But Samuel came to stand with me as I took Scotch’s bridle in both hands, at the corners of his mouth, and put my face close up to his. “There, boy,” I whispered again and again. “This is only going to hurt for a second.”

And I felt his answer. How he loved Mr. Peterson.

“It’s just a lousy thorn,” Samuel whispered. “It’s—”

But then Mr. Peterson pulled the thorn and Scotch lurched away, dragging me with him, and we all ended up in something like a dance for a moment or two, Mr. Peterson scrambling free, Samuel reaching for the reins, me hanging on to the bridle, and Scotch prancing in place until he calmed . . . calmed . . . came back to still, and we all took a breath.

“Wouldn’t want this in my hoof either,” Mr. Peterson said, holding up his pincers and the long, bloody thorn in their beak.

“Aren’t you worried that it’ll fester with all the muck he stands in?” I said.

Mr. Peterson sighed. “It’s his own muck. And I can’t very well put a boot on him.”

I pulled the leather scrap from my pocket and offered it over. “Fresh balsam,” I said.

“For a hoof?”

“Works on a hand. Why not a hoof?”

Mr. Peterson pulled back a flap and lifted the balsam to his nose. “That’s fine.”

“You always carry balsam in your pocket?” Samuel said, squinting at me from under the brim of his hat.

“I do today.”

And we both watched as Mr. Peterson took a knife from his pocket, opened it, scraped out a portion of balsam, and spread it where it was needed.

Scotch swung his head around to stare at me. The look in his eye warmed me to my bones.

“I’m in your debt,” Mr. Peterson said, though we all knew that any debt was one we owed him, not the other way around. He held out what was left of the balsam.

“Oh, keep it. I can always get more. And I brought you some milk,” I said, fetching the pail.

“We brought you some milk,” Samuel said. But pride quickly stepped into the shadows, and something quite different took its place. “We would have brought meat if we had any. Or fish even.”

“But meat I have,” Mr. Peterson said gently. “And milk I need. And balsam, too.”

He led us to a granite lid atop a narrow hole in the shade of a big hemlock, shoved aside the stone, hauled out a bundle of meat wrapped in cloth, and handed it to us both.

The hole was his cache, deep enough to be cold still, lined with rocks and narrow enough so no bear or coyote or mountain cat could get in, even if they managed to wrestle off its lid.