Chapter Three #2
He took the slate and put it aside. Then he pulled Tucker close with one arm. Tucker went stiff at first. Then he leaned against him.
They slept in turns. Clay woke twice to check the ox. By morning it had risen on its own.
It stood swaying beside the oak, its head low, but when Tucker came out with water, it leaned toward him.
“There now,” Clay said. “That’s something.”
Tucker ran his hand along the animal’s jaw. He looked at Clay, waiting.
Clay considered the ox. It could not pull much yet. Maybe it never would. But if it recovered, it might spare Nell some burden. He had a length of spare rope. He could lead it behind the wagon.
He pointed to the animal, then to Tucker.
“You named him?”
Tucker stared.
Clay drew a question mark in the air. Tucker understood. He thought, then wrote on the slate.
MOSES.
Clay read it and looked at the ox.
“Moses,” he said. “All right. I’ll see if he can part the next river for us.”
The ox flicked one ear.
For the next three days, they moved slowly with Moses behind the wagon, tied with enough slack to graze when they stopped.
Tucker watched him with the grave attention of a doctor.
He made sure the ox drank before he did.
He picked grass from the edges of the road and carried it in both arms. Once, when Clay caught him feeding Moses a piece of dried apple, he opened his mouth to protest.
Then he saw Tucker’s face and allowed it.
***
The road led them through dry country after that. Dust lay deep in the wheel ruts. Sagebrush scratched at the wagon wheels. The hills were bare except for scattered pines, black against the afternoon light.
They saw no one.
Clay began looking for tracks every morning. Wagon wheels. Horse droppings. A cut branch. There were signs of travelers, but old ones. A broken harness buckle half buried in dirt. Ashes scattered from some long-dead fire.
On the sixth day, he found one of their cans empty.
He turned it over in his hands.
Tucker sat on the wagon bench, watching him.
Clay put the can back without a word. He did not want the boy reading his face.
That afternoon, Nell stumbled in a rut. Clay stopped at once and checked her hoof. A stone had lodged near the frog. He pried it free with his knife and rubbed her leg down.
Moses had gained some strength. He no longer dragged his feet. Tucker walked beside him, one hand curled around the rope.
The sun was lowering when Tucker suddenly stopped.
Clay had gone ten paces before he noticed. He turned.
Tucker stood in the road with his head tilted.
“What is it?”
The boy pointed ahead.
Clay listened.
At first he heard only the wind through dry grass and Nell’s harness leather creaking. Then, faint and far off, came the groan of wagon wheels.
He looked at Tucker.
The boy could not have heard it. Perhaps he had felt the tremor through the soles of his boots.
Clay climbed onto the wagon seat and shaded his eyes.
There. A dust plume beyond the rise.
“People,” he said.
Tucker saw the word on his mouth. His whole face came alive.
They met the wagon near a shallow stream lined with willow.
It was a stout farm wagon, better kept than Clay’s, painted blue once but worn gray by weather.
A pair of mules pulled it. A man drove, broad-shouldered and dark-haired beneath a battered hat.
Beside him sat a woman in a brown bonnet, her gloved hands folded over a basket.
The man drew the mules to a stop when he saw Clay’s rifle.
Clay raised his empty hand.
“Evening.”
“Evening,” the man answered. His eyes went to Tucker, then to Moses.
The woman smiled at that. She had a kind, tired face, and a few curls had worked loose around her temples.
“I’m Noah Granger,” the man said. “This is my wife, Charlotte.”
“Clay McCall. This is Tucker.”
Tucker lifted a hand.
Charlotte looked at him for a moment. “Hello, Tucker.”
The boy did not answer.
Clay said, “He can’t hear right now. Lightning struck close by.”
Her eyes drooped. “Oh, that poor child.”
Tucker watched her mouth but did not understand. He looked at Clay.
“She says, hello,” Clay told him, then wrote it on the slate.
Charlotte saw the slate. She climbed down from the wagon without waiting for Noah to offer a hand. From her basket she took out two biscuits wrapped in cloth.
“May I?” she asked Clay.
He nodded.
She held one out to Tucker. The boy looked at Clay first. Clay gave him a small nod.
Tucker accepted the biscuit with both hands.
Noah had climbed down too. He looked over Moses with the eye of a man who had worked stock.
“Bad shape,” he said.
“Was tied to an oak six days back. No owner.”
Noah’s put a hand near the ox’s flank without touching. “He’ll mend if he’s got feed. Got a good set of legs under him.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You headed west?”
“California.”
Noah looked at the wagon, the boy, and the nearly empty feed sack tied at its side. His gaze came back to Clay.
“So are we. Us and the rest of the world.”
Charlotte was kneeling by Tucker now. She had taken a small jar from her basket and opened it. The scent of peppermint drifted through the air.
She pointed at Tucker’s ear, then at the jar. Tucker looked at Clay.
“Mrs. Granger’s got something for you,” Clay explained with his hands as best he could.