No Eye Can See by Jane Kirkpatrick Page A

stream.”
    “Just the boys?” Ruth asked.
    “We'll eat whatever's caught, I expect. Best we take an early rest. Ma'am,” Seth said, tapping his fingers on his tall white hat and heading toward his horse.
    “Is it still light out?” Suzanne asked Mazy.
    “At least another hour,” Mazy said. “It's hard to put children to sleep when it's light, isn't it? I can help put them down,” Mazy offered. “Tell Clayton a story for you too.”
    Adora piped in. “Sason's little head's lolling, Mazy. Best you straighten that contraption. Wouldn't want him to get a stretched neck from neglect. Got to attend every detail of Suzanne's. Here, let me. Maybe you should take him out, Mazy.”
    “I think he's all right,” Mazy said. “It's Clayton who—”
    “Their mother is right here,” Suzanne said. “Ask her if you might tend them. In fact, I'm going to take them…for a walk.”
    “You? Alone?” Adora squeaked. “But the snakes and all.
    “Yes. Me. Their mother.” She felt her cheeks burn and her heart pound.
    “Could you fix the board on my back, straighten Sason in it?” Mazy didn't answer, and Suzanne guessed she'd nodded.
    “I'll come with you,” Mazy said.
    “No!”
    Suzanne didn't wait for Mazy to object. She felt Mazy center the frame on her back, the sleeves of Suzanne's wrapper dress catching a bit on the slivers of wood, but she jerked away. “He's fine,” she said, and called for Clayton. She heard his bell and Mariah puffing behind him. “Here, Clayton. Take my hand. We're going for a walk.”
    “I'll come with you,” Mariah said. “Just let me catch my breath.”
    “I am going alone,” Suzanne said. “Alone with my children.”
    “Golly,” Mariah said, but she seemed to know Suzanne was serious because the girl didn't protest when Suzanne snatched her son's hand and with the other gripped Pig's harness. “Ahead,” she told Pig, and the four of them retreated to the desert.

    “Believe in English it'd be spelled m-a-y-l-i-n-g? Elizabeth said. They stood beside the Wilson wagon where an alphabet of brass tacks coveredthe sideboard. Once they reached Shasta City Seth had told them, the tacks would be worth their weight in gold since things like tacks were luxuries in the northern mining towns. Everything had to be hauled in by mules from as far away as Sacramento City
    “I see name write down,” Mei-Ling told Elizabeth. “Long time ago.” She was practicing being insistent. Other women asked things. She could too.
    She held her first finger up to the wind the way Sister Esther did when making a point. “Same like how I put in sand.”
    “You girls still dont get it, do you?” Adora Wilson told her, stepping in. Elizabeth and Mei-Ling both turned to her. “You've got to put aside those old ways, do things like they do in the States. You should keep the names the Sister gave you, the way Naomi decided. Help you fit in.”
    “I fit same like you,” Mei-Ling told her, standing as tall as she could.
    “Nothing about us is the same, if truth be known,” Adora told her, brushing corn pone crumbs from her ample bosom. “You and Naomi are from a foreign land. I, on the other hand, am American born.”
    “You eat the same food nowadays,” Elizabeth reminded her. “Liking those herbs and such, from what I hear.”
    “My sense of smell is coming back,” Adora said, and then she began to chatter about herself and her daughter Tipton.
    Elizabeth let the words drift into the hot desert air. When Adora stopped, Elizabeth said to Mei-Ling, “So you want the letters e and i instead of a and y ?”
    The Asian girl nodded once, certain.
    “All right. That's how we'll spell your name from now on.”
    “What does your intended think your name is?” Adora asked. “Or have you told him something totally different?”
    Mei-Ling's brows frowned over her almond eyes. She swallowed then, and her eyes blinked.
    “That husband of yours may be waiting for an American girl,” Adora said. “Did