Pairs of boots line up behind the wagon. It inches forward, and the constriction under my arms releases. Doreen and I crawl out. She darts over to her daddy, who sweeps her up. A raw scrape covers her cheekbone, but otherwise she seems unharmed.

A dozen questions fly at once, and I have trouble parsing them.

“She’s fine,” I say to the frightened faces around me. “I don’t think she was hurt at all.”

“Not her. You,” Jefferson says, terror in his eyes.

I follow his gaze, and that of everyone else, and look down.

Shame floods me like water through a millrace. My monthly bleeding has started. My trousers are soaked with red, mixed with dirt.

No, that’s not it. I stagger, and Jefferson leaps forward to catch me. I’m hurt, somehow. I don’t remember exactly when, but my right leg doesn’t feel right, and the edges of the world are suddenly blurred.

“Jeff,” I whisper. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Get Jasper!” he yells. “Do it! Now!”

I can’t get enough air, and neither leg will hold my weight. Jefferson lowers me to the earth, saying, “You’re okay, Lee. You’re okay, you hear me?”

I vaguely note several people are standing over me. Therese, Mrs. Robichaud, Luther, a couple of the Missouri men. They part to make way for Jasper, who drops to his knees and reaches for the waist of my trousers.

“No!” I cry. He can’t strip me here, right in front of everyone.

“I need to stitch you up, Lee. You’ve got a bad gash on your hip, I think. And your ankle is already swelling, so we’re going to cut off your boot. Just hold still.”

“He has to do it, Lee,” says Jefferson. “He has to. No matter what, you understand?”

They’ll see I’m a girl. Everyone will. I reach down with useless hands to bat him away. “Please . . .” My lips struggle to find the words. Don’t take off my trousers. Don’t tell them. Don’t . . .

What comes out is: “Don’t cut Daddy’s boots.”

My vision goes fuzzy-red, and the world is snuffed like a candle flame.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I open my eyes to gentle lantern light. I’m sunken into a feather mattress. The bows of a wagon curve above me.

“You wake yourself!” says Mrs. Robichaud. She looms over me with a canteen. “Drink,” she orders.

I lift my head. The moment the cool water slides down my throat, I start gulping.

She laughs. “Jasper will be glad to know you drink so much.”

Jasper. My last memory is of him readying to strip my clothes in front of everybody.

“What happened?” I ask tremulously. “Did I . . . Does everybody know . . .”