“How do I feel about what you’ve just said?”
“You feel hurt, perhaps, but you also think that I am wrong.”
“I am not hurt.”
That night, Bird was less insistent about the sacks. He did not cover his face, and said nothing when Mary set her blanket down on the ground, rather than over her bright muddy white dress.
They were quiet for some time, but neither slept.
“Do you know any constellations?” said Mary.
“What are they?”
“The stars,” said Mary. “The shapes they make.”
“I see clusters,” said Bird, “flickering like a bunch of little fires on the hill.”
“Several points make an identifiable shape,” said Mary. “If you imagine a line drawn between them.”
“Like what?”
“I have only been told of them, and I do not know them,” said Mary. “So every time I look, they are different.”
“What are they now?”
“I am too tired to see anything other than a big soft bed for me to sleep in.”
“I will make money in town and we will buy a big soft bed,” said Bird.
Mary did not respond.
It was a cold night. The trees seemed not to break the wind at all. The mouths of the bread sacks slapped the earth and neither of their blankets would hold still. They hardly slept. They lay awake, staring up and trying to settle things. In the morning, they walked. They walked and walked and walked. They were losing their appetites, though they were working harder than they had for some time. When they were alone in the building with the kitchen, the amount of bread it took to fill them up was less and less with each day. Typically, they were still hungry after they were finished eating, but their stomachs could take no more of what it was they had to give it. In the woods, even that small amount seemed too much to the both of them. They forced it down, knowing they needed the energy to keep themselves on foot and moving forward. It was painful and Mary would throw up every now and then, after a meal. When she did, Bird made them stop and eat more. She knew he was right, that she needed to eat, but it was miserable and she hated him for it.
On the fourth day, the trees broke and they discovered a meadow. There were white flowers scattered throughout, and clusters of yellow ones. Bees crowded the blossoms. At the far end of the meadow, a thick brown moose vanished back into the woods.
On the fifth day, Bird spotted a fence. They had crossed the meadow and back into the trees. These trees were thinner, more spread apart. Finally, they gave way to a slope of rolling hills. It was on the edge of one of these hills that Bird saw the shadow of four parallel lines, breaking the light that was vanishing beyond it.
“On the other side of that hill,” said Bird, “we will find a house.”
Mary did not believe it. Or she was not willing to let herself believe it. That this early on, they would discover a home, a fireplace, a matching set of chairs and people in them.
They walked on and discovered it was true. They spotted the smoke first, and then the ponies. Trained ponies moving about within the confines of the enormous gate. They investigated the two of them from a comfortable distance. The pen was large enough to vanish over a second hill, and it was the hill from behind which the smoke was rising. It was blue in the dusk light, lifting casually and thinning.
“I would like to pet them,” said Mary.
“Do as you like,” said Bird. He set down his sacks. He removed his pistol from his belt and approached the far hill. He crested it, kept low, and descended toward the house. He spotted no bodies on the porch or in the distance of any visible direction. It was a log cabin, relatively new. He crept to the window and crouched there. He listened, but heard nothing. Then he heard the floorboards groan. He spotted a cat lapping water from a puddle by the porch. A young girl appeared at its edge. She set herself on her belly, reached down and gripped the cat, and it scratched her. She began to cry, and an older man appeared behind her to investigate.
“Who are you?” said the man.
He held his daughter behind him then.
“What do you want?”
Bird had the pistol trained on him. He was trembling.
“Are you hurt?” said the man.
Bird did not respond.
The cat bounded beneath the porch. The girl’s head appeared to the right of her father’s hip.
“He’s lost an arm,” she said.
“Are you hurt?” the man said again.
“No,” said Bird. “Where is the nearest town?”
“About ten miles up that road,” said the man, pointing to a path leading from the front of the house. “Are you here to hurt or rob us?”
“No,” said Bird. “But we’d like to eat.”
“We?”
“My wife and I,” said Bird.
“But you can’t be more than… fourteen?” said the man.
“I am older than that,” said Bird. “We’ve been walking for days.”
“From where?”
“The woods,” said Bird, “that way.” He signaled with the barrel of the pistol then directed it back at the man.
“Wolf Creek? But it’s winter…”
Bird did not respond.
“You were in the valley when it snowed?”
Bird nodded.
“With your parents?”
Bird did not respond.
“Alone then.”
“I want to meet his wife,” said the man’s daughter. She was all the way out at his side now, gripping his hand as he held it to her.
“She’s with the ponies,” said Bird.
“I don’t want her fooling with those ponies,” said the man. “I aim to sell them.”
“She just wanted to meet them,” said Bird.
“I don’t want her fooling with them. If you go get her, and put that pistol away, we’ll give you some supper and I can hitch you into town in the morning.”
“Where will we sleep?”
“We’ve got furs and a floor,” said the man.
“I’d just as soon sleep out here,” said Bird.
“In the mud?”
Bird nodded.
“Fine by me,” said the man. “Now go get your wife and tell her not to fool with those ponies.”
Brooke made himself useful. He answered to Wendell, but more than that, he aided Marston and Clay when he was done with any particular assigned task. He dug the fire pits — they often had two or three going a night. He dug latrines and led the more troublesome horses. He offered rest to the weary. He offered bits of the food he caught, a bite of rabbit to the youngest girl after he and his wife were fed. He fell in line with their party, and they absorbed him. His wife was slowly recovering. Some mornings, she rose and walked with him. Other days, she spent alone in the shade and relative comfort of the wagon.
Soon, they came upon the large rocks Brooke had not forgotten. Jack spotted the wreckage, and he, Marston, and Clay rode out to investigate it. The others rested. The boys reported that it was a hired stagecoach, containing several corpses. There had likely been a robbery. There were no tracks, and the corpses were far gone. Whoever had taken down the stagecoach had emptied it of whatever contents were of value and were now gone from the area. It was likely that the wagon train was safe from harm, and that they should continue as they had been.
“Did you investigate the rocks?” said Wendell. “Did you check for caves?”
“We found two caves,” said Marston. “They were empty. There was yellow water in one and we filled the reserve canteens.”
“You shouldn’t drink yellow water,” said Wendell.
“We’ve marked them for emergencies only,” said Marston.
They set on again.
That night, Brooke boiled the yellow water and strained it through several layers of fabric and sand. It cleared slightly. The smell lifted. He drank a small amount in front of Wendell to show that it was trustworthy. The party waited one day, kept an eye on Brooke, who showed no signs of suffering or discontent. By the end of the day, they were sipping from the reserve canteens. Wendell sent Marston back to the cave to fill anything that could be capped. There was no telling when they would encounter water again. They had left the creek some days before, and now the only water was that which gathered in muddy puddles along their path, and sprang from the occasional hoof print. Brooke volunteered to ride with Marston.