But I can still see her. She’s in the middle of the Golden Gate now, pinched between two peninsulas, a quarter mile away. From here, at last, I can see the Pacific, and the sight catches my breath, makes me feel like we’ve run a hundred miles instead of one.
“Have you ever seen its like?” Jefferson says breathlessly, riding up on Sorry. The sun is setting over the ocean, skipping coins of gleaming light across the waves. The watery horizon stretches forever, slightly curved, and finally I understand how big the world is.
The ebb tide runs rough, and the waves are high, tossing the ship back and forth as it doggedly pushes for the open sea. Seabirds circle and dart. A few have landed on the mast, but they are barely more than black dots at this distance.
I close my eyes and stretch out my right hand, find the shape of the gold. It’s easy. Mama’s locket jumps out at me in particular. Even through the haze of gold surrounding it, I feel its gentle curve, its tiny latch, its flower etching.
I squeeze my fist around the heart shape, and I pull it toward me.
Nothing happens.
I concentrate again, and push it away with all my power.
Still nothing.
I’ve waited too long. My plan was never going to work.
“Don’t give up, Lee,” Jefferson says. He has dismounted and now stands at my side.
I grab the gold and pull it toward me with all my strength. I hold my fist up tight against my chest, then I fling it away, as hard as I can.
The ship slips past us, toward open water.
There’s nothing complex about this part of my plan. It should be as simple as sensing a broken coin in someone’s pocket, and pulling and pushing it, back and forth, until the coin rips the seam. As easy as pushing a saddlebag full of gold back and forth across a bedroom floor. As easy as flipping over a pair of golden dice.
I reach out with both hands, close my eyes. Ten safes. Almost two million dollars in gold coins. More money than I ever imagined. All tied down around the heart of my mama’s final gift to me. And using that final gift as a focus, I pull my hands against my chest and squeeze, like I’m giving all that gold the fiercest bear hug of my life.
To anyone watching, I must appear to have taken leave of my sense, but I don’t care. I punch my fists out, like I’m trying to knock an attacker down to save my life.
Something moves.
My eyes shoot open. The ship is farther away, heading toward deep water.
I stretch out my arms again, and pull the gold toward me. I feel it skew, unevenly, as something breaks. I shove it away again, and the mass lurches hard.
The cargo is no longer tied down, and the ship rolls in the waves.
I remember what Melancthon told me about the capsized ship: the waves and the cargo together were what sank it. So I wait—just a moment—until the ship is listing toward my shore, and I pull with all my strength, working with the waves instead of against. I release it, and when the hull begins to tip back in the other direction, I push as hard as I can.
Now the loose cargo is doing half the work, sliding on its own as the ship tosses in the rough tide.
“Lee,” Jefferson whispers. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“Tell me if my eyes start bleeding,” I snap. But I lick my lips and taste raw copper on my tongue, thinking of the story Becky told me, about the man who moved the tree and caused his heart to burst.
But I can’t quit now, with the job half done. If I do, the crew will just go down into the hold and secure the cargo.
So I stand here, pushing and pulling, one way and then the other, as the ship rides off into the distance. My legs start to wobble. I’m vaguely aware when Jefferson closes the gap between our bodies, and suddenly I realize I’m no longer standing on my own strength, that his arm is wrapped around my waist.
The Argos is rolling so violently now that the masts nearly kiss the waves. Dark specks flee the tossing ship—the crew has managed to launch several of the lifeboats.
The ship is so far away now, I can barely sense the locket at all. It feels like a nugget, lost in a rushing creek, beneath gravel and ice. It’s going to get away.
My luck changes. The ship slows. The captain, either in a panic, or under orders from Hardwick, is trying to turn the ship back. To put to shore before all is lost.
It gives me a chance. A large wave hits it nearly broadside. I grab the gold and pull it as hard as I can. The ship rolls right over. The mast breaks as it hits the water. A split second after I see it, I hear the sharp snap of cracking wood.
I sink to my knees.
“Lee,” Jefferson says. “Lee . . . Lee, are you all right?”
I reach out one last time with both fists, and yank down as hard as I can, hurling that gold down to the bottom of the ocean. I hope the water is a mile deep. Or at least too deep for any divers to reach it.
“Lee!”
Bloods gushes out of my nose and runs down over my lips and chin.
“I . . .”
I don’t remember falling over, but I’m lying sideways, and my head hurts where it hit the ground. Gravel presses tiny dots of pain into my cheek.
“Lee!”
Jefferson’s hands grasp me, but they feel faraway, almost like they’re touching someone else. So tired. Hollowed out. Sun fading away.
“S’okay,” I tell him, from a distance. “Trust you . . . help me home?” Arms wrap me tight, bolster me. I’m barely conscious as he helps me into my saddle. Fortunately, riding Peony is something I can almost do in my sleep, and we start a slow, careful trek back toward the Charlotte.
Chapter Twenty—Three
I’m feeling better by the time we return, but I still fall into my cot and sleep like the dead. When I wake, morning shines bright through the window Melancthon made for me. I scratch my itchy upper lip and discover that more blood caked there overnight. The bleeding seems to have stopped for good, though, so I force myself out of bed, wash quickly, and fetch Jefferson, who is hugely relieved to see me awake and hale. Everyone else has left already; Jefferson convinced them to let me sleep.
Dawn chills the air as we return to the cemetery on Peony and Sorry, following the same road we galloped along just hours before. The horses are delighted to be out again so soon. Peony kicks up her heels and tosses her head at every bird and bug. I’m glad one of us has some spunk; I’m so tired I could die.
“I don’t think you should be up and about,” Jefferson says. “In fact, maybe you should stay in bed for a week. Possibly a month.”
“After the meeting,” I promise. “I’ll sleep then.”
To be fair to him and his concerns, my head is throbbing, like there’s an arrastra inside my skull, and a mule is dragging a grindstone around and around in a circle. My knees are weak, and my arms feel twisted and limp as a hen’s wry neck.
“If I’m this exhausted,” Jefferson says, “you must be about to faint.”
“I promise I won’t try to roll over any ships today,” I say.
Jefferson shakes his head. “If I hadn’t been there to see it, I wouldn’t believe it.”