As an honored guest, the only fingers I lift are the ones Andy plucks splinters from. Her own nimble digits prick and dislodge oak bits with efficiency, not hesitating to stab when necessary. To comfort myself, I think of West, and how secure I felt when his arms caught me.
“Twenty-two,” says Andy finally. She squeezes my shoulder. “You dulled my needle.”
I pat the blood off my hands with a wet towel. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Her mouth presses into a soft smile. “Soak you’s hands in a little tomato juice. The splinters come right out. It’s messy, though.”
“I don’t just mean the splinters.”
“I know.” She slowly cleans her needle. “We watch each other’s back, don’t we?”
“Yes, we do.”
She stares through a stack of napkins weighed down with a stone. When she notices me watching her, she smiles. “Now don’t give me that long face. It’s gonna be all right. You’s gonna find your Mr. Trask, and then you won’t have to worry about things like splinters and burning trees.”
“What about you?”
“I won’t have to worry about your splinters, either.” She bumps me with her elbow. “That was some fancy roping back there. Might be useful on the trail. You think the boys would teach us if we ask?”
I snort. “We have to be worthy, first. Some of them are still getting used to the idea of playing nursemaid.”
“You’s sweet on West.”
“What?”
“Mmhm,” she says, not suffering fools.
“Is it obvious?”
“Yep, but only ’cause I know you don’t have a rattle. Don’t worry, men catch on slower. You might want to thump your tail a little harder, though.”
? ? ?
Soon, we are sopping stew with skillet bread. The darkening sky drapes a helpful veil across our faces. Someone pours me a mug of hard cider, which fizzes on my tongue. I down the sweet brew and ask for another, remembering to thump my tail. The Calloway girls delight in serving us, or rather, they delight in serving the boys who’ve grown into their manly physiques. Naturally, Cay basks in the attention.
Talk turns to the Broken Hand Gang. “That poor man lost two of his mules and half his supplies,” says an older fellow who wheezes every time he breathes. “Surprised they didn’t just take the whole wagon.”
“They break his hand?” asks Cay.
“No, but they shook him up good. Man wouldn’t talk for a week.”
“You think Father will be okay?” Rachel Calloway asks her mother.
Mrs. Calloway musters a smile. “Yes, I think so. The Lord watches over His sheep.”
“Yesterday we passed federal marshals combing the trails back to St. Joe. I wouldn’t worry too much,” West tells Rachel. She nearly levitates under his gaze.
“We’d be happy to look for him, if you’d like,” adds Cay.
My neck cracks as I raise my head. Look for him? Maybe we’ll have to run away after all.
“Oh!” cries Mary Calloway, feasting her adoring eyes on Cay. She presses her fist, still clutching a biscuit, to her bosom.
“That is so kind of you to offer,” says Mrs. Calloway.
I don’t breathe. Calamity imps, anxiety imps, all of them descend upon me at once, flapping their wings and screeching.
“However, that won’t be necessary,” she continues. “We cannot think with our emotions, or let hysteria guide our decisions.”
Andy puts down her napkin, and her spooked eyes recede into their sockets. I drown my relief in cider.
Mrs. Calloway pulls the lid off a pan of cake. “Mary, pass around the cake. Let’s speak of lighter matters.”
“You got any stories about your adventures?” Rachel gushes, scooting closer to West.
“Er, well,” he says, backing away a fraction.
“Oh, please,” she begs.
From under her hat, Andy sticks her tongue out at me and rolls her eyes.
I flash her a smile and finish my second glass of cider. Then I pour myself another.
“I ain’t much of a storyteller, miss,” West replies. “But Cay’s got a head full of them—some are even true.”
As Cay regales them with a story of the cousins’ first cattle drive, the girls hang on his every word, gasping and sighing in all the right parts. Rachel keeps cutting her eyes to West, and I cannot blame her. He also takes my breath away. The shadows of the fire play over his face and catch the glitter in his dusky eyes. I envy his old shearling coat, wrapping his sturdy shoulders in a furry embrace.
I stare at the bottom of my tin cup, which I can see again.
“That steer eyed me right in the peepers, horns so close I could swing on them. I had no horse, no rope, hell, not even a hat. So you know what I did?” Cay asks in a hush, leaning in.
“What?” ask the girls, also leaning in.
Cay waits. Not even the fire dares to crackle. Then, “I told it to shoo with my mind.” He touches his cup to his temple.
“No!” the girls gasp as one.
“That steer turned tail and walked off.” He walks his fingers through the air. “Power of the mind. It’s a real thing.”
West sucks the tip of his finger, then flicks it up. “That one ain’t true. You think he’d use his mind if his mouth still worked?”
The girls giggle. Mrs. Calloway, her face crinkling, allows the yin and yang of male bravado and female adoration to ebb and flow.
“Does it ever get lonely out there?” asks Mary in her spiderwebby voice.
“Sure it does,” says Cay in a rare moment of gravity. “But those times make looking on the fair faces of our gentle sex more meaningful.”
West chuckles.
Cay turns to him. “What about you, wisecracker?”
All eyes shift to West, who is drinking a cup of milk. He puts down his cup and studies his crossed boots. “Well, sure, it gets lonesome. But I don’t mind. I find cattle”—he pauses as he searches for the word—“simple. Nothing tricky or mysterious about a single one of them. That’s more than can be said about certain folks, and if that means I’m lonesome some of the time, ’s all right by me.”
Rachel releases a girlish sigh, almost in West’s lap by now.
I think about the deceit I’ve already practiced upon him and hang my head. Even if I do outrun the law, I will always be a trickster and a liar in his eyes. And after he saved my life, too. I hug my knees to my chest to stem my insides from pouring out.
“You ever shoot anyone?” breathes Rachel, fluttering her eyelashes at West.
I snort loudly through my nose. The biscuit’s on the plate, sister, not sitting next to you. Maybe West likes a little buttering, however, because he shows her a dimple. Oh, brother.
I pound my empty cup into the dirt and raise my finger. “I shot shum-one.” Why is my tongue so sluggish? All eyes turn to me.
“Thaj right. My licked wanlord.” Wicked landlord, same thing. “Yup. I dijit ’cause he’s in my way. Like a big moosh.”
Cay screws up his eyes at me.
“Moosh,” I repeat more emphatically. Doesn’t he know what a moose is? “Mooshes can’t just knockem the squirrjels on their wayj to the berry-bushels. So I shot ’im.” I make my fingers into a gun and pretend to fire.
Andy splays her fingers out in front of her, eyes held wide in suspense. I do tell a good story. But now I need some fresh air. The heat from the bonfire smothers me.
“Ma’am, please scooz me,” I say to Mrs. Calloway.
I rise, too fast, for my head spins. Someone must have filled my boots with water; I can hardly walk straight. I step over the tongue of a wagon and stumble toward the river, but then my feet take another turn and lead me into a copse of conifers. Above me, yellow and purple clouds puff out above the tree line, like someone punched the sky in the face. My knees wobble, and I grab on to the puzzly bark of a pine.
Now my insides really are pouring out. I retch out my pioneer dinner.
“Sorry,” I choke out to Mr. Pine Tree.
My stomach feels better now, but my head still spins. The sky has charcoaled. I doubt I can make it back on my own two feet. I wander around for several minutes among the pine trees until I realize I’m going in the wrong direction. When I finally move back into open space, the wagon circle appears as one bright blur, even farther away now.
A noise freezes my blood. There in front of me, two goblins with bad haircuts are cackling. Someone’s bent over on the ground between them. I recognize the way her coat drapes over her form. It’s Andy.