Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History (53 page)

I quell a churning sickness, slap away a tear that has escaped. “Who?”

But then I see the Great-Uncle. For a moment or two, he is a brightly wavering light coming down the road, and then he chooses an empty seat, flickering suddenly into a chair across the table: a smiling, well-wrinkled old ghost loudly demanding to make the first toast. His wife is not far behind him, small and delicate as a smiling bird.

There is barely time to stand and greet them (“So wonderful to meet you, Great-uncle… have you eaten yet?”) before a pack of boisterous, laughing cousins and great-cousins flicker into seats of their own. I am flitting like a silver comet to greet them all (“Have you eaten yet? Have
you
eaten yet?”). And after them, there come a dozen more: not only Ancestors, but others, too. Ghosts so young, they are still learning to speak. Ghosts so ancient, they hardly need to speak at all. The spouses, the nieces and nephews, the sons and daughters of a hundred years past are all around me, exchanging stories, telling sly jokes. I finally belong enough to see them all. My family.

And there’s one who sits with the stillness of a white jade statue, as though she has existed long enough to have collected all the graces and beauties and strengths worth having in the world. Even before Qing Yuan kneels to kiss her hand, I know who she is. But she laughs, unexpectedly, to feel his solid kiss. “My son, who taught you to do that?”

“Mother,” he says, “this is my wife, and your daughter, Ling.” I am a little sick as I bow, not daring even to meet the bright, still eyes.

But she takes both my hands firmly. “Yes, of course she is.” She looks at me, her smile very serious. “Yes, I have waited long for my son to meet a good wife. I see I don’t need to worry about him so much.”

“Mother’s not been here for years and years on Ghost Day,” says Qing Yuan. “She has only just found us again.”

“I could not recognize the place, it was so full of sadness and smoke. I was lost, as your brother Tao is lost. But we all find our way, eventually.” The Matriarch reaches for an empty teacup, and with a quiet thrill I reach out and take up the teapot, filling the cup like a proper, living daughter-in-law. She nods, and I know I have done well. But suddenly, I remember the Fisherman, slumped in his chair nearby.

“Do not worry about your father-in-law,” says the Matriarch. “He will not be disturbed by floating teapots or drunken ghost-uncles. I give him dreams. There are things I need to say to him that he will not hear any other way.”

“Will you teach me?” I ask her. “There are things I need to say to my mother.”

Art by Esme Baran

1877
Ellsworth, Kansas

Lil Bit found the two missing long-horned steers cowering between some weathered-down boulders. Their six-foot-long horns scraped against the granite, sending tiny sparks into the night. Lil Bit was so relieved to see them after riding around for nearly thirty minutes in the moonlight, she didn’t stop to wonder why they were cowering and not responding to her whistles.

“I found ‘em, Papa,” she yelled and rode forward her four-year-old mare, Daphne.

The baby rattlesnake was curled in a tight ball, its hind quarters shaking violently. Lil Bit missed the warning rattle. Daphne reared up, bucked Lil Bit off her back, and hot tailed it back to camp.

“Dammit,” she said, and then caught herself. Papa would be upset if he heard her cussin’ like a man. Her tailbone ached, but nothing else was bruised. The fall knocked off the rabbitskin cowboy hat that Vicente the cook bought her before they crossed the Red River back in Texas. She reached for her head kerchief. It was knocked askew, revealing her bald scalp.

She heard the rattlesnake again. It was closer now, right next to her hand.

Lil Bit’s scalp throbbed.

Tiny raised bumps from every root shaft on her head pulsed and opened as adrenaline rippled through her.

“Babygirl, don’t move. Calm yourself.”

Papa’s voice sounded like God’s voice above her head. She couldn’t see him, but she heard his horse, Bear, breathing hard and neighing behind her.

Lil Bit sighed, her eyes glued to the snake. She couldn’t even round up two lost steer by herself without falling off her horse and having to play damsel in distress in front of her father.

“Lil Bit! Make your head stop moving, gal. Now.”

Lil Bit closed her eyes. She tried to think of something peaceful so the pin prickly root shafts would close themselves back up. Already the slender filaments of her twisted black hair trembled, ready to shoot out in full force at any second. She didn’t know how to control her hair yet; until she could, Papa made her keep the locks inside. She wore a bald brown head with tiny bumps to keep him happy.

She fastened her mind onto that thought, making Papa happy because he took care of her. Why, he had bought her a big ole book back in Texas. It had all kinds of strange stories and pictures. She already knew about Brer Rabbit, and stories about the Boo Hag and La Llorona from Papa and Vicente, but this book had stories she never heard of from clear across the world.

The more she thought of the book, the more the skin on her rippling scalp relaxed. She thought of how the first story she read in that book was about a girl named Daphne who didn’t want a particular fella chasing her and she turned into a tree. Lil Bit liked the name Daphne, and she named her trail horse after the girl in the story.

Lil Bit opened her eyes.

The rattlesnake was sliding on its belly away from her hand. She smiled and turned her head to look up into her Papa’s hazel eyes. Pain erupted in the ruddy brown skin between Lil Bit’s thumb and index finger.

She felt the toxin in the venom being absorbed into her bloodstream, and then she throbbed.

The hair slithered out from deep within her scalp. Each serpentine strand was over a foot long and it only took three of them to strike the upper half of the rattler. She pierced its skin and injected it with her own neurotoxins steeped inside the needled tips of her hair. The snake’s head and midsection spasmed once, went rigid, and then hardened like petrified wood. The bottom half shivered; its rattle jangled a few more times then stopped.

Lil Bit’s Papa swung down from his horse and grabbed the snake by its tail. He bashed the head against a boulder and the front part of the snake shattered to pieces. He threw it on the ground and mashed it up with his boot heel.

Gabriel looked down at her. Lil Bit was thirteen but looked younger.

“Put away your hair,” he said.

While her Papa rustled up the longhorns, Lil Bit felt a new emotion sink down into her body like the hair retracting into her scalp: shame.

Lil Bit knew that her father was frightened of her.

She walked alongside his horse, using a stick to help guide the longhorns back to the rest of the herd.

It was her blood that scared him, and it came from her mother, Odetta. Only women in their bloodline were born
Medu
. Both her parents thought Lil Bit had bypassed the lineage when she was born with normal black corkscrew curls. She had her mama’s dark skin and her father’s light eyes. But when she was six months old, Gabriel had bathed her in a wooden bucket with her Mama laughing at him because he looked so stiff holding her with his big hands. He had wiped her wet hair with a damp rag and all her corkscrews smeared away in thick black clumps.

Water had fallen into her infant eyes and she cried. It was the first time both her parents saw her newly bald scalp move – it writhed under Gabriel’s light-skinned fingers and then the first slender threads of new baby hair sprang out and stung him. Odetta told her that she was so proud, despite the fact that she hid her own venomous hair wrapped tight with leather strips under a calico scarf. Gabriel never held Lil Bit again until she was three and knew how to keep her head bald by retracting the hair.

Lil Bit took in the shadowy flat plains. They were on alert for trouble tonight. She thought it was the main reason why he went looking for her in the first place.

The herd and the men were being watched.

As trail boss, her father had to be aware of everything concerning the drive towards the Ellsworth stockyards. And everything that Gabriel knew, Lil Bit kept track of too: Head count of the entire herd (3,000). Head count of all the men, and her (16). How much food Vicente had left on the chuck wagon to feed the predominantly black and Mexican cattlemen (40 pounds). How many horses the horse wrangler and the wrangler’s son controlled for the entire crew (90).

Her father rode ahead of everyone searching for watering holes, Apaches, Comanches, cattle rustlers, wolves, and anything else that would prevent them from getting fattened meat to payday. They were only a few hours’ ride away from Ellsworth where the men could take baths and wash away grit and crusted shit, visit a barber, and eat a decent meal.

The full moon was out, and nothing could really be hidden on the wide open Kansas plain. Gabriel opted to take the twilight watch and let most of the men bed down and dream of good pay and the whorin’ they would do at the cathouse in Ellsworth.

Walking beside her father, Lil Bit thought about their life together on the trails. They were on the run from bounty hunters. Two years ago her Papa was a member of the Tenth Cavalry Regiment. A Buffalo Soldier. He shot and killed a white man to save a Kiowa-Apache who had crossed paths with his unit. The Kiowa-Apache lived to tell his people about the black man who shot a white man to save a red man. A white lieutenant from another regiment tried to cut her Papa’s throat as punishment. But then her Mama stepped in, hair quivering, calculating and deadly.

Lil Bit wasn’t present when her parents killed the two Cavalry men. An older aunt was caring for her, and without warning, Lil Bit was taken to Texas by two uncles. Other Kiowa-Apaches helped spirit her father away from the law, and her mother was transported out of town hidden among dry goods headed west. The plan had been for them both to meet in Texas to retrieve Lil Bit.

Only her father had made it there. After months of failed searches and furtive inquiries, Gabriel had to give up looking for her mother and keep Lil Bit safe. They had been on the move ever since.

When Vicente the trail cook saw Lil Bit’s hand back at the chuck wagon, he dug into his chuck box and pulled out liniment, and a full bottle of whiskey.

“Chica!”

“It don’t hurt no more,” she said.

She held up her hand to the kerosene lamp hanging from the wagon.

“See, concinero, just two holes. It’s not bleeding.”

“Take a swig, chica,” Vicente said, handing her the bottle. She glanced over at her father. Gabriel nodded, and she poured it down her throat.

“Aye! I’m not tryna get you soaked.” Vicente snatched back the bottle. Lil Bit laughed. Vicente cleaned her wound with the whiskey and ointment. After dressing it he handed her a bedroll and stared into her eyes.

“You get pissed?” he asked. Her gaze dropped to the ground. Vicente shook his head. He looked over at Gabriel.

“Anyone see?”

“No,” Gabriel said.

“Good, we’re fine then,” Vicente said as he pushed Lil Bit away from the wagon. “G’night, chica.”

“Night, chico,” she said, grabbing a spare lamp from under the wagon. She glanced back at Gabriel. He raised his head up slightly in her direction. She stood with shoulders less slumped and waited for him.

“You want something to eat?” Vicente asked Gabriel.

“No,” said Gabriel.

Lil Bit watched her father turn on a small tap on the side of the wagon. He cupped his hands to catch cool water. He drank deeply, turned off the tap and wiped excess water on his forehead.

“One more day, jefe,” said Vicente.

“She was getting better,” said Gabriel.

Lil Bit felt her cheeks flush with heat. He spoke as if she wasn’t there. It was his way of shaming her.

“She is! She is! She’s better, she’ll get better.”

Gabriel ignored Vicente and stepped behind the wagon. He reached inside a side panel and pulled out a fresh box of rifle bullets.

“You spot anything unusual when you were ahead of the men this morning?” Gabriel asked.

“No.”

“We’re being followed. Felt it the last few days.”

“Rustlers?” asked Lil Bit, happy that the conversation wasn’t about her anymore.

“They would’ve made a move on us by now, babygirl,” said Gabriel.

“And we would’ve been ready,” said Vicente. Gabriel stuffed more ammunition into his vest pockets.

Lil Bit looked over the widespread encampment. The cattle were staggered out over seven miles in groups of twenty to forty. Seven men on evening watch circled the herd on horseback. The horse wrangler had corralled their resting mounts in a roped off space one hundred feet from the wagon.

Vicente had the tongue of the chuck wagon facing toward Polaris, the North Star. At dawn he would feed the men and hitch up his four horses to the wagon. The crew, along with the herd, would follow after him. Gabriel would already be ahead of them, only a few miles, waiting for the herd to kick up dust before mid-morning the next day.