As much as I’d love a soft bed and a watertight roof at the boardinghouse, I don’t dare show my face in town, or part with any precious coins, so we make camp in a clump of bare trees. I spend an hour searching for dry wood this time; can’t risk the smoke giving me away again. I check Peony’s feet, cleaning the bare one of excess mud. Finally, I’m warm, and my eyes are heavy with sleep. Still, I lie awake a long time.

I picture that creased map spread across Free Jim’s counter. Getting out of Georgia was always going to be the hardest part, I tell myself. But I’m almost there. I imagine the colored county squares marching all the way to the Mississippi. Maybe I can chop wood, do chores for food, like I did the other morning. There’s got to be a way.

Horses clop by, and I hear bursts of conversation, and once, even though it’s dark, the echoing ring of a hammer and nails. Gold seekers and merchants, tunnel workers and families—people like me—are all only yards away, but it feels like miles.

Peony and I cross into Tennessee and reach Chattanooga by late afternoon the next day. It’s such a pretty place, with a wide sparkling river winding through rolling hills that are stubbornly green, even in winter. It puts me in mind of Jefferson, who always appreciates a pretty view. I hope I’m following in his footsteps; that he traveled this exact road, looked down on this exact bend in the river. He was only three days ahead of me. Maybe I’ll run into him here.

No sense getting my hopes up. This is a mighty big country, and Peony throwing a shoe has put me behind.

Chattanooga is the first town I’ve seen to rival Dahlonega. It’s big enough that folks don’t look twice as we walk by; they just go about their business along the riverbank. The first blacksmith I find has a farrier’s horseshoe hanging over his door. I lead Peony into the stable area and ask a young man with an apprentice’s apron about getting her shod.

“Pretty girl you’ve got here,” he says, checking her over. “A dollar will get you two new shoes. So her front hooves have even wear.”

Five other horses already crowd his stable, waiting to be shod. “I’m in a hurry. I’ll give you two dollars if you do it right away.” I can’t afford two dollars. Neither can I afford another delay.

“Deal. Come back around suppertime.”