Under a Painted Sky

by Stacey Lee

Genres: Young Adult; YA Historical Fiction

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Downstairs Girl, Stacey Lee's debut novel is a powerful story about love, friendship, and sacrifice, perfect for fans of Code Name Verity.

“This moving novel will captivate you.”—Buzzfeed.com

All Samantha wanted was to move back to New York and pursue her music, which was difficult enough being a Chinese girl in Missouri, 1849. Then her fate takes a turn for the worse after a tragic accident leaves her with nothing and she breaks the law in self-defense. With help from Annamae, a runaway slave she met at the scene of her crime, the two flee town for the unknown frontier.
    But life on the Oregon Trail is unsafe for two girls. Disguised as Sammy and Andy, two boys heading for the California gold rush, each search for a link to their past and struggle to avoid any unwanted attention. Until they merge paths with a band of cowboys turned allies, and Samantha can’t stop herself from falling for one. But the law is closing in on them and new setbacks come each day, and the girls will quickly learn there are not many places one can hide on the open trail.         

Winner of the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award
An ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Pick
An Amelia Bloomer Book

Release date: March 17, 2015

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 384

Sample

1

THEY SAY DEATH AIMS ONLY ONCE AND NEVER misses, but I doubt Ty Yorkshire thought it would strike with a scrubbing brush. Now his face wears the mask of surprise that sometimes accompanies death: his eyes bulge, carp-like, and his mouth curves around a profanity.

Does killing a man who tried to rape me count as murder? For me, it probably does. The law in Missouri in this year of our Lord 1849 does not sympathize with a Chinaman’s daughter.

I shake out my hand but can’t let go of the scrubbing brush. Not until I see the blood speckling my arm. Gasping, I drop the brush. It clatters on the cold, wet tile beside the dead man’s head. An owl cries outside, and a clock chimes nine times.

My mind wheels back to twelve hours ago, before the world turned on its head . . .

• • •

Nine o’clock this morning: I strapped on the Lady Tin-Yin’s violin case and glared at my father, who was holding a conch shell to his ear. I thought it was pretty when I bought it from the curiosity shop back in New York. But ever since he began listening to it every morning and every evening, just to hear the ocean, I’ve wanted to smash it.

He put the shell down on the cutting table, then unfolded a bolt of calico. Our store, the Whistle, was already open but no one was clamoring for dry goods just yet.

The floor creaked as I swept by the sacks of coffee stamped with the word Whistle and headed straight for the candy. Father was cutting the fabric in the measured way he did everything. Snip. Snip.

Noisily, I stuffed a tin of peppermints into my case for the children’s lessons, then proceeded to the door. Unlike Father, I kept my promises. If a student played his scales correctly, I rewarded him with a peppermint. Never would I snatch the sweet out of his mouth and replace it with, say, cod-liver oil. Never.

“Sammy.”

My feet slowed at my name.

“Don’t forget your shawl.” Snip.

I considered leaving without it so I wouldn’t ruin my exit. But then people would stare even more than they usually did. I returned to our cramped living quarters in the back of the store and snatched the woolen bundle from a basket. Underneath my shawl, Father had hidden a plate of don tot for me to find, covered by a thin layer of parchment. I lifted off the parchment. Five custard tarts like miniature sunflowers shone up at me. He must have woken extra early to make them because he knew I’d still be mad.

I took the plate and the shawl and returned to the front of the shop. “You said we’d move back to New York, not two thousand miles the other way.” New York had culture. With luck, I might even make a living as a musician there.

His scissors paused. When he finally looked up at me, I raised my gaze by a fraction. His neatly combed hair had more white than I remembered.

“I said one day,” he returned evenly. “One day.” Then his tone lightened. “They say the Pacific Ocean’s so calm, you could mistake it for the sky. We’d see so many new animals. Dolphins, whales longer than a city block, maybe even a mermaid.” His eyes twinkled.

“I’m not a child anymore.” Only two months from sixteen.

“Just so.” He frowned and returned to his cutting. Then he cleared his throat. “I have great plans for us. Mr. Trask and I—”

Mr. Trask again. I set the plate down on the cutting table, and one of the fragile custards broke. Father lifted an eyebrow.

“Only men who want to pound rocks go to California,” I snapped. “It’s rocks and nothing.”

“California’s not the moon.”

“It is to me.” Though I knew I shouldn’t claim the last word, I couldn’t help it. I was born in the Year of the Snake after all, 1833. Father looked at me with sad but forgiving eyes. My anger slipped a fraction. With a sigh, I carefully scooped the broken tart off the plate and left the shop.

• • •

Five o’clock: Keeping my chin tucked in, I hurried down the road, kicking up dust around my skirts. The smell of smoke was especially robust tonight. Maybe the smokehouse had burned the meats again. The boys who worked there were not particularly gifted, plus they were mean. I already knew they would overcharge us for the salt pork we’d need for the trek west, and Father would have no choice but to pay.

I marched past uneven blocks of mismatched buildings, longing for the orderly streets of New York City. There were actual sidewalks there, and the air always smelled like sea brine and hot bread, unlike St. Joe, which reeked of garbage and smoke and—

I lifted my head. The sky had thickened to a hazy gray, textured with particles . . . like ash? Something sour rose in my throat.

It was not the smokehouse meat that was burning.

I ran, my violin bouncing against my back.

Oh please, God, no.

I flew past empty streets and turned onto Main, where suddenly there were too many people, some standing like cattle, others clutching squirming children to them. Noise assaulted me from all sides, people yelling, animals braying, and my own ragged breath.

The Whistle was a charred heap, an ugly inkblot against the dusky sky. The heat made the air look wavy, but the bitter reek in my nose told me the scene was no mirage. Ashes fluttered like black snowflakes all around.

“Father!” I pounded toward the remains, scanning the area for his distinctive figure. His dark hair and small build. The worn jacket with the patches on the elbows that he wouldn’t replace because he was saving for my future. Maybe he had shed it, for surely he was hauling water along with the rest of the men.

Smoke filled my lungs, and burned my eyes as I rubbed my grimy fingers into them.

“Out of the way!” yelled a man carrying buckets. Water sloshed onto my skirt.

I trotted beside him as he carried the buckets to another man who threw them onto the smoldering ruins. “My father—”

The man barely glanced at me. “He’s gone.”

I uttered a hoarse cry. Gone?

“Lucky you weren’t there yourself or you’d have been trapped, too. Now move!” He trod on my foot as he shoved by, but I hardly felt it.

My God, I didn’t—I should have . . .

“How?” I asked no one in particular. Was it an accident? Father was the most careful person I knew. He always doused the stove after we used it, and strictly enforced our NO SMOKING PERMITTED signage. No, if it was an accident, it couldn’t have been Father’s.

Whoever was responsible, may he pay for it in a thousand ways, go blind in both eyes, deaf in both ears. Better yet, may he perish in hell.

I choked back a sob and tried to make sense of the fuming mess in front of me. There was nothing but jagged piles of charred fragments. I could make out a heap of ash in the spot where we kept our wooden safe. Though Mother’s bracelet was no longer inside, it had held other irreplaceable treasures. A photo of Mother. Father’s immigration papers.

A wall of heat stopped me from going closer than fifteen feet from our front door, or where it used to be. My eyes burned as I strained to find my father, still not quite believing the horror was real. But as the heat began to cook my skin, I knew as sure as the Kingdom hadn’t come that he was gone. My father burned alive.

I shuddered and then my chest began to rack so hard I could scarcely draw a breath. Smoke engulfed me, thick and unyielding, but the awful truth rooted me to the spot: after I’d given my last lesson of the day, I’d dawdled along the banks of the dirty Missouri, throwing stones instead of coming home directly. I should have been with him.

Oh, Father, I’m sorry I argued with you. I’m sorry I left with my nose in the air. Were you remembering that when the smoke robbed you of your last breath? You always said, Have patience in one moment of anger, and you will avoid one hundred days of sorrow. My temper has cost me a lifetime of sorrow. And now, I will never be able to ask your forgiveness, or see your kind face again.

Another man carrying buckets barreled toward me. “Move back, girl, you’re in the way!”

I stumbled toward an elm tree, and there I stood, even after the glowing hot spots had ceased to burn, and buckets were no longer emptied.

Still the black snow fell, bits of my life flaking down on me.

2

“SHE’S BEEN STANDING THERE OVER AN HOUR,” a man muttered to another as they passed by.

“Place just lit up,” said a woman from behind. “Everything burned, even the Chinaman.”

“They sold the Whistle to a Chinaman?” asked another woman.

My face flushed at her commenting on this rather than on Father’s death. We were never welcome here. Why should I expect people to care now, just because Father had died? I turned to glare at the two women, only now noticing the crowd that had gathered. The thick soup of smoke had thinned to a veil of black.

“Six months ago. Where you been? Well, that’s the chance you take when you operate a dry goods. Places like that are tinderboxes.” This first woman finally noticed me, my lips clamped tight and my eyes swollen. She elbowed her friend, then they hurried away.

Fly, you crows. My father was not a spectacle. He was the greatest man I ever knew. He was my everything.

I clutched at the elm tree before I fell over.

A child born in the Year of the Snake was lucky. But every so often, a Snake was born unlucky. Mother died in childbirth, a clear indication that my life would be unlucky. To counteract my misfortune, a blind fortune-teller told Father never to cut my hair, or bad luck would return. In addition, she said I should resist my Snake weaknesses, such as crying easily and needing to have the last word.

“’Tis a shame about your daddy,” said a familiar voice. Our landlord, Ty Yorkshire, shook his head. His puffed skin made him look older than my father, though they were both in their forties.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

“My best building, too,” he said in his rapid speech that caused his jowls to shake. His left eye winked, the lashes fluttering like moth wings. “Sometimes you roll snake eyes.”

I gasped. He knew my Chinese lunar sign? It took me a moment to realize he was talking about gambling, not me.

“I gotta meet with some company men. You need a place to stay, wash that black off you. La Belle Hotel is one of mine. Betsy will get you a nice room.” He tipped the edge of his hat, then hailed two men.

I blinked at his departing back. Despite his kind offer, the man always made me uneasy. Maybe it was the way his black suits hung over his too-wide hips, reminding me of a spade. Father said spades represented greed, because the first Chinese coins bore that shape.

One of the onlookers covered her mouth and recoiled when she saw me. A man put a protective arm around her shoulders, like I was a wounded animal that might bite. I couldn’t blame him. I was unsure of my own reactions. The anger and horror poisoning my insides made every nerve sing in pain, made me want to scream, and weep. I was my violin bow, bent to the breaking point and on the verge of snapping in two.

But I did not snap. Instead, I shuffled toward Main, not even sure where I was going as I picked my way around horse pies.

Did he suffocate before the flames—?

I shook my head. I couldn’t bear to think of it.

My adopted French grandfather called Father his scholar. Father could predict the weather by listening to birdsong. Knew which plants healed and which poisoned. Spoke six languages. Tipped his hat to everyone, even Mrs. Whitecomb, who regularly pinched buttons from us.

The moist evening air licked at my face and bare arms. Somewhere I had lost my shawl.

To my right, a line of wagons led down to the Missouri River. The town of St. Joe squatted at the edge of the civilized world. Folks came here to jump into the great unknown, starting with a ferry ride across the dirty Missouri.

Into the great unknown was where the grocer Mr. Trask took Mother’s jade bracelet after Father inexplicably gave it to him. Now, nothing remained.

I pressed my violin case into my gut and stared at the river. The shimmering surface beckoned to me. I could be with Father, instead of in this unjust world, which never threw us more than a cold glance. With the strong undertow, death would be quick.

But Father would not want that.

Dazed, I stumbled away. My boot caught on a sandbag and this time I did fall, sending my case skittering in front of me.

“Look sharp!” yelled a young man from atop a horse. I covered my head with my arms. His sorrel stamped its print just inches from my head. White markings extended past its fetlocks like socks. The rider slowed.

“You okay, miss?” he asked in a soft but clear voice.

I nodded but didn’t look back. Father always said, He who gets up more than he falls, succeeds. I scrambled to collect my violin before another horse came along and trampled it. The rider moved on.

I found myself staring up at La Belle Hotel, whose pink walls set it apart from its drab neighbors. Up close, I noticed the dirt overlaying the paint. Father and I avoided this street because he said the uneven surface brought bad energy. But I had nowhere else to go.

I swung open the heavy door. Behind an elaborately carved walnut counter, a woman in bright taffeta lifted her shriveled face to me. “Yes?”

“Good evening, ma’am,” I said in a shaky voice. “I’m Samantha Young. Mr. Yorkshire said I might find accommodation here.”

“Good Lord,” she muttered, thin nose twitching like a mouse’s.

Her cane dragged along the floor as she hobbled toward me, shhh, tap, shhh, tap. She raked a contemptuous eye across my face and down to my worn boots. After an eternal pause, she said, “Annamae, bring Miss Young up to room 2A and scrub her down.”

A girl my age appeared in the doorway behind the staircase, skin the shade of pecans. She didn’t wear chains, but the brand on her forearm gave her away: a square with six dots, raised like icing piped onto her skin. If it was possible to feel any sicker, I did. Negroes walked tall and free in New York. I wished for the hundredth time we’d never left.

“Miss Betsy, ma’am?” said Annamae in a quiet voice.

The old woman squinted, as if the sight of Annamae talking displeased her.

“Thought you wanted me to pick up the linens from the launderer tonight, like I always do. I was just on my way.” Annamae pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and slanted her heart-shaped face toward the main door.

“Well, I’ve changed my mind, and how dare you question me.” Miss Betsy’s voice sliced through the air. “Now do as I ask, and don’t be slow about it.” She threw a hand at the girl as if to strike her, but Annamae was just out of reach.

Annamae regarded me with her deeply inset eyes. Chinese people believe that eyes like those indicate an analytical, practical mind. The look she gave me was not unkind, but there was a spark of something there—anger?—that compounded the guilt I was already feeling. With a last glance at the door, Annamae bowed her head and placed her hand on the banister. One by one, she ascended the stairs, as if every step were a labor. I plodded after her uniformed figure, keeping my eyes fixed on the cheerful pink bow of her apron.

Room 2A was grander than I thought could exist in St. Joe, with a slipper tub set at the foot of a feather bed. But the opulence sat like raw chicory on my tongue. I wanted to be back with Father, picking apart the Paganini concerto. Taking nature walks with our copy of Fowler’s Flora.

Annamae filled the tub. A thick-handled brush and a cake of soap waited on a side table. The brush looked big enough to scrub a horse. Annamae finished pouring the water while I stuck to the wall and hugged myself.

“You’s grimy. Get in,” she said. A moment later, the door closed. She was gone.

Maybe I wouldn’t be scrubbed down. I peeled off my dress with the tiny flowers, washed so many times the color had disappeared. It was sticky with sweat and reeked of smoke.

I stepped into the water, lowering myself carefully. The bath smelled of lavender. This was the first tub I’d sat in since coming to St. Joe, but all I could think about was whether it was deep enough to drown in.

Oh, Father! How could you leave me behind? I could not even bury you like you deserved. What a disgrace of a daughter. I’m sorry. I should’ve been there, shouldn’t have taken the last word.

I submerged my head and counted . . . Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight . . .

3

SOMEONE PULLED ME UP BY THE BACK OF MY NECK.

Annamae peered down at me as I sucked in air. “You can’t kill you’self like that. It don’t work. I tried.”

I gaped at her. Ignoring me, she stretched her lean body over mine to unwind the two buns on top of my head. Her own hair was cropped short, accenting the swan-like curve of her neck.

She wiggled her fingers to loosen my tresses. I wanted to tell her not to scrub me down, but when she started kneading my scalp, I forgot.

“God makes our bodies want to live, no matter what our minds want to do,” she stated in a quiet, deep voice. Her face was more handsome than beautiful, with strong cheekbones, a narrow chin, and clear eyes that didn’t wander. She must have been born in the Year of the Dragon, since she looked about a year older than me and held herself with a certain quiet dignity. Father said you could spot Dragons a mile away because all heads turned their way.

Annamae poured the rinse water over my hair, then picked up the wooden brush. The bristles scratched my skin, but she didn’t scrub hard.

“Now why you want to kill you’self?” Her sympathy broke me.

“I got home too late,” I sobbed. “The place was ashes. My father died. He was everything to me.”

The brush stopped for a moment. “I’m real sorry about that. I know the hurt you’s feeling. Like you want to disappear into the nearest rabbit hole and never come out.” She took my hand and gently ran the bristles under my fingernails. “He the one gave you that fiddle?” She nodded at the Lady Tin-Yin.

“Yes.”

“That means he believed in you. Only men play the fiddle.”

I stared at her. It was true that most folks considered the violin too difficult for a woman to master, but, as with teaching me the Classics, Father never gave it a second thought.

She helped me out of the tub and handed me a robe. “I’ll fetch some tea.” Out she breezed, taking my soiled dress with her.

Not two minutes later, the door opened again. I thought it was Annamae, and jumped when our landlord Ty Yorkshire appeared in the door frame. Though he stood just a few inches taller than my five-foot-three height, his presence filled the room like the scent of bitter almonds.

“I’m not dressed,” I cried, pulling the robe more snugly around me.

“Had a good chat with the sheriff.” Slowly, he rubbed his thick hands together.

He stepped closer and I backed away. My skin broke out in gooseflesh.

“No point in filing charges for negligence against a dead man.” He turned to hang his hat on one of the wall hooks.

“Negligence?” If there was negligence, it wasn’t ours.

“’Course, fires are expensive. Someone’s gotta ante up. Not easy to insure a wood building like that, but I can be very convincing.” He waved at the bed. “Let’s sit down.” The bed groaned as he made himself comfortable.

“It’s not proper for you to be here. I’m not decent.”

“Doesn’t bother me.” He patted the spot beside him, his manner friendly and almost cheerful. “I really should get some chairs in here.”

When I still didn’t sit, he added, “All I want to do is talk a little business with you. It troubles me to see your poor situation, and I would like to help. But we can’t do business if we don’t trust each other, can we?”

I may not have liked him, but he did lease us the Whistle, even installed a new window when we complained about the draft. But what could he want from me, I wondered. Not violin lessons.

I perched on one corner of the bed, keeping my distance.

To my surprise, he stood and took two steps back to the wall hooks. I thought he was going to take his hat and leave, but instead, he unstrapped his gun belt and hung it next to his hat. “Wearing a piece when talking to a lady is just disrespectful.” Then he shrugged off his black coat, spun of the finest wool, and hung it as well. “You got any family around? Anyone to look after you?”

I shook my head.

The bed sank as he reseated himself. An oily smile spread across his face. “That’s what I thought.”

His moth eye started winking again, picking up speed with every beat. It might have flown right out of his head. “So here’s what I propose. Out of respect for your dearly departed father, I would like to offer you room and board here. In exchange, you will provide services.”

I stiffened. “Services?”

“Silken hair, ivory skin, eyes like a cat. Eyes that tell a man to come in and shut the door,” he hissed out of the spaces between his teeth. His bulbous nose twitched as he sniffed once, twice.

Dear God, what now? I stood abruptly, casting around for a way out. There was only the door and the window.

He stood, too, blocking the path to the door. “Men will pay dearly for the pleasure of a woman’s company. I already got a Spaniard, an Injun, and two Negresses. An exotic number like yourself could augment my fine stable. The Lily of the East, we’d call you. Bet you’d fetch more than the lot of them, maybe five dollars an evening. You can wear pretty dresses, take baths. You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you, Sammy?”

Only Father called me Sammy. My face burned at the unwelcome familiarity.

A too-warm breeze blew through the open window and rumpled the back of my hair. I could end things right now. Step out the window like Ophelia, who fell out of a willow tree after Hamlet killed her father. Two stories was about the height of a willow.

I kept him talking. “Why would I do that?”

He shrugged. “You got no choice. No money, nobody to look after you. You think the pittance you earn from those violin lessons will keep you? This way, the only thing you’d have to lift is your, well . . . ” His eyes skipped to my lower half. “It’ll help pay your debts.”

“What debts?” I tried to still the tremor in my voice.

“A fire like that could’ve been started by that stove you kept, against building code for a dry goods.” His voice oozed like ointment.

I stepped to one side, wishing to squeeze past him and the tub to reach the door. He shifted as well, blocking me again. “A glimpse of a lady’s ankle is like the first sip of wine. Makes you thirsty for the whole bottle. Now before we make any formal agreement, I’d like to test the goods.”

“Stay away from—” I began, but quick as a striking adder, he clamped one hand over my mouth and the other on the back of my head. I clawed at him, trying to scream, but he squeezed harder, smashing my lips into my teeth . I tasted blood.

“Scream all you want. Ain’t no one here going to rescue you. I pay handsomely, see.”

He shoved me backward onto the bed. My head recoiled off the mattress when I landed. Looking wildly around for salvation, I spotted the scrubbing brush on the side table. When he looked down to undo his trousers, I reached over and closed my fingers around the handle.

Scrambling up, I swung it hard against the side of his head. My leverage was not good, but he yelped and grabbed my throat.

“Whore!” he spat.

Wasting no time, I brought the brush up again and clubbed him in the face, causing blood to spurt from his nostrils. He jerked back to avoid another blow, but the movement threw him off balance and he slipped. His arms flailed, but his feet couldn’t get purchase on the wet floor.

Backward he fell. With a sickening crack, his head banged against the edge of the tub.

And as Ty Yorkshire crashed to the floor, his fall sent out ripples I feared would chase me no matter which way I ran.

I dropped the brush. It clattered on the cold, wet tile beside the dead man’s head. An owl cried outside, and a clock chimed nine times.

• • •

Moments after the last chime, the door opens again. Annamae enters, bearing a tray.

“Oh, Lord,” she gasps, eyes doubling in size.

“I think he’s dead,” I whisper. “He was trying to—to—”

Annamae shuts the door and sets down the tray. She paces for a moment. Then she straightens the waist of her dress. “Move him to the bed before the blood soaks to the first floor,” she orders.

The hysterics gather in my chest, making it hard to breathe, let alone move.

She appraises my trembling self. Then, to my surprise, she hugs me. “Pull it together.”

The warmth of her touch quells some of my panic. “I . . . I’m going to hell.”

She pushes me away from her, and bends down so our faces are even. Her determined expression stirs me to mimic it. “Only if we don’t do something about him.”

She’s right. I can’t come undone yet. She grips Ty Yorkshire’s arms, and I take his legs—one leg anyway. The man must weigh two hundred pounds. Together, we haul him onto the bed. Our efforts leave a trail of blood, more than I’ve ever seen at once. No one loses this much blood and lives.

When we finish, I’m heaving with exhaustion.

“How old are you?” she asks.

I catch my breath. “Fifteen.”

“Old enough for the noose. You’ll get your death wish, then.”

I wipe my eyes at this sobering thought. My father is dead, my home destroyed, and I just killed a man—at least, that’s what they will believe. I have no business aboveground. Yet suddenly, I don’t want to die.

I could return to New York. It would be dangerous, a wanted criminal traveling through populated areas. But without Father, New York would just be another faceless city, worse now because living there would constantly remind me of my disrespect.

No, there is no going back.

Father said he had great plans for us, and I owe it to him to find out what they were. Mr. Trask was Father’s best friend, and now he is my only real connection to the living. I could catch him. He only left a few weeks ago. After all, there’s only one road west.

“Annamae, I’m going to California.”

4

ANNAMAE’S DARK PUPILS WIDEN A FRACTION, AND she begins to knead her scar with her thumb. “It’s a long way to California.”

“A friend of my father’s is headed that way,” I say. “I’ve got business with him.”

She begins to pace again, but only goes back and forth once before stopping in front of me. Her gaze comes to rest on a bloodstain on my robe. “If we’re going, we best get you something to wear.”

“We?”

“I’m going with you. I should’ve left two hours ago to meet my Moses wagon. It’s probably long gone now.” Her mouth sets into a grim line.

She was planning to escape? While I never heard of a “Moses” wagon, Father told me wagons were used as part of the Underground Railroad movement to free the slaves. “But they hang runaways.”

“Then we’ll swing side by side. I asked God to send me the right wagon, and now I think you’s it. Alone, people will think I’m a runaway. But with you, maybe I can fool ’em.”

“It won’t be easy. I just killed a man, and they will come after us.” My th