Early the next morning, Andy and I tidy up behind the dense sagebrush.
I hold her coat while she whacks the fabric clean of dirt with a broom of dried sage. “Isaac taught me this one. The herbs take out the odor, see?” She finishes whacking her coat, then starts on my shirt, with me still in it.
“Wait, let me take it off, first!” Whack.
Her mouth tightens. “I decided to go with you to find Mr. Trask.”
A lump forms in my throat as fast as if I’ve swallowed a pebble. I leave the shirt on. “What? Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh.” She shakes the branches at me. “Wouldn’t sit right with me if we didn’t try to catch him. We’ll fetch your bracelet, then double back to the Calamity Cutoff.”
“Thank you, sister.” I can’t resist hugging her.
She tolerates it for a moment, then pushes me away, as she always does when I show her too much affection. “What are we going to tell the boys once we get to the Parting?”
A pang of sadness leaves me speechless for a moment. “They already know you want to go to Harp Falls. I’ll just say I’m going with you.”
“What if they want to come?” Again, she starts whacking my shirt, this time faster and harder until a piece of sage goes flying.
“They’ve got gold to find.”
Andy snorts at my non-answer. If the boys do want to come, we’ll have to tell them the truth, a truth that has grown many heads like the chimera. My concern over the boys’ welfare wars with my own cowardice and my feelings for West, which persist even after I’ve tried to convince myself I do not have feelings for him. I don’t know what to do, and apparently neither does Andy.
Sighing, she tosses her whole bundle of sage into a bush.
“Africans and Chinese take a long time to build their log cabins,” says Peety, sneaking up on us with his stealthy Rat feet.
“Lord, give me patience,” mutters Andy, and she stalks out of the brush.
? ? ?
After a morning of riding, Cay leads us off the main trail up a narrow road. “This will save us a few days of travel. That means we’ll get to the gold sooner.”
Andy glances at me. I shrug. Cay has never steered us wrong before so we dutifully follow.
“How do you get one of these land grants in California, Peety?” asks West from the drag.
Peety glances back. “Not sure. I think you go to the governor in Monterey and just ask.”
Cay swivels around in his saddle and rides backward. “We ain’t going to Monterey. We’re going to the first river we find and digging in a pan. Besides, we got no money for land.”
“I think it’s free,” says Peety.
“There ain’t nothing free in this world except bad ideas.” Cay crosses his arms over his chest and leans slightly back, a defiant twist to his mouth.
No one speaks for a moment. Then West’s voice casually breaks across the silence. “We’d have to build a fence. If we work hard, we could get our first herd out by next summer.”
Cay crushes his hat to his head. “Dang it now, that wasn’t the original plan.”
“What do the chicos think?” Peety slows Lupe to walk alongside Andy. “Andito?”
“Well . . . ” For a tense moment, I think she’s going to tell them the truth, that we won’t be going with them to California. Instead, she says, “I think we’ll know when the time comes.”
The answer sounds so sage, Peety doesn’t even ask my opinion, for which I am grateful.
The path begins to cut into the side of a mountain stuck with tall pines. Loose gravel makes the trek slippery. Peety suggests we dismount to make the passage easier on the horses, so we do it. Everyone fastens his rope around his waist, holding the lariat in a ready-throw position. But not me. I rub my shoulder, which aches from playing a too-small fiddle. Roping throws my arm out of joint, and so I have no future there, especially if I hope to be back on my instrument someday.
“My arm hurts, and I’m just as likely to hang myself as save myself,” I tell Andy when she asks me where my rope is.
She purses her lips and I see her eyes catch on something behind me. Probably just West glaring at my hard head. I pick out the pine needles caught in Paloma’s mane.
Not two seconds later, the hiss of a lariat cuts through the air. It lands right on top of me. Now I’m the stump. I wriggle my arms out, face burning, but I don’t acknowledge him. Hitching my shoulders, I soldier on after the others.
The narrow passage ends, and we start to remount. Then Cay’s voice echoes in the canyon. “What the hell?”
A man Father’s age sits on the ground, leaning against a fallen chair on one side of the trail. He clutches a wooden cross. The sun-blistered skin of his face and scalp practically glows against the white of his Sunday shirt, and he’s soiled his trousers.
Cay kneels by his side. “Your friends leave you here? That ain’t right.”
“Oh my Lord,” says Andy, rushing to the man’s other side, me on her heels.
“How ’bout some agua?” says Cay. The man’s canteen is slung in the dirt, unlidded and empty, so Cay gives the man a sip from it.
“Wait, Cay,” says West. He rushes up to knock the canteen from his cousin’s hand. “Back out. Don’t touch him.”
We all gape at West. “He has cholera,” he says. “Look at his eyes.”
The man’s orbs are sunk into his skin like two olives dropped in vanilla pudding. They stare into space, glazed and green. He is not going to make it.
Cay freezes. West yanks him back to his feet. “Let’s go.” His mouth presses into a grim line.
Cay and Peety remount, but Andy and I hesitate.
“Vámonos, God will take care of him.”
“Ain’t you got some whiskey, Peety?” asks Andy.
Peety shakes his head. “All dry.”
Andy touches her palms together. “God bless you, and take away you’s hurt.”
I should follow Andy back to the horses but I’m caught by the man’s blanching fingers, grasping at his cross like it is the only thing holding him to this world. His lips quiver as he moans.
He knows we are leaving him. I clasp my own throat, though I’m not the thirsty one.
“I am sorry,” I tell the man in a shaky voice, dropping to my knees.
“Let him go, Sammy,” Andy murmurs.
West tugs on my rope. “Sammy.”
I ignore them. The man speaks to me. “Shhh.”
Cay and Peety turn their horses around to watch.
“Sir?” I breathe.
“Shhoo.”
“Shhoo,” I repeat hoarsely, hoping he wants my shoes, but dreading the other thing he might be asking for. His eyes drop to my belt, and I gulp. “Shoot?”
Andy gasps. The man blinks.
“Blink once for yes and two for no,” I say, my breath coming faster.
He blinks once.
“Are you sure?”
Another blink.
“Really sure?”
Another blink.
I cover my mouth with my hand.
My hand shakes as I take out the Dragoon. I put it on full cock and raise it to his head, the place where Peety showed me how to put down a horse. What if it is not the same place for a human? The man closes his eyes. A white band of skin circles his finger where a wedding ring should be. I bite down on my trembling lip and wrap my left hand over his.
Then I let him go, and stand back. All I need to do is shoot once. No one survives a bullet in the head, right?
But I cannot do it. That would be murder. My eyes find West’s. I have not gone there since—
I shut them and my tears jump off the slope of my cheek. When I look again, West is winding the rope around his arm as he approaches me. His eyes do not leave mine until he takes my gun, aims, and fires.