It is not only in the rose,
It is not only in the bird,
Not only where the rainbow glows,
Nor in the song of woman heard,
But in the darkest, meanest things
There alway, alway something sings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Music"
At the edge of his vision, Heath saw the muzzle flashes and smoke: one, two, three, four rifles, firing nearly simultaneously. He reacted without conscious thought, moving for cover before the sound of gunfire even arrived.
Back in 1862, U.S. Army Captain John Welker of the Western Sharpshooters received from California a bewildered and clearly underage "sixteen-year-old" private. He evaluated the soldier according to the transfer orders he received, and found the boy to have a nearly supernatural talent as a marksman. Welker took Private Thomson under his wing and he trained him well. Heath knew how to duck. But nobody had ever taught him how to evade gunfire on a rotting roof while trying to get a little girl on a belay line out of harm's way.
He saw the flash and threw himself flat on the downslope of the roof, hoping he'd been enough of an inviting silhouette on the ridgeline that the shooters would have aimed high, wanting to pick him off. As he moved, he deliberately slacked the rope, knowing that the sudden sliding descent would cause Malila to reflexively lay herself down flat on the roof as well.
Next came the sound. He heard the gunshots, and he knew the bullets were not far behind. He saw Malila sliding down toward the edge of the roof, and saw that Itsu and the other Miwok men who had been waiting to catch her had ducked for cover and were nowhere in sight. Heath threw one arm over the ridge of the roof to brace himself to hold her weight if she slid over the edge, clamped his other hand desperately on the rope, and prayed the soldiers had terrible aim.
That was a prayer that would not be granted, Heath quickly realized. Pine shingles exploded into splinters around him. He swore and ducked his face into his arm in an attempt to protect his eyes from the flying bits of wood. A blazing line of pain striped one shoulder as a bullet grazed him and embedded itself in the upright he had been using as an anchor just a moment before. He flinched, and lost his grip on the rope.
Malila screamed as she suddenly began sliding rapidly toward the empty verge of the barn roof. She scrabbled vainly for something to slow her descent, looking up at him with terror in her eyes. "Me'weh -! Me'weh, don't let me fall –"
She was falling away from him, the rope was sliding rapidly away from him, it was all falling away and out of his reach. Falling into nothing.
Set you free if I could.
His head was full of the memory of crashing darkness, and the splintering, cracking pain of broken branches. Malila slipped over the edge of the roof, hung on for a brief second, and then fell from sight. Malila was beyond his grasp, but the rope –
Without a thought of what might come next for him, Heath threw himself bodily after that retreating hemp line. He felt his hands close around the rough cord. He gripped it ferociously, gratefully, desperately; he felt it catch her up, unseen, at the other end. But there was no victory to celebrate yet. Now he was in a battle to stop his own slide into nothing. A losing battle, and one that would take Malila down along with him. In silence he fought the rotting roof, the forces of gravity, and a second round of bullets that whined and exploded around him, fired by men who didn't care about the life of a little girl.
He heard shouted commands off in the distance, but no more gunfire. Holding the line with one hand, Heath was frantically reaching and searching for any kind of a hold or anchor. Hunks of broken shingles came off in his hand. His boots found nothing to slow him down. As he slid to the edge, as he felt the roof begin to disappear from under him, he heard Malila scream again in fear. With a roar of rage, he pounded on the shingles with his fist, and finally, praise heaven, he felt his arm break through to the timbers beneath. He wrapped his arm around a creaking, moldy beam. He came to an excruciating, jerking halt and held on, half on and half off the roof. Eyes squeezed shut and teeth clenched, everything in him was focused on keeping his grip on the rope in his other hand.
The world had gone abruptly silent except for the faint creaking of the beams, his own harsh breathing, and Malila's faint fearful crying somewhere down below him. A small groan escaped him as his thinking mind waded through the debris of mayhem and pure survival instinct and caught up with his body. Heath reckoned he should be grateful that Malila was such a little kid; as it was, he felt like he was being torn in half. Then it occurred to him that the termite-ridden beam he was so desperately holding on to might give out before that happened.
At least they're not shooting at us now. I hope someone down there's figuring out how to get Malila down, 'cause there ain't much more I can do from this end. And they better get it done quick, he thought, as the timbers below him creaked alarmingly.
C'mon, cowboy, I know you won't drop me.
Heath deliberately tried to turn his attention to anything that might distract him from the steady, painful, implacable pull on the rope. He knew, in the long run, that force would win the war: It was eternal, and he was not. Eventually his strength would give out. Thinking on that truth could make a man feel hopeless, Heath knew too well. So he reminded himself that this was not eternity, it was a single battle, and he intended to win this one. He couldn't save her alone, but he didn't need to hold on forever. He just needed to hold on long enough.
He heard Rivka and Haja's voices down below, mingling with those of the men as they worked on a plan to get Malila down. Having no ladder, they settled on a stretched tarpaulin the marshals had brought to serve as a shelter. Rivka called up to Heath when they were in position and told him to let go of the rope. Malila bounced easily on the makeshift trampoline, giggling and crying both. Her uncle scooped her up.
"I knew Me'weh wouldn't let me fall," she told him. He hugged her silently, eyes closed in relief.
Up above, Heath groaned again, partly in relief at being able to use both arms to hold his weight, and partly in frustration as he realized just how stuck he was clinging to the eaves of the busted-up roof. He couldn't climb up or down, and he didn't know how long he'd be able to hold on where he was.
"Hang on, Heath, we're coming to get you –"
"We? Who's we, darlin'?" He shifted his weight again, looking anxiously around him for options as his muscles ached, the beams creaked, and the roof shed pieces of dusty wood. The fragments spun and fell noiselessly down into the dimness to the barn floor far below. "Comin' to get me how -?" He glanced down to the yard, and was glad to see Malila already running off with the other children.
"Me'weh. If I send you a rope, can you climb up?"
Surprised, he looked up. It was Notaku. He seemed almost to loom over Heath, tall as he was and straddling the ridge of the roof. He gazed solemnly down at him, another rope in his hands.
Heath didn't answer immediately. A few hours ago, this man wanted him dead, and would have accomplished that, most likely, if Haja had not intervened. Now here he was, offering to help. In fact, he was asking Heath to – quite literally – put his life in his hands. Heath figured he had to say something to that, even if it didn't look like he much in the way of other options.
"Yeah, I reckon I could," Heath said.
Notaku nodded and started to remove the rope from his shoulder.
"How is your wife doing?" Heath asked.
Notaku stopped, surprised. "You know about my wife?"
"Haja told me."
"She is a little better. She is still very sick, but Rivka thinks she is healing."
"I'm glad to hear that. So, do you –" Heath grunted as he tried unsuccessfully to find an easier position. "- do you still think I'm – I'm a -" He found he couldn't quite bring himself to say the word. He sidestepped slightly. "Do you still want me dead? I mean, before you send that rope down here. If you're wanting to knock me off this roof, I don't figure there's going to be much I can do about it, I'd just rather know ahead of time."
Notaku answered gravely. "I understand. You will be safe in my hands, Me'weh." He threw one end of the rope down.
On a hilltop a hundred yards or so to the west, a young lieutenant with a distinctive birthmark on his neck paced up and down and berated four of his riflemen for opening fire without orders on a target that included several children and other non-combatants, and that not only presented no threat, but in fact contained a field hospital authorized by the California Board of Public Health. The riflemen, bemused, quietly accepted the dressing-down. They didn't much disagree with their lieutenant, in principle, but they were certain he'd be swatted like a fly if he started making that kind of talk in front of the Colonel.