Under a Painted Sky (12 page)

“No!” I moan. “The other way.” Another moment and—I squeeze my eyes shut. Then I pop them open again.

The longhorns veer off! Franny screams in victory, winner of the battle of the nerves.

Peety runs down a pack of animals in a flat-out race west. He overtakes them, then pulls Lupe up hard, waving his arms and yelling to bring them to heel.

Meanwhile, Cay zigzags Skinny in front of a hot press of confused livestock. The lead ox matches Skinny in length, its compact body like a barrel of brown fur. Devilish spikes protrude from its head.

It will gore him for sure. I can't watch, yet now I can't close my eyes.

Cay lengthens the distance between his turns, and eventually, the animals slow. Those behind must also decelerate. Then he begins circling the herd, and Peety and West do the same. Together, the boys cinch the animals into a tighter bunch.

Soon, the whole herd's moving like a merry-go-round, save for the animals in the middle, who've come to a standstill, rolling their eyes and bellowing in bewilderment. I rest my cheek on the branch and let out my breath.

As the cowboys continue ringing the herd with an invisible line, Peety begins to sing, his rich voice carrying across the noise of the herd. Cay and West feed the lines back to him after each stanza.

Hey little missy,

Little missy,

With the waddle.

Tell me if you wanna

Little pony with a saddle.

Wait for me

Until I make it

Back from the battle.

Bring ya back

The horns of the

Longhorn cattle.

I stretch my neck to look for Andy. Princesa's getting friskier and has crept to the edge of the limestone. The horse flicks its head and Andy sways. She recovers her balance, but nearly loses her hat.

Clouds have started to collect above us, blocking out the sun. They stick together like dirty snow by the side of the road. A flash storm must be on its way, which might have caused the stampede. Father says animals can sense weather before humans. I inch backward. If I can reach the trunk, I can shimmy down, then stand by the limestone with Andy. The animals graze calmly as the boys serenade them. No one's going to run me over.

A sudden jolt of lightning turns the sky hot white, freezing me in my tracks. Father used to tell me that lightning was the flash off the drunk man's whiskey bottle as he stumbled across the sky. I brace myself for the arrival of his angry wife wielding her rolling pin. Moments later, thunder roars across the prairie. I quake against my branch, four years old all over again.

The livestock scream in panic. And like that, like the saying goes, all the cats explode out of the bag. The animals run in every direction, sometimes falling over each other in their hurry to escape.

As Peety and Lupe gallop past us, Princesa surges so abruptly that Andy drops the split reins. She grabs on to the apple. “Stop! Whoa!” yells Andy. The horse ignores her and starts off after Peety.

Holy moly. Princesa is joining the stampede.

“Whoa, Princesa!” I yell. “Peety!” I yell at his departing backside. But he doesn't hear me through the din of animals.

“Peety!” I scream. Cay and West are too far away to hear or help. “Peety!”

Princesa enters the fray, tail and head held high. Approaching traffic slows her, but she continues to thread her way to Peety, still twenty feet ahead. The reins drag in the dirt, and Andy can't fetch them without falling off. She slides too far one direction, and I draw in a horrified breath.

At the last second, she corrects her saddle position. But now she's sliding too far the other way. Princesa snaps at a passing mule. The mule turns around and kicks at Princesa, who dodges the kick, and suddenly, Andy's in the dirt.

A longhorn charges from Andy's left, its horned head waggling up and down with each loping stride. She doesn't notice it. With one hand on the ground, and one hand over the top of her hat, Andy looks wildly about her at the animals flying by.

“Peety!” I scream again, using every bit of air in my lungs.

At last, Peety turns his head. He sees the riderless Princesa tailing him, then finally spots Andy trying to get to her feet. Quickly, he pirouettes Lupe on one hoof, and they sprint toward Andy. Frozen in place, she stares, open-jawed, at the longhorn barreling toward her.

The vaquero reaches out and scoops up Andy by her belt, somehow managing to hold on to her with one arm until the great Andalusian has cleared most of the animals.

I let out a shaky breath of relief. Andy can't ride that unpredictable horse anymore. Maybe Peety will let her ride Lupe instead. I watch them move away from me until the throngs of animals swallow them up.

Cay and West pick up their pace, forcing the animals to stay on the merry-go-round.

Again, I start inching backward, tired of this tree and wanting to get down before I fall.

Another flash of lightning blinds me. My legs start shaking, then my whole body. But it's not me, it's my tree. Something crashes to the ground: a burning branch. I look up and behold hell where heaven should be. Dear God, my tree is on fire.

ANOTHER FIERY BRANCH DROPS RIGHT PAST MY
head. I open my mouth, but I've already used up all my screams.

The first branch burns out, but flames from the second begin licking at the trunk. Now my tree burns on both ends. A fresh wave of panic makes my hands slick with sweat. With a shock, I realize that if I don't clear out, I'll be burned alive. Like Father.

My mind cries for my body to drop. Broken legs still beat burning alive. Maybe I would just twist an ankle.
Move!
I free one leg, then the other, and now I hang from the branch like laundry. My fingers grip the rough wood as tightly as I can, but they're slipping. Splinters pierce my flesh, and holding on is torture.

The boys yell something I can't make out over the roar of the fire. Smoke steams the tears off my face as they form. I shorten my breath to keep the smoke out of my lungs, but that makes me thirst for air.

With my body dangling, I've reduced the drop to fifteen feet. Still, I cannot let go. The burning branch spews out a swirling mass of black smoke that obscures the ground. I break into a cold sweat. God, not this way.

Something moves below me. A hat.

“I'll catch you,” West calls up to me.

I try to release my branch, but fear paralyzes me. Stubborn, stubborn body.

“Trust me.”

My arms weaken, and my fingers begin to slip. Another branch falls, singeing my sleeve.

I plummet like an anchor. West snatches me out of the air, hooking me around the chest with his arm and hauling me onto Franny's back.

Soon we are squeezed into the same saddle with me in front. I shudder against his solid warm body, biting my lip to keep from crying. Though I dearly want to collapse back into him, I remember myself. So I dig my arms into my stomach to calm the spasms racking my chest. He
must
have felt my shape when he grabbed me.

“You're okay,” he says.

He wheels Franny around to face a longhorn that charges toward us. “Got to tie up a few strands.” Franny engages the steer in a kind of mincing dance, matching it step for step until it tires of the footwork and rejoins its brethren. “Thatta girl.”

West starts to whistle. In my fog of exhaustion, whistling strikes me as absurd. Still, the simple tune works at my mind like a carding comb through wool.

I look back at the burning tree, which is starting to burn itself out. Thank God the ground underneath is dirt and not grass, otherwise the whole prairie would be aflame by now. As I'm thinking this, the thunder and lightning end and here come their dawdling children, plump droplets falling from the sky. The blessed rain douses the final embers of the tree fire and dampens the livestock's spirits.

West stops behind a cottony ox thrashing at a bush. “This one's bushing up. They get confused, and you have to dig 'em out before they hurt themselves.”

West wings his lariat under the ox's hind foot, then snaps his wrist up. Franny digs in her heels, and West reels in his catch, helping the ox remember it can go backward. In one smooth motion, West dismounts. Then he picks his rope off the ox's leg and slaps it on the rear.

As the sun reappears, the rest of the livestock begin foraging like nothing ever happened. Whoever they belong to hasn't come to claim them yet.

Peety, Andy, and Cay trot up to us. All the mirth has left Cay's eyes. A shaking Andy lets out her breath and raises her hand to the sky, like she's giving thanks.

Peety claps my shoulder and says in a gentle voice, “Hey, Chinito, you never be boring with us,
sí
?”

I nod, trying to switch my mask of terror for one of calm.

“God must think you're a good one, he don't let the lightning touch you. Is miracle.” He reaches over to rub my face with his gloved hands. The waxy leather smooths the last of my tears away. “I will give Him extra thank-yous tonight, for you and Andito.”

West winds his rope, pulling the loops taut with more force than necessary. He glances at Cay. “You're a fool, and one day you're going to get us all killed.”

“Don't worry, I already got an earful from that one,” says Cay, flicking his gaze to Andy. He hits me on the other shoulder and pushes my hat down on my head. “You okay?”

“Shouldn't have treed him,” West says, taking Franny's reins. He says
him
so casually, I convince myself he did not figure me out after all.

“Oh come on, how was I supposed to know?” protests Cay.

“Half the stampedes we see are caused by thunder.” West holds Franny's reins while I slide off, trying not to fall in the mud.

“It's okay,” I say. My voice is scratched and raspy from all the screaming.

Cay glares at the underside of his hat brim, then glances down at me. “Sorry, kid, I owe you one. You can kick me in the nuts if you want, or I can give you all my money.”

“I'd go with the nuts,” says West. “He only has four dollars.”

I hook an arm around Franny's neck and will my legs to stop trembling. “Thank—”

“Why don't ya walk her off?” West interrupts me. He kisses his horse on the nose, then hands me the reins.

“Well, thank
you
anyway,” I tell Franny, patting her neck.

Andy dismounts. “I'll come with you.”

Franny leads us toward the pine forest.

Andy nudges me with her arm. “Lord almighty, I almost bit off my tongue when I saw that tree catch fire. You's tougher than I thought.”

“Just keeping up appearances. And anyway, I wasn't the one on the bronco. You held on real good, like a professional.”

“Yeah, up until I fell off,” she says, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. “I'm just glad Peety heard you screaming. Thanks for that. I got so turned around, I didn't know which way was up or down.”

“You don't have to thank me. Peety did all the work.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we both needed a bit of rescuing today. At least Peety said I don't have to ride her anymore if I don't want to.”

“He said that?”

“Uh-huh, right after I almost chucked up on the back of his shirt.”

When she looks at me, her severe expression softens, and soon we're both laughing. I glance behind me. West is watching us.

The wind scrubs the slate clean once again, leaving behind not a single cloudy smudge in the turquoise sky. The walk unwinds me, and soon I'm taking deep lungfuls of pine-scented air. Like Father often said,
Breathing is underrated.
On our Sunday nature walks, he would stop, close his eyes, and inhale so deeply, his spine would flex backward like a violin bow.

Something pink shoots out from a hydrangea shrub and bumbles toward us. A piglet.

“Aw, where did you come from?” Even in my weariness, I can't help myself in the presence of a baby.

I pick her up and kiss her on the head. “Isn't she sweet?”

“Sure. She'd be even sweeter with a side of applesauce.”

“Andy!” The piglet shivers, so I put her inside one of my shirts. Nothing soothes the soul like a warm piglet against your stomach.

She frowns at me. “You'll live longer if you don't get attached to your food.”

My bundle wriggles, and an ear peeks out between my shirt flaps. Andy's face relaxes. “My little brother, Tommy, had a piggy just like this one, pink with white spots that looked like soap bubbles. Isaac gave Soapy to Tommy as a reward for cleaning out the stables without crying. He was terrified by the horses.” She scratches the piglet's velvety head. “You's hands bad? Let's see 'em.”

I open them. A cut runs across one of my palms and there's debris stuck all over. Andy takes off her bandanna and lightly whacks my palms to get off the larger particles. “Good thing we got a needle. But this one, I'll take care of right now.” She pulls out a larger splinter with her fingernails.

I look toward the sparkling forest to distract myself. Surviving a burning tree didn't make me any braver. From out of the shadows, I am startled to see four men emerge, twenty yards away.

“Andy!” I whisper loudly.

The men stare at the scene before them. The biggest of the lot sports a crop of red hair and is scratching his matching beard. I put him at fifty. He beckons to us, waving both arms above his head, as if he was not visible enough.

Andy passes me a weary look. They already saw us. We can't just ignore them.

“Just keep thumping your tail,” she says as we make our way toward them.

Someone whistles sharply: Peety, calling to West and Cay. The boys ride over to the men and arrive just before we do.

The redhead introduces his companions. “This is Mr. MacMartin and his boys, Ian and Angus—from Scotland.”

The MacMartins share the same stocky build. The sons, in their twenties, wear twin scowls and matching hair styles, blond hair clipped close to the skin. Yellow stains bloom around the armpits of their once-white shirts.

The wrinkles in Mr. MacMartin's forehead crimp. “If it weren't for yer quick actions, we'd be in a right fine mess, nae, boys?” His thick brogue requires time to wade through.

Cay snaps his fingers in my direction. “Translator! You speak Scottish?” I can tell by the twinkle in his eye that he is teasing, but Angus's and Ian's blue eyes frost him from either direction.

“Fluently,” I say.

Angus clenches his fists. A scar running down his cheek blanches when he scowls. “Any eejit can catch a bunch of cows and pigs.” His voice grates my eardrums like a rusty fork raked across bone China.

“And any eejit can lock down the cows and pigs instead of nipping the bottle,” counters Mr. MacMartin. “Hell slap you and your bruv. What these boys did was pure brilliant.”

“All these bogging tumpshies did was snatch some glory they've nae earned. Stupid animals always come home to what feeds them, nae?” huffs Ian, taller of the two with a piglike snout and a rash of red pustules across his cheeks. A tattoo of a ram prepares to leap off his biceps as he flexes his arms. He rocks forward onto his toes, maybe to reach Cay and West's height. I can smell his spirits from where I stand.

“Well, I never heard of no tumpshie,” says Cay, “but a child owes his daddy more respect than that.”

“Child?” Angus snaps. “Compare to me, lad, you're a baby, and what you did was baby work. Try catching cougars or bighorn. Until you can trek real animals, shut your geggies.”

Cay's good nature dissolves. “My what?”

West is giving off his hard look with the twin arches of disapproval and a tight mouth, the one he usually reserves for me. This time, though, his top lip curls for half a second. I notice the rope under his crossed arms.

“As wagon leader, I want you to take your sons back to their wagon for a splash a' cold water,” says the redhead, drawing his bulk up to full height, which I guess to be well over six feet. “There will be penalties for their negligence and rudeness.”

Angus spits in the dirt. Cay and West glower like they wouldn't mind enforcing some penalties of their own. Andy's nose wrinkles in disgust.

Peety's the only one with half a smile left on his face. “Hey, amigos, you need help tucking your sons in, you let us know.”

My piglet decides she's had enough of the bickering and squirms free. She drops to the ground with a squeal.

“Son of a bitch,” says Ian. “That chink tried to steal your pig.”

The slur and the accusation hit me like a double slap on the cheeks. “Did not,” I lash back. “I was keeping her warm.”

Andy elbows me, a warning.

Mr. MacMartin's face colors. “Angus, Ian, mind now! Go on back.”

The piglet goes to sniff at the ground, bringing her too close to Angus. His eyes glint. When he steps back, I know what he plans to do. I throw myself on top of the piglet.

“No!” I cry.

Angus's boot bites me in the ribs. I gasp and curl up like a pill bug. The piglet squeals as she races off.