“Hold on a bit,” he said, then disappeared into his cabin. He came back out with a handkerchief tied in a bundle. “There’s two pancakes in here, and a piece of salt pork. Eat it as you walk.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hand. “No use fighting. I ain’t sending you off with an empty stomach.”
“Thank you, sir. I sure do—”
“I know, I know. Now get going. You got a lot ahead of you.”
I was only a few paces down the road when he called out, “She didn’t want to leave you, you know.”
“Sir?”
“Your horse. What’s her name?”
“Sarah,” I said, turning back.
“Right. Well, she was fighting him the whole way, jerking and pulling, trying to get back to you. Never seen a broke horse fight like that. It was everything he could do to keep her going. Madder than a hornet, he was.” His last words hung with a warning behind them. Like he was trying to tell me something, but was afraid to. My hands clenched into fists.
“Was he whipping her?” I asked. “Was he whipping my horse, Mr. Jameson?” My voice was winter steel, cold and hard.
Mr. Jameson licked his lips and squinted, then nodded.
“Yes, son. His arm is gonna be clean wore off by the time he gets to Wenatchee, he was whipping her so hard to keep her moving.”
My fingernails bit like rabid dogs into my palms. My breath shook through my nostrils. I didn’t trust my voice to talk, or my heart to say any words my mama would’ve approved of. Ezra Bishop was whipping my horse? He was whipping my sweet Sarah?
I turned and marched quick and dark as thunder toward Wenatchee, glad for the gun I carried.
Wenatchee was the biggest town around, but it weren’t really much of a town at all. Miller Road was the only real street, and it was just a dusty dirt track winding through sagebrush and boulders. All the people lived at their homesteads and orchards, out amongst the brown hills and rocky canyons. The town itself was only a few buildings—a hotel, a couple of houses, a government building for filing claims and such. At the end of this little cluster of wooden buildings was my destination: the Miller-Freer Trading Post.
The trading post was never much to look at. A shabby little low building, with a couple of grimy windows and a sagging roof. I shook my head and cursed softly when I saw it, but not because it was small and plain. I cursed ’cause I knew right off that what I was after weren’t there.
There were no horses tied up at the rail out front. The corral around back was empty. It was the same story at the few other buildings that made up the town of Wenatchee.
Ezra Bishop was gone, and my Sarah with him. Disappointment hit my heart like a snakebite, but my feet didn’t slow. They sure enough sped up. I weren’t gonna give up, and the more behind I fell, the faster I’d have to go to catch up.
I strode right up toward the door. I was so set on what I had to do, I didn’t even see the body sitting silent on the ground, leaned up against the trading post’s log walls in the shadows of the roof overhang. I jumped back, startled, when two legs shifted in the dust to keep me from tripping on ’em.
“Lord, I’m sorry, I—” My words cut off when I’d seen his face.
He was a Chinese. And just a boy, not any older than me and maybe a bit younger. He blinked at me, and I could tell I’d just woken him up. He pulled his legs up quick to his chest and turned his head away, like maybe he was afraid I was gonna hit him.
I’d seen Chinese before, of course. There were plenty of ’em in the country, mining and panning for gold once the railroads were mostly built. They kept to themselves, though, and I’d never seen one up close.
“It’s all right,” I said quickly. “I just didn’t see you there, is all.” His face stayed pointed away from me. He was breathing and blinking fast, and I could see the nervous swallowing in his throat. He sure enough looked scared. I looked up and down the road again, but I didn’t see any sign of any more Chinese.
“Sorry,” I said again, then walked past him into the trading post.
The light was dim through the dirty windows. Mr. Miller was sitting on a barrel behind a rough counter. Sacks and crates and boxes of goods were piled all about.
“Hello, sir.”
Mr. Miller spit a stream of dirty brown tobacco juice into a bucket at his feet and lifted his chin at me.
“Mornin’.”
“Did a man named Ezra Bishop stop in here last night or this morning?”
Mr. Miller nodded and moved the chaw around in his mouth.
“Yep.”
“When did he leave?”
Mr. Miller squinted thoughtfully, then shrugged.
“Mm. Sometime last night, I s’pose. ’Round sunset. Didn’t stop long. Got some coffee ’n flour. Asked around a bit about horses. Then he was gone.”
“What’s he want the horses for?”
Mr. Miller shrugged again, then leaned down and spit.
“Do you know where he’s headed? Which way he went?”
Mr. Miller jerked his head back over his shoulder in a vaguely southward direction.
“Said somethin’ ’bout Walla Walla. Took off down Rock Island way, last I saw.”
“Walla Walla?” My heart dropped. Walla Walla was clear across the state. A couple hundred miles, I reckoned. My hands went all sweaty and my belly tightened. I felt like I could feel my Sarah being dragged farther and farther out of my reach. I licked my lips and shifted restless from foot to foot. “How you s’pose he’s gonna get there?”
Mr. Miller had never been one for conversation and I could tell he was gettin’ good and bored with our talking. He scowled and screwed his eyes up at me.
“Heck, boy, I don’t know. Up and over Colockum and down through Robber’s Roost, I s’pose. T’ain’t no concern of mine and it probably ain’t none of yours, neither. You here to buy somethin’ or just to jaw at me all morning?”
“No, sir. I appreciate your help.” I was backing toward the door when I remembered the boy outside. “Who’s the boy out front, sir?”
Mr. Miller grimaced. “What, the Chinaman? He still there?” He shook his head and spit.
Chinaman. I heard the word in my mind, then my mama’s voice. I’d said it once, the year before, after we’d passed a group of Chinese on the road to Yakima.
“I don’t like that word, Joseph,” she’d said. “It’s an ugly word, and I don’t want you saying it.” I’d been confused. Everyone called them Chinamen. I didn’t know there was another word for ’em.
“It ain’t a curse word, Mama,” I’d argued.
She’d pursed her lips. “Any word can be an ugly word if you say it ugly. And people say that word ugly, Joseph, nearly every time. It sounds hateful and I don’t like it. They’re people just like us, at the end of the day. In the Lord’s eyes, if not in His people’s.”
Mama had always been my measure of goodness. And always would be. I hadn’t said Chinaman since.
“That ain’t no man,” I answered Mr. Miller. “He’s just a boy. Where’re his people?”
“Under a few feet of dirt and rocks,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Him and a couple of grown ones limped into town three days ago. The others were sick as dogs. Died ’fore sunset. Not sure of what.”
I stared at him. “So he’s all by himself? He ain’t got no family or nothing?”
“Nope. Been sitting there like that ever since he showed up three days ago. Must be hungry as a bear.”
My belly dropped down to the rough board floor.
“You mean he ain’t eaten? In three days? You didn’t give him no food?”
“Give? I ain’t in the business of giving away food, boy. Especially to Orientals. Another Chinaman’ll happen along here any day, I s’pose. They can take care of him.”
“What if one don’t, though?”
Mr. Miller fixed me with an out-of-all-patience stare.
“T’ain’t no concern of mine,” he drawled slowly. “Them’s words you oughta start learning
yourself, boy. ’Specially if you aim to track down Ezra Bishop. You go after him lookin’ for trouble, you’ll find it for certain. Now. You buyin’, or you leavin’?”
There was sure enough a lot swirling ’round in my heart and my head at that moment. I was pulled every which sort of way. There was the boy out there, alone. There was my girl Sarah, getting whipped away from me. There were all my own fears and doubts and loneliness piled up inside me. And as always, above all else there was my mama and papa. I tried to figure best as I could what it is they would have me do.
I reached into my satchel and pulled out a ten dollar note.
“I’m buying, sir. What you got in the way of ready-to-eat foods?”
* * *
When I stepped back outside, my satchel hung heavier on my shoulder. A tin canteen with a screw-top lid was slung over my other shoulder, full of water, seeing as I had plenty more walking ahead of me. I went over to the boy still sitting against the wall. He looked up at me, scared and breathless. I knelt down and held out a biscuit.
He looked at it, then back up at me. His lips were white and cracked. I wondered if he’d had any water all the while he’d been sitting here. I was darn near certain Mr. Miller hadn’t brought him any.
“Go on,” I said. “Take it.” I pulled the canteen off my shoulder and shook it so he could hear the water, then unscrewed the lid and put it on the ground next to him. He gave me one more wide-eyed look, then snatched the canteen and gulped at it noisily. He stopped to take a breath and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then timidly reached out and took the biscuit from my hand. It was gone in three bites and washed down with more water. He looked at me, panting. I smiled.
“Better?”
He blinked at me.
Then he wiggled and pulled something out of his pants pocket and held it in his open palm. I squinted down at it. It was a small carving, like a little statue, made out of some kind of shiny black rock. It was in the shape of a bird, a long kind of bird like a crane or a heron, but it was small enough that he could’ve hid it if he’d closed his hand.
He held it out to me and said a few scratchy words in Chinese. I didn’t know a lick of what he was saying, but I could tell from the sound of his voice and the look in his eyes that he was asking me a question.
I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.
He said the words again, more insistently this time, stretching to hold the bird closer to me so I could see it better.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know what you’re saying. You speak any English?”
He just blinked at me again, then pursed his lips and slid the little black bird back into his pocket. I thought I could see tears welling up in his eyes.
“Okay,” I said softly. “No English. Well, I’ll go ahead and talk anyways. I’m heading that way,” I said, pointing south toward Rock Island. “You’re welcome to come with me. I got some food and I’m heading toward bigger towns. Towns with more Chinese, likely. You wanna come?”
There was no flicker in his face, no sign he understood a plum word of what I’d said. I stood up and screwed the lid back on the canteen.
He sat stone still, looking up at me. I reckon I ain’t never seen no one looking scareder than that Chinese boy sitting there all alone. I held out a hand, down toward him.
“Come on. There ain’t nothing for you here.”
I could see he was frozen. When you ain’t got nowhere to go, I s’pose it’s easy to stay right where you are, no matter how awful.
“Come on. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
I saw the decision come together, right there in his eyes. His eyebrows crinkled for just a second, like he was getting ready to jump off a moving stagecoach, and then he reached up and grabbed hold of my hand. I pulled him up and got another biscuit outta my satchel while he beat the dust off his britches.
I handed him the biscuit and he did some sort of nod or bow that looked an awful lot like a “thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said, sticking out my hand. “My name’s Joseph Johnson.”
He just blinked at me and held his head way back like he thought I was gonna hit him.
“Joseph,” I said louder, thumping myself on the chest. Nothing.
“Joseph!” I repeated, poking myself with a finger. “Joseph!” Then I held my hands out to him, waiting for him to say his name.
The kid just blinked some more and then frowned.
“Look. We got a ways to go, you and me. We gotta at least be able to call each other something.” I reached out and grabbed his hand. He flinched but didn’t yank it back. I pulled his hand up and held it against my chest. “Joseph. Get it? Joseph?” I dropped his hand and then pressed my own up to his chest. I could feel his heart beating through his thin black shirt, fast and hard like a scared rabbit’s. I curled my eyebrows into question marks. “You? Huh? You?”
The kid just stood there looking at me with his pounding heart and blank face.
I dropped my hand with a sigh.
“All right. Well, let’s get a move on.”
A nervous storm brewed in my belly. My mission had already been a tough one, when I only had myself to worry about. Adding a Chinese boy who didn’t know a word of English to the mix weren’t gonna make it any easier. But I knew with a certainty that I’d done what my mama and papa woulda wanted me to.
I turned up the road and started walking. The Chinese boy fell in line, a step behind me.
We walked off together to find the devil who had my horse.
We trudged along for hours without neither of us saying a word. Once we’d passed the few buildings of Wenatchee proper, the rocky dirt road mostly wound through sageland and orchards and around boulders near as big as houses. The blue water of the Columbia River sparkled off to our left, and pine-dotted hills rose up on our right. Here and there we’d see a cabin or a lean-to where someone was trying to make a go of homesteading. A couple of folks passed us on horseback, and we had to get out of the way of one wagon, but for the most part we had that wide-open country to ourselves. It was warm for October, and I wiped at the sweat on my forehead from time to time.
My companion insisted on staying a good five or six steps in back of me. The few times I stopped so he could catch up, he just stopped, too, and looked sideways at me until I got to moving again.
Then the road took a sharp turn to the right, straight up into the layered hills that I knew would take us over Colockum Pass and to the town of Ellensburg on the other side. It sure looked like a lot of hills and a lot of climbing, but there was nothing to do but put our heads down and start on up.
The road through Colockum Pass felt even steeper going up than I remembered from coming down it the previous spring with my papa. Whether my silent partner liked it or not, we had to struggle a fair bit together, helping each other up and catching each other when we’d slip. He seemed a little less scared by my touch each time.
We grunted our way up the mud track for who knows how many hours, and by the time the sun was near to setting, we still had hill after hill lined up in front of us. Looking back down the way we’d come, though, the river sure enough looked far off and small, so I knew we’d done some good traveling.
The evening chill was already in the air, and dark was coming on quick. I reckoned it was time for making camp. At the top of a little rise, out on a point overlooking the whole great river valley, I spied a little dry protected spot, tucked nice and neat under a big old rock overhang from the cliff above. There was a ring of stones on the ground and black soot on the rock ceiling, so I knew I weren’t the first to find it.
I led my nameless partner over and dropped my satchel in the beat-down dirt under the overhang.
“This is it,” I said. “Home sweet home.” He looked at me with his unreadable face, still breathing hard from the last hill. “Let’s get us some wood.”
I walked off into the underbrush and scattered small pines, looking for good burnin’ wood. My body
was already starting to shiver, and I was eager as anything to get a good blaze going. Coming back into our camp, teetering under a load of wood, I noticed right off that the boy was gone. I dropped the wood and looked around and there he came, stumbling out of the fading light with his own armload of wood.
He dropped it with a clatter where I’d dropped mine.
“Good,” I panted with a nod. “More.”
By the time we had a big enough pile to last the night, stars were starting to blink above us, and the sky was that dark kind of purple just before black. Together we hoisted a nice big log with a flat side over to our camp and set it so we could sit on it. Then I pulled the matches I’d bought from Mr. Miller out of my satchel and set to getting a fire going.
Soon there was crackling wood and cheerful yellow light and a more-than-welcome warmth from the crooked ring of stones. I found a seat on the log and the Chinese boy sat on the other end, as far as he could from me without falling off. The overhang was a cozy little shelter, safe from most of the breezes that blew through from time to time, and the stone wall behind us bounced the heat of the fire back at us so we was pretty much warmed from both sides. We sat for a while, chewing at the apples and strips of jerky I took from my satchel.
I don’t know why I started talking. I guess maybe there’s just something about sitting by a fire that makes a fella wanna talk.
“I’m going to get my horse back,” I said, staring into the twisting flames. The boy’s head snapped up and he looked over at me sideways. “Her name’s Sarah. She’s a nine-year-old filly. A red-and-white paint with a notch in one ear—prettiest pony you ever saw. Fast as blazes, too. She’s half Indian pony, so she’s got some spirit, but she ain’t nothing but perfect with me. She turns ’fore I even have to tell her. Mama always said it was like we shared a heart, Sarah and me.”
The fire popped and hissed. Out somewhere in the darkness beyond the firelight, an owl hooted. The boy took another bite of his apple. Living with Mr. Grissom I hadn’t had a soul to talk to, and I could sure enough feel all those dammed-up words crowding to get outta me.
Some Kind of Courage Page 2
