She snorts, then glances at me, though her fingers don’t lose their rhythm. “I been thinking about the noose since I was born. You know, sometimes they use thirteen loops in the hangman’s knot. That makes it go easy. Six or seven gets the job done, too, if it’s hemp. Any less and you got you’self some powerful kicking to do when you swing.”
I gulp, never considering this aspect of things.
She swats my arm. “As Isaac always says, no one ever injured an eye by looking at the bright side. We’s making good time and flying under the wings of eagles.”
I shift my focus to Andy’s dark hands, and try to unbend my frown. Next to the stone on the twine bracelet she’s worn every day since I met her, she’s added a wood button, along with two furry seeds that she somehow punched holes through.
“Why do you collect those things?”
“One day I’m gonna see my little brother, Tommy, again. And I want to show him pieces of where I been.”
“I thought he died?”
“He did. See, I figure if this bracelet’s on my body when I die, it’s going with me to heaven.” She stops sewing and holds up her wrist. The baubles line up neatly. “Isaac tucked this rock with the hole in a boll of cotton for Tommy to find. He was always doing silly stuff like that to help the picking go by faster.”
She removes the bracelet and lets me hold it. “Tommy said if he looked at a person through the hole, he could see the good in them.” She points to the seeds with her needle. “These are from ‘Yankee Doodle’ night. They dropped on me when we were sitting under that tree. And this button is from Mrs. Calloway. I found it on the floor of her wagon and she said to keep it. Tommy’s gonna like that one.”
I loop the twine around my finger, remembering Mother’s bracelet.
Father gave Mother the circlet of ten different-colored jade stones as a wedding present. A client in New York once offered Father three hundred dollars for it. It’s irreplaceable, not because the jeweler only made one, but because it’s the only thing that remains of my parents, besides Lady Tin-Yin, of course. Mother never took her bracelet off, which means she believed it was a part of her. She might not have lived long enough for me to know her touch, but if she had, I imagine it would feel like those jade stones: smooth and delicate and full of warmth.
I twist the twine around my finger but it springs away and unwinds. It’s quality twine, the kind that has a mind of its own. “It’s beautiful.”
She puts down her sewing. “It’s time to ask the boys if we can keep on with ’em.”
I nod. “You don’t think we should tell them about us, do you?”
She doesn’t answer right away but squints as if divining the future in the smoke of the fire. “No. Those boys done nothing but good by us. The less they know, the better. If we’s ever caught, then they’s innocent.”
“The law might not believe them.”
“It’s not the law I worry about. What if they swear on the Book but don’t tell the truth? God likes his harps back nice and shiny.”
“You think they would lie for us?”
“They might.”
I loop the bracelet back over her hand, and she tucks it under her sleeve. If the boys did lie on the Bible, I hope God would not hold it against them. My harp isn’t exactly shiny either.
“I’m also gonna ask ’em to find out about Harp Falls,” she says in a softer voice.
“I remember,” I say glumly. I try to lift up my frown as I sense her eyes upon me. “You can have Paloma.”
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t take her from you. I’ll get another animal somewhere, don’t worry about that. You’s a real gem, Sammy, a gem to the core. Gonna miss you a lot.”
She finishes with my button, snapping off the thread with her teeth. My own fingers somehow tied my shirt flaps into a knot, and now I try to work them free. I don’t know which worries me more, lawmen catching us, or Andy leaving. How does she expect to find her brother in this wild country? The federal marshals could easily have taken her for a runaway, or even as one of the Broken Hand Gang. Without the protection of the remuda, she’ll be an easy target.
As for myself, if the boys don’t want us, and Andy leaves, I’ll be all alone. It won’t be easy, especially when my companions have become like family. The flames appear like bright blurry patches in front of my eyes.