6
“WALK STRAIGHTA. NOT YOU’S BACK, YOU’S curves,” says Annamae.
I march in the straightest line I can manage, trying to keep the pendulum from swinging, though I don’t have much to swing. Still, even the slightest tick-tock could give me away.
“Strut more, like the pigeons do. Feet out, looser in the knees. Keep you’s head down. Like a pigeon hunting a potata bug.”
I spend the next few hours perfecting my gait, and by the time I lose my shadow, it almost feels natural. The ferry starts back up at nine, which means we might see Argonauts by this afternoon, and pioneers and their wagons after that. For now, it’s just us and the prairie dogs.
I remove my hat and swab my face for the dozenth time. March mornings are always nippy, but wearing enough clothes for four people might kill me before the law does. I shed a few layers, then collapse on the grass underneath the shadiest tree.
Annamae strips off her coat. From her saddlebag, she produces a brick of cheese and a hunk of bacon, though she returns the bacon to the bag. “We’ll save this for tomorrow’s breakfast. Nothing says good morning like a streaky slab of po’ man’s steak.”
“Isn’t this breakfast?”
“Nope. It’s closer to noon.” She shaves off a slice from the cheese, says a quick prayer, then hands the morsel to me. I swallow it in one bite and wait for more.
“That’s it for now,” she says. “We gotta make it last.”
My stomach grumbles in protest. I sigh and ball a fist into it. On any other day, I’d be having two eggs and rice porridge—and there’d be custard tarts on special occasions. My eyes begin to blur when I remember the last thing Father gave me was a plate of miniature suns. I shove that thought away. Annamae rolls out the bubbles in the waxy paper covering the cheese.
“So how’d you and Isaac get split up?” I ask.
“We were all sold off from Frogg Farm. Tommy and I went to the Yorkshires, and I don’t know where Isaac went. He got picked up quick, he being strong enough to carry Tommy and me in each arm.” She flashes me a grin. Her teeth are straight as a picket fence on top but crooked on the bottom.
“Why’d Isaac want to go west? Why not try a free state, or—”
“Free states don’t make you free.” She sniffs. “If the law catches you, they return you to you’s owner. Not much law in this direction and the pioneers got better things to do than trouble over runaways.”
May the pioneers have better things to do than trouble over me, too. I force my aching feet back onto the empty trail after Annamae.
If I’m going to catch up with Mr. Trask, Father’s friend who has Mother’s bracelet, I will need a speedier mode of transport than these legs. We could use Yorkshire’s rings to buy a horse, assuming we survive long enough to make it to the next trading post. But what if they don’t sell horses? Without a horse, not only will I never catch Mr. Trask, I’ll be a lame fox on hunting day.
I up my pace. Negative thoughts pour gravel in your shoes and make your step unsteady. Instead, I think back to the last time I saw the energetic thirty-year-old grocer from New York. Father’s best friend and a fellow musician, Mr. Trask showed up out of the blue last month. He’d come all the way from New York City. Father said to him, “Don’t tell me you’re here to reclaim your tuning fork, because I’ve grown quite fond of it.”
“That’s yours to keep, Henry.” Mr. Trask’s tawny eyes twinkled. “Sold the store, now I’m off to see the Pacific Ocean. That coast is ready to explode. Dreams are ripe for the picking in all that sunshine.” He grabbed his red suspenders and straightened his back, always managing to look taller than Father, though they were both a hand under six foot.
“I’m leading a train of seven. You ever think about heading west, Henry?” he asked.
Father turned his gaze on me, sweeping up coffee beans. “I think about it a lot.”
Mr. Trask and his wagon train stayed in town three more nights as they waited their turn on the ferry. He and Father went to Belly’s Tavern every night after we closed up shop.
On the last night, Father removed Mother’s bracelet from our wooden safe and fingered the many-colored jade stones in the circlet. It was so dear, we’d bought the safe especially for it.
I looked up from my Latin reader in alarm. “What are you doing?”
After a long pause, he dropped the bracelet into a velvet pouch. Then he held the pouch in his hand, his eyes far away for a moment.
When he tucked the pouch into his pocket, I protested, “You’re not selling it? That’s the only thing we have left. That is her. You’re giving away Mother?”
He ignored my disrespect. “You will see it again one day. Your mother would understand.”
“How would you know?” I huffed.
He buttoned up his coat, then collected his walking stick. Before he left, he said in a voice more sorrowful than angry, “It is not for children to question parents.”
That was the end of February, eighteen days ago.
I tell Annamae about Mr. Trask.
“So what did your daddy want to do out there in California?”
“I don’t know, exactly.” I press my fingers into my hard head. “He tried to tell me, but I was still mad about the bracelet and wouldn’t listen.”
“So after you find this Mr. Trask, maybe he’ll help you out. Look after you?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s a comfort. Girl like you shouldn’t be out by you’self.”
“Nor a girl like you.” Something pokes my heel. I stop to shake a pebble out of my boot. She offers me her arm.
“Oh, I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. Practically a man already.” She snorts. “You don’t have to worry about me. So what’s this Mr. Trask look like?”
“A few inches taller than you. Head like a nest with an ostrich egg in the middle, mustache, and a beaky kind of a nose. He always wore red suspenders and a white shirt. Not exactly the kind of man who stands out.”
“Well, my brother is the kinda man who stands out, tall as a lamppost, and good-looking, like his sister”—she smiles—“but unlike your Mr. Trask, he won’t be just strolling pretty. You know the way to California?”
“Follow the Oregon Trail to the California Trail, is all I know.”
We trudge along.
“Maybe you’ll find some folks who can help. I’ll go far as I can with you. But soon’s I find out where Harp Falls is, I’ve gotta be on my way. Could be tomorrow, could be next month.”
“I understand.” An anxious bubble forms in my stomach. I’ve known Annamae for less than a day, yet I feel bonded to her in the way common suffering can knit two souls together. Or maybe it’s just my small spleen talking. People with small spleens are notoriously cowardly.
“You know any hymns?” asks Annamae.
“Sure. ‘God of Our Fathers.’ ‘Glory Be.’”
“Don’t know those. You know ‘Chains of Mis’ry’? ‘Moses Split the Tide’?”
“No.”