“You think I don’t want her to be happy?”

  The whole thing made me sick. I saw it from both sides, and I felt miserable sorry. I slipped out of bed in my nightie and closed the front door on their quarrel.

  The moon was in between clouds, throwing all into a close darkness. Jake slept in the stable by his own choice. He didn’t like beds, I guess being used to sleeping on filthy straw all his life. I hovered at the open stable door for a long while. In the reaches of the darkness I heard faint, catching sobs.

  I felt monstrous pity for him. But I hated that he’d just dropped into our lives and made Mama and Papa fight. I wished he would take his loud, coarse self and go back where he belonged.

  The next morning I got ready for school. Mama had grits with dollops of hot butter and salt waiting for me. As I ate she watched me over the table. Her eyes were puffy, like she’d been crying. Papa was nowhere to be seen. I guessed they were still fighting.

  I ate quickly, wanting to be gone.

  “Nobody can make you feel ugly,” she said, after a century of silence. “You hear?”

  I said, “I know.”

  “You’re gonna go to school for as long as you can,” she said. “You’ll amount to more than any white bastard in this county. You’ll be a nurse.”

  My spoon scraped the bowl. “Ain’t no black nurses, Mama.”

  “You’ll be the first, then. Don’t care what white folks tell you. Don’t pay their words no mind.”

  I looked up. “What’s that in your hand?”

  She handed me my slate. Jake’s drawing still graced it. A big black, monkey-looking cartoon. I felt a kind of bottomless shame. Mama’s eyes were hard behind the puffy lids.

  “Did you draw that?”

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  I swallowed. “A boy at school.”

  “If Jake McCoy tells you anythin’,” she said. “You come to me first.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “I’ll make him wish he was never born.”

  “They were pickin’ on him, Mama. I just stepped in.”

  “Well, good.” She looked at her hands. “We tried to raise you good, Minnie. But I worry about you sometimes.”

  I said nothing.

  She said, “You don’t stand up for yourself. I know it’s not ‘cause you think we’ll be there to fight your battles for you.”

  I did think that, actually. I had always thought that.

  “One day I’m afraid someone’s gonna push you into somethin’ you’re not comfortable with. And you’ll just go along with it, like you always do.”

  I began to slide off the table. Mama got up and cleared the bowl for me. I watched her put it away, feeling sulky. At that moment I believed my mother had spoken out of turn. It wasn’t her place to give me advice. She only had to take care of me. Wouldn’t she and Pa always be there, to take care of me?

  For that reason, all her talk about school sometimes annoyed me. It assumed some nonexistent ambition of mine. I didn’t think I needed school. I didn’t need to become anything but a rancher’s wife, like she was.

  Outside, Jake and Papa were having a ferocious argument. Jake did not want to go to school. Papa never yelled, but we could hear him loud and clear across the hundred yards to the barn.

  Jake, somehow, was yelling louder.

  In the end, Jake did not go to school, and neither did I. He became a cowboy, and I became a wife.

  *

  CHAPTER TWO

  TEN YEARS LATER

  1864

  Everyone knows a woman in her twenties is ripe for marriage. If she’s got a little fortune put aside, and a handsome enough face, then the sooner the better, because fortune and looks don’t always last.

  Mama and Papa meant to make me into a respectable girl. A year ago it hadn’t been such an urgent matter. But Papa was getting on in years, and my search for honest employment had yielded nothing. I insisted I wouldn’t be anybody’s maid. And at that time there wasn’t a college in the whole Western United States that would take a colored girl.

  I applied anyway, and the rejections came anyway. I was somewhat glad. College would have been difficult, and I had nothing in particular I wanted to study.

  On my twenty-first birthday, Mama took me aside and said I might as well start looking around for a husband.

  “We’re not forcin’ you to do anything, Minnie,” she said grimly. “And of course you can stay on here as long as you like. But we’ve had some proposals. Think on it.”

  Mama always feared Papa dying and leaving us destitute. She figured the sooner I got set up, the better. I found her fears bothersome.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  I decided I would not think about it. Instead that afternoon I went to the Narrows, where the river bordering our land channeled off into little trout streams. The rocky beach there made a good place for sitting.

  I heard the voices just as I arrived. Three boys sat there on the riverbank, fishing. Jim Henley and his little gang of terrors. As soon as I saw them I turned right around and began to walk back up the path.

  “Hang a minute, Minnie!” Jim called.

  He hurried to my side, grinning. “You’re goin’? Without saying hello?”

  Jim Henley was, by popular opinion, the most handsome boy in town. He had a dimple in his chin like the imprint of a woman’s finger, and fashionably green eyes. Honey-blonde hair flopped, puppy-like, over those eyes.

  “What do you want?” I said.

  “To talk to you,” he said. “Just to talk. What you doin’ down here?”

  “It’s my birthday.”

  “Happy birthday, Minnie.” He looked down, at my book. “What’s that?”

  I handed him the book. Robinson Crusoe. He squinted at it, then back at me, as if I’d done something odd.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “My library,” I said.

  “Your what?”

  “Library. Li-bra-ry. A place to keep books.”

  He glanced over his shoulder to his friends. They snickered and turned quickly away. When he turned back, his cheeks were pink. With anger or amusement, I didn’t know.

  “I’ll walk you back to the road,” he said.

  “My legs work fine,” I replied. “Thank you.”

  He linked his arm with mine and walked. The day was fair, the only sound the birds and our footsteps. His body heat was pleasant against my arm, and the smell of him, like juniper soap, was pleasant too.

  “I heard you’re writin’ the exams,” said Jim.

  “I am.” Eventually, I thought.

  “You think they let coloreds teach in California?”

  “I guess I’ll find out, Jim.”

  “You’re one bold cuss, Minnie Sampson.”

  I took my arm from his. The road was clear in sight. “Thank you,” I said. “That’s far enough for me.”

  Jim stepped to block my way.

  “Excuse me,” I said, more annoyed than afraid.

  “Is it true what they say about you?”

  “What do they say?”

  “That you never been kissed. I reckon every girl in town’s been kissed but you.”

  The light trickling through the trees brought out the green in Jim Henley’s eyes. His lips, full and soft, looked pleasant enough. His hand reached out for mine. He had thick, masculine fingers. But his palms were soft. The touch of them suddenly revolted me. A man should have coarse hands. I pulled away.

  “I don’t need kisses,” I said. “Goodbye.”

  Sensing rejection, Jim stepped closer. “It ain’t nothin’ scary,” he said. “Only a kiss. Take only a second.”

  I backed away. Hit him, Minnie. Bust his teeth in.

  “My Pa don’t like boys getting friendly with me.”

  His eyes narrowed. I’d invoked Cal Sampson, and everyone knew what that meant.

  “I’m a man,” said Jim. “Not a boy no more. And you’re a woman.”

  “Papa wouldn’t-”

  “Don’t matter what your Pa likes,” said Jim. “What do you like?”

  “I want to go home,” I said. “Back off me.”

  He backed me into the trunk of a tree. I watched the smirk uncurl across his face, slow and deadly, like a snake uncoiling from a nap. “You always want to bring your Pa into it,” he said. “Kiss me, Minnie, and I’ll leave you be. You ain’t too big not to kiss me.”

  His lips came down over mine. A bolt of ice ran through my body, but it was more fear than wanting. I pushed him off. Stories of what happened to colored girls who refused these things were present in my mind. I fled. He snatched for me again, laughing. But I could run like a deer if I had to. So I did.

  “See ya!” he called after me. His laughter kept pace with me all the way home.

  Back at home I went to my usual spot in the glades, where Big Girl grazed in her own pasture. I lay in the feathered grass and looked up at the cloudy sky.

  I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t know what to feel. Like something used, like a dish rag. Not just because of Jim and his kissing.

  I felt that I was alone and the whole world conspired against me. Like a bug stabbed through with a pin. Weak, fluttering, soon to be dead. With each passing day a piece of me was vanishing. Jim Henley had snatched up one of those pieces with his mouth. Leaving me even more naked and exposed than I already felt.

  Just then the gate to the pasture opened, and a man walked through. I sat up and recognized Jake McCoy. He had Big Girl’s saddle slung over his shoulder. The thing weighed almost fifty pounds. I watched him set it on the fence and pull Big Girl away from her munching. He was likely running an errand for Papa.

  I stood up, and he froze for an instant, then turned to ignore me. Jake McCoy ignored most everyone. The years had changed him. He didn’t like to talk, didn’t like to laugh, as far as I knew. He felt more comfortable with horses than other human beings. The only person he raised his voice with was Papa. Many times I’d heard their arguments, which were always tinged with a kind of manly love that bordered on disdain. I had a sudden urge to make him talk to me.

  I walked across the pasture.

  “Hello,” I said.

  He eyed me. “Hello.”

  The only thing left of the weak, sickly boy Papa had brought to us was a slightly awkward stoop, as if he had not yet grown used to his height. But this disappeared as I stepped closer. He’d grown broader in the shoulders. Some years ago he’d hit a growth spurt and now stood much taller, though still not as tall as Papa. Now he wore his black hair long to just under his chin. It was thick, and curled a little at the ends.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Saddlin’ the horse.”

  “To go where?”

  “Town.”

  “Why?”

  “For your father.”

  He turned his back to me. Sweat darkened his shirt from nape to waistband. His vest was dusty as his boots. He moved slowly, surely, just like Papa. Years spent in Cal Sampson’s shadow, imitating him. If you covered Jake’s hair and raised him up an inch, they might even look alike.

  But then he turned. No, they were not alike at all. Jake had a kind of aquiline slant to his features, and a softness about the mouth offset by a strong, pointed chin. His eyebrows were inky black and very thick, like a Mexican’s.

  “I went to the river today,” I said. “I saw Jim Henley.”

  Jake cinched the saddle.

  “He tried to kiss me,” I said.

  Jake looked up, a thick eyebrow raised. “That why you been cryin’?”

  Heat flooded my face. “I wasn’t crying.”

  He put a foot in the stirrup and swung up on the massive horse. I’d never known Big Girl to take to anyone but Pa. But Jake McCoy had her well in hand.

  “So he tried to kiss you,” he said. “You didn’t like it?”

  “It ain’t funny.”

  “I wasn’t laughing.”

  Jake rode Big Girl up alongside me. His gaze raked my whole body. The bare feet peeping out beneath my sundress, my flat stomach, the two round points of my breasts. A man’s look, and the approval growing in his eyes. I hadn’t expected a look like that, from him.

  “Did he try to-”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t let him.”

  “You fought him? Did he chase you?”

  “I- no. I ran too fast.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up the tiniest fraction. “I seen you run before. The devil couldn’t get you, I reckon.”

  “When did you see me run?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  I turned and hurried away. I’d only brought up Jim Henley to see Jake’s reaction. A stupid impulse. Embarassing. Now Jake would probably tell Pa. And I’d have to explain why I’d been in the woods in the first place getting close enough to a boy to let him kiss me. And why I’d been informing Jake McCoy of that shocking fact.

  I went to the parlor. Mama had fallen asleep in a chair, the sewing piled in her lap. I took it to my room to finish, avoiding looking at the gaping hole in the shelf where Robinson Crusoe had rested. Hopefully Papa wouldn’t notice.

  Boredom sent me to sleep. A big moon rose that night. The sound of agitated voices in the kitchen pulled me awake.

  I crept to the light. One of Pa’s ranchers was pacing before the fire. Papa had Jake McCoy sitting at our dining room table. Jake’s shirt and cheeks were crisp with blood. His black hair stood out wildly along his collar, the curls flat, as if they had been pulled. Mama had a kettle of water on the fire. The warm smell of her garlic poultice filled the room. I hung in the doorway until Papa noticed me.

  “Come in, Minnie.”

  Mama spun around. “Don’t bring her into this.”

  I went in, drawing my wrap around me. Papa’s man averted his eyes. The sight of the boss’s Negro daughter made Cal Sampson’s men even more uncomfortable than the sight of Mama. Maybe I was the greater sin.

  I sat. Jake laid his hands flat on the table. The knuckles were scraped raw, the fingernails black.

  “What happened?”

  Grimly, Papa reached into his waist pouch and pulled something out. He laid it on the table and pried it open. It was a shaving razor, crusted with blood from handle to blade. My stomach turned.

  “Explain what happened, McCoy.”

  Jake said, “I already told the Constable.”

  “Tell it again,” said Papa.

  Jake looked up at Mama. She turned to her garlic poultice.

  “Go on, Jake,” said Papa.

  “I busted up some fellas.”

  Papa’s man snorted. “He ain’t gonna tell it, Cal.”

  Papa turned to me and said, “Today in town, Jim Henley was braggin’ that he had- er- held congress with a colored girl. He was suggestin’ that girl might have been you.”

  I sat bolt upright. “That’s a rotten lie, Papa. I swear I never did!”

  “Then he said his daddy had bought all of Jake’s land, and no dirty McCoy had the right to step past him without tipping his hat.”

  “True enough,” rumbled Pa’s man. “The Henley’s are a pack of land-grubbers. They got an iron in every fire here, Cal.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Papa agreed.

  “And then-” I prompted, looking to Jake.

  “And then,” said my father, his eyes piercing into mine, “Somehow your name came up again. Jim asked if Jake had, er, held congress with you himself.”

  “I told him he better shut up,” said Jake calmly. “I told him if he didn’t stop spreadin’ fibs I’d cut his nose off and feed it to him.”

  The room fell silent. I looked again at the razorblade. Nausea surged in my gut. I covered my mouth. Mama came to stand behind my chair.

  “Tell her the rest,” said Pa.

  “And then,” said Jake, trying to control the angry tremble in his voice, “He said I was no better than a potato-munchin’ mick nigger lover. So I said if that was true why didn’t he come and teach me a lesson.”

  “If I hadn’t been there,” said Pa’s man, “You’d be learnin’ your lesson at the end of a noose, Jake. You almost killed him.”