My stomach is in a tangle as we approach the wagon. I know I’ve done the Hoffmans wrong, and I’m not sure how to make right. But when Therese sees me coming, she grins ear to ear and says, “Hallo, Lee!” And that’s that.

She chatters our ears off the whole time, about her brother Otto, who got his arm stuck in a hole while trying to catch a prairie dog; about one of the Missouri men, who whistles at her every time he walks by; and about the tiny mouse that got into Doreen’s bedroll last night and made her squeal like a baby pig.

Seeing the two of them together puts a sting in my chest—the way they laugh so easily, the way she walks beside the sorrel mare with a hand resting on the stirrup or possibly Jefferson’s boot. But Jeff was right; Therese is as warm-hearted as she is pretty, and she gives no indication that she ever thought me unfriendly. Despite the way she gazes at Jeff all the time, I’m sorry I avoided her so long. Friends are hard to come by, and I wasted too much time on the trail being blockheaded.

By noon we’ve traveled eight miles and reached a small creek. It’s barely more than a trickle. Another week of dry weather will turn it into an empty, graveled ditch. The mud on either bank is plowed into long ruts and dried solid—monuments to the wagon wheels that have gone before us.

We make camp with the sun still high. We’re to have a feast tonight, and everyone contributes. Jefferson tickles a couple of trout from the creek. The Missouri men share some coffee—they’re the only ones with any real coffee left—and Mrs. Hoffman makes a mountain of flapjacks and serves them with honest-to-God black-currant jam that she said she was saving for a special occasion. When the college men reveal a bottle of whiskey they’re willing to share, I expect Reverend Lowrey to launch into a sermon about drunkenness and debauchery. Instead, a rare smile splits his face, and he extols the many virtues of partaking in moderation, as exemplified by God’s own Son, who turned water into wine.

Only the Joyners hold back, and Mrs. Joyner goes through her usual ritual of setting out the checked tablecloth with impeccable linens and fine china. She is heavy with child now, her movements slow, her rests frequent. But she lines up those checks perfectly with the table’s corners, and she smoothens out the tablecloth like the world might come to an end on account of a single wrinkle.