One Came Home (9 page)

I chuckled, delighted that this time Billy was amusing me and not the other way around. “Why not? I can use a good hand. You did a nice job with our mounts last night. You’ve proven your worth.” I reached up and grabbed a tiny light blue feather out of the air. Without warning, Agatha’s story came to mind.
Feather by feather she picked out her path
.

Billy stared at me, huffed, and then got up. “I am not your ‘hand.’ You clean that plate and I’ll teach you how to saddle.”

I tell you, I enjoyed that exchange greatly.

Dadgum mule.

I nudged that mule with both heels. I nudged him hard. Nothing. I jerked my body forward in the saddle, hoping the movement would communicate what I wanted. Yes, that mule’s right ear swung some in my direction, but otherwise he was chewing. I could see this mule demanded nothing less than my entire dignity.

Meanwhile, Storm, bearing Billy up in style, clip-clopped, clip-clopped out toward Miller Road.

It was time to go. That note lay right on top of my desk. One of my chores was to start the stove, so as soon as Ma and Grandfather Bolte walked into a cold kitchen, they’d seek me out.

It wouldn’t be difficult to track me either. In the same way Agatha’s path was no secret, neither was mine. Agatha had traveled with the pigeoners on Miller Road toward Prairie du Chien. Where was I going? Like always, where Agatha had gone.

I did not know if I’d go all the way to Prairie du Chien, though. My plan was to start by finding out what I could in the town of Dog Hollow. I also wanted to look around the spot where the body in the blue-green dress had been found. With those two things done, I’d know better what came next.

That long-ears was still chewing. We had moved, but only to a preferable patch of grass.

“Stubborn, no-good, bat-eared mule,” I said. I poked him repeatedly with my heels and then gave up the fight.

My eyes watered because of the stench from the nesting. I twisted around, pulled out a colored handkerchief, and secured it over my nose and mouth.

Billy would have to return for me. He’d see me marooned on the back of this mule and take his amusement. Then a tether would be rigged up, attaching the long-ears to Storm. Yes, I’d be traveling to Dog Hollow like a load on the back of a pack animal.

So be it
, I told myself. I’d suffer a hundred such humiliations if it brought my sister home. At least there wasn’t one more surprise Billy could spring. After forcing both this mule and his company on me, what else could he do?

At that moment, the long-ears jolted into life. He lurched forward into his pounding trot. I cried out, clamped my knees
against the saddle, and lunged for the saddle horn, breathing a sigh of relief when I grasped it solidly between my hands. The reins slipped away, gone—lollygagging beyond my reach under the mule’s neck. Meanwhile, my rear end clapped loudly against the saddle leather, every muscle declaring its complaint.

Then we were right behind Billy and Storm. Billy swayed left, right, left, right with Storm’s gentle gait.

Does this sound at all familiar? Because I recalled something similar occurring the night before.

Billy didn’t even turn around.
As if
he didn’t hear us.

But this time the long-ears—
my
mount—stuck his muzzle in Storm’s tail. I’ve never been so embarrassed for an animal in all my life.

Storm bared her shockingly big yellow teeth. The long-ears stumbled backward and I held on.

Now Billy turned, laughing. “You should see the look on your face.”

“This mule is
in love
! You chose this mule
particularly
,” I said.

Billy leaned for my reins, which dangled under the mule’s jaw. “Try these. You might find them useful.” He handed them to me.

Never underestimate Billy McCabe’s ability to produce the unpleasant surprise.

Then he clucked his tongue. Off he and Storm went. Where Storm went, the mule went. Since I was riding that mule, I went too.

*  *  *

The Prairie Traveler
fails to mention that sitting on a mule, following two wagon-wheel ruts from point A to point B, is not stimulating activity, particularly when your traveling companion does not talk and everything passes by at mule speed (clip, pause, clop, pause).

We did cross paths with several groups of people on Miller Road. The first was a family in a wagon. As soon as I saw them coming toward us, I started to root around for the photograph of Agatha. Then it struck me that sixteen days had passed since Agatha had been on Miller Road. This family was most likely passing through. My questions would have to wait until Dog Hollow. When other groups of people passed us, I nodded a greeting and did not say more.

Meanwhile, we entered the pigeon nesting. We came upon it in the deepest part of the forest, where the trees grew tall and thick, and we stayed in it for ten miles. It looked for all the world like some sort of deserted battlefield. Twig nests were ripped apart, and what was left hung in streamers from the branches, or lay clumped on the ground, which was a stew of pigeon dung, nesting material, and rotting pigeon (heads, feathers, and guts). Flies loitered, and a sucking sound accompanied each hoof step.

I averted my eyes by looking up, and that was where I saw unsullied nests. Way up high, the nests cradled between limb and trunk and then lined up one after the other on the strong, straight branches. I started counting the nests by twos
(two, four, six, eight …). Twos were too slow, so I counted by threes (three, six, nine, twelve …). I got to fifty-one and then ninety-nine nests—all in one tree.

I wondered what Agatha had made of this.

The mule did not care for the nesting. He grew twitchier and twitchier, his ears shifting back and forth. Any rustle made him hop. (Yes, mules hop. I can testify to it.)

I tried kindness. I stroked him and patted his side, telling him that what had happened on this land had happened long before we got there. I pleaded. I coaxed. I whined. I even sang him little mule songs made up on the spot.

His antics had started to make me nervous. “You’re giving me the jimjams, Long Ears,” I told him.

But Long Ears paid me no mind. He was mesmerized—mesmerized, I tell you—by scraps of sound. Far ahead of us, Storm strolled along, flicking her tail like she didn’t have a care in the world. I noted that the distance between us and Billy and Storm had lengthened substantially. Next thing I knew, they were completely out of sight.

A mile or two later, I saw a swath of sunshine ahead on Miller Road. “Look, a clearing. That’ll be nice. You’ll feel better, right?” I said.

But this wasn’t the woodland meadow I imagined. Instead, felled trees lay in spiky piles, left where they’d been chopped down. About thirty vultures perched, their fleshy heads picking at something they’d found in abundance. I drew my breath sharply when it finally occurred to me that
these trees had been chopped down to get at the squabs, the baby pigeons.

It was in that pile of trees that Long Ears began to shimmy from side to side.

Then Long Ears stopped outright. He craned his neck.

I saw it—a badger. It gulped something down, and slipped between two logs. Seeing one creature, I saw them everywhere: crows, raptors, skunks, and another badger. This forest crawled with carnivores. I pressed my heels gently into Long Ears’ side. “Keep moving. We’ll be fine,” I said quietly. I leaned over and patted him.

But Long Ears became unbearable. I couldn’t keep him moving forward. He tried to turn around. He walked sideways (something I thought only trained circus horses did).

I rooted around in my saddlebags until I found the sugar, and pinched a stuck-together chunk. I put it under his lips.

Long Ears would not touch that sugar.

I sat up. “I am doing my best. What is wrong?”

That was when Long Ears turned one hundred eighty degrees. He backed up and brayed.

I thought the two of us were finally communicating.

We were not.

Right there and then, a cougar leapt out of the woods.

I froze. My body did, anyway.

My mind, on the other hand, jumped over the moon and ran off with the spoon. It listed what it saw by every possible name. It thought the list forward:
Catamount, cougar, American lion, painter, red tiger
. It thought it backward:
Red tiger, painter, American lion, cougar, catamount
. My mind pinched the list in the middle, folded it over, and thought it again:
Painter, cougar, catamount, red tiger, American lion
.

It distressed me to discover that running vocabulary lists was my mind’s behavior during direst need.

In addition, no one
sees
these cats. As far as I knew, they kept to themselves. I was quite sure that Grandfather Bolte and Agatha had never seen one, because they would have
talked
about it for weeks.

I had seen a skin once—claws attached, mouth propped open showing teeth as long as my pinkie. But let me explain: a floppy fur does not compare with what blocked the road, tail twitching.

Long Ears had turned us around, so we were on Miller Road but facing the direction we had already come, toward Placid, Wisconsin. The cougar stood between us and Placid, square in the middle of the road. It was as tall as a butter churn. From head to hindquarters it looked about the length of our kitchen table. Both my arms put together didn’t make the thickness of that tail.

I sat stiff as a twig on top of that mule and looked at
it
. It looked at
us
. The cougar didn’t threaten. It seemed merely interested. But its demeanor didn’t matter; I saw that cat and I
knew
things—for instance, where I lay in relation to the dinner plate.
Georgie hocks. Georgie hambone. Georgina sweetmeats. Smoked Burkhardt bacon. Ground Georgina Louise. A rump of Georgie to roast
.

Then something Grandfather Bolte once told me bellowed through my head: “By the time you see a catamount, that catamount has been following you for at least half an hour.”

That cat had eyed my neck! It’s a skinny little neck too.

Then the cat began to pace back and forth, its eyes on
me
.

Long Ears took a step backward. The movement jarred my body awake. “Whoa!” I grabbed the reins and pulled, meaning it for the first time in our acquaintance. Lo and behold, Long Ears stayed put.

Gun
.

A thought—hallelujah! I’d begun to believe my mind’s only talent was chitchat and parlor games.

I reached into the holster and pulled hard on the butt of the gun.

I pulled much too hard.

The gun came out of the holster quick, hopped on my hands (as I tried to grab it), and landed at the feet of the mule. It lay in muck two feet below my right foot. It might as well have been in San Francisco—I could not get off that mule to get it.

I looked at the cougar. The cougar hissed. Its ears went flat against its head. It took a step toward us. Then one more.

Help me, God
. My heart scampered in my chest.

Long Ears started to rotate. He was thinking of turning our collective back on that cat. I
knew
that was a bad idea.

I pulled on the reins a second time, yanking his head around so that he faced the cat. I clamped my heels into his sides. Once again—I could barely believe it—Long Ears listened to me. He did as I asked.

But now that I was facing the cougar, what was I supposed to do?

The Prairie Traveler
.

This
was the thought that came. I know what you’re thinking—I thought it too. It was hardly the time for flipping through an index! Is it under “catamount,” “lion,” or “painter”?

Still, my right hand reached into my saddlebag and grasped
The Prairie Traveler
, all 340 pages with maps, illustrations, and thirty-four itineraries for the principal wagon routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific.

And then, seemingly without permission, my right hand threw it.
The Prairie Traveler
spread its cardboard wings, flapped once, and made a satisfying smack on the cougar’s snout.