Under a Painted Sky

17

 

 

 

 

 

“ANDY!” I CRY, FORCING MY LEADEN FEET TO MOVE. I make it a step, then two.

 

Both Scots straighten when they notice me. Ian tosses whatever he’s holding—a bottle?—from one hand to the other. “Chinkies, they’re the easiest to trek. They got a reek, like vomit, for they can never hold their drink.” He wiggles the bottle at me.

 

“Or you can just watch where their blackies go. They follow them like dugs. Here, blackie,” says Angus, making sucking noises with his tongue and holding a coil of rope toward Andy. “Got a leash for ye.”

 

God help me. I can’t unravel what these Scots are saying, but it isn’t good.

 

Andy gets to her feet and hurries over to me. I fumble for my gun. Not again. I can’t. But that survival thing stirs me to lift it and point.

 

“Shtay awray from her,” I order. Andy’s eyes go wide and nearly glow. She shakes her head at me. What? Heaven help me, did I just call Andy “her”?

 

They laugh and close in. And I must do this thing that will cement my place in hell, but I have no choice, once again, for the others are too far away to hear or notice us. The flames lick at me already.

 

Damn! Why am I moving like molasses down a sheet of ice? They separate, and I don’t know which one to shoot first. How do I work this? My unpracticed hands shake visibly.

 

“Such a bonny wee thing, so dear when you cry,” says Angus.

 

When I cock back the hammer, they stop moving and look at each other.

 

“I’s syr-ius,” I slur out, then burp.

 

Ian bursts out laughing and now so does Angus. So I growl menacingly, which only makes them laugh harder.

 

“Give it to me.” Andy whispers to me. “You’s gonna kill you’self.”

 

She wants the gun? “Need to shoots jem first.” They draw closer. I set my jaw. You dumb eggs. I am wanted for murder. Come on, then.

 

Angus approaches us with his rope held out. “C’mere, you dugs.”

 

I pull the trigger.

 

Pow! Who knows where the bullet goes? The cockroaches scatter, so I must not have hit them.

 

Now someone yells from behind. I twist around. The sheriff runs toward us, wielding a shotgun.

 

? ? ?

 

My head hurts. Someone glued my eyelids shut. I force them open and behold a silver hairbrush, swinging from the center hoop next to a bucket of tools. Hoop? I struggle to get up as a dark face appears above me.

 

“Time for you’s medicine,” says Andy.

 

“What happened?” I ask, as the details of last night return to me, most of them at least. I didn’t hit the Scots, though I did manage to blow a branch off the same pine tree I retched over. Guess trees can have bad luck, too. “Did they hurt you?”

 

“Just cuffed me on the head. Thank the Lord it’s pretty hard. You just worry about you.”

 

“Why?” My head feels twice as heavy as usual and my ears ring. Mrs. Calloway’s face eclipses Andy’s, her faded brown tresses loose around her shoulders. The woman combs her fingers into the back of my hair and presses a tin cup to my lips. I spew it back out just as she pulls her head out of the way.

 

“Everyone does that,” says Mrs. Calloway. “It’s willow bark plus a few other things. It does tend to smell like ripe diapers.”

 

She tips the cup into my mouth again, and I swallow the foul drink, which reminds me of Father’s bitter-melon tea.

 

“Mrs. Jeffers always makes her cider too strong,” she says. “Of course, girls shouldn’t be drinking so much anyway.”

 

“What?” gasp Andy and I at the same time.

 

“I’m a midwife. I can tell these things even if the others can’t. You mind telling me why?” She tilts her kind face toward me, then Andy.

 

Andy looks at me. I shake my head no.

 

“I will answer that question,” I say. My tongue still lags behind my thoughts, but it’s improving. “It’s cuj, we’re slaves-es.”

 

Now Andy’s inspecting the stuff swinging above us and shaking her head, though she should be paying attention.

 

“Well, we are abolitionists,” says Mrs. Calloway. “And last time I checked, Chinese people aren’t slaves here in the U.S.”

 

Andy goes still. “You know a man named Obadiah?” she asks slowly.

 

Mrs. Calloway’s gray eyes sharpen. “Yes, he’s a cooper, though he’s missing a thumb.”

 

I’m not sure I’ve heard correctly and try to sit up again, but Andy pushes me down.

 

“I’ll be.” Andy chuckles. “Your husband was supposed to be my Moses wagon. Lord, You’s almighty. See, I was running away.” She turns to me: “Obadiah’s our code word. She’s part of the Railroad.”

 

Dimly, I recall how Andy was planning to run away on her own before Miss Betsy made her scrub me down. Andy tells Mrs. Calloway everything, starting with when she found me with Yorkshire on the floor. The woman listens with her hands folded, not interrupting.

 

After Andy finishes, Mrs. Calloway presses her cool hand to my cheek. “You’re not a murderer.”

 

My breath falls out of me. “I’m not?”

 

“If that man tried to abuse my daughters like that, I hope they would have smacked him, too.” Mrs. Calloway’s soft voice takes on an edge.

 

I sag back against the wool blanket, head still dizzy.

 

Two cackling goblins wait behind my lids, stampeding me through a maze of pine trees. I scramble up a tree, but they torch it. I climb until I can go no farther, and wait for the flames to take me.

 

? ? ?

 

When my eyelids finally snap open, I am alone, my head drenched in sweat. Dawn spills through the cracks of the wagon.

 

Andy sticks her head into the wagon. “Oh, good, you’s up.” She passes me a dipper of water and I drink up. It’s so cold, it makes my head throb.

 

“There’s someone here to see us.”

 

“What? Who?” I ask as my stomach rumbles with nausea. At least my tongue is starting to work again.

 

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