Walk on Earth a Stranger

“Marry you?” At his silence, I can’t help but add a stinging, “Or the part about pretending to be brother and sister?”

He winces. “I figured you were done with me.”

“I wasn’t done with you. I was just getting started with me.”

He snorts. “And have you finished with you yet?”

I clear gravel and dust from my lettering with a fingertip. “I don’t know, Jeff. People here actually like me and respect me, and that’s nice. But they don’t know who I really am, and truth be told, I’m not sure either.” For some reason, my stomach is tied up in knots. “Look, about that time, I’m sorry if I—”

“Stop saying that,” he says. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything.”

“Well, you don’t have to be sorry neither.”

I’ve got LE carved into the stone. I pause a moment, deciding.

I reach for Mama’s locket before remembering it’s not there anymore. I think of the afternoons we spent on my new Sunday dress. I think of Jefferson asking me to marry him, back when I was a girl. I lean forward and add an AH.

LEAH WESTFALL.

That name won’t mean anything to anyone in our wagon train, but it means something to me.

Jefferson pauses his own efforts to stare at my name. A tiny grin tugs at his mouth.

I ask, “You going to be Jefferson McCauley or Jefferson Kingfisher?”

“Jefferson McCauley Kingfisher,” he says brightly.

I sigh in mock despair. “We’re going to be here until the middle of the night.”

“Good thing this rock is big enough to be a mountain.”

We climb to the top and look back over the country we’ve traveled. The trail is a wide depression in the grass, stretching like a river into the eastern horizon. To the south and west are mountains. At this distance, they are no more than blue blurs on the horizon, soft and gentle and cool.

Our wagons approach, headed by the Missouri men. We wave wildly, and they wave right back. There’s a short break while people carve their own names or initials, then we get underway again.

I aim Peony for the college men’s wagon. Jasper drives, and Major Craven sits on the bench beside him, an awl in one hand and the sole of a boot in the other. I didn’t know he was a cobbler, and I can’t imagine how he’s getting any work done, being jounced around as he is.

“Hey, Major,” I say.

He looks up from his work. “That was a brevet promotion, and I’m no longer commander of this expedition. Call me Wally.”

“Sorry, sir. You’ll always be Major to me.”

He laughs. Then he points to my stirrups. “Are your feet really that big? If not, I could fix those boots for you. Trim ’em down to size. Least I could do.”

The skin of my feet have grown so accustomed to getting rubbed every which way that Daddy’s boots hardly bother me at all anymore. “They’re fine. Anyway, I don’t want anyone cutting into them. Thanks, though.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

“The mountains don’t look so bad from here,” I say to change the subject.

“We ought to reach the Devil’s Gate around noon. You’ll know it when you see it. It’s a narrow gap between two cliffs, like a doorway in a garden wall.”

“Why such a gloomy name?”

“Because once we pass through it, the rest of the road is a bloody hell. Sulfur springs with boiling water. Hills so steep that wagons roll right back down. Mountains so high you can’t breathe on top. Rivers without water. And deserts in every direction that take three or four days to cross.”

Jefferson has ridden up beside me. “Can’t we go another way?”

“Nope. Only way to reach the green grass of Oregon or the sweet gold of California is through hell itself.”

I roll my eyes. The Major has been especially colorful since his amputation, cussing and exaggerating and telling tall tales. He reminds me of Daddy, except not fit for female company.

“You think we can climb to the top and take a look around?” I ask.

The Major pats his stump. “As long as you don’t mind going without me.”

“That’s a great idea, Lee,” Jefferson says. I turn to smile at him, but he’s already heading away. “I’ll see if anyone wants to come with us.”

I want to shout no, to explain that I want it to be just him and me, but he’s already asking Tom and Henry, so I steer Peony toward the Joyners’ wagon.

Mrs. Joyner drives the team, something she never would have done when we started out. She wears a pinafore over her skirts, and the oxen’s reins are pinched between her knees. In her hands is a small walnut clock with brass trim, which she is polishing with a cloth.

There is no sign of her husband.

“Lee,” she acknowledges, rubbing at that clock like her life depends on it.

“Ma’am.” I tip my hat. “Came by to see if you or Mr. Joyner were interested in climbing up Devil’s Gate with us. It’s right on the river. Should be a sight.”

“Mr. Joyner is not interested,” she says.

I’m not sure how long it’s been since I’ve laid eyes on him, except to see a vague shadow in the wagon bed whenever Jeff and I load and unload. I’ve worried that the cholera has returned, but the wagon definitely does not smell of cholera.

“Maybe Andy and Olive would like to come? I won’t let them out of my sight.” I expect her to agree at once. Lately, Mrs. Joyner has been trying to keep them away from the wagon—to give Mr. Joyner his rest, she says—jumping at every opportunity to let them play with the Robichaud twins or the Hoffman children.

Olive has been walking beside the wagon, a rag doll in one hand, her baby brother’s hand in the other. “Please, Ma?” she says.

“Me too!” Andy says.

Mrs. Joyner rests her hand on her enormous belly. If it gets any bigger, she can throw a tablecloth over it and serve tea. “Certainly. As long as you both mind Lee.”

I spy Jefferson talking to the Robichauds, so I head over to the Hoffmans, Olive and Andy in tow.

Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman sit side by side on the bench of the first wagon. Mrs. Hoffman holds a needle and an embroidery hoop. I’m surprised her fingers don’t look like she picked up a porcupine.

“Guten Morgen, Herr Hoffman,” I say.