“Where am I going?” Uncle Victor said, his voice a growl. “Well, as luck would have it, I’m about to come into a bit of money, and I’m looking for my poor orphaned niece to share it with.”
Liar! thought Emily. It’s not your money, and if it were, you wouldn’t share it.
“That’s mighty nice of you,” the other man said. “Some folks wouldn’t lift a finger to help a poor orphaned niece.”
“Heard she might be on her way to Redbud to visit an aunt, so thought I’d come looking for her here first,” Uncle Victor said. “Haven’t seen her, have you? Small little thing, long brown hair, green eyes? Name of Emily Wiggins.”
“Can’t say that I have,” said the man next to him. “Just got here myself, but the place is crawling with kids.”
Emily almost tripped over her own feet as she hurried, breathless, out to the porch again. Men were talking, women were rocking their babies, and children chased each other around the yard.
“Jackson,” Emily cried, grabbing his arm. “He’s here!”
“Who?” asked Jackson.
“The person who wants to be my friend for the wrong reason,” Emily panted. And she told him about her uncle Victor, who had never said a kind word. “I heard him tell someone that he’s come into a bit of money, and I know he means mine! He said he’s looking for his niece, Emily Wiggins.”
“Did he see you?” Jackson asked.
Emily shook her head. “He said that his orphaned niece was on her way to Redbud, and asked if anyone had seen me. What am I going to do?”
“Would he recognize you if he saw you?” Jackson asked.
“I don’t know,” Emily told him. She’d been six years old when she’d last seen her uncle, the year she’d received her turtle. In those last two years she had lost her baby teeth, and she had grown a bit slimmer and taller—but she certainly recognized him.
“Then here’s what we’ll do,” said Jackson. “I heard that the next stagecoach gets in tomorrow at ten. You’ll sleep in the barn tonight in case your uncle sticks around, and as soon as the coach arrives, we’re on it. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Emily.
Just at that moment the screen door opened and down the steps came the man with the tiger tattoo. He didn’t look left and he didn’t look right. He came directly over to Jackson and Emily, and Emily’s knees shook so hard she could feel them knock together.
“What are you kids doing here?” Uncle Victor growled.
“Just helping out, earn a nickel now and then,” Jackson answered.
“What are your names?” asked the man with the tiger tattoo.
“I’m Jackson, and this here is my brother Eli. But he don’t talk so good,” Jackson said. “Got kicked in the head by a mule when he was three.”
Emily did not know how Jackson could think up a story so fast, but she was glad he was doing the talking. She tried to keep her eyes on the ground, but every so often they traveled up the black boots to the brown pant legs, up the brown pant legs to the shirt, and up the shirt to the face, where the eyebrows came together over the bridge of the nose. And each time she looked up, her uncle’s eyes were fastened on her.
“Didn’t happen to see a girl named Emily around here, did you?” Uncle Victor asked. “Innkeeper thinks there was a girl here going to Redbud, but she gave up her seat to somebody else.”
“Yes, sir, I did,” said Jackson. “Her and a boy both was going on the stagecoach, and they gave up their seats. But at the last minute they squeezed the girl in after all.”
Uncle Victor looked angry. “If that was her, she’s probably halfway there by now,” he said, scowling.
“I’d bet your boots for mine, if I had any,” said Jackson. “But I don’t think it was Redbud where she was going. Someplace else. Can’t remember.”
“Well, try!” Uncle Victor said, glaring at him.
Jackson cupped his chin in his hand. “Hmmm,” he said. “Fort somethin’, maybe? Or was it a city?” He brightened a little. “A river town, that was it!” And then, “Naw. Don’t think so.”
“Oh, you’re no help!” Uncle Victor growled, and moved on to ask someone else.
Emily’s legs almost gave way beneath her. “He won’t stop looking for me until I’m found!” she whispered.
Just at that moment a carriage pulled up to the door of the inn. On the door was painted:
CATCHUM CHILD-CATCHING
SERVICES
CALLAWAY DIVISION
“The barn!” Jackson whispered, and he and Emily ran as fast as they could to the hay-smelling darkness of the old barn.
“They’re on your trail now, Emily,” Jackson said. “Everybody in the country will want to find a girl worth ten million dollars. Half of ’em will want to help you get it, and the other half will want to take it away.”
“How do you know that?” Emily asked. “How could people be so cruel?”
“Not cruel as much as greedy,” Jackson said. “I’ve been around. I can smell a rat a block away. I can smell a skunk a mile away. I can tell when the Catchum folks’ll be here before you even hear the carriage. The lawyers will pay them plenty to have you found so they can get things settled, get their own money, and close the case.”
Emily was quiet for a long time. Finally she asked in a very small voice, “Then how do I know you’re not out to trick me, Jackson?”
“If I was out to get your money, I’d tell that uncle of yours where he could find you, providing he’d split the money with me when he got it,” Jackson said.
Emily was growing wiser faster than she ever imagined, because she heard herself say, “But how do I know that’s not just what you’re planning to do?”
“You don’t, I guess,” said Jackson. “But I know what it’s like to be alone in the world. I know what it’s like to have folks after you too.” And then he asked, “You hungry?”
“A little,” said Emily.
“I’m going up to the inn for my supper, and I’ll bring some to you,” Jackson said. “If I don’t come back right away, it’ll mean somebody’s got their eye on me, and I’ll have to find another way to sneak to the barn.”
“The Child Catchers wouldn’t take you, would they, Jackson?” Emily asked.
“Naw. I’m doing what they want—heading west. I’ll be out of their hair and into someone else’s, and they won’t have to bother about me anymore,” he said.
“Please be careful anyway,” Emily told him.
“You’re the only friend I have besides Rufus.”
But how in the
ding-dong
dickens could she
really trust him?
Jackson peeked through the door and quietly slipped outside.
Fifteen minutes went by. An hour, perhaps. Emily had no way to tell time. All at once she heard the thud of boots in the back of the barn. She quickly burrowed down in the hay, using handfuls to cover herself and her carpetbag.
What if Jackson had told her uncle where she was hiding? What if he’d brought the Child Catchers too, and Emily was trapped in the barn? They would send her off to live with Uncle Victor, she was sure of it, for he would be on his best behavior before a judge. No one would believe her stories of his unkindness, no one but Mrs. Ready, Mrs. Aim, and Mrs. Fire.
But the noise was only the stable boy bringing in the cow for the night, and after he left, Jackson slipped through the big open doorway of the barn and pulled a muffin from one pocket, a pork chop from another.
“Sorry I’m so late,” he said, “but your uncle was talking to the Child Catcher folks, and I wanted to hear what they were saying.”
Emily sat up, took the food he offered, and hungrily began to eat. “What were they saying?” she asked.
“Your uncle’s angry because the Child Catchers haven’t found you, and the Catchum folks said they’d keep trying. They finally got back in their carriage and rode off. I think your uncle’s going to move along too.”
“Oh, I hope so!” said Emily.
The full moon shone through the doorway of the barn, leaving a patch of golden light just inside the entrance. Jackson soon fell asleep with his head on his arm. Emily finished eating and burrowed deep down in the hay next to the wall. She woke once when someone came into the barn to milk the cow and take it out to pasture. But when she woke again, the sun was up, and Jackson was shaking her by the shoulder.
“Get yourself ready, Emily,” he said. “Get all the hay out of your hair, and remember: from now on, you’re my brother, but don’t say anything unless you have to. Stay here in the barn, and as soon as you hear the bugle, come running. We’ll be first in line for the coach.”
He gave her the biscuit and apple he had brought for her, and then he left. Emily let Rufus crawl around while she ate her breakfast, for who knew when her little turtle would have the next chance to leave his box?
Halfway through the morning, there it was: the stagecoach driver’s bugle. Emily jumped to her feet and grabbed the carpetbag with Rufus in it, and with the legs of Jackson’s britches smacking against each other as she ran, she managed to get to the front of the line beside her friend.
The passengers who had traveled to Callaway got off, and Emily and Jackson got on. The driver checked their tickets and pointed to the backseat. An old man climbed on next and sat beside them.
A plump woman and her grown sister pulled each other up into the coach and, seeing Emily and Jackson in back, said they hoped the children would behave themselves and sit quietly without a lot of squirming. Then they plopped themselves down in the middle seat.
Finally three rumpled men took the front seat, facing backward toward the women, changing places with each other three times to decide who would get to sit by a window.
How could she possibly sit still all the way to Redbud? Emily wondered. Her legs would go to sleep! Her feet would be numb! But she waited patiently as the other passengers shuffled their belongings. A bag bumped Emily on the head. A box fell off a shelf and banged her knees. The stagecoach creaked. It dipped and swayed as the passengers arranged themselves, and the horses, eager to be off, pawed at the ground and snorted impatiently.
They want to get going as much as I do, thought Emily. Go! Just go!
The driver in the blue jacket with the gold buttons climbed up to the seat atop the coach, and Emily waited for the bugle. People gathered on the porch of Callaway’s Inn to see them go, and a last-minute stack of mail was delivered to the back of the stagecoach to take to the people out west.
The doors closed. The horses snorted again. But just before the stagecoach started to move, a man with silver-black hair and weasel eyes and a tiger tattoo on his forearm came running from the inn and leaped up onto the seat beside the driver. The bugle blew, and off they went.
Emily felt as though she could not breathe.
As the other passengers cried, “We’re off!” and waved goodbye, she turned and stared at Jackson. Was this a trick? Had he known all along that Uncle Victor was going with them? But Jackson looked worried too.
“It’s okay, Eli,” he whispered. “If he knew it was you, he would have grabbed you back at the inn.”
“Gracious sakes!” said one plump sister, her orange curls bobbing as she spoke. “Wonder who’s the handsome man in the black boots, riding up there beside the driver?”
The first of the rumpled-looking men facing her answered, “It’s my guess he bribed the driver, because nobody rides up there without an invitation.”
“Back at Callaway’s, he said he was looking for a runaway niece,” said the second man. “He thinks she might have got off at Fort Jawbone. Going to look for her there, I guess.”
“But, my! Doesn’t he have a fine mustache!” said the second grown sister, who had bright painted lips. “We’re on our way to Redbud. How far are you three men going?”
“We’re heading west to dig for gold,” bragged the third man. “Oscar, Angus, and Jock, that’s us, and I’m Jock. Who might you ladies be?” He lifted his shirt and scratched his belly.
The sister with the orange hair made a face and held a handkerchief to her nose. But the sister with the bright red lips answered, “I’m Petunia and she’s Marigold.” And then, to be polite, she turned around and asked the old man behind her his name.
“Eh?” said the old man next to Emily, cupping one hand to his ear.
“What’s your name?” asked Petunia, more loudly.
“Muffit,” he shouted back as though no one else could hear either. “Mortimer Muffit.” And he nodded off.
No one seemed the least bit interested in learning the children’s names, because as Luella Nash used to say, children were best seen and not heard.
As Marigold and Petunia turned their attention to the window, the three rumpled men began talking among themselves.
“How long you figure before we get to Deadman’s Belch?” Jock asked the others. “That’ll be the halfway point.”
“Not Belch, stupid,” said Oscar. “Gulch! Deadman’s Gulch.”
“It’s a long way yet,” said Angus. “Got to go through Snakeville and Bull’s Eye, then down Lantern Hill to the ferry.”
Emily hardly knew what she was afraid of most. She was glad to be leaving Callaway so the Catchum Child Catchers couldn’t get her. But even the thought of Deadman’s Gulch or a place called Snakeville wasn’t as frightening as the thought of living with Uncle Victor for the rest of her life. She felt sure that he would send her off to a horrid boarding school while he went to work spending her money. She had heard the servants talk about such things back in Miss Nash’s big white house, for they had worked in other places.
To comfort herself, Emily took Rufus out of his box and let him crawl around in her lap. The good thing about sitting in the last row was that the people in front of her couldn’t see her turtle. The old man beside them opened one eye and watched for a minute, then nodded off again.
Jackson was swinging his legs and accidentally kicked the back of the seat in front of him. Marigold cast a scolding look over her shoulder and said to her sister, “For charity’s sake, I hope that fine man in the black boots finds his niece, but if he does, he’d better not try to squeeze her in here. Two squirming children are enough.”
Emily cupped her hands over Rufus to hide him.
“And what are your names, boys?” Marigold asked.
“I’m Jackson and he’s Eli,” Jackson answered.
“Well, just don’t do a lot of squirming back there,” the woman said. “Your brother seems a bit shy, if not backward, but let’s hope he doesn’t whine.” She turned forward once again.
What Emily had hoped was that once she left Callaway’s Inn and her uncle behind, she could be Emily again. That in one of the way stations, she could change out of Jackson’s scratchy britches and put on her dress and petticoat. That she could take off Jackson’s cap and cover her short scruffy hair with the little blue bonnet.
Now she knew she would have to go on being Eli for a long time. How could she keep pretending that she had been kicked in the head by a mule?
As the stagecoach bounced along, Emily began to realize that the backseat was probably the most uncomfortable of the three benches, for she felt every bump in the road. When the coach turned a corner, however, everyone was tossed this way and that.
Once, when the horses made a particularly sharp turn, the three rumpled men fell over on each other.
“Your boot’s on my foot!” complained Jock.
“Your foot’s on my leg!” said Angus.
“And your leg’s in my lap!” said Oscar, pushing them back into place.
After many hours and many new teams of horses, the stagecoach stopped long enough for the passengers to go inside a way station for a quick supper of beans and biscuits.
“C’mon, Eli, get some supper,” Jackson said loudly as he climbed out of the stagecoach, wanting Uncle Victor to hear.
Silently, Emily followed behind Jackson, her eyes hidden beneath the flat cap, but once ins
ide, when she finally looked up, she found she was sitting directly across from her uncle at the table.
What in
shootin’ shivers
would Emily do now?
“Didn’t know you boys would be aboard,” Uncle Victor said, in a voice like a rumble of thunder.
“Didn’t ask us,” said Jackson, reaching for a biscuit.
“Where you headed?” Uncle Victor asked.
“Don’t rightly know,” Jackson answered. “Figure the driver’ll tell us where to get off.”
“Now, that’s strange,” said the man with the tiger tattoo. “Even orphans should have some idea of where they’re going.”
“It’s all I can do to keep track of my brother,” said Jackson. “Figure we’ll get there soon enough.”
“What’s wrong with the lad?” asked Oscar from his end of the table.
“Got kicked in the head by a horse,” said Jackson. “Never been right since.”
“Thought you told me it was a mule,” said Uncle Victor.
Thumpa thumpa thumpa, went Emily’s heart.
“Horse…mule…whatever it was. I weren’t there. Just heard our ma screamin’, and from then on, he could never speak a word,” Jackson explained.
“Well, they ought not to send children out on the road by themselves, orphans or not,” said Marigold. “Something happened to them, who would ever know?”
Who indeed? Emily had another terrible, horrible thought: if something did happen to her, the ten million dollars would go to Uncle Victor, wouldn’t it? He would be the next of kin. Just a simple little accident out here in the night and, as Jackson had said, she might not get to Redbud at all.
• • •
It was dark after they’d finished eating. When they went back to the coach, the driver had turned down the backs of the three benches so that there was one large platform where all eight people could sleep—nine now, including the man with the tiger tattoo. The drivers had changed, and the new one wanted no one up there beside him as they rode.