No Eye Can See (22 page)

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, brushing 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.