Chapter 2

Olive Augusta Peele, Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, 1909

Practically unlimited power was put into the hands of many guardians who were unfit for such a trust.

—Muskogee Daily Phoenix, April 26, 1915.

He comes into our attic room quiet, the way a rat sneaks into the corncrib, afraid the tabby cat will waken from its slumbers. It's me he's worried about. Me he doesn't want to know what he's up to. Me and the old black dog. Least not till he figures out what to do about the both of us—how to get rid of us, or keep us quiet.

The black dog that belonged to my daddy barks too much…and me? Just like my sainted daddy did, I talk too much.

I know what you did to Hazel,I told him when I saw Hazel's seat empty at the breakfast table last month. You try that with me, I'll cut your neck some night when you been heavy on the bottle. I helped my daddy butcher hogs, skin deer, hunt squirrel and rabbit up on the mountain. And I got my daddy's big knife, too. It's hid where you won't ever findit.

Maybe I shouldn't've opened my mouth, but once Hazel went missing, I was afraid Tesco Peele would come again in his night wanderings, while Mama slept heavy from wildcat whiskey and her opium powders, quiet as the dead till sometime the next day.

You got a big imagination. Tesco laid a hairy hand like a tarantula atop my head. And a big mouth. You oughta watch what you say. It ain't becomin' of a young lady. Might be we need to send you off to one of them schools for manners and such. Back there in Kansas City, where your mama come from, maybe.What'd you think of that, Ollie Auggie?

I bit my teeth together. That pet name for me didn't belong in his mouth—Ollie Auggie was what my daddy called me. It was bad enough, losing my real last name and having to use Peele after my mama married Tesco.

Send me off to a school, like you did with Hazel?I spat out. I wanted him to say yes, that was what happened to her, so I'd know it wasn't something worse.

He just laughed and said, Mind your own business, Ollie.

I twisted out from under his grip. You keep away from me! I told him. Or I'll tell Mr. Lockridge about what you did to Hazel.You leave me be…or else.

I hoped that'd be enough. With Tesco in good as the foreman on Mr. Lockridge's big ranch, I didn't figure he would risk any trouble. Even a snake knows enough to stay still when it's landed in a bed of roses.

But a snake like Tesco Peele can't keep from slithering round in the dark, and tonight I see him cross the attic room, right past my bed to Nessa's. He stands like a ghost in the moon's white glow, looking down at her.

She's just a little girl, six years old, and nowhere close to getting womanly like her big sister, Hazel, was. Nessa's been with Mama and me half her life, since back when we lived with my real daddy in a high-mountain valley of the Winding Stairs. There, the cool, clear water ran straight from the rocks, and the old shelterwood trees watched over us. That cabin was where Daddy came home toting two Choctaw girls, one a couple years older than me and one a few years younger. I brung you somebody to play with,Ollie Auggie, he said. This is Nessa Rusk and Hazel Rusk.They got no more family left in this world to look after them. They'll stay with us now.

My daddy never could turn down a need when he came across one in his travels. Before that, he'd took in a half-grown boy he found living alone in a squatter shack, but the boy tried to steal our pack pony, then ran off into the woods. So, when Daddy carried home Hazel and Nessa, all I saw was two little girls that'd leave pretty soon. Their quiet ways of whispering in their Choctaw tongue piqued me some, as it did my mama. That's why Hazel and Nessa and me weren't ever real friends, especially after Daddy left on one of his prospecting trips, and a full month later, his calico-spotted pack pony wandered home alone. The pony was still loaded down with all Daddy's gear and goods, but Daddy never came back.

Without him, Hazel and Nessa were another burden to bear when Mama gathered up her broken heart and took us down the mountain to the Commercial Hotel in Talihina, just ahead of winter's first snow. By then she knew Daddy had met with a bad fate. If it'd been just Mama and me, we could've got by in town, like we did in Kansas City when I was small and Daddy was gone in the army. But with three girls on her apron strings, Mama had to settle for somebody low as Tesco Peele.

I blamed Hazel and Nessa for it, but that didn't mean I wanted anything bad to happen to them. Especially not little Nessa, who mostly moves silent around the corners of the world, trying to stay out of the way.

My body goes bowstring tight while I hug the sheet close and watch Tesco. I think about Daddy's knife, hid behind a loose piece of chinking in the log wall. If I try for it, he'll hear the rope springs groan under my mattress, and then he'll slap me flat and take the knife.

I see it in my head, the way I sometimes conjure things that haven't happened yet. I see my daddy's knife in Tesco Peele's hand.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to take my mind someplace else, same as I used to when he'd come to trouble Hazel in the night. I try to turn my bed into a magic carpet like in the storybook, then Nessa makes a sleepy sound, and I can't help but hear it.

I peek out, watch Tesco lift the quilt and stare down at her. Nessa rolls over and pulls her knees up under her nightdress against the cold.

I sit up in my bed quick enough that the ropes and feather tick mattress make a racket and even the floor creaks. Stretching out my arms, I feel around in the moonbeams from the window. "D-Daddy?" My voice comes whispery and raw.

Tesco drops that quilt so fast it falls all the way over Nessa's head.

I see him out the corner of my eye, but I keep pretending a spirit's got me. Tesco's a superstitious type. He's troubled by the tales a Choctaw cowboy on the ranch told him about witches and giants that roam the deep woods, and the na lusa falaya that looks like a man, but has long pointed ears and slides on his belly like a snake. Tesco's also bothered about the Choctaw freedmen, the ones who used to be slaves on the Choctaws' farms before the War Between the States, and the conjures and curses they make. First thing Tesco did when we moved into Mr. Lockridge's foreman house was paint the ceilings of the porches blue, hang witch balls over the windows, and nail a horseshoe above the door to scare off the haints and boo hags. This log house and all the Lockridge land belonged to some Choctaws before Mr. Lockridge took it over. Tesco's worried them Choctaws might still haunt the place.

"D-Daddy? Wha…what…you mmmm…you-u-u s-say?" I crook my fingers into witch fingers, scratch the air.

Tesco stands there, froze up.

"Ollie?" he whispers.

I moan thick and gurgly, crawl up onto my knees, and wave around in the moonlight, like I'm dancin' with somebody. A giggle rises from my belly, and I let it come out, low and deep. "Dad-deee, Dad-deee," I whisper-moan. "Clos…closer. Hear…can…c-can't he-e-earrrr."

Tesco coughs in his throat. "Git…now git on back to sleep, Olive."

I giggle again, high and trilly as a bird this time. The noise echoes off the quiet walls, but doesn't sound one bit like me. I wonder if maybe there's ghosts in the room after all. The old roof timbers a Choctaw man carved after his people got moved west from Mississippi to Indian Territory moan so loud it's all I can do not to jump.

Tesco jerks up quick, like whatever liquor he drank tonight just burned off in a wink. He looks at the timbers while he crosses to the attic stairs. Must be his bare foot lands on a splinter in the plank wood floors, because he cusses under his breath.

I'd laugh, but I don't dare, so I sigh and melt down backward into my bed. The last thing I say, just loud enough for Tesco to hear as he heads down the steps is, "Trrr…Treas…Treasur-r-re?"

That'll get him thinking. He'll wonder if I know something about where to find one of them French gold mines, or that outlaw loot Daddy and me were always looking for. Maybe I can string Tesco along till I figure out what else to do.

After he's gone, I look at the moon outside the window, and tears spill onto my pillow. I don't stop them because there's nobody else to see. I want my daddy…and my mama the way she was in that cabin on the mountain, before Tesco, before she took to the powders and the drink. That beautiful hanging valley was the happiest place ever.

If we could go back,I say to myself, watching a moth fan his wings on the window glass, so that he makes a shadow ten times bigger than he is, Tesco would never find us there.

I smile while sleep takes me away, because I think I hear my daddy singing someplace far off, same's he always did as he'd come up the mountain from his travels, almost home.

When I wake, morning's barely graying the attic window, and Nessa's standing over my bed, bumping her knees on the frame. Her arms are wrapped tight because the spring air's still cold at night.

"Get back in your own bed." I'm mad that she woke me and took me from the old place in the Winding Stairs.

Her eyes blink, big and brown, till finally I pull back the blanket. "Well, get in already."

She does, and she's back asleep pretty quick. I don't rest again, even though I want to. Instead, I think on how to get us out of here, and whether I dare try to make Mama come, too. I picture her like she used to be, with her smooth pretty skin and the dark hair and eyes of her Polish people, same as I've got. When she laughed, the light danced against those eyes like sparks from a fire. If I could take her away from Tesco and the grave of the baby boy they made and lost together, she'd do better. We'd start again.

Wouldn't we?

I work it toward true in my head, and I make plans, one step at a time, to get us free. And home.

Home free.The words've just gone through my head when Tesco hollers from downstairs, "Breakfast! Y'all two git to the table."

Nessa's up and flying down the attic stairs before I can even stop her to get her dressed. If you don't jump when Tesco says, he'll make you wish you had. I hurry into my good blue ribbon-sash dress with the high collar and long sleeves, and I button every button, even though the collar is tight and starchy from the washing and ironing we do with Mr. Lockridge's kitchen women. It's the most grown-up thing I have, except for my red dress with the plaid pinny. Both dresses got passed my way after Mr. Lockridge's daughters were done with them up in Oklahoma City. They're better than anything Tesco could buy, even if he wanted to.

Tesco's waiting at the stove when I get down there. He's got himself all cleaned up, and he's wearing a fresh pair of brown pinstripe pants, high boots up to his knees, and a tan shirt. His hair's combed, and he's shaved that long, pointy chin of his, which must mean he's headed over to Mr. Lockridge's house, or might be he's driving Mr. Lockridge down to Antlers for business with the lawyer or the judge, or to catch the train. Mr. Lockridge doesn't light anywhere for long; he's got more houses than he can dirty the floors in.

I smell the fatback and eggs and notice the table is all set. Even though I know Mama won't be there, I look anyway, but she's still in bed, like usual.

Tesco scoops a fry cake and puts it on Nessa's plate. She blinks and smiles up at me like I had something to do with Tesco being nice, of a sudden.

"Well, good." Tesco plops a fry cake onto a plate for me. "I's beginnin' to wonder after you, Ollie. Ain't like you to miss breakfast." He slides into a chair. "I even got us some cane syrup from the big house yesterday." He's sweet as that thick brown syrup, and my neck hairs prickle because that's how he'd started talking to Hazel a while back. He'd bring her candies and pretty clothes that Mr. Lockridge's daughters had tossed out. Awww, go try it on, Hazel, he'd say. You're too growed up for little girl things anymore.

And Hazel, who wasn't used to having any fine thing to call her own, would run off and do it. She didn't see that Tesco's kindliness is like a poison dripping on your skin. You don't know it's there till it seeps in.

Pushing the red-and-white-speckled syrup pitcher my way, he says, "Here. You first, Ollie, gal. And fix up our lil' Nessie there, too."

I do what I'm told, then slide the pitcher away and put my hands back in my lap. My mouth wants that syrup cake pretty bad, but there's a long wood spoon laying by Tesco's plate. Tesco can give you fry cake one minute and whack you across the face for touching it the next. Depends on his mood. So far, I ain't sure which way it is this morning.

"Have a good sleep all night, did ya?"

Goose pimples run from my toes to my head and back.

Nessa bends toward her plate, her lips clamped over the two front baby teeth she's lost.

Tesco's not waiting on an answer anyhow. "I's wonderin', on account of I heard somebody cryin' up there last night, so I went to check. Which one of you was that?"

"I dunno," I croak out, then take a chance on grabbing a drink of milk. "Maybe me. I dreamed…some."

"That so?" But he doesn't ask about treasure, so my plan didn't work like I hoped. "Well, if you gals got trouble sleepin', I can give you a pinch of your mama's medicine. Them opium powders go in remedies for teethin' and such. Help you sleep like a baby."

The milk I just swallowed tingles on the way down. Did that taste funny? I look over and watch Nessa drinking hers, and all I want is to get us away from the table. "I think we been doin' all right…sleepin'."

"Y'all eat," Tesco says.

I cut off a bite and put it in my mouth. I don't dare do anything else.

"Good, ain't it?" Tesco asks. "Sweet and fine."

"Yes'ir."

"Slide that syrup over this way, Ollie gal. Mine's a might dry. Been a while since I had me some sweet, sweet syrup. Too long. I'm hungry for it."

When I push the pitcher across the table, his fingers close over mine. The skin feels rough as a cat's tongue. I make myself take my hand away slow, just like normal.

"Y'all surely done a fine job on this butter," he says while he pours more syrup. "Good as your mama used to." His eyes cut toward the bedroom door that always falls open a bit. The gap shows rumpled linens and Mama's foot hanging off the edge. She's facedown this morning. She'll crawl out sometime after Nessa and me head off to the school the Choctaws built along the Black Fork in the old Choctaw Nation days. Now that Oklahoma and Indian Territory got joined in the statehood, the school has to take white kids, too. President Teddy Roosevelt said so last year.

"Nessa did most of the churnin'," I mutter. "Extra's in the springhouse to go over to the Lockridges'." That's part of the foreman work here, milking the cow, skimming off the cream, and churning some into butter, gathering up the eggs from the chicken coop, and sending plenty over to the big house. Mr. Lockridge likes his goods fresh when he's at the ranch.

"Speakin' of the big house…" Syrup drips off Tesco's mustache. "Thought I might take you over there with me today, Ollie. Nessie can find her way to school on her own."

My fork lowers to the plate with a quiet tink.

Why's he trying to get me off by myself?

"You know that palomino show pony Lockridge got delivered all the way from Tyler, Texas, for when the missus and the girls come down?"

"Yes."

"?'Scuse me?"

"Yes'ir."

Tesco grabs another forkful of butter for his cakes. "Well, that sorry rascal's got too much spit and vinegar for Lockridge's girls. The old man said, ‘Bring Olive here and let her get after that pony a few times. Now, that girl is a fine hand with a horse.' I told him, ‘Sure enough our sweet little Ollie Auggie can ride anythin' with hair on it.'?"

Smiling, Tesco reaches across the table and rubs my hand. He figures he's got me like a fish on a hook. Fry cakes, syrup, ponies instead of a school day.

Tesco Peele is courtin' again. He's looking to get his hands on somebody. I'd sooner be dead in the grave.

Nessa and me have to leave this place. There's no more time to wait.

I pretend to choke on my food, then grab for my milk to shake him off me. "Be all right to wait till tomorrow about the pony?" My mind runs faster than the Lockridges' new Buick roadster as I wind up a tale. "Teacher's got us to do times tables contests in school today. She won't be happy if I miss."

Nessa's head comes up and her doe eyes scrunch. She knows there's no contest.

You keep your mouth shut,I tell her with one look. And she does.

Tesco studies on her a minute. "S'pose I could take Nessa with me today, instead. She's a fair hand on a horse. Pony's too small for a grown man, or I'd whip the fool outta that spoiled brat myself."

Nessa's face goes still. Her cheeks hollow out like she's chewing them on the inside.

"But can't it wait till tomorrow about the pony? I'm stronger than Nessa by a lot." I try to sound bright and sweet. "The younger kids do their addition tables in the contest. Teacher will ask me why Nessa missed out."

"Reckon." Tesco's not one bit happy. "We'll do it tomorrow, then. You and me."

"Tomorrow. Yes'ir."

Only I won't be here tomorrow, and neither will Nessa.

I think on a plan while we finish up breakfast and clean the table, then wait for Tesco to saddle his horse and ride off over the hill.

Soon as he does, I grab Nessa. "You listen at me now," I say while we stand in the doorway like we're headed for the barn chores. "And do everything I tell you. We ain't got much time." Tesco could circle back by here. Mama could waken. The ranch hands could come for supplies out of the barn.

Nessa tucks her head in that bashful way of hers. I grab her chin and pull it up. "You listen real good. We have to get away from here. Tesco's got something bad in his mind. We can't stay here, or we'll end up like Hazel. You understand?"

Nessa's face drains, and her mouth trembles. She shakes her head, looks back into the house.

It's then I notice that Daddy's big black dog ain't barking by the barn this morning. The tie rope's just sitting there in the dirt with nothing hooked to it. The dog has disappeared, same as Hazel did.

Shivers run over my skin.

"Nessa, we've got to go away from here now."

"To…to the school?" The word travels up and down singsong, with a trace of the Choctaw tongue, which was the only language she spoke when Daddy brought her up the mountain. "To Teacher?"

"Teacher can't help us, you hear?" Anybody in this town will send us right back to Tesco. "You have to do what I say. I'm headed to the barn to get my daddy's old camp packs and rucksack and catch his calico pony. We'll need old Skedee to carry our traveling supplies. You go into the house and gather up just what I tell you."

I count out on my fingers, telling her the things we need. Food. Fire matches. Clothes. Our coats. Some blankets. Daddy's hunting knife. The blue pot that sits up top of the stove. Coins, if there's any in Mama's cracker tin…

"You remember all that?" I ask, and she nods the littlest. "And watch out the windows while you're in there. If Tesco comes back, you hide under the bed, and I'll hide out here till he's gone. Careful you don't waken Mama."

"Where?" The word whispers through her missing front teeth. "Where we goin' to?"

"The woods. Back to the old place in the Winding Stairs, so nobody can find us. You remember it? Where we lived before Tesco?"

She nods, and I'm glad. I thought she might've forgot, being as she was only four and a half when we left.

"That's where we're going, Nessa. Just you and me."

Her eyes get wide and fearful, and she looks into the house again. "B-but, Ollie…"

"Maybe Mama will come later and be with us, and maybe Hazel will, too. For now, we've got to go there first and get everything ready. It'll be a long way through the woods, across the river, and up the mountains. Lots of walking. Camp out at night. You make sure and get matches. Plenty of them."

I turn to go to the barn, but she catches my skirts and hangs on.

"Do what I said!" I snap. Lightning crackles inside my body. "There's no more—"

"B-but…" The look on Nessa's face stops me short. She points across the pasture to where the tall pines float in a brew of morning shadows and fog. "But, Ollie, they're gonna git us in the woods," she whispers. "The elves."