Is it? Starbuck wondered, but was not so foolish as to ask the question aloud. Marriage had not been the end for Sally’s mother, who had subsequently run off with the small, fierce Truslow. Starbuck tried to picture Sally’s face in his mind, but he could not piece it together. He just remembered someone who was very beautiful, and someone he had promised to help if she ever asked. What would he do if she came? Would he run away with her as he had with Dominique? Would he dare defy her father? At night, lying sleepless, Starbuck wove fantasies about Sally Truslow. He knew the dreams were as stupid as they were impractical, but he was a young man and he so wanted to be in love and thus he dreamed the stupid and impractical dreams.

“I’m real grateful you said nothing about Sally.” Truslow seemed to want a response, perhaps an affirmation that Starbuck had indeed kept the night wedding a secret instead of making fun of the family’s misfortune.

“I never thought to tell anyone,” Starbuck said. “It’s no one else’s business.” It was pleasant to sound so virtuous again, though Starbuck suspected his silence about the marriage had been prompted more by an instinctive fear of Truslow’s enmity than by any principle of reticence.

“So what did you make of Sally?” Truslow asked in all seriousness.

“She is a very pretty girl.” Starbuck gave the response equally seriously, as though he had not imagined riding away with her to the new western lands or sometimes sailing east to Europe where, in his daydreams, he dazzled her with his sophistication in palatial hotels and brilliant ballrooms.

Truslow nodded acceptance of Starbuck’s compliment. “She looks like her mother. Young Decker’s a lucky boy, I suppose, though maybe he ain’t. Prettiness ain’t always a gift in a woman, especially if they own a mirror. Emily now, she never thought twice on it, but Sally.” He said the name sadly, then rode in silence for a long time, evidently reflecting on his family. Starbuck, because he had shared a moment’s intimacy with that family, had unwittingly become a confidant of Truslow who, after his silence, shook his head, spat out his tobacco spittle and declared his verdict. “Some men ain’t intended to be family men, but young Decker is. He’d like to join his cousin in the Legion, but he’s not the fighting type. Not like you.”

“Me?” Starbuck was surprised.

“You’re a fighter, boy. I can tell. You won’t wet your pants when you see the elephant.”

“See the elephant?” Starbuck asked, amused.