I snatch it from his hand and look it over. It’s an advertisement for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, promising to take passengers to California, beginning in the spring, for the sum of two hundred dollars. This is what everyone’s so excited about. This is what the reverend is speaking out against.

Mr. McCauley says, “You think he went to catch a boat?”

I pin him with a gaze, and he shifts uncomfortably.

My heart starts to soften toward him, but then I remember Jefferson’s busted eye. “He’s probably halfway to Savannah,” I say. “If you leave now, you can catch up.” Keeping the leaflet, I turn my back on him.

Annabelle Smith finds me next. She clasps my hands and says, “I’m so sorry, Lee. I wish . . . I mean . . . I’m just sorry.” She can’t meet my gaze, but her words have a ring of sincerity.

“I’m glad you came,” I say automatically. But suddenly it’s true. I watch her back as she walks away, wondering what it would be like to have a girl for a friend.

Free Jim is next in line. His dark hand closes around my cold, pale one—too tight and too warm—and I blurt, “I’ll make good on Daddy’s credit, Mr. Boisclair, I promise. I just need a little time to—”

“No need, Miss Leah,” he says gently. “The account was brought up-to-date just this morning.”

“What? How?”

He frowns. “Your uncle Hiram paid it. Apparently he’s done well for himself down in Milledgeville.”

My stomach drops into my toes. How did my uncle get here so fast? How did he know?

“That man’s a born politician,” Free Jim says, and it doesn’t sound like a compliment. “Anyway, I’m praying to the good Lord every day on your behalf. Your daddy was a fine man; one of the finest I knew. The world is a poorer place today, but heaven is all the richer.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, swallowing hard. “Thank you, sir.”

Free Jim and my daddy have a history, going back to the first discovery of gold in these parts. Daddy always considered him a friend, and we’ve gotten through many a tough winter thanks to Free Jim and his generous negotiating. We’d have owed him even more for that winter wheat seed if he’d demanded fair market price.

“I thought your uncle would be here,” Free Jim says, glancing around. “He said he had a few errands, but afterward he’d— Oh, there he is. Mr. Westfall!”

My heart races as he calls out my uncle’s name. Slowly I turn.

The conversation around us dies as Uncle Hiram bears down on our little group, tromping through the winter-gray trees like he owns them. He’s followed by Abel Topper, a shovel-faced man with keen eyes, who used to be a foreman before his mine dried up and closed down.