She hazards half a twist in her saddle and casts me a sly glance. “That’s not all I can do. I used to be a cook, too.”
“Cook, huh?” says Cay. “I miss our coosie on the drive. He was a magician.”
“Cobbler’s my specialty.”
“That so? You hear that, West?” says Cay.
“I don’t have a sweet tooth,” West mutters.
Cay flicks a gloved hand at West. “You don’t got a sweet anything.”
“What else can you do, Andito?” says Peety, scratching a red welt on his neck.
“I know how to take the itch out of a mosquito bite.” She points to Peety’s red spot. “Rub some dry soap on it. You have soap, don’t you?”
Peety passes the question to West, who shakes his head, then barks, “Cay! Franny wants to shade up.”
We park under a dogwood, a stately tree with a wide canopy of white cross-shaped blossoms that resemble a flock of butterflies. Dogwoods mean that water is close.
Cay opens his trousers and anoints a bush. Peety and West do the same.
“Don’t you gotta make water?” asks Cay, looking over his shoulder at Andy and me.
Andy elbows me.
“I saw a patch of something we can eat over there,” I fumble.
We head off to a high-grass area with dense shrubs where we can do our business in private. My thighs ache and Andy’s, too, judging by how she walks. Once we’re hidden, Andy quickly opens up her coat and flaps the side panels like wings. “I’ve got to do something about this coat,” she mutters. “I’m baking myself into a dinner roll.”
“Good effort back there offering up your skills,” I say, “but West clearly does not care for our company.”
“He’s a tough nut to crack. A good-looking nut, though.” She tweaks an eyebrow at me. “Maybe we could pay them with one of the pinkie rings to take us farther.”
“I think West would rather pay us to go away,” I grumble. “Still, those are quality horses.” If I had a horse like one of theirs, I could catch up to Mr. Trask in no time at all.
After we finish, we’re left with the problem of what to bring back.
Andy points to a shrub with tiny red fruit. “Chokecherries. Good eats but sour as horse piss.’”
I don’t ask how she knows this as we fill our pockets. Then we start to leave the cover of the bushes.
“Sammy!” hisses Andy from behind me at the same moment I see four men on horseback. They peer down at the boys, their somber dusters slung over with rifles. Cay leans back on Skinny, his hands gesturing.
My breath catches in my throat. Before we can dive back into the brush, West beckons us over.
I gulp as the four newcomers turn their heads in our direction.
10
“OH, LORD,” SAYS ANDY. “I HOPE THEY AIN’T looking for us.”
We drag our feet back to the boys.
“How fast can you run in case we need to split?” she whispers.
“About as fast as I can walk.” I wipe my sweating palms on my trousers. “And anyway, we can’t outrun horses. We’ll just need to play it by ear.”
“You mean, we need to pray,” says Andy.
I iron out the wrinkles in my brow as we approach.
One of the men touches a black-gloved hand to his forehead by way of greeting, his mouth puckered as a belly button. His bullet eyes hone in on Andy, then me, wilting beside her. They linger on my dirt-streaked face.
Cay sweeps his finger at the men. “These are federal marshals.”
I square my shoulders and try to stop hiding in my clothes. Too suspicious.
“Nate Early,” says the one with the bullet eyes. “Names?”
“Andy.”
“S-s-sam,” I stutter, even with just one syllable.
“You kids runaways?”
Andy flinches.
“No,” I answer. “We’re Argonauts.” I puff out my chest, then quickly deflate it when I realize that even the suggestion of a chest could do me in.
“Argonauts.” Early draws out the word. “Where you coming from?”
Not St. Joe. No. “New Yorkshire,” I say, nearly choking when Ty Yorkshire’s surname falls out. Dear God! Who ever heard of New Yorkshire? My shoulders slump with the weight of the invisible rope I just threw around my neck.
Early squints at me.
I’m swimming in a pool of my own sweat. Shoot me now. Make it quick.
“Sam from New Yorkshire, that your slave?” He jerks his head toward Andy. She’s gone still as a music stand. A fly lands on her shoulder, then crawls around her back.
The thought of even pretending to own a slave makes me sick. “No. He’s a free man.”
“You got papers?” Early asks Andy.
Papers? I want to kick myself. I should’ve said I owned her. That was the original plan, the reason I was her Moses wagon. But would he have asked for ownership papers? Before either Andy or I can speak, Peety says, “No need for papers out here. This is no Missouri.”