Chapter Three
Clay woke before daylight. Tucker was making a small sound in his sleep—a muted scream.
The boy lay curled beneath one of the blankets, his hands pressed over his ears. The storm had moved east in the night, leaving the ground slick, black, and full of torn leaves. Water dripped from the wagon cover at a steady pace. Beyond it, Nell shifted in the wet grass.
“Tucker.”
The boy did not stir.
Clay reached across the narrow space and touched his shoulder. Tucker woke hard, jerking away. His eyes went wide. He looked toward Clay’s mouth, then around the wagon.
Clay spoke slowly and plainly.
“You all right?”
Tucker watched him but gave no sign he understood.
Clay had feared it would be so. The lightning had struck the old cottonwood close enough to throw bark and splinters across the clearing.
Tucker had been at the back of the wagon then.
The blast had knocked him flat. He had not bled, and his head had no more than a scrape along the temple, but ever since, he had heard nothing.
Clay took the little slate from beneath the seat and found the nub of chalk tied to its frame. He wrote carefully.
YOUR EARS HURT?
Tucker read it. His face pinched. He nodded.
Clay wrote again.
I’LL MAKE SOMETHING. YOU’LL BE ALL RIGHT.
Tucker studied that a moment. Then he looked up. His lower lip trembled, though he set his jaw against it.
Clay gave him the calmest look he could manage. He had no certainty to give the boy. He had seen a man lose hearing after a cannon blast once—a soldier who had come home. But Tucker had no fever. His eyes followed cleanly. He could walk.
God had not brought him this far to leave him deaf under a broken tree.
Clay climbed from the wagon and pulled his coat close against the morning chill. The clearing smelled of burnt wood. Half the cottonwood lay split open at its trunk—pale inner wood showing through the black bark-like bone.
Nell turned her head as he came near. Her flanks were muddy, but she had weathered the night better than either of them. Clay checked the knot at her picket line, then ran a hand down each foreleg. No swelling. No cuts.
“Lucky girl,” he said.
Nell snorted into his shoulder.
At the edge of the clearing, Clay filled the pot with rainwater and set it over the small fire he coaxed from dry shavings kept in his tin. He struck a match beneath his hat brim and watched the flame catch.
From his bundle, he brought out dried mullein leaves, a little wild garlic, and a twist of willow bark.
He had learned which plants eased pain from old Miss Louisa who lived by the orphanage.
She had once been a midwife before her hands stiffened.
She had taught Clay because he listened, and because he was forever asking after somebody’s scraped knee or split lip.
He crushed the leaves between two stones and added them to the warming water.
Behind him, the wagon creaked.
Tucker stood at its open rear, wrapped in a blanket that reached his ankles. His hair stuck up on one side. He looked miserable but determined.
Clay held up one finger. Wait.
The tea did not take long. He poured some into a cup and let it cool, then went to Tucker. He pointed to his own ear, then to the cup.
Tucker looked doubtful.
“It tastes bad,” Clay told him.
The boy could not hear, but he caught the shape of the words. A faint, unwilling smile moved over his face.
Clay handed him the cup.
Tucker drank. His whole face twisted. He swallowed another mouthful because Clay held out his hand for it.
“That’s enough,” Clay said, taking it back.
Tucker pointed at the pot, then made a questioning motion.
“Later.”
Clay wrote it down for him and Tucker nodded.
They broke camp when the sun came through the clouds, pale and weak. Clay packed the blankets, lashed the cook pot beneath the wagon, and checked their stores twice.
Tucker helped without being told. He carried the small things, though Clay had to stop him from lifting the feed sack.
“You’ll strain yourself,” Clay said.
Tucker frowned.
Clay pointed to the sack, then pointed at Tucker’s thin arms. Tucker looked offended. He put both fists against his sides and flexed.
Clay grinned. “Strong as an ant.”
They took the road north and west, where it narrowed between hills.
The storm had left branches in the track and deep puddles beneath them.
Clay walked beside Nell for much of the morning, keeping one hand near the bridle.
Tucker sat up front on the wagon bench with the reins across his lap, solemn as a man driving freight.
Clay had shown him where to pull if Nell wandered and how not to jerk her mouth. Tucker had listened closely before the storm. Now he watched Clay whenever he needed instruction.
At midday they stopped beside a creek. Clay set Tucker to gathering wood. The boy came back with an armful of wet sticks and looked put out when Clay shook his head.
“Dry wood,” Clay said, then saw the words were wasted.
He knelt and drew in the mud with a twig. A tree. A branch. Rain falling. Then he broke a dead limb from the underside of a pine and split it with his knife. The wood inside was pale and dry.
Tucker watched. Then he nodded hard.
They ate cold beans from the pot. Tucker kept looking toward the creek, perhaps listening for a sound that was not there. He pressed one finger into his ear and pulled it away.
Clay took out the slate.
ANY BETTER?
Tucker read it and shook his head.
IT MAY TAKE TIME, Clay wrote.
The boy’s eyes lifted.
I WON’T LEAVE YOU.
Tucker stared at those words longer than he needed to. Then he wiped the slate with his sleeve and wrote in uneven letters.
I NO YOU WONT.
Clay looked away toward the road. The rain had left a bright strip of sky between the hills. He swallowed once.
They found the ox late that day.
Nell's ears went forward before Clay saw it. He came around her shoulder and saw a gray shape under an oak beside the road.
The animal was tied to the tree with a length of rope knotted close beneath its horns. Its head hung low. Its ribs showed under the hide. Flies gathered at its eyes and along the wet corners of its mouth.
There was no wagon in sight. Tucker climbed down before Clay could stop him. The boy walked toward the ox with both hands raised, slowly and carefully.
“Easy,” Clay called. Tucker did not turn.
The ox tried to lift its head. It managed only halfway. One dark eye watched Tucker come.
Clay untied the canteen from his belt and followed. The rope had rubbed the ox’s neck raw. Its hooves had churned the earth into a hard circle around the oak.
“Somebody left you,” he said.
Tucker crouched beside the animal. He looked back toward Clay and pointed at the canteen.
Clay passed it over.
“Not too fast,” he told him, then remembered. He made a pouring motion with his hand. Little at a time.
Tucker nodded. He held the canteen cap beneath the ox’s mouth. At first the animal did not move. Then its tongue came out, rough and gray, and lapped the water.
Tucker’s face changed. He set the cap down, filled it again, waited, filled it again.
Clay went to the wagon and brought a small measure of cornmeal and a handful of oats from Nell’s feed. He hated giving up either. The road ahead was long. But the ox had been tied there to die, and he could not leave it.
They made a mash in the cook pot with creek water. Tucker held it while the ox ate in slow, stubborn mouthfuls.
The animal was old but broad through the shoulders. A work ox. There was a faded yoke mark across its neck.
“What do you reckon?” Clay asked, though Tucker could not answer him.
Tucker looked up, his hands resting on the pot. His meaning was plain enough.
We take him.
Clay blew out a breath.
“We can’t feed two animals.”
Tucker’s gaze dropped to the ox.
Clay looked down the empty road. He had to be sure that it was no one else’s. No one came. No one called. The tree stood over them with the rope still hanging from its lowest limb.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll see if he can travel.”
He cut the rope loose. The ox did not rise.
They stayed there for the night.
Clay made camp beneath a rock shelf a short distance from the road.
He chose it because the ground was dry beneath the overhang and because he could see the track both ways.
Tucker gathered pine needles for bedding, this time choosing the dry ones from beneath the trees.
Clay gave him a nod when he brought them.
They ate cornmeal mush with a little salt pork cut finely through it. Clay gave Tucker the larger portion. Tucker noticed and pushed the bowl back toward him.
Clay shook his head. “You’re growing.”
Tucker scowled.
Clay grinned. “You are! You’ll be a giant in a few days.”
Tucker took the bowl, but he ate slowly. The firelight moved across his face. He was too quiet without his hearing. Usually he asked questions until Clay wanted to stuff his own hat in his ears.
—What would they see in California?
—Were there bears bigger than horses?
—Did men really find gold in streams?
—Was it true the ocean had no end?
Now he sat with his back against a blanket roll, staring at the fire as though it might tell him what had been taken from him.
Clay reached for the slate.
Tucker saw him and held out his hand.
Clay gave it over.
The boy wrote with his tongue caught between his teeth.
WILL I HEAR AGAIN?
Clay read it and tried to look positive.
The fire popped. Nell tore at the grass beyond the light. The ox lay near the oak, breathing deep and slow.
Clay wrote beneath Tucker’s question.
I THINK SO.
Tucker waited.
Clay added: MISS LOUISA SAID THE BODY HEALS IN ITS OWN TIME. YOU REST. DRINK THE TEA. WE’LL WAIT.
Tucker read it. His eyes were wet, though he rubbed them with the heel of his hand before a tear could fall.
Then he wrote: NO WAIT. GOT TO GET TO CALIFORNIA.
Clay looked at him.
“Why’s that?”
Tucker could not hear. Clay scratched the words onto the slate.
The boy’s answer came after a while.
I DON’T WANT TO SLOW YOU DOWN.
Clay did not laugh this time.