No Eye Can See (4 page)

The noise of the oxen shaking their heads at flies and the chain being strung startled Zilah. Her ears hurt, and her eyes ran water like snow melting from high mountains in spring.

Why crying?

She did not feel like crying, and yet the water came. She fisted her eyes, wished she could make the noise stop. It was the fault of the sounds and the sand and the heat.

“Make too much noise,” Zilah said. Seth stood at her words, lifted his fingers to the brim of his hat. “Why you look at me?” she asked. “Too loud, too loud!” She put her hands to her ears.

“You're shaking,” Seth said, reaching out his hand to her elbow.

Zilah found his words cunning, like a fox. She jerked away.

“Zilah? Something wrong?”

“Who Zilah?” she said, her shrill voice hurting even her own ears. “Name Chou-Jou. Who tell you my name Zilah?”

“Why, you did. And Sister Esther,” he said.

“Who Sister Esther?”

Seth shook his head. “You know who that is, she's your…the woman who manages the marriage contracts, why you're heading to California. Maybe it would be good if you stepped over to her tent. Here, let me help you.” He reached out.

Maybe he steady me. Maybe he strike me.

She couldn't be sure so she struck first, her fingernails leaving a track of red welts on the back of his gloveless hand.

“Hey!” he said, jerking away.

She could see by the look in his blue eyes that she startled him, but she couldn't think why. He was being thick, making a game of her. She had to defend.

“Looks like you're running a fever Zi—I mean Chou-Jou, is it?”

“You make fun of name,” she screamed. Her heart pounded, and she couldn't catch her breath. She breathed through her mouth, gasping in air.

“Best you sit down, Zilah,” he said. “I'll get us some help.”

“Name Chou-Jou,” she screamed, then, in her flatfooted gait, she brushed past him, holding the sides of her head, staggering toward Sister Esther's tent. Her eye caught something moving.
A dog! No, boy. Small boy. Clayton.
The child smiled at her as he stood next to the tall wagon wheel. He waved, and she thought she saw him sneer.
He show teeth! No boy a dog. He try to bite! Stop him! She
had to catch him, had to protect. She turned and headed toward this danger.

In the mirror on the back of the wagon, Tipton watched Zilah lumber across the sand then turn toward Clayton. Good, someone was looking after the boy, keeping him from trouble. Suzanne certainly didn't notice. Well, she couldn't, Tipton guessed, not really. Tipton gazed at the mirror as she dotted alum onto the blemish on her narrow chin. Those Asian women had strange habits, running with their hands to their heads. Her eyes looked at the lupine-blue sky surrounding her heart-shaped face framed by wispy blond curls. At least her hair was growing back, and less of it remained on her combs when she pulled them out. Elizabeth said it was her eating that affected her hair. How ridiculous. Some old woman's thinking. Whatever the cause, neither her face nor hair could take much more filth and grime. She wore a bonnet every day to keep the sun off the peach complexion that everyone back in the States said “just belongs with that creamy blond hair.” Without soap and decent water, she didn't feel clean, didn't feel the least bit creamy or peachy at all. She just felt parched and dry and old, much older than her fifteen—almost sixteen—years that had already seen the death of her father and fiancé and the disappearance of her brother, though the latter she considered a blessing. Charles Wilson was not a man to be trusted.

With the tips of her fingers she pinched her cheeks until they blushed red. At least she had blood left. That was something. “Good morning, Mr. Forrester,” Tipton said, being bold. She watched as the man turned slowly away from his staring at Zilah, a frown on his face washing into warmth as he saw her. “You look quite smart this morning.”

Seth Forrester tipped his hat and smiled, showing even teeth, all still there and not yellowed by tobacco like so many old men she knew.

Tipton thought to carry on the conversation with him, but he seemed distracted, rubbing at his hand. He turned as though looking for Zilah, then bent to the wagon tongue. She picked up her combs and wash basin and headed toward her mother's tent. Seth was a nice man
but old, probably twice her age. Tyrell, her true love, had been older too, but he was different. He'd been perfect. And he was gone. She'd never find someone to love her like that again, ofthat she was sure. Still, it was good to know that despite the devastation of this journey, the blast of wind and sand acting as pumice to her skin, even with thinning, matted hair, she could still engage in flirtation.

“Already working us into a routine, I see,” Mazy Bacon told Seth as she caught up with him. Mazy carried a line-dried linen that stuck out stiffly over her arm, and she held a bar of glycerin at the waist of her bloomers once red, but now faded to orange. “A woman needs routine,” she told him, pushing her auburn hair, kinky from a just-freed braid, back from her face. A wide blue scarf tied into a band caught her hair at the back of her neck.

“Does she?” Seth asked.

Mazy carried herself like a woman used to wearing the weight of disappointment. Seth liked her spirit of determination and honesty when he'd met her briefly back in Kanesville. He found her even more intriguing these three months later, now a widow. She was young, yet the word
wisdom
came to mind when he looked at her. From what the others told him, Mazy somehow wove the women together and brought them this far without taking away their independence. That was no easy task. He'd seen a few officers in the war succeed at it, but a whole lot more fail.

“Routine has a way of getting changed out on the trail,” Seth said. “Figured that'd be a truth you of all people would know by now.”

“Doesn't mean I don't long for consuming certainty—for something more than that the desert'll be hot and dry. And that Tipton and her mother will clash.”

Seth laughed. “Suppose so,” he said. “Even so, one routine we do
need to follow is to break camp earlier, try to get on the trail while it's yet cool. It's a distance between the watering holes. There'll be a couple of days of just plain hot and sand that could bog us down. Once we edge around the desert toward Black Rock, there's a cut, at High Rock, and a spring before we start the next desert stretch. Maybe we could take a day there, just for those routine things you women seem to need. Have you talked with Zilah this morning?” Seth said then.

“I imagine she's helping Suzanne, although I haven't checked.”

Seth removed his hat and ran his hands through the thickness of hair. He needed a haircut. It would have to wait until he reached Shasta City. “Seems to be acting strangely,” he said. “Told me her name wasn't Zilah, that it was Chou-Jou or something. Acted like she didn't know who Sister Esther was.”

Mazy's green eyes grew larger. “What happened to your hand?”

“Strangest thing,” Seth said. He put his hat on, then turned his hand to look at the back of his palm. “Don't think it broke the skin. She scratched at me.”

“Zilah did? You weren't wearing gloves?” Mazy reached for his hand, clasped it firm in both hands, her thumb tracing along the welts. Good hands, she had. Strong. He looked at her face but couldn't catch her gaze, she was so focused on his wound.

A tamed antelope dragging a leash bounded out from behind Mazy and her mother's tent. Elizabeth Mueller shouted and laughed after it.

Mazy dropped his hand. “We'd better get Mother to take a look at that,” she said. “Wouldn't want it infected.” She waved toward her mother who signaled “in a minute.” Mazy turned back to Seth. “Maybe Zilah misunderstood something you said. I could ask Naomi or Mei-Ling to translate. Their English is better. Or maybe she's just tired, wants to get where we're going to be for a time, wake up with the same view more than two days in a row. I understand how all this newness wears at a soul.”

Seth shook his head, fingered the red welts. “More than that,” he
said. “She looked… I've seen that look somewhere before. Can't place it exactly, but I remember it wasn't good.”

“Not…cholera.” Mazy whispered the word.

“No,” he said. “Not that.” Seth coughed. He had to remember what these women had been through, not dwell on the troubles, but not forget them either. “Got to finish hitching up.” He pulled on his silk neckerchief. “See if you can hustle along your lady friends. You surely don't need to pretty yourself more.”

“If you're going to tell tall tales about how well a woman looks when she knows the truth, your credibility's bound to be brought into question. Not good for a new leader. I'd best go check on Zilah,” she said, dropping her eyes. She turned and walked in her broad stride, away.

Seth nodded. He liked this woman. He liked her a lot. But he hoped her strength didn't grow from a rigid streak.

Suzanne slipped out of the wagon, as the dog, Pig, brushed at her knee. She felt for the leather harness, put it on the dog's back, then held the handle that stuck up stiffly. She'd dressed herself just fine. Now for the boys. “Clayton?” she called out. “Clayton? Where are you?”

“It's me, Mazy,” the woman said, “approaching on your left.” Suzanne smelled fragrant soap.

“Have you seen Clayton or Zilah?”

“Neither one. But Seth has. Zilah, at least. She's acting strange, he says.”

“Left without telling me this morning. That's certainly not like her,” Suzanne said. “And she's never taken Clayton without saying. The baby'll be awake soon.” She reached for the bodice of her wrapper, the mere mention of the baby's waking causing her breasts to ache at their fullness.

“Have Pig take you to the morning fire. Lura has one going beside her tent. Maybe Mariah has Clayton—oh, there he is!”

“Where?”

“That's odd.”

“What?”

“Zilah has him. They're out in the sand. Maybe he has to do his necessary thing. Are you training him, Suzanne? He's sitting down it looks like.”

“I didn't tell her to do that. It's not safe, is it? Aren't there snakes and stickers?”

Suzanne heard Mazy's intake of breath. “What is she doing?” She clutched at Mazy's arm. “Tell me! Mazy?”

“Mother! Seth! Come quick!”

Suzanne heard her son wail. “What? What's happening?”

“Oh, Lord, please,” Mazy whispered. “Zilah's—wait here!” Mazy peeled Suzanne's gripped fingers from her arm before Suzanne heard Mazy turn and run.