I press my sleeves into my own eyes.
Andy clucks her tongue. “Come on, we gotta keep our canteens watertight,” she says gently.
I nod, but can’t stop my chest from quaking. Lady Tin-Yin was almost sixty years old. My grandfather—Pépère, as I knew him—carried her through the Battle of Montenotte, Napoleon’s first victory in Italy. There, she soothed the minds of the wounded and mourned the passing of the dead. Father played her to quiet his colicky Snake baby. Objects have pasts that cling to them, which means she was filled with positive energy.
Now she is gone, and only one thing remains of my past: Mother’s jade bracelet. Of course, I may never see that again, either. By the time I find Mr. Trask, he might have already sold it.
Andy’s warm eyes are wide with concern. She pats my knee. “I’m sorry, Sammy. If you’s daddy was here, he wouldn’t give that violin another thought, he’d just be happy to see you alive.”
She is right, but I can’t help feeling I let Father down, once again. Taking a deep breath, I wrestle my tears back into their corners. “Tell me what happened after Paloma fell.”
I brew the coffee as she talks. My head feels light and my hands shake as I measure out the beans.
“We all saw you sink. Cay and West dove off their horses and swam after you like a coupla otters while Peety and I brought in the remuda.
“They found you on the bottom with your strap ’round you’s neck like pigging string. Pulled you up, but you was out cold. Didn’t breathe water, though, you held you’s breath good. West breathed for you. Hope you were awake for that,” she teases. “Then you spat up on him.”
“You don’t think he could tell?”
“Ain’t sure.” She holds her chin and watches as the boys shake hands with the pioneers. “I bet he’s sipped nectar from more than his share of willing flowers, but unless one of them flowers also had a sipper, nah. Lips is lips, ’specially if they’s blue with cold and fulla river slime.”
I wipe my mouth on my sleeve.
“Though, if he does still think you’s a boy, maybe he’ll feel like a plucked rooster for a bit.”
“He’d have done the same for Peety or Cay,” I say quietly.
She leans her head to one side and squints. “You’s right on that. These are some fine horses we found.”
I pour the coffee, then add sugar to all but West’s cup since he doesn’t favor his sweet.
The boys return from the river.
“Good to see you above snakes,” says Cay.
“Snakes?” I ask with some alarm.
“Alive, kid,” he replies.
Peety drops down next to me, his eyelids heavy and the corners of his mouth pulling down. “Lo siento. Es mi culpa.”
“How is it your fault?” I gape.
“Not looking back for you . . . like Esme.” His shoulders begin to twitch.
Esme again. Andy slides her eyes from Peety’s to mine. Before I can puzzle Esme out, Cay slides in on my other side. “It’s not his fault, it’s mine. I parade too much.”
West glares at Cay, then grabs his cup and leans against a tree. “That ain’t it.”
Cay drops his chin to his chest. “And sometimes I lead with my horn instead of my head. You understand, right?” he pleads with me.
My nose wrinkles as I try to make sense of what he’s saying.
West answers for me. “Of course he don’t understand, he’s a”—he glances at me, then angrily looks away—“a kid. You ain’t a farmer, you can’t go planting your seeds every time you see a field, or you’re gonna get us all killed.”
“You plant more seeds than me,” says Cay.
“Not in the fields with the no-trespassing signs.” West stabs his finger toward the river.
A vein pops out of Cay’s neck. I try to chip at the ice that’s formed between the cousins. “It’s no one’s fault but the river’s. You both saved my life, and I’m nothing but grateful.”
Peety sniffs loudly. A hug would be too girly, so I punch him in the arm, which I quickly realize is also girly. I punch him harder.
“Ow, chico,” he cries, still not smiling.
I do the same to Cay.
“That’s all you got?” His face relaxes.
“And West,” I say, “I also—”
He takes a sip of his coffee and spits it out. “You call this coffee?” he snaps at me. “It ain’t coffee, it’s wagon grease.” He dumps the brew on the fire and heads back toward the river.
“Plucked rooster,” Andy whispers in my ear, then gives me a solemn wink.
After we finish our coffee and bacon, I find a quiet spot by the river to say good-bye to Lady Tin-Yin. You were my first friend. When none would pick me for their rounders team, you kept me company, giving me a voice that made people laugh and cry. I’m sorry we won’t be opening that music conservatory together after all.
My fingers twitch, already missing the feel of her smooth contours in my hands.
Andy comes up beside me. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t. She simply stares with me at that bloated body of blue.
My violin is not the only thing we lost. Half our food supply also lies at the river’s bottom. However, all of our hats washed ashore earlier this morning, to everyone’s amazement. It is easy to get attached to a hat.
Before we saddle up, West unties a sack and tosses a book at me. “Got this at the fort so you don’t have to keep taking my tally book,” he says brusquely.
“Thank you,” I say to his back.
“No one sounded very sure about Harp Falls,” he tells Andy.
She nods. “Thanks for asking.”
“But we did get a new map,” he says, handing her a folded bundle of paper. “It’s pretty detailed. Maybe your waterfall’s on there.” He fishes something out of his pocket. The gold rings. “The cash covered everything. Got these appraised, though. Two hundred dollars each. Pretty sum.”
While the boys collect the horses from the river’s edge, Andy and I pore over the new map. Instead of the simple lines of Cay’s old map, this one has shading and other topographical renderings. It also includes sketches of landmarks like Independence Rock—the halfway point on our journey.
Andy traces her finger down the trail, then stops at a mountain range north of Independence Rock, two hundred miles in the opposite direction from the Parting. “What do these words say?”
“Haystack Mountains.”
She points to a wavy line that runs through the mountains. “What about this one?”
“Yellow River.”
After pulling the map close to her face and then away again, she taps her finger at a spot. “That looks like a waterfall to me.”
I squint at the series of squiggly lines that intersect the river. “Or maybe it’s just how the mapmaker drew the river. It’s unreliable. There’s not even a name.”
“You see any other markings like that?”
I examine the page in detail. “No, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a waterfall.”
“Uh-huh. And what’s that say?” She points to the pass that leads to the Yellow River.
“Calamity Cutoff.”
“You’s pulling my string.”
“No. Now tell me that’s not a sign you shouldn’t be going that way.”
She snorts. “Probably someone’s favorite cow died there. A real calamity.”
? ? ?
In the late afternoon, we enter a lush playground with dense thickets of American plum. Giant dogwoods drop their petals on us as we pass and golden currant dabs the landscape with a honey-like scent. I inhale greedy lungfuls, letting the scent soothe the ache from my lost violin.
West hasn’t spoken to anyone since this morning.
Peety spots muscadine grapes ripening alongside a babbling stream and cuts off the vines most heavy with fruit, attaching them to the saddles so we can eat as we ride. They dangle like tiny green bells. When the juicy orbs explode in my mouth, I swear I never tasted anything as good.
Maybe life just tastes sweeter after you’ve licked death.