No Eye Can See (26 page)

David Taylor dropped an armload of wood next to the hearth and looked over at Oltipa. Good, she still slept. She looked so small there, tucked beneath a blanket hide, knees pulled up like a baby. He fixed himself a cup of hot water and threw some wheat berries into it, telling himself it tasted like coffee. Snow fell harder now, outside, but the fire stayed strong. He shook his head, still amazed at how he'd arrived at this place of comfort with a wounded Wintu woman.

Four of Oltipa's fingers on her right hand were smashed when she killed the cougar with the thrust of the rock to its head. As he scrambled toward her, David patted for his gun, found it, and shot the stunned cat in the neck. This time, he was sure. Then he saw her wrist. It hung limp as wet wash. David held her hand in his and poured water on it from the canteen he retrieved from the horse. A twig formed a kind of splint he wrapped with his neck scarf. He tore a section of the green cloth to act as a sling. She never whimpered or winced even with the swelling.

He'd given her food then, ripped the cooked venison he'd brought from the stage stop into bite-size pieces. Her eyes clouded with…uncertainty, David decided, taking food from this foreign man.

“Yeah, I'd wonder too about how much help a man can be who lets
a cat lay stunned and needs a woman to rescue him. She gets hurt in the process.” She looked up at him, her face smudged with dirt and a smear of the meat, a blank expression. “Yeah,” he said. “I hope those fingers aren't broken, just bruised bad. And I'm sure sorry about your wrist.” She'd looked at her hand then, so he knew she understood at least some of his words.

The dog pushed against the woman, stepping its rounded toes onto the slinged arm, sticking his face into hers. “He can't be yours,” David said, brushing the dog from her.

She reached out a small piece of meat, which the dog snapped up, scooting back under David's arm to eat it.

“Looks like a monkey sitting there, begging,” David said. “Kinda cute with that beard. He's so dark, I can't even see his eyes.”

The girl just stared at David.

Her hand must have been throbbing, and David made small talk about a mutt. He moved himself to lean his back against the tree, liking the feel of the rough bark against his shirt. He inhaled a deep breath, wiggled to scratch his back.

“So here's what I'm thinking,” he said, handing her the canteen again while the dog plopped itself in front of David, licked its toes. “You can't go on far alone, not with that wrist and those fingers all smashed up.” He scratched at the dog's neck. “So here's our options. You come with me now, and I'll hide you out, close to the station. That Randolph man has already filed his lost luggage claim, and he seems settled enough. He'll keep going north, leaving us alone. In the morning, I'll take the stage run back to Sacramento as I'm bound to, but I'll buy your passage. Pick you up on the way back out.” He was planning as he talked. “Got to get you something decent to wear, though. Maybe I can borrow something from Mrs. Gant. Make up some story of why I need it. Or we can wrap the cloth around you, like I've seen some of those Argentine women wear. Serape-like.” He nodded. “The dog with you will make you look regular,” he said. “And we'll get the twigs from your
hair, your face washed, and you'll get along fine in Sacramento, big city and all.” She brushed at her hair, winced as she bumped her damaged hand. “All right. Let's see how we can get that green to wrap around you.

He unfurled the cloth, several yards long, and wrapped it around her shoulder, across her chest and then around her waist. He swallowed with the intimacy of it, of feeling the waist of a woman that wasn't his sister or mother. She held her good arm out so he could wrap the cloth beneath and up and over her shoulder, tucking the cut edge in at the waist. He stood back, gazing at her, and that was when he knew.

“Are you? I mean…” He made a motion with his hands as though he held a baby in them, rocking.

“Baby,” she said and nodded.

“Yeah.” he swallowed. The dog stood on its back legs, tugged at David's pant legs, then ran to the woman, snagging the cloth. Oltipa winced. “With a baby coming, city's no place for you, is it? At least not a big city. Thought maybe you could get work with someone and be fed there and all. But you'll be snatched up again, I'll bet. Declare you destitute. You need someplace safe you can tide over until spring, so you can have that baby and make it back to your people. You got people?”

She didn't seem to understand.

“Yeah,” he said. He ran his hands through his dark hair, thinking. “We've got to find you a home for a while, that's what we got to do.”

Streams of ideas ran through his head, mixed with memories and wishes and wants. He patted her shoulder as if she were a child. “It'll be all right,” he said. “We'll think of something.”

With his hands, he scraped up some pine needles to form a makeshift pad, then he laid out his bedroll on top of it. “Here. You rest now.”

An edge of uncertainty worked its way to the surface, the craziness of what he was thinking of doing for this woman of whom he knew nothing. “I could take you to the cabin my father had, near French Gulch. Well, not far from Shasta City. Bring food enough for a month at a time, in case I don't get back from a run. I'd look after you like a
brother.” She stared at David, blinked once. “You'd be safe there through the winter. Until your baby comes.”

David sat on his haunches, pushed his hat back and cocked his head as he looked up at her. “You don't understand a word of this, do you?” he said. “This thinking of mine, to take you to a safe place, be good to you and all. Not a word.”

The dog barked its short sharp yip then, ran from David to pull again at the green cloth. The Wintu woman brushed the dog gently away with the side of her foot, stared at David as she did. “Sookoo,” she said then.

“What?” David asked.

“Word for dog is
sookoo.
We take him, too?”

“You bet,” David said. “You bet!”

Now here he was, his whole life a muddle of meddling. Mr. Hall, his former employer, had listened to his explanation of the missing “luggage,” nodding his head kindly, the fat fingers of his hand grasping the lapel on his fine linen suit. “Fact is, David, the, ah, item was placed on the stage and did not arrive as scheduled. It was of worth to the passenger, and while we may disagree with the, ah, morality of this transaction, it is in fact legal and thus nothing to be done for it but pay the claim. I'm sure you see my dilemma.”

“I don't, sir,” David told him, his heart pounding, this whole situation pushing him into areas he hadn't imagined he'd go. “It's condoning slavery.”

“Not the way it's seen, David.”

David lowered his head, defeated. “I'll repay you from my wages.” Even as he said it, he wasn't sure how he'd ever do it, pay and meet Oltipa's needs for food and shelter. His own, too.

Hall nodded. “And you're, ah, off the roll.”

“You're letting me go?”

He gripped Davids shoulder then, in that friendly way he had. “Perk up, boy. You're young. It's not the end of the world. California's a booming place. You'll make your wages—and your obligation to the line. It's just not worth the, ah, litigation that could ensue unless Hall and Crandall can show they took appropriate measures in this incident. The customer intends to, ah, take out ads, questioning our quality, our service unless we, ah, can assure him that our drivers are above reproach. You understand how it is.”

David had misjudged him. Apparently he'd also misjudged the strength ofthat Mr. Randolph, a man who'd not only gotten his money from the stage company, but a pound of Davids flesh, too. David guessed he was fortunate enough to get hired on with a rival stage line, Baxter and Monroe, before any word of his indiscretion reached them. Maybe this route operating farther north would be better for him anyway, good for Oltipa and good for him. Maybe it would all work out. A fellow couldn't always see what was around the bend.

He stoked up the fire in his father's cabin. It was a tightly chinked place. His father had built it to last, must have planned to come back, but he hadn't. Something had gotten in the way. David set his cup down, pulled the blankets up over Oltipas shoulders, hoping she would wake so he could tell her good-bye. She didn't. He packed up some grub, then headed out. He hoped to be back before the week was out.

“Excuse me,” Zane said. He was aware of his breathing. Steady. Patient. He was certain it was the blind woman from Fort Laramie, met all those months before. Should he suggest they'd met? No. The dog hadn't liked him. He looked about for the animal. Nothing. “Your boy there, the baby, his head has dropped to the side. May I…help him? He looks a little uncomfortable.”

“Yes, please,” the beautiful woman said.

He straightened the boy in the backboard. He even tucked the little woolen cap strings beneath the baby's chubby chin.

“Clayton, stand still, dear.”

“Quite an ingenious…appliance,” Zane said.

“They say the Indians use something like it,” she told him.

Zane looked around, wondering where the dog was and if any of the other women were with her. The boy Clayton leaned from her, pulling her to move away.

“Would you like the boy to go into Kings store here? There's a cat inside. Might interest him. It's warm there.”

“So that's where the cat lives,” she said. She was a portrait of loveliness, full lips, smiling now; a delicate nose on a porcelain face. Her whole form, perfection. He watched her feel her way through the doorway with a cane to assist. She stepped inside the bookstore. Zane followed and closed the door behind them.

“You're very brave to use something others might find crude or offensive,” Zane said.

“The baby's board? Not really brave. I don't see the looks of others, so I'm rarely distracted by noses raised in disgust. It's one of the benefits—of being blind.” She laughed.

“Excuse me?” Zane said.

“Oh, it just struck me as strange, finding something beneficial about being blind. I never thought of it before.”

“So you are both brave and insightful,” Zane said. “How admirable.”

“Have we met?” she asked then, turning her body toward him. “Your voice…”

“Oh no. I would have remembered someone so lovely.” He had almost said “delicious.” He might have used the word in Laramie! Another habit he meant to change. “May I introduce myself. My name is—” He coughed. Why hadn't he thought of this? “Wesley Marks. Investor,” he said as he clicked his heels and bowed at the waist. “I've just bowed to you, dear lady.”

“I can hear,” she said. “I'm Mrs. Suzanne Cullver. Not an investor.”

“And Mr. Cullver, is he with you today?”

Suzanne stiffened. “I'm a widow, Mr. Marks.”

The boy carried the cat to him, and Zane stepped back. “Ah, let's leave the kitty on the floor, shall we?” The cat growled with Clayton's squeezing. The boy's lower lip moved out into a pout.

“Clayton, put the kitty down. Too many things to get into here. Take my hand. We should be going.”

The cat sprang over Zane's boot as Suzanne tapped her way around to the door. “May I walk you home, Mrs. Cullver?”

“I…we have a few items to get at the mercantile. Perhaps another time. Thank you, though, Mr. Marks, was it? It was delightful to meet you.”