by Stacey Lee
“Well, I’ve changed my mind, and how dare you question me.” Miss Betsy’s voice sliced through the air. “Now do as I ask, and don’t be slow about it.” She threw a hand at the girl as if to strike her, but Annamae was just out of reach.
Annamae regarded me with her deeply inset eyes. Chinese people believe that eyes like those indicate an analytical, practical mind. The look she gave me was not unkind, but there was a spark of something there—anger?—that compounded the guilt I was already feeling. With a last glance at the door, Annamae bowed her head and placed her hand on the banister. One by one, she ascended the stairs, as if every step were a labor. I plodded after her uniformed figure, keeping my eyes fixed on the cheerful pink bow of her apron.
Room 2A was grander than I thought could exist in St. Joe, with a slipper tub set at the foot of a feather bed. But the opulence sat like raw chicory on my tongue. I wanted to be back with Father, picking apart the Paganini concerto. Taking nature walks with our copy of Fowler’s Flora.
Annamae filled the tub. A thick-handled brush and a cake of soap waited on a side table. The brush looked big enough to scrub a horse. Annamae finished pouring the water while I stuck to the wall and hugged myself.
“You’s grimy. Get in,” she said. A moment later, the door closed. She was gone.
Maybe I wouldn’t be scrubbed down. I peeled off my dress with the tiny flowers, washed so many times the color had disappeared. It was sticky with sweat and reeked of smoke.
I stepped into the water, lowering myself carefully. The bath smelled of lavender. This was the first tub I’d sat in since coming to St. Joe, but all I could think about was whether it was deep enough to drown in.
Oh, Father! How could you leave me behind? I could not even bury you like you deserved. What a disgrace of a daughter. I’m sorry. I should’ve been there, shouldn’t have taken the last word.
I submerged my head and counted . . . Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight . . .
3
SOMEONE PULLED ME UP BY THE BACK OF MY NECK.
Annamae peered down at me as I sucked in air. “You can’t kill you’self like that. It don’t work. I tried.”
I gaped at her. Ignoring me, she stretched her lean body over mine to unwind the two buns on top of my head. Her own hair was cropped short, accenting the swan-like curve of her neck.
She wiggled her fingers to loosen my tresses. I wanted to tell her not to scrub me down, but when she started kneading my scalp, I forgot.
“God makes our bodies want to live, no matter what our minds want to do,” she stated in a quiet, deep voice. Her face was more handsome than beautiful, with strong cheekbones, a narrow chin, and clear eyes that didn’t wander. She must have been born in the Year of the Dragon, since she looked about a year older than me and held herself with a certain quiet dignity. Father said you could spot Dragons a mile away because all heads turned their way.
Annamae poured the rinse water over my hair, then picked up the wooden brush. The bristles scratched my skin, but she didn’t scrub hard.
“Now why you want to kill you’self?” Her sympathy broke me.
“I got home too late,” I sobbed. “The place was ashes. My father died. He was everything to me.”
The brush stopped for a moment. “I’m real sorry about that. I know the hurt you’s feeling. Like you want to disappear into the nearest rabbit hole and never come out.” She took my hand and gently ran the bristles under my fingernails. “He the one gave you that fiddle?” She nodded at the Lady Tin-Yin.
“Yes.”
“That means he believed in you. Only men play the fiddle.”
I stared at her. It was true that most folks considered the violin too difficult for a woman to master, but, as with teaching me the Classics, Father never gave it a second thought.
She helped me out of the tub and handed me a robe. “I’ll fetch some tea.” Out she breezed, taking my soiled dress with her.
Not two minutes later, the door opened again. I thought it was Annamae, and jumped when our landlord Ty Yorkshire appeared in the door frame. Though he stood just a few inches taller than my five-foot-three height, his presence filled the room like the scent of bitter almonds.
“I’m not dressed,” I cried, pulling the robe more snugly around me.
“Had a good chat with the sheriff.” Slowly, he rubbed his thick hands together.
He stepped closer and I backed away. My skin broke out in gooseflesh.
“No point in filing charges for negligence against a dead man.” He turned to hang his hat on one of the wall hooks.
“Negligence?” If there was negligence, it wasn’t ours.
“’Course, fires are expensive. Someone’s gotta ante up. Not easy to insure a wood building like that, but I can be very convincing.” He waved at the bed. “Let’s sit down.” The bed groaned as he made himself comfortable.
“It’s not proper for you to be here. I’m not decent.”
“Doesn’t bother me.” He patted the spot beside him, his manner friendly and almost cheerful. “I really should get some chairs in here.”
When I still didn’t sit, he added, “All I want to do is talk a little business with you. It troubles me to see your poor situation, and I would like to help. But we can’t do business if we don’t trust each other, can we?”
I may not have liked him, but he did lease us the Whistle, even installed a new window when we complained about the draft. But what could he want from me, I wondered. Not violin lessons.
I perched on one corner of the bed, keeping my distance.
To my surprise, he stood and took two steps back to the wall hooks. I thought he was going to take his hat and leave, but instead, he unstrapped his gun belt and hung it next to his hat. “Wearing a piece when talking to a lady is just disrespectful.” Then he shrugged off his black coat, spun of the finest wool, and hung it as well. “You got any family around? Anyone to look after you?”
I shook my head.
The bed sank as he reseated himself. An oily smile spread across his face. “That’s what I thought.”
His moth eye started winking again, picking up speed with every beat. It might have flown right out of his head. “So here’s what I propose. Out of respect for your dearly departed father, I would like to offer you room and board here. In exchange, you will provide services.”
I stiffened. “Services?”
“Silken hair, ivory skin, eyes like a cat. Eyes that tell a man to come in and shut the door,” he hissed out of the spaces between his teeth. His bulbous nose twitched as he sniffed once, twice.
Dear God, what now? I stood abruptly, casting around for a way out. There was only the door and the window.
He stood, too, blocking the path to the door. “Men will pay dearly for the pleasure of a woman’s company. I already got a Spaniard, an Injun, and two Negresses. An exotic number like yourself could augment my fine stable. The Lily of the East, we’d call you. Bet you’d fetch more than the lot of them, maybe five dollars an evening. You can wear pretty dresses, take baths. You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you, Sammy?”
Only Father called me Sammy. My face burned at the unwelcome familiarity.
A too-warm breeze blew through the open window and rumpled the back of my hair. I could end things right now. Step out the window like Ophelia, who fell out of a willow tree after Hamlet killed her father. Two stories was about the height of a willow.
I kept him talking. “Why would I do that?”
He shrugged. “You got no choice. No money, nobody to look after you. You think the pittance you earn from those violin lessons will keep you? This way, the only thing you’d have to lift is your, well . . . ” His eyes skipped to my lower half. “It’ll help pay your debts.”
“What debts?” I tried to still the tremor in my voice.
“A fire like that could’ve been started by
that stove you kept, against building code for a dry goods.” His voice oozed like ointment.
I stepped to one side, wishing to squeeze past him and the tub to reach the door. He shifted as well, blocking me again. “A glimpse of a lady’s ankle is like the first sip of wine. Makes you thirsty for the whole bottle. Now before we make any formal agreement, I’d like to test the goods.”
“Stay away from—” I began, but quick as a striking adder, he clamped one hand over my mouth and the other on the back of my head. I clawed at him, trying to scream, but he squeezed harder, smashing my lips into my teeth . I tasted blood.
“Scream all you want. Ain’t no one here going to rescue you. I pay handsomely, see.”
He shoved me backward onto the bed. My head recoiled off the mattress when I landed. Looking wildly around for salvation, I spotted the scrubbing brush on the side table. When he looked down to undo his trousers, I reached over and closed my fingers around the handle.
Scrambling up, I swung it hard against the side of his head. My leverage was not good, but he yelped and grabbed my throat.
“Whore!” he spat.
Wasting no time, I brought the brush up again and clubbed him in the face, causing blood to spurt from his nostrils. He jerked back to avoid another blow, but the movement threw him off balance and he slipped. His arms flailed, but his feet couldn’t get purchase on the wet floor.
Backward he fell. With a sickening crack, his head banged against the edge of the tub.
And as Ty Yorkshire crashed to the floor, his fall sent out ripples I feared would chase me no matter which way I ran.
I dropped the brush. It clattered on the cold, wet tile beside the dead man’s head. An owl cried outside, and a clock chimed nine times.
• • •
Moments after the last chime, the door opens again. Annamae enters, bearing a tray.
“Oh, Lord,” she gasps, eyes doubling in size.
“I think he’s dead,” I whisper. “He was trying to—to—”
Annamae shuts the door and sets down the tray. She paces for a moment. Then she straightens the waist of her dress. “Move him to the bed before the blood soaks to the first floor,” she orders.
The hysterics gather in my chest, making it hard to breathe, let alone move.
She appraises my trembling self. Then, to my surprise, she hugs me. “Pull it together.”
The warmth of her touch quells some of my panic. “I . . . I’m going to hell.”
She pushes me away from her, and bends down so our faces are even. Her determined expression stirs me to mimic it. “Only if we don’t do something about him.”
She’s right. I can’t come undone yet. She grips Ty Yorkshire’s arms, and I take his legs—one leg anyway. The man must weigh two hundred pounds. Together, we haul him onto the bed. Our efforts leave a trail of blood, more than I’ve ever seen at once. No one loses this much blood and lives.
When we finish, I’m heaving with exhaustion.
“How old are you?” she asks.
I catch my breath. “Fifteen.”
“Old enough for the noose. You’ll get your death wish, then.”
I wipe my eyes at this sobering thought. My father is dead, my home destroyed, and I just killed a man—at least, that’s what they will believe. I have no business aboveground. Yet suddenly, I don’t want to die.
I could return to New York. It would be dangerous, a wanted criminal traveling through populated areas. But without Father, New York would just be another faceless city, worse now because living there would constantly remind me of my disrespect.
No, there is no going back.
Father said he had great plans for us, and I owe it to him to find out what they were. Mr. Trask was Father’s best friend, and now he is my only real connection to the living. I could catch him. He only left a few weeks ago. After all, there’s only one road west.
“Annamae, I’m going to California.”
4
ANNAMAE’S DARK PUPILS WIDEN A FRACTION, AND she begins to knead her scar with her thumb. “It’s a long way to California.”
“A friend of my father’s is headed that way,” I say. “I’ve got business with him.”
She begins to pace again, but only goes back and forth once before stopping in front of me. Her gaze comes to rest on a bloodstain on my robe. “If we’re going, we best get you something to wear.”
“We?”
“I’m going with you. I should’ve left two hours ago to meet my Moses wagon. It’s probably long gone now.” Her mouth sets into a grim line.
She was planning to escape? While I never heard of a “Moses” wagon, Father told me wagons were used as part of the Underground Railroad movement to free the slaves. “But they hang runaways.”
“Then we’ll swing side by side. I asked God to send me the right wagon, and now I think you’s it. Alone, people will think I’m a runaway. But with you, maybe I can fool ’em.”
“It won’t be easy. I just killed a man, and they will come after us.” My throat goes dry at the notion. “And I don’t know the way, exactly.”
“Don’t want safety, only freedom.”
Before I can answer, she says, “Be right back. Have a sandwich.” She closes the door behind her.
The tray holds two thick wedges and a pot of tea. If I tried to send anything down the hatch, my stomach would throw it back up again.
Blood oozes out of Yorkshire’s nostrils like two earthworms. By now, the entire pillow beneath his head is soaked with blood, the same blood that covers my arms. I bend over the tub and scour it from my body, trying not to look at the red stain on the lip.
Pressing a washcloth to my face, I steam out my grimace.
No one will believe that Ty Yorkshire’s death was an accident. Six months here, and people still refused to shake Father’s yellow hand. They will send men after us. With luck, the sheriff won’t discover my crime until morning. Leaving now will give us a good seven or eight hours before they sound the alarm. By then, God willing, we will be on the Oregon Trail, though first we need to cross the Missouri River.
Annamae returns, holding a basket of clothes and a saddlebag. She sets the basket on the floor.
“Two girls on the run. Not ideal,” I mutter, jamming my feet into a skirt.
“I can’t decide what sticks out more, you’s yella face or my black one.” She stuffs a sandwich into her mouth.
I shake out a blue flannel shirt. Too big. I throw it back into the basket. Then a thought wiggles into my head. I press a pair of trousers to my waist.
“What if we weren’t two girls, but two young men, off to make our fortunes in the gold fields?”
Annamae puts her fists on her hips and frowns at the basket.
Then she unbuttons her dress.
We layer up for warmth and to give ourselves some manly bulk. I don’t have much going on upstairs. Thank God for small favors. Annamae, though, has bigger problems. She takes a knife from her saddlebag and cuts the two pink ties off her apron. The ties are trimmed with a bit of cream-colored lace. Yorkshire spared no expense in his unseemly operation. Jamming one of the ties and the knife back into the bag, she uses the other tie to bind her bosom. “Always thought these would be the end of me. There’s been talk of Mr. Yorkshire replacing Ginny, his older Negress. She’s already thirty-three.”
I shudder at the thought of being conscripted into Yorkshire’s stable, an employment that would be worse than death. Plucking the gun from Yorkshire’s holster, I place it on the floor. It’s a Colt Dragoon pistol, a handsome five-shot firearm with a sharp nose. Mr. Trask kept one just like it in a cigar box by his cash register.
“You know how to shoot that?” asks Annamae, buttoning her third shirt.
“Only how not to shoot my foot,” I answer.
Even on its tightest setting, Yorkshire’s b
elt drops off my hips. It needs another hole. I set it on the floor, then position the prong of the belt a few inches past the last eyelet. The black book on the bedside table might do the trick. “Could you get me that Bible?”
She fetches it and kneels down next to me. “Which verse you want?”
“God helps those who help themselves,” I say, though I doubt that one’s in the book. “Quickly, use the book and help me knock in a hole.”
She clasps the Bible to her chest. “You want me to be struck down?”
“Oh, sorry. Here, hold the pointy part against the strap, like this.” I show her. Putting down the Bible, she takes the belt, and pokes the prong into the leather where I want it.
I take up the Good Book myself, then in one swift movement whack it down over the metal prong, driving it into the leather. I pray that nobody heard.
“Sweet Jesus!” Annamae cries out. Her mouth opens in horror.
“Thank you, Lord,” I whisper piously. My heart pounds hard enough to knock some of its own holes through my chest.
The belt still slings low across my hips, but maybe it will give me a boyish swagger. I reholster the gun, hoping I will never need to use it, especially since I don’t know how to load it.
Annamae pats down Yorkshire’s pockets. She recovers a few dollars and a powder horn, then pulls two gold rings off his pinkie fingers. Shoving them into her saddlebag, she stands back to examine me. Her eyes land on my wet hair. “We need hats.”
“He doesn’t need his anymore.” I unhook Yorkshire’s black hat and hand it to her. “Wide brim, it’ll hide your face.”
“There’s more downstairs. Miss Betsy probably still watching the front so we’ll go out the back. But hush, mind you. She got rabbit ears.”
Annamae stuffs the last sandwich into her saddlebag, while I sling on my violin case, pulling the strap extra-tight. All the layers slow my movement, and the gun hangs heavy against my thigh, but I might as well get used to it. No longer am I Samantha Young, the curious-looking miss from Bowery Lane in New York City. I am a desperado.
