Yester's Ride

by C. K. Crigger

  The horses plodded on. Cresting the hilltop, their hooves dug in as they started down the steep slope. The sun rose shining golden, promising another day of heat. Birds—hawks, or ravens, or maybe even vultures—wheeled through a sky that changed from milky gray to brilliant blue.

  Off to one side, Ketta saw what must be a wagon road, switchback following switchback around boulders, scab rock, and large, woody sage. She bit her lip as she noticed parts of wrecked wagons strewn about and, in more than one case, the picked bones of the horses or mules that had drawn them.

  They took a less circuitous route than the wagon road, one even more dangerous. Kuo’s horse slid, too, sitting back on his hocks and snorting.

  Her thigh pinched yet again, Ketta let out a stifled cry.

  “Do you wish to walk?” Kuo asked. Then added, as she started to nod, “There are rattlers here, hiding in the rocks.”

  “I’ll ride,” she said, not being fond of any kind of snakes, even the harmless garter snakes that lived down by the pond and kept vermin out of Mama’s garden.

  “Hang on,” he said. “Grab my belt.”

  The advice was all that saved her as the horse plunged forward onto his knees. Miraculously, he regained all four feet. They went on, turning to slant downward on a diagonal route.

  The Percheron, with the black man aboard, plowed on without much trouble, his large feet adding purchase. At this rate, Ketta thought he’d reach the bottom of the grade well before them.

  At about the halfway point, Kuo called a halt and dismounted while the horse took a breather. Ketta was happy to stand close beside him, hoping any rattler would select him as its target. Far below, a wide river, which Kuo told her was the Snake, undulated in a serpentine shape down the center of a canyon. A city spread out on either side of the river, one city in Idaho and one in Washington.

  Ketta had good eyesight. Even from here she could see boats on the river. They must’ve been enormous boats, she thought. Steamboats, like the black man had spoken of? She didn’t think she wanted to ride on one of them. No, she knew she didn’t want to ride on one.

  Tug had a different idea. “The Whyte Line’s White Queen is leaving port today. Saw the advertisement for it up in Pullman. Go down to Portland, boss, and get ourselves lost. You can do something with the girl there. Bigger market, better price.”

  “You take the boat,” Kuo said. “Do as you wish. If you are afraid of the rancher, or of Noonan, go.”

  The careless remark drew a scowl. “I ain’t scared. Leery, maybe, of Patton, but that drunk Noonan don’t bother me none.”

  Eyebrows raised as if questioning, Kuo said, “Don’t worry, then. I, too, am finished with Noonan and won’t be going his way again.” He snorted. “Wouldn’t have gone there, anyway, if I hadn’t heard him talking in the saloon, and that was accidental. I was headed for Grangeville next with Frank and Milt when I met you there. Milt’s sons, too. Come along if you want. Take the steamboat if you don’t.”

  “Was?”

  “Was what?”

  “You said was headed for Grangeville. That mean you’re not now?”

  Slowly, Kuo shook his head. “I’m not. Fact is, after this last meeting I’m done with Milt and Frank. I’ll tell them then.”

  “Because of the girl?” Tug didn’t sound happy. “They ain’t gonna like it.”

  Kuo shrugged.

  Meanwhile, Ketta’s forehead puckered in a frown. What was he talking about? she wondered. What did he mean, he was finished with Big Joe? Finished with Milt and Frank and Milt’s sons? That awful scarred man had children? What did any of it have to do with her? She wished she dared ask.

  But she didn’t.

  After what seemed hours, they reached level land. They clomped across a wide wooden bridge spanning the river, the horses’ hooves sounding hollow underfoot, and stopped on the edge of town. This was the Idaho town of Lewiston, Kuo informed her. But he was too wily to just ride in directly from the trail. Instead they took back ways and alleyways and roundabout twists and turns, until Ketta knew she’d never find her way back to the road going up the long, steep hill they’d just come down.

  Hill? It was next door to a mountain.

  She gawked around at the many buildings, trembling with excitement. It was so noisy! And busy. Her ears roared, ready to burst with the cacophony of squeaking wagon wheels, neighing horses, barking dogs, a piano being thumped with an enthusiastic hand, hammering, and a dozen—two dozen—other sounds.

  But it was the people who made her mouth round in wonder. People rushing here and there. People, both men and women, pedaling tall-wheeled bicycles in the streets, and dogs of all sizes and colors dashing out to bite at the tires. And talking. Lots and lots of people talking.

  And the smells. Mercy, how the place smelled.

  Her nose wrinkled. Actually, the place reeked.

  They stopped outside a rundown barn where she could see a huge manure pile at the back. A pile so tall it was higher than the lean-to in front of it. A broken-down corral ran along one side. In front, a door hung by a single hinge.

  Big Joe would never tolerate such a mess, Ketta thought scornfully and, strangely enough, felt a sudden little thrill of pride.

  “We’re here,” Kuo said. He dismounted and lifted Ketta down, too, depositing her on the beaten ground just short of the pile of horse manure.

  “Ah,” Tug said. “It’s good to be home.”

  Ketta stared at him in wonder. Home? This filthy place? Her stomach churned. “I’m going to be sick,” she announced.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: YESTER

  Trailing the outlaws as far as the city limits was easy. Yester made no bones about saying he didn’t need Nat’s expertise, having eyes in his own head. For instance, when the horse with dinner plate–sized feet rejoined the single horse they’d trailed for a good part of the day.

  “Patton’s Percheron,” Nat had said, as if he were happy about it and, at first, Yester agreed.

  “We’ve got a chance at the reward money,” he said.

  But having second thoughts, Yester wasn’t so sure. The negro he’d seen with the Chinaman had been huge as well as fearsome looking.

  Early this morning, having started out as soon as it was light enough to see, they’d come upon the outlaws’ camp. Yester, leading the way over a sleepy Nat, had a little thrill of accomplishment.

  “Yep,” he said to Nat, “it’s them all right.” He pointed at the ground. “Here’s the feller we’ve been following.” He placed a booted foot next to a clear print beside the campfire. “Look at this, Nat. He’s almost a giant.”

  The print was half again as large as his own.

  Nat, not to be outdone, shoved Yester aside and put his own foot there. “Twice the length of my foot.”

  “Yeah, but you’re one of them dwarfs.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are.”

  It was true Yester had gotten a growth spurt and was tall as a full-grown man—taller than most, actually—while Nat was a half head shorter. He probably always would be. Sad to say, when it came to shoe leather, Yester’s feet had even outgrown his height.

  The argument being nonsensical even to the pair of them, they next picked out a second man’s tracks. Kuo’s tracks. Yester named him, remembering again the name from their time in Pullman. The Celestial who’d taken his sister.

  As for Ketta, they found her tracks, too, in the mud close to the trickling creek. She’d left them a sign.

  “Look there,” Nat said, pointing down.

  Yester, Ketta had printed. Help me.

  Yester had a notion she was running out of hope. His throat closed, and for a second, he couldn’t speak.

  “She trusts you to save her,” Nat said.

  “Dang it, I’m trying.” Yester swallowed. “We’re trying.”

  “You’ll do it. I’ll help.” Swinging aboard his pony, Nat looked up at the sky, where red streaks colored the sky. “Wind is coming. It’ll blow away their tracks again. We’
d better get along.”

  Heart heavy, Yester spared another glance at Ketta’s message before stroking across it with the toe of his boot. “Yeah, all right.” Mounting up, Queenie had taken quite a few strides before he trusted himself to speak again. “Wonder how she’s holding up.”

  Nat remained silent.

  Neither of them had traveled the Lewiston grade before. Nor viewed the Snake cutting through the canyon. It was the widest and deepest river Yester had ever seen, although Nat said he’d traveled with his mother to visit relatives on the Columbia once, and it made the Snake look almost small. Certainly, neither had visited a town with even half the population of this one. Awed, Yester didn’t even try to subdue his excitement at the sight, and, judging by Nat’s face, he felt the same.

  They’d found it simple enough to follow the traces the outlaws had left. At first. Wind, blowing harder as the morning wore on, hadn’t completely obliterated the gouges where Kuo’s horse had gone to its knees. Or where the Percheron, weighing in at almost eighteen hundred pounds, had dug holes in the earth all the way to his hocks.

  But as soon as they cleared the hill, the trail mixed with freighters’ teams of heavy draft horses, wheel ruts, and animals driven to market. Dismayed, Yester knew there was no way to tell which way the outlaws had gone, carrying Ketta with them. Or even which town they’d end up in, Clarkston on the Washington side, or Lewiston on the Idaho.

  “What we gonna do, Yester?” Nat stroked his cayuse’s neck, trembling just a little.

  Yester, hoping he didn’t look as bewildered as his friend, tried to think. What would he do if he were an outlaw?

  Stay out of sight? Hit the seamier side of town? Having Big Joe for a father, he knew all about the red-light districts almost every western town sported. A town like this one was bound to be right lively, with many such places to choose from.

  All of which begged another question. Did the outlaws have any money? Were they the ones he and Big Joe had heard about that had been robbing travelers along the roads? Or that farmer bank over in the Odessa area? And if they weren’t the thieves, how else would they get money?

  An idea hit.

  “That Percheron we been tracking? Let’s ask around and see if anybody has seen him. He must be pretty noticeable. Ain’t too many folks use a critter his size for a riding horse. Or even have a critter his size.”

  Nat’s face lit up. “Yeah. Good plan.” Then he frowned. “Who we gonna ask?”

  Yester thought. “Everybody. Anybody. Anybody who’ll talk to us. Ask at the hotels maybe, or livery stables. You take one side of the street, and I’ll take the other.”

  “Think they’ll talk to me?” Nat brushed his black hair, flowing loose around his face, behind his ears. He had no hat.

  “Club your hair back,” Yester advised him. “Sit up straight, and don’t slouch. Shoot, you ain’t all Indian. Maybe you can pass for an Eyetalian. Seen one the other day had darker skin than you.”

  Nat straightened, all right, but it took only a minute for Yester to figure out it wasn’t because he’d told his friend not to slouch. It was because he’d taken offense.

  “I am not ashamed,” he said. “I am who I am.”

  “I know that,” Yester said, the voice of reason. “No reason you oughta be. But you know how people are around here. Some people.”

  Nat’s scowl would’ve scared a dog. “Yeah. Dirty Indian. I’ve heard that before. Guess they don’t notice my shirt is cleaner than yours.”

  Yester glanced down at himself. Nat was right. His shirt cuffs were black with grime, thanks to poking around the campfire the last couple nights. And an obvious spill of food—he thought it was drippings from the bacon they’d had for breakfast—streaked the front of his shirt. His britches would practically, as Ma often said, stand in a corner by themselves.

  And Ketta, he remembered, would always laugh at the thought, nod, and say, “Almost.”

  He brushed at a shirtsleeve. Shoot, nobody ever looked at britches anyway, did they?

  When he looked back at Nat, he knew he wore his shamed face. “So, you want to stay together and let me do the talking?”

  Nat sat his pony as erect as the spit-and-polish cavalry officer (or so Big Joe described him) Yester had seen once. “Too slow. I will take the north side of this street,” he said.

  Relieved, Yester nodded. “So, I’ll take the other. We’ll meet at the next crossroad in a half hour.”

  “All right. One question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are we looking for the Percheron, or are we looking for your sister?”

  “Find one and we’ll find the other,” he said. “Stands to reason.”

  Yester started his search by stopping just about every pedestrian on the street. Those who’d linger a moment, anyway. All these city folks rushed about in a tearing hurry. He didn’t know why, since most of them just headed into the various saloons or the storefronts. Why would anybody be in such a hurry to do that?

  With the women, his inquiries were about Ketta. “She’s yea high,” he’d say, measuring off about mid-chest on himself, “with black hair and brown eyes. Eyes got a funny little tilt to them. She’s pretty.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to mention the part about her foreign antecedents.

  “What is she to you?” one crusty old woman asked, eyeing him suspiciously like he might be a crass villain.

  “She’s my sister,” he said, “half sister, and she’s been kidnapped.”

  “Harrumph,” she said. “Kidnapped, you say. Well, I’ve seen only one girl child today, and she was with her father.”

  “Were they on horseback?” he asked.

  “No. On foot.” The woman’s wrinkled face puckered like a dried apple. “She was very dirty, and not pretty at all. A real sad sack.”

  Yester’s head drooped. Discouraged, he toed a circle in the dusty road. “Oh,” he said. “That’s not her. She never gets dirty.”

  “Well, that’s the only girl I’ve seen.” The woman stepped around him and passed on into one of the little riverfront stores, one that sold rope and cleats and gadgets Yester thought must be used on boats.

  The next woman he stopped wore paint on her face and a frock with a skirt kind of short in front to show her ankles, and kind of low on top to show her . . . uh . . . show more of herself than she ought.

  She looked him over with a calculating eye and had a question of her own before she attended his inquiry. “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.” Yester didn’t know what difference his age made.

  “Got any money?”

  “Money?” For a minute he didn’t know what she was talking about. Then he did. Sweat trickled down his ribs as embarrassment sneaked up on him, but he stood his ground like a trouper. “I just want to know if you’ve seen a young girl. She’s got black hair and is real pretty. Kind of foreign looking.” Foreign looking was as close as he could come.

  She eyed him disapprovingly and said, “What do you want with a young girl?”

  “I want to find her. She’s my sister and—”

  A hand grabbed him by his elbow and swung him around. “Taking up one of my girls’ time is going to cost you, pal. You ready to pay?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Yester’s mouth dropped open. It took him a moment to gather his wits, and he jerked away from the seedy looking character who’d accosted him. What did he mean, anyway, one of his girls? “I was just asking if she’d seen a girl.”

  “Well, she ain’t,” the feller said. “Move on.”

  Yester’s jaw jutted forward. “How do you know what she’s seen and what she ain’t?”

  Unmoved, the feller said, “I know. Now git along.” He took the girl’s arm and started towing her in the opposite direction.

  At the last second, she turned her head and winked at him. But then she shook her head slightly, too, which Yester figured was her way of saying she hadn’t seen a young and pretty black-haired girl. Or not that she noticed, at any rate.
r />   By this time, a couple men had stopped to listen in and laugh, though whether at him or at the situation, Yester didn’t know. He was ready to “move along” like he’d been told. Worse, there was Nat, standing under the overhang of the boat supply store, listening and laughing, too.

  Yester stomped over to him. “You shut up,” he said.

  And Nat said, “I . . . I . . .” like some kind of jackanapes, whatever that was.

  As it turned out, Nat hadn’t found anybody who’d seen Ketta or any other little girl, either. What he had found was a man who admitted to having spotted a big black horse he was pretty sure was a Percheron go past the saloon where he’d been carousing. When? He wasn’t just sure, but he thought it’d been sometime this morning. Although it might’ve been yesterday. But, no. He was almost positive it was this morning.

  Yester sighed in disgust. “So, you’ve found a feller who don’t know what day it is who thinks he saw a black horse, and I’ve found one old biddy who saw a dirty, ugly little girl with her daddy. We’re never going to find Ketta at this rate.”

  “Or the Percheron.” Nat made a face.

  The long, sad, and loud toot of a steamboat whistle sounded over all the other noise of a busy city.

  “Want to go look at the boat?” he asked Nat.

  “Sure. I never seen a steamboat before.”

  “Me, neither.”

  They walked out on a dock over the water, where Nat almost got knocked into the Snake by a fellow pushing a heavy barrel of something toward the steamboat’s gangplank. A couple men and women strode up the plank behind him, to settle along the rail and wave to someone still on the dock.

  That’s when it struck Yester.

  Why would a Chinese horse thief be on the waterfront where the boats tied up, anyway? Except . . .

  His mind stuttered. Except if he intended on getting on board one of these paddle-wheelers tied up along the docks. Or even one of the smaller boats. The ones propelled by muscle and bone. If the Chinaman did that and took Ketta with him, Yester didn’t know what he’d do, or how he’d get her back.

  KETTA

  Ketta, totally preoccupied by so many people, strange sights, and even stranger sounds—almost unbearable noise, she meant to say—tripped over an uneven plank in the boardwalk.