Read Online No Eye Can See by Jane Kirkpatrick - Free Book Online Page A

freed, emptier than it had been since Jeremy died. The weightlessness kept her hovering, unwilling to light for fear she'd be consumed by the churning inside.
    “Getting on winter,” Seth told Mazy. He led his horse now and walked beside her. She was almost as tall as him, but had to look up to see his eyes. “Got to husde ourselves along, get settled before the rains start.” He squinted through pines to a blue sky. “Could happen any time.”
    “You like doing this, don't you?” Mazy asked him.
    “I like a little uncertainty,” he said. “Maybe another train 11 be willing to take the cutoff and I'll get another commission from the city fathers. It's an honest living. This trip's had a nice reward, bringing you ladies to a new land. I like my gambling time, too. All I need is just one good game with the right stakes and I can set my sights on more predictable things.” He patted his vest pocket as though looking for his writing kit.
    “Something inspire a poem?”
    He shook his head. “Thinking to stop smoking.”
    “I didn't know you did.”
    “Don't now. Clouds my mind at the poker tables. Need to keep bright as a tack.”
    “I believe that's ‘sharp as a tack,’ “ Mazy said. She smiled.
     
“Mazy Bacon,
Tall as a tree.
Eyes like a wise cat's,
Watchful and green.”
    “Poems I don't need writing tools for anyway. Especially when the inspiration's right in front of me.”
    Mazy blushed. “I don't feel particularly wise,” she said.
    “But you are. All you've had to contend with? Boys without their fathers, sisters without their brothers, wives without—”
    “We've all had losses. I don't know that I've done anything wise to help us through it.”
    “Mazy Bacon. From the first, I liked your honesty, your lack of flashing eyes to get something wanted without asking for it up front. So I dont think you're expecting a compliment with that comment. But I'm going to give you one. And you listen to it and you remember it. Someone had to lead. Ain't no gathering of folks ever achieved a goal without someone reminding ‘em of where they were headed, of what mattered, of getting ‘em outside of themselves and thinking of others. Someone has to fill the holes left by the men. Got to inspire people to do more than they thought they could, to get back on the trail. They don't even know yet what they've accomplished. That'll come years later when they tell their kin. And, oh, the stories of all they did will grow bigger than a bullfrog's belly. They may forget what you did, but you best not. A good leader is ninety percent inspiration and the ability to spread it like a welcome blanket across people cold and scared and uncertain. You did that or these people behind us would never have been here, sassy and snappy as they are. There's almost no defeat in their faces. That in itself's a miracle.”
    Seth swallowed, and Mazy realized his face was red and his eyes were pooled.
    She didn't think she'd ever had a man sing her praises so—or anyone, for that matter. “Why, Seth, I—”
    He turned to her then. “Mazy,” he said. His gloved hand pressed a lock of hair behind her ear. He brushed his lips against her forehead, light as a butterfly fluttering a blossom.
    She had no idea what the rest of them would think. She wasn't sure what she thought herself.

    They'd moved northwest, bypassing some tree-darkened buttes, but the rise through the Sierras felt gradual. The grass and water supply heldsteady. Around Black Butte, they turned at last southwest. At a slight incline, Seth suggested they lock brakes, but it was only for a short distance and the animals handled it fine.
    They crossed creeks and watched clear, rushing water flow out of the sides of buttes. Yellow flowers bloomed, and the grass leaned out over stream banks like green waterfalls.
    “It's beautiful here, isn't it?” Mazy asked her mother as she picked up a pine needle and used it to push some breakfast fish from the back of her tooth. It