“Yes he was, talking loud and saying nothing as usual.  I wish they’d pay me to do as little as he does.  When we got there they put us up in a hotel that had feather beds and gas lamps.  There was a dinner with starched tablecloths and oysters and beefsteak and goose and wine in crystal goblets.”

“Were there congressmen this time?”

“Yes, more than a few, but what good are any of them?  I said everything I was supposed to say and might as well have been talking to the man in the moon.  The committee people listened and nodded and wrote things down every once in a while.  Then everybody shook hands, Grandfather gave his gifts, they gave him another piece of paper with a lot of writing and seals and things on it and it was over.  We took the train back to the horses and rode as far as we could.”

Chace waited.  “Was his dying easy?”

“He asked to be helped off his horse, said this is where it’ll be, took his blanket, climbed up to the hilltop, laid down and closed his eyes.  That was it.  He was gone.  We wrapped him in his blanket, took him to the valley and tied him up on a platform in the trees.  When I met up with Miller again we went back and put those buffalo skulls at the bottom the way he’d asked.”

“He got to be old,” Ada said quietly.  “That’s something.”

“True,” Ellis said.  “Though being old, he saw too much.  I wish he’d known you.  He took to Charlotte right away and you’re two of a kind.”

“Charlotte met him?” Ada said in disbelief.

“She did.”

“She gave him a biscuit,” Miller said and everyone looked at him.  “No one could explain to him what it was.”  Again, Ada was studying Miller.

“If it’s all right to ask,” Brewster said, “what’s an oyster?”

“It’s a shellfish,” Ellis said.  “It’s small, and they pry it open and inside there’s this slimy thing that you swallow and they tell you it tastes like the ocean but who ever tasted the ocean?”

“Is it worse than buffalo liver?” Miller asked.  He’d always had to work to get that down.

“Yes, it’s worse.”

“Is the train really fast?” Brewster said.

“Compared to a horse, yes sir, it is.  Makes a month’s journey into a handful of days.”

“Then someday maybe there won’t be any more wagon trains going to Oregon Territory,” Brewster said and Chace regarded him with interest.

Ellis glanced at Charlotte.  Grace was having trouble keeping her eyes open.  “Is it time?” he said.

“Might be.”

He and Miller reached for their coats and Chace reached for his.

“I give up,” Ellis said.  “What are you doing?”

“Coming with you.”

“Why?”

Miller watched closely.  This was another conversation he wasn’t going to understand.