleats that sweep down to a tiny, triangular waist. Sleeves billow out from beneath the shoulder gathers in three separate layers, each layer ending with an elaborate trim of white lace.

I plunk down on the bed, suddenly finding it hard to breathe, because it's Mama's dress.

Which is impossible. She stopped wearing it when she became heavy with my baby brother. Then he died, and
instead of taking out the seams to make room for Mama's thickened waist, we cut the dress up for scraps. The quilt on my bed back in Georgia contained several patches from that dress.

I pick up a sleeve and rub it between thumb and forefinger. The fabric is crisp and bright in the way of new things that have not yet seen a summer of chores. And the lace is different; the trim is wider, with longer points.

Not the same dress, then, and I'm not sure why I'm so relieved about that, but I am.

As I stand and pull it over my head, letting the skirt settle over the petticoats, a niggling worry remains. Why would Hiram have a dress that looks so much like Mama's favorite from years ago? It has to be coincidence. It has to be.

The dress is a little large on me, which is a relief because it means I won't have to cinch this corset any further. The skirt is full enough to require better petticoats, but these will do.

There are no new shoes to go with the new dress, so I poke around the room a bit, looking for my boots. I open the chest at the foot of the bed and gasp. Daddy's boots are inside, just like I'd hoped, along with my knapsack.

I rummage through it, quick and quiet as a mouse. There's still some jerky and hardtack, my extra shirt and stockings, but no knife or ammo. What did he do with my guns?

I close the knapsack and stuff it back into the chest. It'll keep for now.

My old clothing is still piled on the floor beside the washtub. I grab it up, quick as a snake, and reach into the pocket
of my trousers. My gold sense tells me my bag full of gold dust and tiny nuggets is still there, but I'm glad to wrap my fingers around it anyway.

Now, to hide it.

There's no cubbyhole, no loose floorboard. The mattress would be the obvious place. Too obvious?

My gaze alights on Daddy's boots. They've always been too big. I don't get blisters anymore, but I still stuff the toes with rags, or—like I did a few times on the trip to California—with dry grass.

I reach inside the left boot and grab the wad of dirty rags, yank it out, and replace it with the bag of gold. It'll be a tighter fit now, but that's okay.

“You finish?” comes Mary's voice from behind the door curtain.

I suppose I am, but I need a few more moments of privacy, of planning, before I face my uncle again. “Just a couple more minutes,” I call out.

The single high window shines above the foot of my bed. Still in my stockinged feet, I lift my skirts and climb up onto the chest. I grasp the sill with my fingers, stand on my tiptoes, and peer outside.

It's a camp, similar to the one Jeff and Tom and I left behind, with tents and lean-tos and even a few shanties. But it's so much bigger than the camp back in Glory, so much busier. People mill about, guiding mules with carts across the hard-packed ground. A group of men with thick beards crouch around a low table at the entrance to one of the larger
tents, playing cards. I recognize them as some of the Missouri men from our wagon train.

But there are also Indians, carrying bags full of ore on their stooped backs, and they're a lot thinner than the ones who helped us put out the fire in our camp. Their destination is out of the viewing range of my window, but I've no doubt they're heading to a stream to classify the ore, maybe pan it out.

A group of Chinese men are fitting lumber together—making more carts, if I don't miss my guess. They wear flowing shirts over loose trousers, and hats that look like wide, upside-down bowls. Just like the workers that passed through Glory, each one has a single long black braid swinging nearly to his waist. Maybe their headman has a British accent, too.

They work with incredible efficiency. It's as easy as flowing water, the way one man holds a plank in place while the other hammers, the gliding way they shift angles to do it again. When one turns for a new supply of nails, it's in his hand instantly.

My tiny window only shows a wedge view of this place, but I'm confident that aside from Mormon Island, this is the biggest camp I've seen yet. If I were a betting kind of girl, and I most certainly am not, I'd lay odds there's an honest-to-goodness mine here. A deep and prosperous one.

Maybe that's why my uncle has such a fancy cabin. Maybe he owns this place. Along with everyone in it.

I climb down from the trunk and slip on Daddy's boots. The gold stashed in the left one forces me to scrunch my toes,
but I'm glad to have it buzzing there, close by and familiar and warm.

I've no mirror, and no pins or ribbons for my hair, so I part it down the middle and smooth it to either side as best I can. I straighten my skirt, take a deep breath, and push past the curtain into the main room.

My uncle sits in a rocking chair, reading a pamphlet by the light of a large window framed in frothy yellow curtains. His pipe rests on a table beside him, unlit. A dining table takes up the center of the room, with a bench on one side and two rickety stools on the other. Against the opposite wall is a huge woodstove, with pots and pans and cups neatly stacked on a shelf beside it. Mary is busy at the woodstove, stirring something that smells of potatoes and turnips.

A single lantern hangs from a hook in the ceiling; it's low enough that I'll have to duck slightly to walk beneath it. A door to my left is edged in daylight, which means it must lead outside. A door to my right is dark. Another bedroom maybe?

A cabin with three rooms. I haven't seen such luxury since Independence.

It's a moment before my uncle realizes I'm standing there. He looks up, startled, and sets his pamphlet aside. He takes in the dress, his eyes roving from my still-damp head to the tips of my muddy boots and back again. His face transforms. His features soften, and his eyes flare with a longing I don't understand. Finally a little smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.