“The Missouri men don’t keep company with me because I’m half-Cherokee. Reverend Lowrey never let his wife keep company with Mrs. Joyner because she’s a Methodist. And Mrs. Joyner didn’t want to keep company with you for a long time because she thought you were a runaway scamp and a bad influence. So what’s your rotten excuse for not keeping company with Therese?”

“I don’t . . . I didn’t . . .” I sigh. Sometimes, having a best friend with uncanny clarity is the most irritating thing in the world.

“Therese is nice. You’d like her.”

I’m a worse person than Frank Dilley. “I’m sorry, Jeff. I thought I was giving you . . . freedom, I guess. To be with her. I know you’re sweet on her.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“You’re right,” I add. “I know you are. She is nice. Bringing us that cornbread was a kindness.”

“Thanks, Lee. But—”

“Shh,” I say, holding up my hand. “I heard something.”

He whispers, “What is it? What do you hear?”

It’s not what I hear; it’s what I sense. A tickle in the back of my throat. “I’m not sure. Let’s keep going.”

Other wagon trains have traveled down this gulch. We pass a broken wheel, half-buried in the dirt. A little farther on, an empty barrel. Cold campfires.

“I don’t hear a thing,” he says.

“It’s close.” I dismount and lead Peony by the reins.

“What’s close?” Frustration tinges his voice.

“I’m looking for tracks,” I say, bent over. “Footprints, anything he may have dropped.” Gold buzzes between my ears now, just like a cat’s purr.

Ahead, an abandoned wagon lies toppled over. The wood is white in the night, like the bones of a skeleton. A rib cage of hoops curls up from the spine of a wagon bed. My sense pulls me toward it, toward Andy . . .

I stop a hundred feet shy.

The locket is so, so close. But I see no place big enough for a boy to hide. I slow down, moving cautiously. Ten feet away. Five.

I fall to my knees.

The locket is smashed into the dirt, the chain broken. There’s no sign of Andy anywhere.

“Is that—?” Jefferson half asks.

“Yeah.”

“You and your big owl eyes! I wouldn’t have seen that in the dark if it was dangling from my nose.”

“Got lucky, I guess.” I don’t feel lucky at all. Andy’s not here. I didn’t have a second plan. Despair washes over me.

“He has to be close,” Jefferson says.

A rustling in the grass alerts me. Three rangy silhouettes materialize around the broken wagon. Coyotes. They must have a den here. The dogs lay back their ears and growl.

“Nugget, Coney, stay.”

“There’s something under that wagon,” Jefferson says.

“A coyote den.”

“Maybe. Something moved.” He hurries forward.