“It’s a girl, Justin,” she answered. “A sister.”
“A sister? Golly.”
“What do you think of her, sweetie? What do you think of your new sister?”
Their voices were soft and secret, the warm special voices of a family. They talked to just each other and the baby, like Ah-Kee and I weren’t even there.
“I like her, Mama. I like her just fine.” But it was clear from the shaking hush in his voice that Justin more than just liked his sister. He was sure enough in awe of her.
The cabin felt suddenly too hot. Too tight.
I excused myself quickly and stepped out into the wide open coolness of the night.
The air was a deep kind of cold, the sort of cold that tells your bones that fall is ending and winter is coming right up behind it. A mostly full moon threw its silver light on the snow-topped hills, the pines, the grass around the cabin. Off in the distance I could hear the river, tumbling its way through the night toward Yakima.
I stood alone in the darkness. Well, with the moon it weren’t all-the-way darkness. But I felt sure enough all-the-way alone.
I wanted my horse back right then more than ever.
The ax head shined bright as a bullet in the morning light. It glinted as it rose up, swift and deadly, then flashed as it came slicing down. I grunted and gasped. My aim was true and the log split in half, falling to the ground in two even pieces.
I stopped to rest, catching my breath. I looked at the wood I’d chopped, added to the pile beside the cabin. The sun was high up in the cloudless blue sky. I was wearing some of the absent Mr. Davidson’s clothes, while mine and Ah-Kee’s hung drying on a line. Morning was well gone, and my belly was asking about lunch. I threw the last two pieces on the stack, grabbed the bucket and the basket I’d put by the door, and headed inside.
Mrs. Davidson was lying in bed, feeding the baby.
“No more work, Joseph,” she said. “Between the animals and the wood and the cleaning, you’ve done more than enough. Come sit over here and talk to me.” She spoke softly. Ah-Kee and Justin were both asleep—Justin on his own little bed, Ah-Kee in a pile of blankets on the floor, plum tuckered out from the long night of birthing. I’d woken up restless and hadn’t stopped moving since. I walked over and sat on the chair by Mrs. Davidson’s bed.
“Have you picked out a name yet?” I asked her.
“I think I have,” she said with a smile. “Claire. Claire Marie Davidson. Claire was my mother’s name. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a fine name.”
“Would you like to hold her?”
I swallowed and looked at Claire, now lying asleep in her mama’s lap. I remembered my own Katie, the light fragile feel of her.
“Sure, ma’am. I s’pose I could hold her a bit.”
“Have you held a baby before?”
“Yes, ma’am. My sister.” Mrs. Davidson held Claire out, and I took the warm little bundle into my arms and held her strong but soft against me.
“Oh, of course! How old is your sister now, Joseph?”
“She was six, ma’am.”
“Was?”
“She passed away last year. Typhoid.” I kept my voice gentle and easy. To keep the baby calm. “My mama, too.”
I could feel Mrs. Davidson’s eyes on me. But I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to wake the baby.
After a moment, she spoke again.
“Do you have any other brothers or sisters? Or is it just you and your papa?”
“No, ma’am. My papa died this spring.” I kept my voice at a whisper, my eyes on the baby sleeping in my arms. “It is just me.”
It felt like a bad secret. Like a shame. I don’t know why. But I was afraid for some reason that when Mrs. Davidson found out about me, that she’d want me to leave. Maybe it’s an orphan thing. Since Papa died, no matter where I was, I felt like I didn’t belong there. And no matter who I was with, I felt like I didn’t belong with them. And I guess I was afraid they felt the same thing—that I didn’t belong there.
“Me and Ah-Kee will leave as soon as he wakes up,” I said. “We’ll get outta your way and let you care for this baby.”
I couldn’t look up at her. I didn’t know what I’d see in her eyes.
“No,” she answered me. “No, Joseph, you will not be leaving soon. You and Ah-Kee came here like angels—like angels, Joseph, answering my prayers—and you are staying for dinner and a night’s rest and forever after, if you want.”
Forever after had a funny sound to it. A good funny sound. My throat got tight, and I let it loosen a bit before I spoke again.
“Thank you, ma’am, but we can’t stay.”
“Why not?”
Mrs. Davidson and me both jumped and looked over to where Justin was sitting up in his bed. He crawled out and walked over to us, rubbing at his eyes, his hair all sleep-crooked.
“I think you should stay here forever with us! Why can’t you?”
I sighed. It was a long story. But I s’posed I had to tell it to them.
“Well,” I began, “I’ve got to get my horse back, you see.”
By the time I was done telling everything right up to where Ah-Kee and I washed up cold and shivering on the riverbank, Ah-Kee was awake, too. He sat and listened, and smiled every time his name came into it. When I motioned for him to, he pulled out his bird carving and showed it to them.
“And that’s it,” I finished. “My Sarah is over in Yakima, and I’ve got to get to her before she’s gone for good. And I know Ah-Kee is sure keen to find whatever it is he’s looking for.”
Mrs. Davidson and Justin sat staring at us.
“That’s quite a story,” Mrs. Davidson finally said.
“I s’pose it is, ma’am.”
“I hope you get her back,” Justin said.
“Thank you,” I said back with a smile. “Me, too. So I best be getting along now.”
“Right now?” Justin asked, his voice high with alarm.
“Well, yeah, I mean—”
“But Pa ain’t home yet! You’re gonna leave us here alone?”
I looked down into his big, scared-kid eyes.
“Now, Justin, you heard him. He’s got to go. We’ll be fine here.”
But Justin ignored his mama and grabbed ahold of my leg.
“Please, Joseph, don’t go yet. Don’t leave us alone.”
I bit my lip. I felt his fingers tight on my leg, felt that sleeping Claire snug against me. I sure enough knew something about being left alone.
“All right,” I said at last. “Another day ain’t gonna hurt us. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
Justin whooped and beamed a whole-face kind of smile. He squeezed my leg in a tight hug, and I reckoned right then it was worth it.
* * *
Mr. Davidson got home that afternoon, worn out and about dying with worry. He ran up ragged, pulling a horse lathered in sweat. His eyes were almost black from lack of sleep, and his face was pale and wasted. He strode inside, passing Ah-Kee and me on the porch without a glance, and went right up to Mrs. Davidson, who was lying in bed nursing the baby. We started following him but held back in the doorway, out of respect.
“Dr. Fowler was gone,” he gasped, falling to his knees at her bedside. “I had to go all the way to Yakima.”
“It’s all right, John,” Mrs. Davidson said softly.
“But that damned doctor wouldn’t come all this way,” he continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “He wouldn’t come.” He shook his head. “Then ol’ Buck threw a shoe and got a nasty cut on his hoof, and I had to walk him all the way back.”
“It’s all right, John,” she murmured again. She pulled back the blanket, showing the face of that newborn baby girl. “I’m all right. She’s all right.”
Mr. Davidson reached out, tender and slow, and ran a finger along that little girl’s cheek. There was a hushed sort of moment, full and warm, as daddy met daughter and daughter met da
ddy.
“She’s beautiful,” he said at last, and his voice was hoarse.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Davidson.
“And she is all right.”
“Yes,” she said again. Then she smiled, and nodded toward Ah-Kee and me in the door. “Thanks to them.”
Mr. Davidson turned to look at us, and his eyes narrowed in exhausted confusion. Mrs. Davidson told him, in her warm and almost humming voice, about our arrival and the birth of the baby and all the wonders Ah-Kee had done.
When the tale was told, Mr. Davidson rose to his feet and walked over to us. He looked us each in the eye, clear and strong, and shook our hands, and gave us each a firm and steady “thank you.”
I liked how he did it for Ah-Kee just the same as he did it for me. I liked how he gave my friend that respect. It wasn’t a lot to give, but from what I’d seen so far in our travels, I knew that plenty wouldn’t have given it.
“You fellas,” he said next, and I also liked how he didn’t call us boys, “are welcome to stay here as long as you need and as long as you like.”
“Thank you, sir,” I answered. “But it’ll just be the night. We’ve got business to attend to, Ah-Kee and me.”
Mr. Davidson squinted wearily at us, two rumpled and travel-stained boys.
“Business?” he said. “That sounds like a story. Let’s get dinner on the table and hear it.”
* * *
So I told my whole story again over a dinner of warmed-up salt ham and some passable biscuits baked up by Mr. Davidson himself.
“Do you miss your sister?” Justin asked me when I was done. He was looking at little baby Claire when he asked.
“Justin,” Mrs. Davidson admonished him.
“It’s all right, ma’am.” I turned to Justin. “ ’Course I miss her. Something awful. We were close, me and Katie. Real close. She … she never just called me Joseph. She always called me, ‘my Joseph.’ I don’t know why. But I was always her Joseph.” My voice trailed off and left the table in silence.
Justin squinted at me.
“Well … whose Joseph are you now, then?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know,” I answered after a moment. “Nobody’s, I guess.”
There was a silence, heavy and waiting. Like a fruit ripening on a tree.
“You can be my Joseph, if you want,” he offered.
“Thanks,” I said, after a moment and a swallow. “That sounds fine.”
* * *
That night Justin insisted I sleep in his bed with him. The bed was just big enough for the both of us, with him lying tight up against me. It reminded me of lying with Katie. We whispered together in the darkness, just like Katie and I had.
“Why you gotta get that horse so bad, Joseph?”
I considered his question.
“Well, what’s the most precious thing in the world to you?” I asked. “The thing you love the most?”
Justin thought for a second.
“Well, I guess it’d be Claire. Is a sister a good answer?”
I smiled, thinking of my own dear Katie, but I couldn’t keep a bit of sadness outta my voice when I answered.
“Sure it is. That’s a fine answer. Now, if someone took Claire away and was getting farther and farther away, and it was up to you to find her and bring her back safe, would you?”
“ ’Course I would! I’d go all the way around the world if I had to!”
“That’s what I reckoned. Well, my horse is like that for me. She’s my Claire, and she’s all I got. You understand?”
I felt him nod beside me.
“I just hope I find her,” I said softly. “I hope I get her back.”
Justin sat up, then put his head down on my chest. He lay there for a second and then he spoke.
“You are. You are gonna find her. I can tell.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s your heart. It don’t beat right. Hearts always go like this: ba-pum, ba-pum. But with yours I can only hear the pums, not the ba’s. You’re missing half your heart. I bet you your horse has got the other half. That means you gotta find her, so’s you’ll have one whole heart again. I know it.”
I don’t know if I smiled or not when he said that. In the dark it’s hard to tell sometimes. But I know I liked what he’d said. There was a sure enough sort of truth in it, I reckoned.
* * *
In the early morning darkness, the angels and devils hour, Ah-Kee and I stood by the boat with Mr. Davidson. Mrs. Davidson and Justin and Claire were asleep back in the cabin. The world was cold, but the sun was coming.
Mr. Davidson was a good man. I’d been able to tell right away. He was quiet, but he was good and sturdy. He reminded me, in some ways, of my own papa.
Before I got in the boat, he put a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re a fine boy, son. And you’ll be a heckuva man someday. Your papa and mama would be mighty proud of you, I promise.”
My eyes burned in the frosty morning air and I looked away.
“You know that you’d always be welcome here. When you get that horse of yours back, or even if you don’t, we’d always have a place for you. A boy like you, such a hard worker and good with animals, you’d be a real blessing to us. Ah-Kee, too, of course. This could be home for you, Joseph.”
I nodded. Mrs. Davidson had told me the same thing the day before.
I thought of the little cabin with its winter woodpile, nestled snug in the hills that tumbled down to the river. I thought of the fine people inside: the mama, that miracle of a baby, the hard-hugging boy, and this steady man before me. If I were to pick a home, I couldn’t think of a finer one. It tugged at my heart and burrowed down into me like a bird into a nest.
But in this life, I s’pose, we don’t get to pick our homes.
“I appreciate that, sir. I do. But I reckon I don’t know where I’ll end up. Maybe home just ain’t something I’m meant to have.”
He squeezed my shoulder, then let go and held his hand out to me. I took it, and then Ah-Kee did the same.
A shiver shook my shoulders. The air was bitter cold around me.
Mr. Davidson saw it. His eyes sharpened.
“I felt like I had to give you boys something,” he said. I started to shake my head, but he stopped me with a look that was serious and unbending. “I knew you wouldn’t take money and, frankly, I ain’t got none to give. But I can give you this.”
He reached up and unwound the black scarf he’d wrapped around his neck before leaving the cabin. It was short but thick, and warm, knit from coarse and sturdy wool.
“My mama made this,” he said, handing it to me. “It’ll keep you warm, and I know she’d be happy for you to have it.”
“Thank you,” I said, and tied it around my neck.
Then he pulled the hat from his head, knit snug and tight from a dark green yarn.
“Anna made this,” he said as he pressed it into Ah-Kee’s hands. “It’s yours, now. Thank you, for everything.”
Ah-Kee bowed, and pulled the hat over his head. I know we were both grateful for the gifts, and the warmth they gave us. Mr. Davidson gave us one more nod, then helped us into the boat.
He looked at us a moment, sitting there together in that canoe in the near darkness. He shook his head, a small smile playing across his lips.
“You boys. You got some kind of courage. Both of you. Yes, sir. Now go get what you’re after.”
With that he gave the canoe a hard shove, sending us out away from the bank and into the waiting current.
“Good luck, boys,” he called out as we drifted away toward sunrise.
There was a sadness in leaving that happy home, in saying good-bye again to that familiar feeling of family that I missed so much. But it was sure enough good to be moving again, to see the trees drifting past as me and Ah-Kee once again pointed our faces in the direction we were going and went.
Sunlight was hitting the tops of the trees as the sun peeked over the cany
on’s mountain walls, and birds were trying out their morning songs. The world was waking up all around us and we were getting closer again, I hoped, to my Sarah.
There were no more bone-shaking rapids, no more swimming for me and Ah-Kee. There were some logjams we had to steer around with our paddle, there were some runs we had to hold tight and pray, but that morning the river seemed to be on our side. She carried us on, out of the canyon and into the wide-open sunshine of Yakima Valley.
The town of Yakima was pretty big, at least compared to what I was used to. As we floated up to it we went under bridges that were busy with wagons and horses and people on the move. It was harvest time, after all, and all the orchards were busy getting their apples and pears picked and out to market. The town itself was a sprawl of wooden houses and businesses around a downtown of a few taller brick buildings. From the river we could hear voices, the whinnies of horses, and the hissing and clanking of a train coming or going.
I set my jaw in determination. It was a big town to find one horse in, or one man. And I was a day behind now. The morning’s sunshine faded as we got closer, and clouds crowded the sky. A chilling wind blew through my old clothes. A storm was coming for sure.
Me and Ah-Kee ran our boat up into the bank under some trees and hopped ashore, then headed on into town.
The streets were muddy and jostling with the traffic of horses, wagons, and men. When we got to the middle of town, an intersection of two streets with brick buildings all around, we just stopped and stood there a minute. I didn’t know where to start.
Ah-Kee was standing beside me, gaping at all the commotion just like I was. He looked even smaller and more alone than I felt. I took a step closer to him. Then I smiled at him and nodded, and he nodded back, and I got down to business.
“Excuse me, sir?” I asked the first man I saw, walking down the road with a newspaper under his arm. “I’m looking for a horse trader by the name of Mr. Campbell.”
The man frowned at me, then looked at Ah-Kee and his frown deepened into a downright scowl. He brushed past us without saying a word.
Mama said that if someone’s putting ugliness into the world, you can’t be ugly back; you gotta put a little bit of sunshine into the world to even things out.
Some Kind of Courage Page 11
