Midnight Star (Star Quartet 2)

Chauncey’s head shot up. “You can tell Chatca to go to hell!”

“That better,” Cricket said complacently, and resumed her task with the lice.

Time passed in a blur. Chauncey ate and slept and dreamed of happier times when she was a child. And when she didn’t sleep, she plotted. I must escape, she told herself over and over. But how?

“Cricket,” she announced in a very firm voice a day and a half later, “I must bathe. I cannot stand my own stench.”

“Bath no good” was Cricket’s reply.

“I will grow sick and . . . die.”

That got the woman’s attention.

“You no die. Chatca not like.”

“I will die if I am not allowed to bathe and walk about outside in the sunlight. I will die if you don’t give me some freedom.”

“You no die,” Cricket repeated in her flat voice, but she rose and left the lean-to.

Surely I look like I’m about to die, Chauncey thought. She was thankful that there was no mirror. She would probably die of fright at the sight of herself.

When Cricket returned some minutes later, she was clicking her teeth, a disapproving look on her face. Chatca must have approved.

“You come. I walk with you. Sunlight and freedom.”

“What about my bath?”

“Chatca say tomorrow.”

Cricket bound her hands in front of her with a thin leather strap. Chauncey didn’t care. She followed Cricket docilely from the lean-to. She drew in a deep breath of the clean forest air. The first person she saw was Tamba, standing in front of her, hands on her fat hips, a look of jealousy and scorn on her wide face.

Three Indian men were seated around a small fire handing about a rifle. She smelled rotting flesh and saw a dead deer lying some ten feet away, its belly split open.

She gagged.

“You smell fresh air,” Cricket said.

The men eyed her with no more emotion than they afforded the dead deer. Tamba muttered loudly to another Indian woman, but didn’t move toward her. The other woman was more a girl, Chauncey thought, but she was so thin, her hair so filthy and matted, that it was difficult to tell.

For God’s sake, Chauncey told herself, look around! You must escape! And she knew when she would try—when she bathed the following day. She realized with a calm born of utter despair that she would rather die than remain here a prisoner. She kept her head lowered, but she studied everything. There were three other lean-tos, actually wooden frames covered with animal hides. A couple of horses were tethered to a pine tree at the other end of the camp. They looked as tired and depressed as Chauncey felt. Her eyes widened. She couldn’t believe it. Her mare was tethered away from the other horses. Ah, Dolores, you’re my hope! She forced her eyes away. There was an assortment of white man’s pots and pans lying about, some woven baskets, and little else. Where was Chatca? she wondered.

The clearing was narrow and oddly long, the forest close on all sides. She could see rolling hills in the distance through the tall firs and pine trees that soared upward around the camp. If she were going to be allowed a bath, there must be a creek nearby.

“Cricket,” she said, filling her voice with disinterest, “where is the river?”

“Yuba over there,” Cricket said, pointing vaguely off to Chauncey’s left.

“Then Downieville is there?”

Cricket nodded, then frowned starkly. “You no ask questions.”

No, Chauncey thought, no more questions.

She smelled him, and whipped around.

Chatca stared at her with that same complacent look of possessiveness. He grunted some words at Cricket, then tossed Chauncey a bundle of clothes. She clutched the frayed cotton skirt and white blouse. At that moment they were more precious than the finest velvet gowns.

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