No Eye Can See (52 page)

He swallowed, his nose stung with welled-up tears at the thought of the slim and fragile distance between life and death, between turning back and keeping on. The image of Ben left alone squeezed at him, threatened to take his breath. “He's not my boy, Mrs. Mueller, just hers, but I signed on to help her out those months ago, and Fm responsible now. They're like my…family. I didn't find a good way to deal with the man.”

Elizabeth came to him, patted his hand. He realized then that his shoulders had dropped with the ache of fatigue and worry and wondering if this woman would be right for Ben, do right for them. Elizabeth put her hands, palms out, to the boy. As she did, he saw that they were
pink as a baby's tongue. Smooth, too. He wondered why he noticed. Maybe to keep from letting what he felt come rolling up and out.

Ben kicked in his basket chair, cooed and babbled, reached out his arms. David bent to loosen the tie that held him in, lifted him out. Good. The boy felt safe with her.

“Been through a wilderness, have you?” Elizabeth said, lifting the boy from his basket. She bounced him gently, ran her hands through his hair dampened in dark strands stuck to his forehead. “Maybe it's all a mistake,” she said. “Maybe your mama stayed out later than planned and—”

“She wouldn't have left him alone. Not crying, sobbing on the floor like he was. Not unless she was made to. And my dog was shot at too. Will you keep him?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Thanks. Thanks. Look, I've got to get back, to pick up their trail.”

“Any idea who? Why?”

David pulled the paper from his pocket, used the move to wipe at his eyes with his thumbs. He handed it to her. “He left this.”

Elizabeth read the words. “He says possessions,’ like he had more than one. Know what that means?” She handed it back to David, still patting Ben's bottom. “Did he mean to take the baby and then change his mind?”

David shook his head. “I don't know. I only know he took her and if he doesn't hide her in some remote place, then he's headed to a major auction site. Sacramento, San Francisco, or The Dalles.”

“Be good to change that law.” She turned to the baby then, wrinkled her nose. “And we've got to get
you
a change too.” She lifted his hair with the back of her fingers and frowned. “That's an ugly swelling forming at his temple there,” she said. “I know for certain babies won't bruise on their own.”

“You see the kind of man I'm dealing with here? Ben needs a safe place. I'll pay you back, I will.”

“No need to worry over that. You just do what you got to.”

He bent his head to the boys and rubbed. “You be good now for Elizabeth. I'll be back just as soon as I can.”

He squeezed the boy he thought of as his son, then held the woman as well, briefly, the smell of sauerkraut rising around them.

“Two hugs in one morning,” Elizabeth said. “Sarah? You up, child? Come see this little one. Go now. Ben and I'll hold your hands in our prayers.”

David backed out, waved at the boy, whose face suddenly turned from the happy smile to the bubble of a lower lip, his
eyes
widen.

“Go on,” she said. “He'll be all right.”

David opened the door, picked up the dog. He'd take him along. He could help find her trail.

Elizabeth called out as he pulled the door shut. “That name, on the note. What was it again?” He told her. “I don't know why but it has a familiar ring. I'll have to ponder that.”

“I'm going home,” Suzanne said.

“You got the wagon most of the time, now. It's pretty much your home the way you want it,” Lura said. “I tried to make it right for you. The three of us are sleeping in the tent.”

“I understand. And I know you've meant well and that my coming along was my idea. I pushed you to accommodate the boys and me. And you have.”

“Listen. We're a team. We've made twice what we would have with just me sharpening knives, so I'm not complaining.”

Suzanne sighed. She and Pig had made their way to the shaded tree beneath which Lura worked with her whetstones and knives. Lura had shown her once, how one hand turned the crank and the other set the blade in just the right place for grinding. She smelled something hot and earthy and imagined Luras hands working, the swishing sound loud enough to make Suzanne wait before she spoke again.

“There,” Lura said. “Sharp as a diamond. Just as shiny, too. Move, Pig.”

“I intend to make a home,” Suzanne said. “But not in the wagon and not traveling on with the boys to mining towns.”

“Your playing and singing, they're gifts from God. I heard Sister Esther say that once and she ought to know. Cant misuse those,” Lura told her. “I'm sure that's some kind of sin to not put talents to work. Isn't there a Bible verse or something about using gifts and all?”

“I won't forget the music. But I've been given other gifts, too. My children, and the responsibility to raise them as safe and sound as I can. I need help to do that, much as I hate to admit it. I do. And I need to make better choices about where and what I expose them to.”

“Mariah's been good help.”

“Yes, she has.” Suzanne petted Pig's head as they stood, the stillness broken only by Lura's work. When the sound stopped, Suzanne said as gently as she could, “It isn't fair to her either, Lura. She should be in school herself this fall, learning and laughing and just being a child. Growing up, having fun. It's not fun to be watching after my boys. And me. To be up half the night fending off miners.”

“They're just being appreciative.”

“It's dangerous,” Suzanne said. “Even a blind woman can see that.”

Lura grunted. “So what'll you do?”

“Go back to Shasta first. Then head south, to a larger city, maybe, where I can get help for Clayton. I need to see a doctor. Find out why he isn't speaking more and what I can do about it. And then,” and here she paused to take in a deep breath, “I need to hire someone to take care of…all of us. All the time. Someone who will care about my children but not try to take them from me because they think a blind woman can't raise them, or shouldn't.”

Suzanne heard the sound of the crank winding up, the whetstone zinging against another knife. Lura stopped. “Get married, that's what I say. Put up with someone controlling your days so you can be sure your
kids are safe. We could find a good prospect if we put our minds to it. And he could travel with us.”

Suzanne shook her head. “I'm going to Sacramento. I'll stop by Sister Esther's and have her help me find someone—not to marry, but for the children. I'll pay them to look after my children. And me, hard as that is to say out loud. I need a keeper same as them.” She sensed Lura's sadness, wanted to soothe it. “All this gold dust will help me find a worthy person I can pay reasonable at least through the winter. I'm grateful to you for that.”

“Can you wait to go back until maybe October? We've got lots of good towns to head into. Fact is, Ruth won't want Ned staying on with me without you around to keep him safe.”

“That's ironic. A man desperately in need would not hand a baby to me, and you think Ruth sees me as safe.”

“You lend…dignity to things, give folks the belief that they've entered into royalty almost, that pretty blond hair, the way you stand so straight, the backs of your hands making gestures while the rest of us just point. Ruth won't let Ned stay, I'm certain of that. Not with the likes of me.”

“I don't want to ruin your business plans, but I have to go back. Tomorrow.”

“Listen,” Lura said. “Mariah won't stay out here with me either without you around. Maybe we should all head south. Visit a few camps along the way. Maybe I could be that person for you.”

Suzanne didn't know why, but she thought this might be the first test of her true commitment to her new focus. She took in a deep breath. “I know your offer is given with great care, Lura. And I thank you for it. Still, I believe we've learned things about our differences while we've traveled together. I need…a person able to devote herself to my children and to me. And you already have a child and a dream for a business, and when Ruth heads north and catches up with Matt, you'll have your son back and will want to be free to be with him. And who
knows,
you
just may fall in love with one of those miners yourself and marry. Then where would I be?”

“I'd never kick you out,” Lura said. “You're kin.”

“We see the world differently.”

“Difference is what makes life interesting,” Lura persisted, and Suzanne recognized in the tone of her words a small child, bargaining; trying to imagine saying what this other person wanted to hear so they could get their way.

“What did you say the law of this land was?”

“Bargain, bribe, or go without?” Lura rattled her knives, sniffed. “Guess I'm going without,” she said. “Well, you do what you want then. It won't bother me.”

Suzanne felt a twinge she wasn't sure what to call. Irritation, relief?

“I need for you to drive us back,” Suzanne said.

“I know that,” Lura said, blowing her nose. “I was just trying to bargain for when.”

David Taylor had changed horses, left his payment with the hostler whose eyebrow rose with irritation. “You'll likely lose your job, Taylor. Not showing up isn't taken lightly. We had to roust the whip who brought the stage in, and he wasn't none too happy about taking your long run.”

“I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't life and death,” David told him.

“Yeah?” the hostler said. “So can you take tonight's run?”

He shook his head. “I don't know when I'll be back.” He ran his hands through his hair, dirty with sweat and dust. “Do what you have to.”

“Getting a reputation, Taylor, and it's not a good one.”

David nodded, swung up on the horse. He stopped at Washington's and filled his saddlebags with food, filled his canteen, then headed out of town.
Not a good reputation.
All because he acted on his belief. Would he do it again? Yes, he decided, he would.

He rode with a prayer of “help-her, help-her, help-her,” as though it were one word, his wish that Oltipa would live. He was so grateful the boy was all right, that Elizabeth would tend him, that David had a next step. His mother always said not to get caught up waiting for faith enough to finish, only to find faith enough for that next step.

He wondered whether Oltipa thought the boy was dead, whether she knew the dog had gotten to him. He was grateful too, for that. And that he and the dog might just pick up their trail at the cabin. He patted Chance's head, his paws resting on the saddle's swell.

He just needed to find some small sign of their direction once he reached the cabin. Two choices north: the old Sacramento Trail into the McCloud River area or the Yreka route, better traveled, over the Scott Mountains. Two other choices: south to Sacramento skirting Shasta or west toward Weaverville and the coast. Chances were slim he'd know for sure.
But ye have not, because ye ask not.
He thought that was the verse his mother quoted.

He smiled. He didn't realize how memorizing those verses could spur him forward like the good crack of a whip beside a horse's ears: telling him the direction, telling him which way to go and that he wasn't alone.

At the cabin, he tied his horse near the corral then began circling, wider and wider with each walk around the structure, watching for any excitement from Chance. Either the ground was so hard and bare or the breezes had laid flat the grasses, allowing no distinct tracks. Up the ravine, the rocks and water showed no signs they'd headed west. But no signs any other way, either. He thought he'd head south. Something about the man's enjoyment watching that first auction months ago made him think of Sacramento.

But he might imagine David would second-guess that and deliberately turn north. He found nothing to tell him either way. He was about to choose, just trust, when he heard the dog bark.

The dog panted and yipped, ran forward, came back. Chance's little tongue hung out, the size of Ben's palm and as pink. It stood out,
surrounded by a black curly mustache and beard. “Show me,” David said, and Chance bounded out north. David mounted his horse and followed.