I run to assist; it’s easier if we all pitch in. I’m loading a trunk when I freeze, nearly dropping it on my toes.

My throat buzzes and my knees tremble. Gold is somewhere nearby. A lot of it. In one of the Hoffmans’ trunks, maybe.

“Lee? You all right?” Jefferson peers into my face. A sack of flour is balanced over one shoulder.

I jump, startled. “Sorry. Yes. I . . .” Therese and her tiny sister, Doreen, are giving me a strange look, which sets my heart to pounding. “I thought I heard a coyote,” I finish lamely. “But I was mistaken.”

I turn away and get back to work, as if nothing is amiss. The presence of gold fades, first with familiarity, then with distance, as one by one we lift the wagons, slide the wheels back on, and yoke up the oxen. With all of us working together, the ferry empties quickly, and we roll off, glad to be on solid ground. Jefferson leaves me behind to ride off with the Hoffmans. I stare after him, my sense of gold fading even more.

I’ve no desire to ride alone with the Joyners, where I’m barely welcome, so I steer Peony toward the college men instead. Athena rests on the ground, her sides heaving. Tom paces with his hands in his pockets. Henry picks his teeth with a bit of straw. Jasper crouches over the cow, rubbing her with a blanket.

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I think so.”

“I could stay—”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” he says.

“You’d better catch up with your family,” Henry says.

I open my mouth to snap that the Joyners are not my family, but I stop myself in the nick of time. He’s just trying to be helpful.

“Go on,” he says, gesturing me away. So I turn Peony and start her after the wagons again. As I ride away, the college men and the ferry landing grow distant, but I don’t feel like I’m getting any closer to the folks ahead.

Chapter Nineteen

The country north of the Kansas River is wide and flat and treeless. Stumps are scattered here and there, left over from earlier wagon trains. The prairie will be abundant with grass again in another month or two, but huge swaths of trail are grazed out and fouled with manure. The good watering places are much the same—churned up and dirtied with the waste of the folks ahead of us. We often veer far from the path to make camp.

At least there’s less mud. The rain is tapering off, and the air is pleasantly warm.