Native Gold (43 page)

But for Sakote, Mati lived in his heart. She’d left her sketches, all save the one of him, and though he knew he’d be wise to bury or burn them, he couldn’t bear to part with the memories they stirred in his soul.

He looked at them often—the baby quail trailing after their mother, the eagle tethered outside his uncle’s
hubo
, Hintsuli sharpening his stone knife, the flowers growing beside the stream. But his favorite was the drawing of the waterfall. In it, Sakote crouched by the far edge of the pool, and his face looked back at him in ripples made by the cascading water. A hawk soared overhead, and its twin flew across the surface of the pool. The picture was filled with life and light, and it reminded him of the joy and peace he had found there with his
kulem
, his Mati.

But in the village of the Konkows, the sun rose each morning, and the stars traveled across the night sky. The world didn’t stop just because Sakote no longer felt a part of it. Life continued, even though it seemed like his soul had already deserted him, that his spirit wandered the bright belt of stars, trying to find the left fork, the path to Heaven Valley.

A trout jumped, and Sakote shook himself from his thoughts. He’d been staring blindly at the undulating stream for so long that he’d forgotten where he was. When he looked up at the far bank, sudden cold fear plunged like a knife into his heart.

He turned to Hintsuli, shouting, "Run!"

The boy squeaked once in panic, then scrambled down from his rocky perch and shot up the hill as fast as a rabbit.

When Sakote turned back, his breath froze in his throat, and the skin prickled at the base of his neck. He narrowed his eyes, not wanting to believe what he saw.

On the far side of the stream stood a group of
kokoni
,
ghosts of the gold camp’s dead men, and at the fore was the big one with the yellow hair.

They were as bright and vivid as if they were alive, dressed in fine burial clothing. When they waved and shouted at him, they seemed as substantial as the trees or the rocks or the trout in the stream.

But that couldn’t be. He’d seen their blood. He’d seen their broken bodies. They were dead. What did their ghosts want with him?

The
kokoni
began crossing the rocks over the creek, and Sakote flexed his fingers around his fishing spear, even though he knew earthly weapons were useless against spirits.

Running was an option. He thought about it for one panicked heartbeat. But deep inside, he knew The Great Spirit was testing him. And though he felt as if his soul had left him, he still lived in this world. As long as he did, the
kokoni
couldn’t harm him. So he stood fast...

Until they came close enough to touch, close enough to smell. Then the big, yellow-haired man grabbed his arm in one solid fist and pointed a gun at his head. And Sakote knew then they were no
kokoni
.

Hintsuli was panting so hard when he ran up to his mother in a scramble of rocks that she could barely understand his jabbering. But the moment she heard the words "Sakote" and "
willa
," she knew the time of confrontation had come.

She’d foreseen it, just as she’d foreseen the coming of the white eagle who would steal her first son’s heart. Now it was time for the worlds of the Konkow and the white man to come together.

She dried Hintsuli’s tears with her thumbs, rocking him as she had when he was a baby.

It was like making a basket, she thought, weaving the two worlds together. If your heart was pure and happy, the sedge and the redbud would make a fine vessel to hold all the bounty of the seasons to come. But if your spirit was troubled, if there was hate in your soul...

After a moment, she nudged Hintsuli up off her lap. He was, after all, too big a boy to cry at his mother’s knee. She would speak to her husband now about Sakote, and he would speak to the elders. But before she did, she would go to the woman’s
hubo
and ask for Wonomi’s guidance. She would ask The Great Spirit to grant them wisdom and patience, both the Konkow and the
willa
.

Mattie wiped a sweaty palm across her damp forehead and sagged back down onto the lumpy straw mattress of her new abode. So far she’d kept down a few bites of the stale soda biscuits Amos had left her, but she didn’t dare try anything else. She cupped her head in her hands and waited for the nausea to pass.

She wondered if the miners suspected. Of course, she’d known from the first sign of sickness what ailed her. She’d seen a maid at Hardwicke House go through the same misery. Uncle Ambrose had eventually let the maid go because she didn’t have a proper husband.

Here, she supposed it made no difference. After all, in California, half the men were criminals of some kind, and most of the women were soiled doves. The miners were hardly qualified to turn their noses up at her, even if she informed them she had no plans to marry.

How could she marry? Her heart belonged to only one man. She knew that now. As long as she lived, she’d never feel the things she’d felt for Sakote with anyone else. She’d never love another. She’d never wed another. Even if it meant her child would grow up fatherless.

She didn’t plan to tell Sakote. Ever. It would serve no purpose. There was talk among the Konkows that Sakote might one day be the headman of his people. The last thing he needed was the added burden of a child, especially the half-breed kin to a
hudesi
.

Still, all she could think about between bouts of nausea and moments of melancholy was how she carried in her womb a piece of her beloved savage. The baby would have his hair or his eyes or his beautiful amber skin, and it would be as if Sakote were with her...always.

The scuffle of boots on the porch interrupted her thoughts. Someone knocked.

"Just a moment." She brushed her hair back from her face, took a few shallow breaths, and rose on shaky legs to open the sagging door.

Her mouth dropped open. A dozen miners stood on the porch. To a man, they were scrubbed clean, dressed in their Sunday best, as groomed and grim as undertakers. Even Granny Cooper wore a mauve muslin skirt over her miner’s boots. Zeke stood at the fore. His beard was trimmed into a neat point, and he carried his droopy hat formally upon his arm.

"Now, Miss Mattie, before you get all weepy on us," he said, "me and the boys want you to know we ain’t gonna take no for an answer." Before she could ask him what she might say no to, he produced from behind his back a garment fashioned out of pale blue satin. "Granny’s been savin’ this in a trunk for her boys."

Mattie raised a brow. It hardly looked like something fit for a boy.

"She said you could wear it for the weddin’ on account of the two of you bein’ friends and ladies and all."

And then Mattie realized. For days now, Zeke and Granny had been formally courting. They must have decided, in the slapdash manner of the Wild West, to tie the knot today. And knowing Mattie’s dearth of proper attire, they were loaning her a gown for the occasion. She was touched.

And she was happy for them, truly she was. But when she thought about the two of them joining hands and hearts in sweet wedded bliss, it made her remember her own unhappy plight. The smile she gave them was shaky, and she caught her lower lip in her teeth, biting back the well of tears that wanted to pour out.

"She don’t like it," Granny muttered.

"No, it’s lovely." Mattie blinked back the moisture from her eyes, cursing the condition that brought weeping on so readily and bruised her emotions as easily as an apple.

She took the garment graciously and held it up. The style was probably forty years out of date. It was a formal gown, straight and slim, with a low-dipping neckline, ribbon at the high waist, short puffed sleeves, and bows around the hem. It was hardly suitable attire for a gold camp and terribly out of fashion.

"I’d be honored to wear it," she said.

"You go on now and change," Zeke told her. "We’ll wait for you."

The gown was too long, and one or the other of the shoulders kept slipping. Mattie managed to cinch the ribbon tightly enough under her bosom to keep the thing on, but there was little she could do about the hem trailing on the ground. She wished she’d had time to pin her hair up properly, but she could already hear impatient boots on the porch, so she smoothed the stray curls as best she could, and opened the door.

"Well, now," Zeke said, nodding in approval, "you look mighty fine, Miss Mattie, purty as a bluebell." He offered her his elbow.

She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, grateful at least that her stomach had decided to grant her a respite as he escorted her along the main avenue of Paradise Bar.

The rest of the men were gathered in the copse of trees they’d used for a church that first Sunday after Mattie had arrived. Rows of benches and stools split the congregation neatly in half. A stranger in a black suit with a preacher’s collar stood behind the makeshift pulpit, thumbing through a Bible. When she arrived, the miners set up a commotion, coming to their feet and doffing their hats. She straightened her spine a little more, wishing now that she’d taken the time to pin up those loose strands of her hair.

Zeke led her down the aisle, right up to the preacher, but then he left her standing there and seated himself in the front row. Mattie frowned. The preacher smiled broadly at her out of a face so shiny it looked like it had been scrubbed clean of sin.

"Dearly beloved," he began, "we’re gathered here today to join these two in the holy bonds of matrimony..."

Mattie blinked. There must be some mistake. Heavens, the groom was sitting down, and the bride was nowhere to be...

Her eyes grew wide. Suddenly everything fell into place. Zeke and Granny weren’t tying the knot. It was
her
wedding. The men must have discovered her delicate condition, and one of them had offered to make her a decent woman.

She swayed on her feet.

Who? Who had volunteered? Not Zeke. His heart belonged to Granny. Swede already had a wife and children. Frenchy stood with the congregation to the right of her. Beside him, Tom gave her a wink.

She was just about to announce in no uncertain terms that she had no intention of being forced into marriage when she heard a ruckus from the very back of the crowd, and then the ominous click of a gun being cocked. Whispers spiraled forward like an ocean wave. Her stomach flipped over once as she slowly turned to see the groom.

He was stunning in black. Or perhaps it was the way his teeth flashed fiercely in contrast as he fought off the four men restraining him, the way his ebony hair tumbled like a waterfall over his shoulders into the matching pool of the black coat. The white shirt, too tight to button all the way to the neck, looked like snow against his dark skin. They hadn’t managed to get him into boots, so his feet stuck out bare beneath the hem of the black trousers.

Sakote was furious. That was clear. But there was something undeniably alluring about all that savagery contained in the confines of gentlemen’s clothing. For a moment, Mattie’s heart leaped, and she forgot he was here against his will.

That fact was made very plain to her in the next moment as Swede raised the cocked pistol to Sakote’s jaw.