Strange images played through Emily’s mind. Hollow bowls, husks, blown eggshells …
Emily shook her head as the Maien took her right hand, the hand with the stone in it. The old woman held Emily’s hand tight and, pressing her forehead against the stone, closed her eyes.
“Tenkiju, ososolyeh,” she rasped.
Then, opening her eyes, the Maien pressed something small and hard into Emily’s hand. She closed Emily’s fingers around it. Then she looked around herself, her gaze encompassing the trees, the rising smoke, the growing brightness of morning. She breathed a deep breath in through her nose, seeming to relish it as if it were her last. She smiled. Looking up at Stanton, she reached over and swatted him on the knee fondly. Stanton reached down and clasped the Maien’s hand.
“Josum, Komé,” he said.
“Josum?” The Maien’s face crumpled in a strange smile, and she released a soft laugh, weak and kittenish. “Mi, jose!” Then she turned and staggered back to her hut, casting no shadow, her feet making no sound.
Lawa, Emily noticed, did not follow her. Instead, the girl stared after them, her eyes hard and unshifting.
“What did you say to her that was so all-fired amusing?” Emily asked, once they were well away from the camp.
“I just said good-bye,” he said. “Josum means good-bye, and she said, ‘Oh, yes! Go!’ I can’t say I get the joke either.”
“She gave me an acorn.” Emily held up the small hard nut that Komé had pressed into her hand. “She called it tenkiju … is that the word for acorn?”
“No,” Stanton said. “Acorn is muyu.”
“Then what does tenkiju mean?”
“Well, that’s an interesting question. You see, the Miwok have no word in their language for ‘thank you.’ I suppose it’s because they believe that thanking someone implies that there is a need for thanks, which implies—”
“Oh, skip it!” Emily sighed, exasperated. “You know, you may get tired of explaining things to me, but not half so tired as I get listening.”
“Tenkiju. Sound it out. It’s a phonetic approximation of the English words ‘thank you.’”
“What was she thanking me for?”
“I don’t think she was thanking you. I think she was thanking the stone. She said tenkiju ososolyeh. She was thanking the evening star.”
Emily looked at him.
“The evening star?”
“Ososolyeh translates as evening star. She called the stone that before, in fact, when she first saw it.”
“In the journal you showed me, it said that the Indians who found the specimen that’s in the British Museum also thought it was a piece of the evening star!”
“Exactly so,” Stanton said.
“Acorns and evening stars,” Emily said contemplatively, holding up the nut. Then, with a dismissive gesture, she threw the acorn over her shoulder. Stanton gave a cry and pulled Remus up short. Jumping down from the horse, he felt around in the leaf mold until he found the acorn. He wiped mud from it and tucked it back into Emily’s hand.
“Never throw away something a holy woman gives you.”
Emily looked at him.
“I’m supposed to carry a nut around, just because some old Indian Witch handed it to me?”
“Humor me, Miss Edwards.”
Emily sighed. Pulling the silk pouch out from under her collar, she tucked the nut inside, then returned the pouch to its habitual hiding place.
CHAPTER SEVEN
San Francisco
It was a hard day’s ride to Oakland, where they would board the ferry for San Francisco, but the bright spring sunshine warmed their backs and heartened the horses. They cantered along one of the broad wagon-roads that connected the Sacramento Valley with the prosperous markets along the Pacific Coast. All along the way, farmers were plowing the fields with their heavy teams. The sound of birdsong and the vivid smell of loamy black earth was everywhere, and Emily felt the return of her normal good spirits.
It wasn’t just the beautiful weather that cheered her. She had gained a memory of her mother. She didn’t know why, or how … but it was a memory, and it was new, and it was precious. She kept going back to it, dark and murky as it was, trying to tease out additional details. She couldn’t remember her mother’s face, but she could remember the shape of her nose in the shadows, the smooth parting of her hair. It was a memory, the first she’d ever had. It buoyed her and made her feel bright as new-shined brass.
The sight of Oakland sprawling on the horizon gave Emily’s spirits an additional boost. Oakland was by no means lovely, but it meant they were almost to