Cay pulls me closer by the sleeve of my shirt. “Don’t smoke in front of the girls.” He plucks the quirley out of my fingers and takes a drag of it himself. Then he stomps it out. “I wanna tell les filles about our little adventure with the stallions. Comment tu dis ‘sausage’?”
“Saucisson.” Too late I realize his intent.
“Saucisson?” repeats the curly brunette, Sophie. “L’étalon a un grand saucisson?”
The girls scream with laughter, and I frost Cay with my eyes. I turn to leave.
“No, wait,” says Cay. “Tell ’em the rest of the story. Come on.”
“Why doesn’t your mother translate?” I ask Mathilde. She gives me a blank stare.
Sophie digs her nails into my arm, which I yank away.
“S’il vous pla?t, please.” She bats her heavy-lidded eyes imploringly.
I snort, caught in the trap of my own making. I wish I could summon up a burp, but the best I can do is make a loud slurping sound with my nose.
Then I summarize the story in French, including the part about West’s injury. When the girls cast their eyes in his direction, I kick myself. At least I dimmed the light of Cay’s candle. He deserves that, the cad.
Before I lose my appetite altogether, I march over to Peety and Andy, who are holding up their plates to be filled. I want to tell Andy about the Haystacks, but not here.
We feast on the same things we have eaten before, but with those classically French touches: a sprinkle of rosemary here, a whole lot of butter there, and lots of wine. I steer clear of the latter, remembering my experience with hard cider.
“You can’t just eat butter plain like that!” says Andy, pulling Peety’s arm down as he tries to put a whole gob in his mouth.
“Is not butter, is potato.” He licks it off and holds it in his mouth. “Mm, it is butter. Try it.” He pushes a spoonful at her face. With a scowl, she bats it away.
I glance over at West, now drinking wine with Cay and the French girls. Maybe wine does not feed his demons. Children drink it, after all. He laughs, and the sound brings me a strange kind of agony. It makes my heart glad to hear him so carefree, but I wish it was me he was laughing with.
Sophie leans her head against his shoulder. Maybe all those curls under her cap get heavy, especially with an empty head. She speaks to him, and he barely looks up as someone refills his wine glass.
“Zey go nice together,” says Madame Moreau, appearing beside me with a basket of rolls. She angles her face toward West and Sophie. “He is handsome, she is beautiful. Sophie’s father is an important judge back in France. Is good marriage, maybe?”
“Surely her father would want her to marry an aristocrat, un noble.”
“Her sisters marry well already. He just wants Sophie to settle down.”
Trying not to think, I rotate my peas from one o’clock to nine, one at a time. The noise of the crowd pummels my head. There must be more people here at Fort Laramie than in all of St. Joe.
The words le main cassé catch my attention. The man beside me is talking about the Broken Hand Gang. I elbow Andy.
“Pardon me, but I heard you mention the Broken Hand Gang. Have you seen them?” I ask the man in English.
He wipes his mouth on his yellow scarf. “A woman came to ze fort a week ago, carrying dead baby. She say ze Broken Hand Gang attack her wagon and kilt her husband.”
Andy sits up straight. “Oh, my Lord.”
“Is she certain it was them?”
“Black men, she remembers. Who else can it be?”
Peety notices Andy and I giving each other big eyes. He pushes his hat brim up with his butter knife. “No good to worry, chicos,” he says grimly. “God has special place for men who hurts children.”
After dinner, I stretch my restless legs, while Peety takes Andy to bring in the horses. Tiny cakes with whipped cream form neat rows on a table for people to help themselves. Seeing them cheers my spirits. Father loved to bake. I take one and save it.
Later that night, we spread our bedrolls in the wagon circle. Cay and West are off somewhere, so we lay theirs down for them. I plan to wait up for West, but the fire is so warm and the rhythm of Andy’s breathing finally lulls me to sleep.
? ? ?
Sometime later, I awake, confused by a dream, and realize West is not beside me. Andy and Peety snore in concert, and Cay sprawls out with his hat on his face. I lift it off to give him some air.
The last time I saw West, he was drinking wine. I push away the thoughts of him in a ditch somewhere. Surely he is fine, I tell myself. Probably sleeping with his horse.
I sit back down to pull on my boots. I always hated when you woke me up at midnight to celebrate my birthday, Father. You knew I’d be grumpy when I awoke, but you did it anyway every year. Why do I miss it so much now?
I hold a candle to the fire, then lift the flame to heaven. See? I made it to sixteen without falling off a horse.
I poke the candle into my cake and wipe my nose on my sleeve. No wishes this year.
Debris from the revel litters the grounds. I skirt bodies and wine bottles and head toward the nearest opening between wagons. I find our horses, but not West. Paloma nudges me in greeting, and I scratch her neck.
A girl moans, and I freeze like a jackrabbit. It chills my blood to hear her gasp and gasp again, like someone’s hurting her. Forcing myself to breathe, I unholster my gun.
I stumble toward the noise. A rock trips me, and I nearly drop the cake, but the candle remains lit. The moaning grows louder as I round the wagon circle.
I see her on the ground wrestling a man.
I aim my gun, but cannot see well enough with only the glow from my cake.
“Let her go, you filthy cur,” I shriek, steadying my grip, “or I will put a knot in your trunk!”
Her head pops up from over the man’s shoulder.
“Oh! Ton ami Chinois, il me protège. Qu’il est mignon!” she trills, her voice sickeningly familiar. A very flushed-looking Sophie just called me sweet.
My cheeks blaze, bright enough to power a universe.
The man rolls off her, his chest heaving under the folds of his open shirt. The bandage I put there has torn, soiling the white gauze with spots of blood. When West’s burning eyes meet mine, the shock of our connection knocks both the cake and the gun from my hands. The flame from the candle draws a golden arc on its descent, and when the gun hits the ground, it roars.
I cry out and drop to my knees.
“Sammy!” yells West.
I clutch at my chest but only to still its jolting. No, West, my wound is not from a gunshot.
Sophie clutches at West but he pushes her away. Before he comes any closer, I scramble to my feet and run.
I find Paloma, climb onto her back, and ride out of the camp, not caring if my candle burns up the whole fort. Let West handle it, I think, clenching my jaw. He is good at starting fires; maybe he knows how to extinguish them, too.
I cannot see through my tears, and let Paloma do the driving. I find that soft spot right behind her ears and stick my face in it. She takes me just down to the river, though I long for her to take me far away, to another continent, to the moon.