Under a Painted Sky

 

24

 

 

 

 

 

APRIL MARCHES INTO MAY. THE DAYS GROW LONGER and the weather loses its wet-dog feel. We gain more ground in the winding hills that slow the wagons to the speed of sap. The emigrant men brace the carts so they don’t tip over as they zigzag down the slope. We haven’t seen any more dead bodies, smashed fingers, or law enforcement in the two weeks since we left Fort Kearny.

 

The more I try to dissuade Andy from pinning her hopes on the map’s squiggly-line markings, the more convinced she becomes that they’re her waterfall. So I stop pushing. If Dragons are pushed too hard, they will fly away.

 

The boys scare birds out of the trees and throw up pinecones for us to shoot. Moving objects are much harder to hit than tree knots, but we improve slowly. Andy practices throwing her rope around any oblong shape she can find, but since most of the terrain is grassland, she usually just ropes Peety riding in front of her.

 

In the evenings, West hunts by himself.

 

The night after my near drowning, he set off with his rifle while Cay was still airing his shirts.

 

“Hold on, don’t you want me to come?” asked Cay.

 

“No,” said West, striding off.

 

When Cay noticed me, he shrugged. “Sourpuss. He’ll come around tomorrow.”

 

But he didn’t, setting off alone the night after as well, and soon Cay stopped asking.

 

Lately, West avoids being alone with me, too. He always arrives last for language lessons, and sleeps with his face turned away from me.

 

Three more days until Fort Laramie, and seventeen days until the Parting. We’ve upped our pace to twenty-five miles a day, aided by a flat terrain and a wider trail. At this rate, we’ll make it to the Parting before Mr. Trask, assuming he hasn’t upped his pace. Though I don’t know how he would do that without leaving behind his wagon and team and buying a horse. Once at the Parting, I will examine the faces of those who pass by, one by one, until I spot him.

 

I restart my campaign to convince Andy to come to the Parting, re-treading old arguments and presenting new ones. “If Isaac gets there first, he’ll wait for you, right? You said yourself neither of you know when the other’s going to show up,” I say on one of the rare occasions where she and I lead the remuda. “What’s another few weeks?”

 

Her answer is always the same. “You’s got your path, and I got mine.”

 

Maybe I have met my match in the war of stubborn.

 

? ? ?

 

We camp in a clearing surrounded by thick coyote brush. A bare film of clouds veils the ripening moon. After dinner, West and I both draw straws to scrub the plates.

 

“I’ll do ’em myself,” West tells me. “Work on your sharpshooting.”

 

“I can already hit nine out of ten.”

 

“Then work on your knots,” he grumbles, collecting the dirty dishes.

 

“Still a plucked rooster,” Andy whispers.

 

When we’ve spread out on our bedrolls, Andy announces, “Tonight we’s got a romantic story.”

 

“Oh good,” says Cay. “Come on, hold my hand, West. That’ll make it extra-special.”

 

West snorts and scribbles harder in his journal with his wrapped charcoal. From where I sit, I can make out swirly lines that look like water, and the jagged edges of a tree line.

 

He feels me watching and looks up. I pretend to study my knees.

 

Andy begins. “Once there lived a princess name Bonita.”

 

“Finally a story for the brown man,” says Peety.

 

“Bonita was the daughter of King and Queen Snake, who ruled the Land of Noble Sunsets in the west. They liked it there because snakes do their best slithering at night. In the east, lived their enemies, the rabbits, in the Land of Splendid Sunrises. Being early risers, living in the east suited them. The rabbits’ king and queen had a son, Zachariah, whose hare coat was black and shiny as flint.”

 

A rabbit and a snake. That sly girl. I cut my gaze to Andy, but she’s wrapped up in her storytelling.

 

“A lake separated the two countries, which worked out good, since rabbits thought snakes were nasty, foul-mouthed things, and snakes thought rabbits were dim-witted fluffheads. But the two countries agreed they wouldn’t truck in each other’s business as long as they kept their own boundaries.”

 

“What’s luckier, a snake jaw or a rabbit foot?” Cay asks.

 

With a look of supreme patience, Andy folds her hands together. “Depends on if you’re the snake or the rabbit. Now if you don’t mind. One day Bonita and Zachariah both go down to the lake at the same time. As they dip their heads, they see the other’s reflection.

 

“‘A rabbit!’ Bonita cries, a little trembly.

 

“‘Darn’t if that ain’t a snake,’ Zachariah says back.” Andy makes her voice growly and rough for Zachariah, and I try not to giggle.

 

West stops drawing. He rolls his piece of charcoal between his fingers.

 

“Their eyes meet across the water. Unlike the rabbits Bonita had seen, this one did not look dim-witted, but held himself with his back straight, ears poked straight up and alert. He looked rather princely, with a finely brushed coat and white fur in his ears.

 

“Unlike the snakes Zachariah had seen, Bonita wasn’t slimy or foul. She had wrapped herself around a branch and looked as elegant as a cord of yellow silk.

 

“For three nights, they met at the lake, not speaking, just watching each other. But on the fourth night, she asked him, ‘How did you get so big eating nothing but grass?’

 

“He answered, ‘I s’pect it’s the same way you stay so slender, eating all that meat.’ His ears flopped to one side. ‘Say, you’s not going to eat me, are you?’

 

“She laughed, and then he did, too. Every night after that, they met at the lake. Sometimes she wrapped herself around him, and they hopped through the forest. She would never dream of biting him. And he carried her gently, so her tail never dragged in the dirt.”

 

Peety works a hand over his chin. “I do not think snakes have tails.”

 

“Or necks, come to think of it,” says Cay.

 

Andy glares at them. “You want to hear the story, or not?”

 

“Sorry, please continue,” says Peety.

 

“Sometimes he would jump real high, and to Bonita, who’d never been off the ground, it seemed they were flying to the moon. But soon, folks got wind of the rabbit-snake lovers, and their parents forbade them from meeting. The punishment for not listening was death.” She lets that word sink in, and now we’re all staring at her in rapt silence. “So, Queen Snake begged her husband to give Bonita one last chance. Queen Rabbit begged her husband to give Zachariah one last chance. Their husbands say, fine.

 

“But again Bonita and Zachariah meet at the river. And they was as close as Saturday night and Sunday morning. He loved how pure was her heart, and she loved how steady were his shoulders.

 

“They got ready to hop away, this time for good. But the snake guards and rabbit soldiers waited for them behind the bushes. They threw their nets and caught the pair as they tried to escape.”

 

She clasps her hands in front of her heart, pausing for a dramatic beat. The only one moving is Cay, whose knee starts to shake.

 

Andy lowers her voice. “But neither side could kill their own kin. So the parents decided to separate the lovers forever.” She lifts her hands to the sky. “Zachariah asked to live on the moon so that Bonita could look up and see him, wherever she was. Bonita begged her parents for a good strong rattle, so Zachariah could hear her, wherever he was. Now, when the moon is full, their love shines brightest. One day, they hope they can be together again, maybe in a land both noble and splendid.”

 

Andy’s smile reaches from ear to ear, like she licked the cream off the milk.

 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” says Cay. “I never thought a rabbit or a snake could have such a powerful effect on me. So what is the moral of this story, Sammy?”

 

“Beats me,” I say gruffly, though I know it is that nothing cannot stop true love, not even putting it on the moon.

 

West is scowling at his closed journal, his charcoal now hidden in his fist.

 

Peety sits up and wraps his arms around his knees. “I think if everyone stayed on their side of the fence, this tragedy would never have happened.”

 

“That ain’t it,” Cay protests. “Bonita and Zachariah shoulda split when they had the chance. Go have a couple snake-rabbit babies.”

 

“That is impossible, fool,” says West. He gets to his feet and walks off.

 

Andy winks at me. Her simple gesture chases away some of the bad taste in my mouth. Somehow, she always understands how I feel, watching out for me not just in body, but in mind. I don’t know what I would do without her.

 

This thought crosses my mind so often that I finally think: What if I went with her? What if I abandoned my quest to learn why Father wanted to go to California? I would have to give up Mother’s bracelet. It’s just a piece of jewelry, yet, I thought if I could touch its positive energy one more time, if only to say good-bye, some of the broken pieces inside me would mend. But Andy has already healed me in many ways, not just my fingers, but my emptiness, bolstering my fragile stance in the world with her own solid shoulders.

 

Father, fate has dropped another stone in the stream, forcing new choices, new paths to follow.

 

? ? ?

 

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