by Lucy Inglis
Your boots shifted on the planks.
Hart grinned, teeth yellow. ‘Fine, fine. I’ll take less. Call it a gesture, for old time’s sake. But it’s taken the boys and me time to get out here and back, gotta get some compensation for that. Tracking you down ain’t been easy. Thought you’d gone back native.’ He looked around. ‘Heard of this place, hidden away up here. Thought it was a story. Though God alone knows why any sane person would want to live all the way out here.’
You said nothing.
‘Two fifty.’ Opening his greasy coat, Hart reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a large paper packet, throwing it on the boards at your feet.
‘How long do I have?’
‘A month, give or take. We’ll be back.’
You ignored the packet. ‘I’ll come into town.’
‘And leave this pretty thing here all alone? And where’s that fine mare of yours? The one who looks at you with the cow eyes? Want to sell her now you’ve traded up to real women?’
‘If you don’t shut your mouth you can shove your job and I will shoot you when you turn your back.’
‘Like the murdering deserter you are,’ Hart said mildly.
You took the rifle in both hands.
He backed off the porch. ‘No need to be touchy, Nate. I wouldn’t leave her alone neither.’
He got back on his horse. The man chewing tobacco spat again, soiling the wild flowers in front of the cabin. Then all three riders wheeled their horses and rode away.
We watched them go. You stood, motionless, for what seemed like an age, pale eyes narrow. When their figures had been eaten by the shadow of the forest, you finally stood down, went inside and hung up the rifle on one of the hooks. I followed.
‘Who were they?’
You were looking for something to eat, going through the usual places. ‘Trapper scum. Out of Fort Shaw. They take jobs from everyone. They just don’t do any of them.’ Going outside, you took the pail standing near the door and filled it from the spigot. Shifting the packet out of the way with your boot, you swilled Hart’s phlegm from the boards, and tipped the rest on to the brown stain on the grass. My mouth twisted with disgust.
You straightened up, collecting the packet on your way back. ‘He’s a pig. Always has been.’ Your voice was sharp. Inside, you pulled out the folded papers and spread them on the table. It was a series of maps. My heart leapt when I saw the largest set were marked with Stanton in the corner. You had both hands on the table, leaning over. ‘Is there any tea?’
I went to pour it out. The skin was drawn tight over your cheekbones.
‘What did—’
‘Just leave it, Emily.’
‘I don’t understand.’
You linked your hands behind your neck. ‘I don’t want him, Hart, knowing you’re here, all right? I don’t want him coming here. Nothing good will come of it. Nothing. I thought I’d gone far enough they wouldn’t find me.’
I stood still and kept quiet.
Then you took a deep breath and blew out. ‘Some people foul everything, and he’s one of them.’
I bit my lip, understanding I should change the subject as you returned to look at the map. My next effort was another mistake. ‘Stanton. The maps are Stanton maps.’ I bent over with you, tracing the name at the bottom.
‘Stands to reason. If it’s his company.’ Your tone was abrupt as you followed the path of my finger.
‘Stanton Railroad. San Francisco. 1867.’
There was a sealed packet of instructions that had been folded inside, seemingly missed by Mr Hart. You’d pushed them away. I picked them up.
‘Instructions to agent,’ I read on the outside.
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘You aren’t going to read them?’
‘Never do.’
Frowning, I opened the packet and scanned the paper. ‘They’re quite detailed. About where you should look. Don’t you think—’
‘No,’ you said abruptly. ‘I’ll go from the map.’
‘But they’re signed by a Mr Meard, agent for the Stantons. I think they’d want you to read them.’
You took them from me and tore them in half neatly before handing them back, then went on looking at the map. ‘Can’t. Got as far as learning my ABCs that year at school, before I left. I know hotel, and saloon, and telegraph. Some place names. I can form Nathaniel on paper, if I have to.’
I stared at you, my mouth open.
You shook your head in warning. ‘Don’t dare to pity me, Emily.’
‘I’m not,’ I said, too quickly.
You went to take the paper from my hand but I stepped back. Putting the two pieces back together, I turned away from you and skimmed it over. I tried not to let you see that I touched the imprinted Stanton letterhead again, with a careful fingertip. ‘It’s nothing anyway. Just that they expect the job completed as quickly as possible, for the agreed fee, which is five hundred dollars.’
You swore. A long stream of expletives ending with, ‘That chiselling bastard. He only paid me two hundred last time, and that was a longer job.’
I was no longer shocked by your casual profanities. Instead, I turned to the table, placed the two pieces of paper on the map and looked up at you, standing closer than I usually would. ‘You should renegotiate with Mr Hart. But I think I just made you at least one hundred dollars.’
We looked at each other. I could see you were laughing and hid a smile of my own. Then an awful thought struck me.
‘When will you go?’
You raised an eyebrow. ‘I think you mean, we?’
‘But how can I go with you? I can barely ride and I have no shoes.’
‘You’ll learn and don’t need no shoes on horseback. Ain’t leaving you here alone now they know where you are.’
Relief flooded my chest. ‘But we only have one horse,’ I said, a hangnail of anxiety pulling at me.
‘Yeah, but we won’t be covering big distances at first, and I can get another pretty quickly once we get into Indian country. By then you’ll be able to manage Tara just fine. She’s a good girl. And she likes you.’
‘I think you’ll find she likes you.’
You grinned your cocky grin. ‘Oh no, she loves me.’
I took a breath, shy in the sunlight of your attention. ‘So, when do we go?’
‘As soon you can sit a horse on your own.’
The following morning, my second lesson in horsemanship began. When I got up and dressed, Tara was already saddled. You were fiddling with the bridle when you saw me; you beckoned.
I went over to you. You lifted the flap of the saddle. ‘Second lesson. Cinches. See this here? It’s a cruelty to keep it done up tight when she’s just standing around, so we don’t. But you need to tighten it before you get back on, or the saddle will slip. Got it?’
‘Got it.’
‘Good. So this is the cinch ring, see? See this strap here? It goes up here to the ring that sits under the fender, which is there to protect your leg. It needs at least two full passes. You’ll struggle to tighten three, so we’ll keep it to two. So, it’s loose, see? That ain’t no good, so take a hold on the inner loop. That’s it. Now, when you let out a cinch, the horse will blow itself out. They all do it, and the canny ones like Tara here will do it when you come to tighten them too. So, you gotta knee her in the belly a little.’
I looked up at you.
‘Go on, you won’t hurt her. Just behind the cinch. And pull as you do it. She knows the drill.’
Doing as I was told, I was surprised by how much the leather gave. I repeated the move with the outer loop.
‘Hold on to it there, and now pull the strap through the ring.’ You were holding the fender out of the way to help me. How did anyone do this without three hands?
‘That’s it. Good job, English.’ You checked it with a tug and tied it off. ‘Should be just enough to get your fingers between the strap and her belly. You try. See? Now, one hand on the horn, one on the seat. And . . . h
up.’
In the saddle, you handed me the reins and took hold of Tara’s bridle, leading us down the hill.
‘I can ride.’
You glanced over your shoulder at me. ‘You can? I hadn’t noticed.’
I blushed. ‘I rode in London.’
‘Some broken-winded old kid’s pony?’ You made a noise which indicated exactly what you thought of that.
Down in the meadow, you adjusted the stirrups and held the nearest one steady as you showed me how to touch Tara’s side with my heels to indicate different commands.
‘Will she know? I haven’t even got boots on, let alone spurs.’
You glanced up at me from beneath your dark eyelashes, irked. ‘If you can’t ride without boots and spurs, you ain’t no good with ’em. Tara is responding to your legs as much as anything. And that’s the way it ought to be.’ You looped a rope through the rings of Tara’s bit and stepped back, perhaps fifteen feet, holding the other ends. ‘Now lead her in a circle and let her move away from your left leg, round towards me. No, no! Jesus, English, don’t yank on her mouth like a barbarian. Both reins in one hand, yep just like that, and then take them in the way you want to go over against her neck. She’ll move away from the pressure . . . yes. And now you’re learning.’
Lesson Two had begun in earnest.
I soon came to learn you were most vocal and communicative when teaching me about horses. Hearing your voice again after so long was very welcome and I enjoyed the long screeds of chatter – great straight back there, English! Sit down deep when she trots, it’s the only way.
Things almost ended badly on the first afternoon, when you slipped Tara off the rope and told me to walk her down the meadow, then trot her back up to you. In a taller patch of scrubby grass, she flushed a grouse, which flew up directly in her face. She reared back, my foot slipped from the stirrup and I fell to the left with no time to grab for the saddlehorn. I hit the ground, bruising the hand I put out to break my fall. Tara, already recovered, stood over me protectively and as I tried to sit up you skidded into the grass, gathering me up against your chest.
‘Emily!’
Rattled, your sudden concern was too much and I burst into tears.
‘Where do you hurt? Is it your shoulder?’ You felt my collarbone. ‘You shouldn’t put out your hand like that, just keep your arms in and try and roll with the fall. Dammit, should-a warned you.’
Shaking my head, I was mute as a tear dripped from my chin.
You put your arms right around me and squeezed reassuringly. ‘There now, ain’t nothing. Just a shock to the system.’
I had never been held in my life before: I was overwhelmed by your embrace, and then by your kindness as you examined my bruised fingers.
‘Nothing broken.’ You touched a fleeting kiss to my knuckles just as dear Tara’s face appeared and she blew at us gently, ears pricked. You let go of my hand and petted her cheek. ‘Yeah, I know, you didn’t mean for Emily to take a fall. She ain’t mad at you, are you, Em?’
Tearing my gaze away from your face, I touched my hand to Tara’s velvet nose. ‘Of course not.’
She snorted and we laughed. I caught the leather lace on your chest, tracing down to the feathers amongst the jumble of articles resting beneath your ribs. Gently, you began to push me away.
Horrified, I realized I had been pressed against you. ‘I’m so sorry . . . I—’
You got to your feet with a brush-off gesture. ‘This knee ain’t good stuck kneeling, is all.’
I stood, and wiped my tear-sticky face on my sleeve. ‘You should have said.’
You caught Tara’s reins, shrugging, not meeting my eyes. ‘Gets me out of church.’
My lessons continued for the next three days, by which time I was distinctly uncomfortable, but far more capable. My London riding instruction and park hacks had not been in vain and I learnt quickly. Tara was biddable and forgiving; we raced up and, even more exhilarating, down the meadow at a flat-out gallop for most of the final day: That’s it! Lean into it. Knees tight, weight in your heels. Now you’re talking! Bring her around sharp now. She turns on a pinhead, so be ready and hang in there!
And I enjoyed it. Better than that, I loved it. And I was coming to love Tara, who dealt with me so kindly, for all my blundering. I slept heavily at night, exhausted, and on the third evening even fell asleep in my supper, rousing briefly as you dumped me on to the bed and cleared away, before going to sleep on the porch.
We muddled along together. I realized I was losing count of the days of my captivity. I had turned sixteen, surely? Sometimes, when I was putting Tara through her paces and you were watching, you’d ask me questions about myself. Sometimes I tried to question you, but you were adept at turning the tables.
On the fifth morning after the men had come to the cabin, we set out. It was only as you finished putting the last pack on to Tara and shut the door that I realized we were leaving the place I had come to feel safe in. Our spare clothes were stowed behind the saddle and I wore what you called a possibles bag across my body. You mounted Tara and helped me up a second later. We settled in the saddle.
‘Isn’t this too much for her?’
‘Nah, she’s used to bearing weight. I ain’t carrying spare and you don’t weigh hardly nothing nohow.’
‘What about the chickens?’
‘They pretty much take care of themselves. They were here when I got here. And they seem to know how to go on making more little chicks, and surviving up here. How, I have no idea. When I looked at that coop I thought a weasel would be in there before the week was out, but the previous tenants were mighty clever about how they built that ladder.’
I looked at the hens scratching around between the cabin and the stream. ‘What happened to the people who lived here?’
‘Upped and left. Maybe they got the loneliness. Seen it happen out here. Can kill you if you ain’t got the constitution for the place.’
‘The loneliness?’
‘Yeah. Go a little crazy, stop eating, talking to yourself. Met a guy out on the trail last year, railing about his folks in St Louis. Nothing but a bag of bones and his horse weren’t much better. Wouldn’t take no help, wanting to go back East. Found his body on the road the next day. Looked like he walked himself to death, horse trailing behind him.’
I frowned, not able to associate such behaviour with our neatly kept little cabin. ‘But they put so much effort into building it. They must have brought the bees with them. And the chickens. Because . . .’
‘Their loss. Our gain.’
‘What if they come back?’
‘They ain’t coming back.’ You shifted the rifle into the sling behind your leg, fussing a little.
‘But what if they did? We’d have to give it back to them.’
‘And I’m telling you, they ain’t. Gone West, I’d imagine.’ We set out. Heading for another adventure that would change who I was, for ever.
Hope and Cal lay on the bank of the creek for a long time, until their breathing had steadied. Buddy licked Cal’s face until he was shoved away and flopped on to the grass, whining and trembling. Finally Cal, still flat on his back, pulled his BlackBerry out of his hip pocket and squinted at it in the sun.
‘Shit. Dead. The water.’ He let his arm drop out to the side, useless phone in his hand.
Hope checked her pockets. Only the diary was in there. ‘Mine must have fallen out when we crashed.’
Pushing himself up on his elbows, Cal put a hand to his head and winced. ‘Anything broken?’
Hope made a quick check of herself. ‘Just bruised, I think. What about you? You were out for a while.’
‘Dad says Crows are made of saddle leather. Think he must be right. Oh Jesus, look at your face.’ He put his hand to her cheek. ‘You’ve got one hell of a bruise coming there.’
She began to cry. Then he was holding her tight and talking in his quiet voice. ‘Hey, hey, it’s OK. We’re OK. We got out. And I know this land. There’s no need
to worry, we’ll be fine.’
Hope bit back something that might have been a hiccup or a sob, nodding.
With both hands, he smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘We’ll be OK. We just need to find some shelter, a little food, and wait it out. They’ll realize by nightfall the day after tomorrow that we’re really overdue, even if we had gone to the Mercantile. Then they’ll raise the alarm and people will come and look for us. Dad knows the trail I took. Come on.’ He helped her up, brushing both of them down where the dirt stuck in patches to their wet clothes. Looking around, he got his bearings. ‘I think we head out this way and try and hit St Mary Lake by nightfall. We’ll overnight there and then somewhere, not too far from the edge of the lake, is an old cabin my grandparents used to visit in the summers. We call it Crow Mountain, though that’s not its official name. The cabin is probably a wreck by now, but it might be a roof over our heads until they head out to find us. And there’s good water there. Plus, it’s the most likely place for Dad to think to look for us. I hope.’ He held out his hand.
They set off towards the trees, Buddy at their heels. As they headed into the shaded forest, the air cooled and Hope began to feel cold. She rubbed her arms to keep warm.
‘As soon as we get to the lake I’ll make a fire, but tonight’s going to be pretty cold. There’s not much I can do about it.’
Hope trudged after him, bramble stems scratching her legs. The forest was alive with sounds and smells. The creatures among the trees weren’t too interested in the humans in their midst. Every now and then, deer froze in the undergrowth, or crashed out in front of them. The first time, Hope shrieked, but after that she managed to bite her lip. Her face ached down the right side. And her shoulder. The trembling that had come on after they had escaped the crash was now only kept under vague control by keeping in motion and her hands jerked when she held them out in front of her. As she was watching them, Cal looked over his shoulder to see if she was keeping up.
He turned, taking her fingers in his warm grip. She could feel a tremor running through his arms.
‘It’s just shock, Hope. If we keep moving, and keep you as warm as we can, it’ll wear off in a couple of hours. I’m shocked too. See? It’s natural.’
