“I told you,” Trick said, pulling Gus’s horse up and nodding toward a woman who was hooking a tired old mule to a plow, in clothes that had seen better days.“This ain’t the finest area.Lotta folks struggling.”
“No doubt,” I said.
“We should ask her if she knows Cal, though.Even though I sort of hope she don’t.”
I nodded toward Trick.
“You should go.E’en though you’re dressed mannish, I reckon you’re less intimidatin’ than we are.”
“Only because she don’t know you,” Oscar said with a grin.
We watched as Trick rode up to the woman, and they had a conversation.Wasn’t long before she rode back to us.
“Nah, she says most folk around here keep to themselves.She don’t know her neighbors and don’t want to.She got enough problems of her own, she says.”
“I reckon that’s true,” I said, gazing at the ratty looking home and the small barn.More and more, I appreciated the fine house Oscar and I had built with the help of our friends in Port Essington and understood how lucky we were.Not everyone was so fortunate.
We rode on and approached a few more people, with no luck and increasing feelings of melancholy at the sad state of most of the dwellings.
“This ain’t the kind of place where I’d want to have a home,” Oscar muttered, as we got back to the dirt road after speaking with a very thin man holding a gun, who’d spit on Trick and told us to leave him be, that they didn’t need strange folks snooping around.I’d had my hand on my rifle in case things had gotten ugly, and I had to admit, I was ready to call it a day and head back to The Angel.
But as we rode past a large stand of conifers that opened up to a large field containing a barn with what looked like a weathered homestead tucked in behind, a small child darted out from behind the trees and headed toward us, a bold grin on the tyke’s dirty face and laughter bubbling from his lips.
We pulled the horses up and watched the wee thing run.’Twas wearing a pair of ripped dungarees that were held up with one strap, and its small, filthy feet were bare.The child’s torso looked as begrimed as his face.
“Samuel!You get back here right now!”
The tone and timbre of that voice sent a chill up my spine, and I watched as a woman with dark hair almost to her shoulders came running, her skirts in her hand and her stride quick as she chased down the young runaway.
“It’s Cal,” Oscar said, before any of us could.
Cal glanced o’er and hesitated for a split second before surging forward and grabbing the child from the ground and swinging him up into her arms.
“Sam, I told you not to go near the road,” she said with some strictness, but the way she held the boy and the tenderness with which she patted his cheek and chuffed his chin, spoke of a care I wasn’t surprised to see from the woman we had known.
The child wiggled and pointed.
“Horsey!”
Cal glanced o’er again and kept her gaze on us, nodding to the child and holding him still.
“Yes, that’s right.Nice horseys.But you need to stay away from strangers, Sam.It ain’t safe.”Cal said, giving us a glare that surprised me with its ferocity, before she turned and headed back toward the trees.
“Caliope!”Trick said, in a voice that held a contempt and anger that I felt in my soul.“Don’t you dare hide from us.Weseenyou.”
And Cal shriveled, hunched herself o’er the child, and stood stock still as if hoping to disappear.
Oscar and I exchanged a glance as Trick dismounted and strode up to Cal and the child, who peeked from behind Cal’s arm with wide eyes and a look of fear on its plump face.
“Cal, I’m sorry,” Trick said carefully.“I didn’t mean to yell, only I want to talk to you.”
Cal kept looking at the ground.Then she shuddered and turned as she straightened, presenting to us a carefully constructed expression of surprise with an underpinning of annoyance and fear.
“I’m sorry.You startled me,” she said, reassuring the child, who struggled to be put down.Cal clicked her tongue.“You hold my hand, Samuel, and I will put you down.You gotta stay with me.”
Samuel grinned, and Cal set him down on the grass, holding tight to his small hand and gazing at Trick and Oscar and me.
“He likes to run.I’m tryin’ to teach him to stay where it’s safe.”
