Like a River Glorious
Page 49

I’m a third of the way to the stable, then halfway, then—
“Lee!” comes a familiar whisper, and I can’t control my fool legs, which stretch out and cover the rest of the distance in a flat-out run.
Sorry nickers when I reach her stall, but I don’t have a chance to answer her greeting before a hand darts out, snags my elbow, and drags me behind the giant lean-to.
Arms wrap around my shoulders, and I’m pulled tight into a warm chest. “Lee,” Jefferson whispers into my ear. I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze right back. My fistful of biscuits presses crumbs into his shirt.
Someone clears his throat, and I spring away from Jefferson, startled to find that we are not alone.
It’s Tom, grinning fit to burst. Beside him is someone else—Muskrat, the one who spoke to me outside the mine. Still another shadow materializes out of the darkness, and I gasp. It’s Mary.
I have no idea what’s going on, but that doesn’t stop me from launching at Tom and giving him the hug of his life. He chuckles, patting my back. “Good to see you, too, Lee,” he whispers.
“Are you okay?” I say. “They been beating on you like they have Jeff? If Wilhelm is still forcing laudanum into you, I’ll—”
“I’m fine, Lee. I promise. Tired and sore and hungry, but I’m fine.”
He doesn’t sound fine. Even whispering, his voice is weak, his words a little slurred.
I turn to Jefferson. “All right, tell me. What’s going on? Why are we all here?”
Mary is the one who says, “Rebellion, Miss Westfall. Escape. For all of us.”
I stare at Mary, my mind racing. “Your English is perfect,” I accuse.
“My Spanish is better,” she retorts.
“Then why . . .”
“Men are stupid,” she says with an offhand shrug. “I get more gold when I pretend I can’t speak English well. And more information.”
More gold for what? Cooking and cleaning for everyone?
“Mary has been our best spy,” Muskrat says. “Until you.”
Realization hits like a blow to the chest. Mary is a woman of ill repute. The camp’s prostitute.
“I should have made introductions,” Jefferson says. “Lee, this is Muskrat of the Maidu tribe. Muskrat, this is my oldest friend, Leah.”
“We’ve met,” I say. “Sort of.”
Now that a gunshot isn’t ringing in my head and my belly isn’t rolling from nausea, I’m able to notice how painfully thin Muskrat seems. He wears a beaded necklace, a leather breechcloth, and muddy moccasins. Dark dots on his chest are too regular and perfect to be freckles; they must be tattoos, like the dots I saw the night of the fire on one man’s chest. In fact, he reminds me of that man a great deal. He’s the same height, with the same sharp eyes and maybe even the same exact necklace. But that other man was strong and healthy.
“It’s nice to meet you officially, sir,” I say, then I add, “About your friend, I’m . . . sorry.”
Muskrat remains expressionless. Finally he says, “Good.”
I flinch.
“What did you bring, Lee?” Jefferson asks quickly, indicating my bucket.
“Slop bucket. In case I need an excuse to be out. But also . . .” I hold out my hand to display the mashed biscuits. “Some food.”
“Oh, sweet Lord!” Tom exclaims. He grabs one and shoves it into his mouth like a man starved.
Jefferson gobbles another just as greedily. Muskrat carefully pinches a biscuit from my fingers like a fine gentleman. Mary declines. “I’ll make extra tomorrow, too,” she says with a little grin.
“I don’t know how much time I have,” I say.
“To business, then,” Tom says. “Muskrat is planning an escape for his people. He needs our help.”
“Uncle Hiram isn’t paying any of you, is he?” I say to Muskrat. “He’s keeping you here against your will, like he is me.”
“No,” Muskrat says. “Not like you. You, he keeps in a fancy house and a fancy dress with fancy food and someone to cook and clean. Us, he keeps penned up like hogs, rolling in mud with only rotting leftovers to eat.”
I’m glad the dark hides my burning cheeks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Muskrat holds up his hand, and the look he gives me could wither winter wheat.
“The man Dilley killed was one of their elders,” Jefferson says.
“Yes. Just because I gave . . .” My voice breaks. “Gave him some sugar water.”
Tom says, “Dilley’s been working himself up to kill Indians ever since we set out from Missouri. He was just looking for an excuse.”
“He will kill more,” Muskrat says. “If we do not first starve.”
“They’re getting sick,” Jefferson adds. “The Missouri men are feeding the Maidu poisoned potatoes, the ones they use to absorb mercury from the gold amalgam. The Maidu know they’re poison, but when a body is hungry enough, it stops caring about that sort of inconvenience.”
My face is burning even more angrily now. All this time, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get away with Tom and Jefferson. Never once did I consider that someone else might need help, too. Even less did it occur to me that someone else might help us.
“I have a friend,” Muskrat says. “A ranchero who will shelter us if we can just get to him. But he won’t move openly against Westfall. We have to rescue ourselves.”
“Mary overheard something yesterday,” Tom says. “Go on, Mary. Tell Lee.”
“Abel Topper was angry with Frank for killing Ezra,” she says. “Ezra was very respected. He couldn’t work much, but everyone else worked harder when he was around. Frank said he would just find another. That he could kill as many diggers as he liked because they had a raid planned soon to fetch more from a nearby Nisenan village. And then . . .” Her eyes widen and she leans forward. “Then he said that a fellow in Sacramento is now paying a bounty for Indian heads and that some of them, the old and weak, would be worth more dead than alive.”
I’m as woozy as if I’d just gulped a gallon of laudanum.
“Lee?” says Jefferson.
“It’s true,” I say. “Hiram told me about the bounty just today.”