“Your head is bigger, that’s for sure.” But he’s right. Jefferson has grown at least an inch. His neck has thickened, his shoulders broadened. He’s hardly the lanky boy with giant knees I knew back in Georgia. I’ve grown too, but not in height. I shift uncomfortably, resisting the urge to check on the shawl hidden beneath my shirt. It’s getting harder to keep my chest wrapped tight.

Jefferson urges the sorrel mare on, and I wish I could feel as cheerful as he does. Things have gone well for us. Major Craven continues to improve. We resupplied at Fort Laramie. We’ve traded with Indians along the way and haven’t had any problems except for minor bits of theft—a blanket, some food, a single gun.

Frank Dilley has kept the wagon train moving seven days a week. Which is how we’ve come to reach Independence Rock only a week after the Fourth of July. We’re almost on schedule, in spite of starting out so late.

But I can’t shake this mood, like something’s going to happen and I ought to see it coming.

“That’s the rock, Lee,” Jefferson says. “I’m sure of it. Doesn’t it look like a piece of the moon fell down from the sky?”

“Yeah, it kind of does.”

It’s a big gray dome, big enough that you could fit the entire town of Dahlonega inside, rising from the flat golden plain, like God dropped a giant ball in the mud and left it half-buried. Everything is bigger out here in the west. I suppose I should feel smaller by comparison, but it makes me feel bigger too, like the whole world is growing inside me.

We reach the rock and dismount, then hobble our horses to graze. “Oh!” Jefferson exclaims, brushing the rock with his fingertips. Names and dates are scratched into the stone, and some of the lettering is as fine as anything you’d see in Mr. Anders’s schoolhouse back home. There are hundreds of names. No, thousands.

“Look at all these people,” Jefferson says. “You think they were going to California for the gold?”

“Nah, look at this one—‘Wm. Shunn, 1846.’”

“Here’s one from just two weeks ago.”

“The Mormons came this way. And folks going to Oregon. People have been passing by this rock for a long time.”

Jefferson pulls out his knife and starts carving letters. I peer over his shoulder. He’s picked a small spot for such a big name, squeezed between other etchings.

“Wait,” I say. “I want . . . Our names should be together.”

He freezes, like a rabbit who just heard the cry of a hawk. “Okay.” He lowers his knife, and his gaze shifts to my face, lingers on my lips, and I’d give all the gold in California to know what he’s thinking.

I swallow hard. “Right there?” I say, pointing to an untouched area.

“Sure.”