14
ANOTHER FIERY BRANCH DROPS RIGHT PAST MY head. I open my mouth, but I’ve already used up all my screams.
The first branch burns out, but flames from the second begin licking at the trunk. Now my tree burns on both ends. A fresh wave of panic makes my hands slick with sweat. With a shock, I realize that if I don’t clear out, I’ll be burned alive. Like Father.
My mind cries for my body to drop. Broken legs still beat burning alive. Maybe I would just twist an ankle. Move! I free one leg, then the other, and now I hang from the branch like laundry. My fingers grip the rough wood as tightly as I can, but they’re slipping. Splinters pierce my flesh, and holding on is torture.
The boys yell something I can’t make out over the roar of the fire. Smoke steams the tears off my face as they form. I shorten my breath to keep the smoke out of my lungs, but that makes me thirst for air.
With my body dangling, I’ve reduced the drop to fifteen feet. Still, I cannot let go. The burning branch spews out a swirling mass of black smoke that obscures the ground. I break into a cold sweat. God, not this way.
Something moves below me. A hat.
“I’ll catch you,” West calls up to me.
I try to release my branch, but fear paralyzes me. Stubborn, stubborn body.
“Trust me.”
My arms weaken, and my fingers begin to slip. Another branch falls, singeing my sleeve.
I plummet like an anchor. West snatches me out of the air, hooking me around the chest with his arm and hauling me onto Franny’s back.
Soon we are squeezed into the same saddle with me in front. I shudder against his solid warm body, biting my lip to keep from crying. Though I dearly want to collapse back into him, I remember myself. So I dig my arms into my stomach to calm the spasms racking my chest. He must have felt my shape when he grabbed me.
“You’re okay,” he says.
He wheels Franny around to face a longhorn that charges toward us. “Got to tie up a few strands.” Franny engages the steer in a kind of mincing dance, matching it step for step until it tires of the footwork and rejoins its brethren. “Thatta girl.”
West starts to whistle. In my fog of exhaustion, whistling strikes me as absurd. Still, the simple tune works at my mind like a carding comb through wool.
I look back at the burning tree, which is starting to burn itself out. Thank God the ground underneath is dirt and not grass, otherwise the whole prairie would be aflame by now. As I’m thinking this, the thunder and lightning end and here come their dawdling children, plump droplets falling from the sky. The blessed rain douses the final embers of the tree fire and dampens the livestock’s spirits.
West stops behind a cottony ox thrashing at a bush. “This one’s bushing up. They get confused, and you have to dig ’em out before they hurt themselves.”
West wings his lariat under the ox’s hind foot, then snaps his wrist up. Franny digs in her heels, and West reels in his catch, helping the ox remember it can go backward. In one smooth motion, West dismounts. Then he picks his rope off the ox’s leg and slaps it on the rear.
As the sun reappears, the rest of the livestock begin foraging like nothing ever happened. Whoever they belong to hasn’t come to claim them yet.
Peety, Andy, and Cay trot up to us. All the mirth has left Cay’s eyes. A shaking Andy lets out her breath and raises her hand to the sky, like she’s giving thanks.
Peety claps my shoulder and says in a gentle voice, “Hey, Chinito, you never be boring with us, sí?”
I nod, trying to switch my mask of terror for one of calm.
“God must think you’re a good one, he don’t let the lightning touch you. Is miracle.” He reaches over to rub my face with his gloved hands. The waxy leather smooths the last of my tears away. “I will give Him extra thank-yous tonight, for you and Andito.”
West winds his rope, pulling the loops taut with more force than necessary. He glances at Cay. “You’re a fool, and one day you’re going to get us all killed.”
“Don’t worry, I already got an earful from that one,” says Cay, flicking his gaze to Andy. He hits me on the other shoulder and pushes my hat down on my head. “You okay?”
“Shouldn’t have treed him,” West says, taking Franny’s reins. He says him so casually, I convince myself he did not figure me out after all.
“Oh come on, how was I supposed to know?” protests Cay.
“Half the stampedes we see are caused by thunder.” West holds Franny’s reins while I slide off, trying not to fall in the mud.
“It’s okay,” I say. My voice is scratched and raspy from all the screaming.
Cay glares at the underside of his hat brim, then glances down at me. “Sorry, kid, I owe you one. You can kick me in the nuts if you want, or I can give you all my money.”
“I’d go with the nuts,” says West. “He only has four dollars.”
I hook an arm around Franny’s neck and will my legs to stop trembling. “Thank—”
“Why don’t ya walk her off?” West interrupts me. He kisses his horse on the nose, then hands me the reins.
“Well, thank you anyway,” I tell Franny, patting her neck.
Andy dismounts. “I’ll come with you.”
Franny leads us toward the pine forest.
Andy nudges me with her arm. “Lord almighty, I almost bit off my tongue when I saw that tree catch fire. You’s tougher than I thought.”
“Just keeping up appearances. And anyway, I wasn’t the one on the bronco. You held on real good, like a professional.”
“Yeah, up until I fell off,” she says, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. “I’m just glad Peety heard you screaming. Thanks for that. I got so turned around, I didn’t know which way was up or down.”
“You don’t have to thank me. Peety did all the work.”
“Yeah, well, I guess we both needed a bit of rescuing today. At least Peety said I don’t have to ride her anymore if I don’t want to.”
“He said that?”
“Uh-huh, right after I almost chucked up on the back of his shirt.”
When she looks at me, her severe expression softens, and soon we’re both laughing. I glance behind me. West is watching us.
The wind scrubs the slate clean once again, leaving behind not a single cloudy smudge in the turquoise sky. The walk unwinds me, and soon I’m taking deep lungfuls of pine-scented air. Like Father often said, Breathing is underrated. On our Sunday nature walks, he would stop, close his eyes, and inhale so deeply, his spine would flex backward like a violin bow.
Something pink shoots out from a hydrangea shrub and bumbles toward us. A piglet.
“Aw, where did you come from?” Even in my weariness, I can’t help myself in the presence of a baby.
I pick her up and kiss her on the head. “Isn’t she sweet?”
“Sure. She’d be even sweeter with a side of applesauce.”
“Andy!” The piglet shivers, so I put her inside one of my shirts. Nothing soothes the soul like a warm piglet against your stomach.
She frowns at me. “You’ll live longer if you don’t get attached to your food.”
My bundle wriggles, and an ear peeks out between my shirt flaps. Andy’s face relaxes. “My little brother, Tommy, had a piggy just like this one, pink with white spots that looked like soap bubbles. Isaac gave Soapy to Tommy as a reward for cleaning out the stables without crying. He was terrified by the horses.” She scratches the piglet’s velvety head. “You’s hands bad? Let’s see ’em.”
I open them. A cut runs across one of my palms and there’s debris stuck all over. Andy takes off her bandanna and lightly whacks my palms to get off the larger particles. “Good thing we got a needle. But this one, I’ll take care of right now.” She pulls out a larger splinter with her fingernails.
I look toward the sparkling forest to distract myself. Surviving a burning tree didn’t make me any braver. From out of the shadows, I am startled to see four men emerge, twenty yards away.
“Andy!” I whisper loudly.
The men stare at the scene before them. The biggest of the lot sports a crop of red hair and is scratching his matching beard. I put him at fifty. He beckons to us, waving both arms above his head, as if he was not visible enough.
Andy passes me a weary look. They already saw us. We can’t just ignore them.
“Just keep thumping your tail,” she says as we make our way toward them.
Someone whistles sharply: Peety, calling to West and Cay. The boys ride over to the men and arrive just before we do.