I swab my face with my sleeve and take the gift with both hands, as is the Chinese way to show respect. Father never received a gift without giving something in return, a bag of candied ginger, or an étude on his cello. I have nothing, and even if I did, it would not be enough. I owe these boys more than I will ever be able to repay.
Peety shifts from foot to foot and rubs the stubble on his cheeks. Though I want to fling myself at the vaquero and sob into his solid shoulders, I just hug the quiver.
“Peety, this is the nicest—” I can’t finish my sentence. I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath to get the tremors out of my voice. “Muchas gracias, mi amigo.”
He nods. “You want to try it out?”
The landscape around is arrayed in black and gray shadows, though the sky is putting on a light show for us. “It’s too dark, but we could shoot the stars.”
His face pinches, and he slips his hands into his pockets. Then he blows out a lungful of air. “Someone stole mi hermana when she was only five.”
His sister? Esme. “Oh, Peety.”
“I taking her to buy sandals, getting mad ’cause she so slow. I let go her hand, and when I look back, she not there. They took her because I no looking back, and she had no shoes.”
“Who took her?”
“Salvajes. They steal children away to sell them.” He shakes his head as if to clear it of bad thoughts.
“I’m sorry, Peety.”
He nods. “She love horses, always say she want to be a horse when she grows up. So, I decide to become wrangler, because I always looking for her.”
Suddenly, the vinegar pickling my heart loses its bite.
We glance upward. Everywhere I look, there are stars and more stars, coalescing like white dust.
“Sometimes I think she is gone from this world. If it’s true, that means she’s a star now, because that’s what happens to the innocents. That is why you cannot shoot the stars.”
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Over the next week, we pass hundreds of wagons grinding deep ruts into the soft sandstone outcroppings. Andy asks me why I’m so mopey, and when I don’t tell her, says, “When you’re ready, I’m all ears.”
I try to forget what happened with West by concentrating on finding Mr. Trask. Andy keeps a lookout as well. Who knows? He might be right under my thumb. I examine everyone who wears trousers, perfecting the art of moving my eyes without moving my head. Mr. Trask, as captain, will likely lead the caravan, but I don’t overlook anyone.
When the trail empties, I rest my eyes on the prairie grass. It shimmers as we wade through its waves, each blade tossing back the rays of the sun. We pass white-tipped Laramie Peak, an orange sunset at its crown.
“Dig in for a second, boys,” breathes Cay. “My eyeballs are full.”
We stare at the splendor in silence.
Lately, after giving halfhearted language and math lessons in the evenings, I wander off by myself. I keep my hands busy, shooting snails with my bow and arrow, and splicing Andy’s baubles into a stronger bracelet made of rope.
When I return to our fire, West is usually gone, which makes things easier for me when I curl up.
But I am always awake when he drops quietly beside me, not realizing I excel at feigning dead. Another survival instinct, I imagine.
31
AFTER THREE MORE DAYS OF TRAVEL, INDEPENDENCE Rock towers before us, a giant sandstone shoe that got stuck in mud and was left behind. Clusters of sagebrush ring the landmark, and wagons sprawl over the landscape, at least two hundred schooners amassed at the midpoint of the Oregon Trail.
Farther up the trail, the boys play follow the leader, a game they use to keep the remuda sharp.
Andy rides beside me. She shows me the neat row of numbers she wrote in our journal. “Ten more days ’til the Parting, in case you changed your mind.”
“I haven’t changed my mind. According to my estimates, the pass to the Yellow River lies at least two days’ ride from here. You recall, the one called Calamity Cutoff, in case you want to change your mind.”
She snorts, then jams the journal back into her saddlebag. “Nope.”
The boys spin their horses around and walk backward. They are out of earshot, but I can sense West’s eyes upon me.
“You ever gonna tell me what happened with West?” Andy asks, watching me.
Ten days have passed since La Disgrace, what I’ve started calling the French party. My wound has healed, partially. I can at least recount the mortifying events without shedding a tear.
After I tell her, Andy tilts her chin toward me and tsks her tongue. “Lots of things surprise me, but that ain’t one of them. And so you know, what West did, it don’t mean a thing. You just confused him, so he had to test his rooster in the ring.”
She might be right, but it still fails to cheer me. I don’t understand the constant need to prove one’s manhood, as if it is always on the verge of slipping away. We never need to prove our womanhood.
“You miss being a girl?” I ask her.
“Not as much as I thought I would. Just feels like when I’m being a boy, I can cut a wider path.”
I nod, knowing exactly what she means. Cay spins around on his saddle so he’s riding backward. “If we were them, we could cut the path in reverse.”
Andy’s face grows serious. “Yeah, though I’m done with wanting to be them. I was done with that a long time ago.”
“What do you mean?”
She doesn’t speak for a long time, and I think this might be more trash in her mind she’s not ready to dump. But then she glances at me. “After Tommy died, I cursed God for giving me this body, for making us slaves.”
I wonder if I heard right. The notion that Andy could curse God for anything puts grease under my heel.
“What good’s a black face if it means I’m just someone’s property? Why give me these arms and legs just to carry someone else’s load, not my own?” She stares through the road, as if watching a memory. “Just like that prince, I struggled, wanted to be something I wasn’t, even though the answer was here all along.” She pats the spot over her heart. “See, God gave me this harp, which is my soul, along with the promise of sweet redemption.” Her posture is as poised as a feather on a cap, flexing in time with Princesa’s gait. “I don’t need anything else. Never thought about being white again after I figured that out.”
I smooth a spot on Paloma’s mane, sobered by her words. Father always made me feel proud to be Chinese, that ancient race who roamed among dragons, who exploded gunpowder into the air to make flowers of fire. We might be a rare breed in this country, but I never wished to be white. Then again, I was also never a slave.
The boys begin walking their horses back to us.
Andy flicks the reins at a fly. “You ever wondered what West’s face would look like if you pulled off all you’s shirts and yelled, surprise?”
“No!” I protest too loudly. I swear West straightens up in the saddle at my outburst.
“Well, I have,” she says around a smile. “Not West, a’course.” She flicks her eyes toward my hands. “Now take that out since we’re still rattlesnakes.”
I let go of Paloma’s mane, scowling. Somehow, I managed to braid my mule’s hair from her crown to her withers.
Tonight is one of my last chances to look for Mr. Trask. If I don’t find him in these two days before Calamity Cutoff, I must accept that he is lost to me.
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