Walk on Earth a Stranger

“Good morning to you,” he replies in a thick accent.

Therese sticks her head out from the wagon and peers at me from between her parents’ shoulders. “Hallo, Lee!”

“Want to climb up to Devil’s Gate with Jeff and me? We’re taking some of the children.”

“I would like very much to go with you. Bitte?”

“Ja, ja,” her father says.

“Danke,” Therese says, kissing her mother’s cheek. She climbs onto the jockey box and hops down.

“Hey, always jump from the back of the wagon, away from the wheels,” Jefferson says, riding up.

“Yes, I will,” Therese says, looking chagrined for all of a split second before brightening. “I’ll ask my brothers if they want to come.”

She walks beside Andy and Olive as we all catch up to the Hoffmans’ second wagon, which is being driven by Martin and Luther, the two oldest boys at thirteen and twelve, respectively. They’re already taller than me, with broad shoulders and sandy hair like their father’s. A thump from the back of the wagon indicates that Carl and Otto, the youngest boys, might be playing inside.

There’s no sign of Doreen, who’s usually out walking. She’s the youngest at five years, close in age to Olive, and the two have become playmates, even though Mrs. Joyner thinks Doreen is not well-groomed. “Not a proper lady” is how she puts it, though how anyone can be a proper lady at the age of five is beyond me.

As I steer Peony alongside the wagon, Doreen comes into view, and my stomach drops into my toes.

She rides on the tongue behind the oxen, her bonnet hanging down her back. Luther and Martin shout encouragement while she bounces up and down, laughing like she’s on a hobbyhorse. Nothing keeps her there but the grip of her own tiny hands. The wagon hits a rut, and she teeters precariously a moment before straightening.

“Doreen!” Therese cries out. “What are you doing?”

Doreen turns at her sister’s voice. She swings her leg over the tongue to hop down, but her ankle snags, and she starts to list.

“Yaw!” I shout, spurring Peony on.

“Stop the wagon!” Jefferson yells. “Now!”

Peony trusts me and leaps toward the oxen. We pull parallel to Doreen. I stand in my stirrups and reach between the wagon and the oxen for Doreen’s dress. It brushes my fingertips. She falls, and I fall after her. My shoulder bashes against the wagon’s tongue as I finally grasp her skirt. The ground knocks the air out of me, but I wrap my arms around the girl, curl up to protect her, and roll us both to the side. Dirt fills my mouth as I press us flat. The wagon’s axle passes over my head. The sharp iron edge of the wheel snags the flap of my coat and pulls it halfway over my head. The coat catches on my armpit, drags us forward. Gravel grinds into my side.

“Whoa!” yells Jefferson. The wheels slow. Finally, the wagon creaks to a stop.

Doreen and I are both breathless. “Are you all right?” I gasp.

She looks at me with big blue eyes and nods.

Hubbub is all around us. People come running; boots kick up dust at my nose. Jefferson is shouting my name. Therese is shouting for Doreen.

“Can you roll the wagon off my coat?” I ask. My voice feels funny in my head, like it’s coming from far away.

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 . . .”

“That you are a young lady?” She waves her hand as waving it off. “Bien sûr. But you will be glad to know that Jasper fixed you. You had a bad slicing. From hip to knee. Never have I seen so much blood! The wagon wheel, I think. And you twisted your ankle, but it is not broken.”

I reach for my thigh and find thick bandages there. I’m wearing a long white shirt. Henry’s, I’d wager. My legs and feet are bare but for the bandages.