Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee Page B

rolls over on his side, away from me. “They don’t bother people. Probably crying over his sweetheart.”
    â€œIt’s the bears and the mountain lions we worry over,” says Cay, who’s still sitting up, looking out into the dark.
    â€œWhat we do about those?” asks Andy.
    â€œYou gotta learn a few cowboy tricks,” he replies. “Sharpshooting. Roping. We’d show you, but you ain’t worthy.” He tilts his face toward us. The firelight makes his teeth gleam.
    Andy snorts and elbows me.
    Peety starts to snore, and then the rest of them tumble off.
    Andy turns toward me, and whispers sleepily, “I’m happy they’s gonna bring us to the fort,” she says. “You’s in good hands.”
    â€œMe? You, too, right?”
    â€œYeah, me, too.” Her breath gradually deepens.
    I lie awake longer. What would I do if she did leave? Would I be able to pull off a boy act of one? Probably not if I cried. Then the curtains would fall for sure.
    No sooner do I get Andy out of my mind when Yorkshire’s lecherous winking eye moves in, along with bank robbers and lawmen and Father.
Oh, how you must have suffered.
    My grief shadows me into sleep, but then shakes me awake several times during the night. Father in a bonfire, or a prairie blaze, always holding his hands out for me. I cannot pull him free because I am always too late.

13

    I AM THE LAST TO WAKE, BESIDES THE SUN, WHICH still hides beneath cloud blankets and makes them glow like embers. I cannot move. Every muscle in my body screams with pain, even the ones I didn’t think I’d used, like the ones in my toes. Groaning, I gently ease myself up and peer toward the east. Several wagon circles lie two or three hundred yards farther down the river, small as bracelets. There’s no movement on the trail.
    A few feet away, Andy pulls her needle through the hem of her coat. She doesn’t notice me yet. Her top teeth clamp down on her tongue as she works. Cay and West sit with their backs to me. In front of them, the horses graze on their breakfast as Peety wanders among them, murmuring assurances and rubbing noses.
    West writes in a journal, though by the flicks of his wrist, I think he’s actually sketching. Craning my neck, I make out an incomplete drawing of his horse, the sorrel, Franny. A quarter horse like Princesa, Franny wears a blond coat with no dark spots and a flaxen mane. Assuming they do sell horses at Fort Kearny, they won’t be as fine as these. West’s drawing is remarkably true to life, and full of motion, the muscles and sinew rendered in complicated hatch marks and shading. Only an artist could reproduce an animal so convincingly.
    Peety scratches Franny’s withers, causing her to nicker and blow out her lips. “
Mi reina, eres la fuente de mi ser. Te quiero con toda mi alma.
” My queen, you are the fountain of my being. I love you with all of my soul. He kisses Franny on the nose.
    West looks up from his journal. “I’m a jealous man, Peety.” He closes his journal and slides it into his shirt pocket, then gets to his feet. “Come here, Franny.” He clicks his tongue, but she does not budge.
    Peety’s full lips thin into a grin. “Can I help it if the ladies love me?”
    â€œâ€™Cause ya smell like horse, that’s why,” says West.
    Peety smirks. “Oh no,
mi
amigo, not smell like a horse. Built like a horse.” He taps his pelvis and then notices me. “
Mira,
Chinito’s not dead after all. You need some help, my friend?” He walks toward me, arm outstretched, but I wave him off.
    â€œI’m fine.”
    Despite the vaquero’s initial aloofness, I find him to be the most warmhearted of the three boys, one eye always watching out for Andy or me as if we were part of the remuda.
    I try not to wince as I start to stand. Quickly, Andy replaces her needle in her saddlebag. “We’ve