Words congeal in my throat. What do I say? Yes, Jefferson, I haven’t told you that I can find gold the way a hound finds foxes. I haven’t said that seeing you with Therese makes me sad. That on the way to Independence I started getting used to the idea of marrying my best friend, and that sometimes when you turn your back on me at night, it feels like the world is cracking open.

I find my voice. “No. I’m not lying. It’s just . . .”

He reins in the sorrel mare. “Lee?”

“It’s just that maybe I’m not telling you everything.”

“Oh.” He looks down at his hands clutching the reins. “I might not be telling you everything either.”

I startle a little, and Peony dances in response. But if I’m keeping secrets, it’s only fair that he does too. “I reckon that’s all right,” I tell him.

“Yeah.”

We ride on. With Jefferson, silence is sometimes as comforting as talking.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jefferson and I ride out every afternoon, but we never see buffalo. Our company keeps rolling, fifteen miles a day, give or take, with half a day on Sunday to make up for lost time.

Weather announces itself from far away now, low dark clouds that are more green than gray. The Platte River valley is the hugest I’ve ever seen, and it looks flat as a flapjack, though my sore legs tell me otherwise. I walk often, Peony by my side, to give her a break.

When a steady rumble of thunder wakes me one dark morning, I rise from my blanket, resigned to a day of soaking rain.

Jefferson is already up. He stands with his suspenders hanging at his hips, his face lifted toward the eastern horizon, which is just now brightening from black to the dark blue of a bruise.

“It’s clear,” he says. “See all the stars?”

“I do.”

The air tastes dusty and dry, not like rain at all. The winds have been relentless lately, which is why we’ve camped in this shallow bowl of land. For once, it’s possible that a storm is on the way, and we just can’t see it.

Our wagon circle has shrunk since Bledsoe’s men left, and now it feels like the animals and the people are all on top of one another. Maybe that’s why the oxen are so fidgety this morning, milling about and snorting. Nugget and Coney trot over to greet us, and Coney stretches up to lick my fingers.

The thunder grows louder. The ground twitches beneath my feet.

“An earthquake?” Jefferson says.

The rest of the camp is beginning to stir. Major Craven hurries toward us, rifle in hand. “I’m heading to the top of that ridge to get the lay of the land,” he says to us. “Want to come?”