? ? ?
The water’s surface shifts the rays of the setting sun like hands sifting through cut jade stones. Five hundred feet out, the depth increases, and water seeps through my boots. I hiss in my breath at the chilly temperature, but my brave steed plows on. Good girl.
The boys sling their saddlebags onto their backs. I do the same with Lady Tin-Yin, wishing I had had time to wrap her in blankets. A single drop of moisture can ruin the sound completely.
A few hundred feet remain. When the water comes to my thighs, I realize the boys have climbed up to standing, their steeds not even pausing as they ferry them across the depth. I rub my eyes, hardly believing their ability to balance.
“You kidding me?” exclaims Andy.
“Real men stand,” Cay ribs her.
Andy looks back at me and bumps her forehead with her fist. Idiots. I show her my palms and shrug.
“Don’t worry, I would never do that,” I mutter to Paloma.
Andy hauls up her legs and crouches on her saddle. What is she doing? She must have misread me as being up for the challenge. I groan, realizing I must once again eat my words. When will I learn never to say never? Andy can chop her own turnips tonight.
In front of me, West hooks his thumb inside his trousers pocket, one foot in front of the other at a slight angle.
“Maybe it’s not as hard as it looks,” I tell Paloma, more to convince myself.
West cocks an ear back toward us. “I think you should stay put.”
Now I have to do it. He did not say that to Andy.
I hoist up my anchors, then kneel.
“Sammy,” says West in that stern, exasperated way he has of saying my name.
This is as far as I go. I can save my face by not soaking my behind. I hug Paloma’s neck, my tail hanging somewhere in the air. Who cares? I’m in the back anyway. Peety approaches the other shore.
Paloma takes a wrong step and screams. She staggers under me, and I cling to her neck. With jerky movements, she tries to regain her footing, but she cannot find solid ground, and I’m unbalancing her further.
She lurches too far to the left. Oh! The freezing waters immerse me up to my shoulders. I have to let go.
“You can do it!” I cry out. “Stand—”
My mouth fills with water, and I spit it back out. A bolt of terror stabs through me. The current is wrenching me away, thick and unyielding like a layer of blubber. I kick, paddling my arms, but something weighs me down. Lady Tin-Yin. No!
I flail with all my might to reach air.
But I waited too long. The violin’s strap is tangled around my neck, so sink with her I must. As the river’s icy fingers drag me down, I almost laugh as I realize I’m managing to drown myself after all.
23
WEST IS KISSING ME. I’VE DREAMED ABOUT THIS for weeks, how his mouth would taste and feel. Except in my dream it always happens in the moonlight, and he does not pinch my nose.
Andy pushes my chest, which has been covered with a blanket. Smart girl.
Oh, West, you are so dear up close. My eyelids shut, and I wait for him to kiss me again.
“Sammy,” he says with a note of desperation. Hm? My eyes flutter open again, and I notice he is all wet. Even his eyes drip, splashing my face every time he blinks. Were you swimming?
Suddenly my chest caves and I suck in air like a newborn. I turn my head into his lap and empty my insides.
? ? ?
The next time I open my eyes, Paloma is drooling on my face. I’m wrapped in shearling, lying on a bed of horse blankets. Shaking out the fog in my head, I prop myself onto my elbows. I’m resting at the top of an embankment, shaded by the long branches of a hemlock tree whose leaves hang like green sleeves on bony arms. A hundred paces out, the boys are helping some pioneer men drag their wagon out of the water. Beside them, two other wagons dry in the mid-morning sun, their contents neatly arranged along the grassy shore. I don’t see Andy.
“Oh, Paloma,” I gush as I remember our near drowning. “You are an exceptional creature.” I hold up my hand for a kiss, and she gives it to me.
The lifting sun erases the last tangles of morning fog, though the wetness remains, invisible and heavy.
Andy appears, holding two of my shirts, dried stiff. She must have had to take off my clothes, dry them, and re-dress me. She drops to the ground next to me. “You almost died. But you didn’t. You remember what I said about body over mind?”
I nod weakly, then run a hand through my shorn locks. “They didn’t find out, did they?”
“Almost. West wanted to rip off your shirts when we pulled you in, but I stopped him. Told him you’d catch lung fever if he did that.”
“Good thinking.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t leave me all alone here. What would I do with three cowboys who can’t carry a damn tune?” She falls silent and puts a fist to her mouth.
I put an arm around her shoulders and offer my sleeve. “Oh, sister. I’m sorry to have worried you.” She pushes away my sleeve and blows a few times into a handkerchief from her saddlebag. Though I dread the answer, I finally ask: “Is Lady Tin-Yin gone?”
“Lady who?”
“My violin.”
“Yeah, she’s gone.”