Outrun the Moon(58)

She flits back toward the water, and I alternate between the two fires, stirring the pasta, then mixing the bacon, then back to the pasta again.

From the direction of Haight Street, I’m surprised to see a black man in overalls and pressed shirt leading a cow toward our encampment. With deliberate steps, he approaches Minnie Mae, who sits by her tent several yards from me. Georgina is nowhere to be seen.

In his hands, the man holds a coil of rope. He makes guttural noises and gestures with his rope toward the cow, which has wandered off toward a patch of dandelions. I think he might be deaf.

Minnie Mae picks herself up, staring at the man with something like . . . fear? “Leave me alone! Don’t come any closer.”

The man pats his belly and sweeps his coil of rope to the cow.

Minnie Mae shakes her head vehemently. “Leave me alone! Go on now, you heard me.”

The man doesn’t mean any harm, I’m certain of it. But before I can intervene, I’m distracted by my pot, which has come to a hard boil. If I don’t get it off the heat soon, we’ll be scraping our precious pasta out of the fire. Also, the bacon is starting to burn. “Katie?” I call toward our tent. “Katie? I need you!”

Katie pokes her head out, freezing when she sees the cow in our midst. “Whoa, Nellie. That poor thing’s going to explode soon.”

Rising steam blows into my face. “Quickly, move the bacon off the fire.”

Minnie Mae shrieks. The black man is trying to pull her toward the cow. Blasted spaghetti! I leave my pot and run toward them, but a straw-haired fellow beats me to it.

“This man hurting you?” he asks Minnie Mae.

“Yes, get him off me!” Minnie Mae yells, though the black man has already let her go. The straw-haired man seizes the black man, pinning his arms behind his back. Then another burly man with an open shirt punches the black man square in the face.

“Stop!” I shriek. “Don’t hit him! He’s deaf, can’t you see? He just—” I think about what Katie said, and realize what the man wanted. “He wanted to give us some milk.”

I let the black man read my lips and gesture toward the cow’s dripping udders. “Milk?”

“Muk,” the man tries to repeat, still struggling. Blood oozes from both nostrils.

The burly man doesn’t seem to hear me, and winds up for another punch.

“Let him go. You have no right to hit him!” My outrage makes me see double. Minnie Mae has finally stopped shrieking, and her close-set eyes dart every which way.

The straw-haired man finally releases the black man, stumbling, into the grass. He gets to his feet, eyes wild with terror, and instead of fetching his cow, he runs off.

The straw-haired man slaps his hands together. “Well, took care of that, I reckon. Girls got yourselves a new cow. Bill and I could slaughter it for you if you want.”

“No,” I say between my clenched teeth. “The cow is not ours to slaughter. We will take care of it until the owner returns, God willing.”

Katie is now beside me, and Francesca is back at the pot.

The burly man spits, and his flying sword lands at my feet. “Please yourself.” They saunter away.

My blood pumps so loud, it sounds like a waterfall. People have gathered around us, no doubt talking about what they think they saw. I grab our last pot and silently march over to the cow.

Minnie Mae, however, cannot get enough words out. “Mercy! I didn’t . . . I thought . . . oh my God. I thought he was trying to . . . I don’t know!” She runs back to her tent, sobbing.

I bite back a response and try to remember that she just lost a sister. The poor man, whose intentions were so quickly imagined for him because of the way the light hits his skin.

My heart bleeds for that man. Isn’t that why I had to con my way into St. Clare’s? Even if I did climb to the top of that mountain one day, people will never stop seeing my color first, before me. But who cares now? Half my family’s gone, and another one is missing.

The cow lifts its head when it hears me approach with Katie by my side.

Katie gently pulls the pot from me. “Let me do it. I’ve been milking cows since I was knee-high to a mosquito.”

I pat the cow’s hide, turning my back to veil the water filling my eyes. The cow’s ears flick. Then, deciding I’m of no import, she sticks her nose back into the dandelions. Katie places the pot under her leaking udders and begins releasing the milk in short spurts. “Do you think he’ll come back?” she asks.

“I hope so,” I say. For all of us.





27



SOON, NINE REFUGEES FROM ST. CLARE’S are taking turns drinking milk from the pot using our only fruit jar. The cow has been leashed to a cypress tree so she doesn’t wander off. Elodie has not emerged from her tent since earlier this afternoon, more than five hours ago.

After only one sip, Headmistress Crouch hands the jar to me. Her skin looks too bright and flushed, and I fear she suffers more than she lets on. She pushes herself up from her crate with her cane, panting from the effort. “I shall retire for the evening. I have no appetite, and if the earth is going to swallow us, I would like to be well-rested when it happens.” She shuffles to her tent. Katie brings her our sole pillow and one of our two blankets.

I drink my allotment. Though the milk is sweet, it leaves a sour print in my mouth as I think of our ill-gotten gain and the poor man who gave up a cherished possession.