“I just hope Isaac don’t come upon that gang. He’ll be traveling by himself, I reckon, which means he’s easy pickins.” She scrubs her arms with ferocity and glares at the water. “Plus, he’s so good, he’d probably say a prayer for them after they break his hand.”
“Is he as good as you?” I ask.
A smile tickles her lips. “He makes me look like a sinner.” She stops scrubbing and pats her arms with a rag. “If he sees you hungry, he’ll give you his portion and make sure you don’t know it. Not even the birds fly away when he comes ’round. Don’t even think he like to eat meat, but a’course he never complained.”
“He sounds like a real gentleman.”
“That he is.” Her grin fades. “Some days I worry I’ll never see him again. It’s a big country.” A mosquito lands on her hand and she slaps it.
“There’s a Chinese principle called yuanfen, which means your fate with someone else,” I say. “Two people with strong yuanfen have a greater chance of meeting in their lifetimes, and can become as close as family.” I hold up my socks. “See, they’re like socks. They may travel different places, but at some point, all the socks end up in the same drawer.”
“Socks, huh?” She twists her mouth to one side. “Well, I hope that it is true, though I told you it ain’t Christian to believe in fate.”
“My father believed in it, and he was Catholic. He liked to say, just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“Like ghosts,” she says. “I don’t believe in ’em. But you’ll never see me stepping on no one’s gravestone.”
“Me neither.”
I finish washing my face and hands. Before I powder my nose with dirt, I peek at my reflection, which turns horrified when I see the boy squinting back at me. My complexion, once fair, is freckling, and my ears look enormous without hair to cover them. A grimace thins my lips, which were never pillowy to begin with. I relax and the curve at the bottom reappears, sweetening things farther up my face. My eyes lose their squint and become watermelons seeds again, shiny, black, and evenly spaced on my oval face. I must be careful to avoid smiling, though I wasn’t planning to do that for a long time anyway.
Cay and West set down a few yards away and begin washing. Peety tends to the horses.
“Hey, kids, how ’bout you start a fire while we go hunting?” Cay calls to us.
“Okay,” I answer. Andy swats dirt from her trousers, then off we go to collect firewood. We set our camp fifty yards from the river so we don’t get caught in mosquito clouds. I break sticks over my knees and add them to our growing pile, while Andy gathers bunches of dried grass for kindling.
When we’re done, we flop onto the ground. The moist air feels like a pack of panting dogs hanging over my shoulder. I fan my shirt layers up and down to air myself out. Humid is my least favorite weather, but today I am just thankful there is no rain.
Andy squints as Cay and West return from the river. “That was fast,” she says. “Don’t look like they got anything.”
“Forget hunting.” Cay removes his hat and runs a hand through his damp hair, which forms golden ringlets at the ends. “It’s too damn muggy. Let’s spear a fish instead.”
“Whittling a spear will get you just as hot,” mutters West.
Cay fans his face with his hat. My eyes catch on the lucky snake jaw in the band and an idea begins to hatch in my head. Perhaps we’ll see how lucky my lunar animal’s jawbone is after all.
Before the moment flies away, I say, “I have a wager for you.”
The cousins cast their eyes at me.
“What’s that?” asks Cay.
I tamp down my nerves and make my voice sound hale. “I bet we can catch a fish before either of you. And we won’t even use a spear.”
“Unlikely,” West grumbles. “What happens if we lose?”
“You take us to the next trading post where we can get our own horse,” Andy says, dipping her chin at me.
West spits. “Fort Kearny? That’s three weeks of playing nursemaid.”
Three weeks? I mask my delight by boring my eyes into the tiny cleft in his chin.
“And if we win?” asks Cay.
“What do you want?” I ask.
West dips his eyes at me. “Don’t look like you have much to offer.”
I cock back my tongue for a snappy response, but Andy steps in. “Neither does a stick, but that don’t stop it from being useful if you got imagination,” she says evenly. “And if you don’t, we got a ring.”
“What kind of ring?” asks Cay.
Andy pulls one of the rings out of her bag. “A heavy one.”
Cay rocks forward on his feet to appraise it, then whistles. West makes a sucking sound with his tongue and finds a piece of sky to glare at.
“Not afraid, are you?” I challenge him.
He snorts and rakes his gaze over me.
Cay drags West over to Peety, who’s a few yards off, combing Skinny’s tail. Whatever Cay says makes Peety laugh and West kick the dirt. After a moment, they rejoin us.
“We accept,” says Cay. “If you win, we’ll take you to Fort Kearny, but you have to cook for us. Plus, I want some Frenchie lessons.”
“And I want Chinese lessons,” Peety chimes in. West mutters something to Peety, who shrugs.
Cay continues. “If you lose, ya gotta sing ‘Yankee Doodle,’ unshucked. And we’ll take the ring.”
Not exactly what I expected, but it’s a shot. I wait a few seconds before replying, so as not to appear too eager. Since I don’t know what unshucked means, I add, “Only if you do it, too—sing, unshucked—if you lose.” I figure, if they agree to it, it can’t be so bad.
“All of you,” adds Andy, looking at Peety.
“No hay problema.”
Cay curls his mouth into a lopsided grin. “With pleasure.”
I straighten my back and step up to Cay, close enough that I could tug one of his curls. “I’ll need your hat.”