Walk on Earth a Stranger

I know it for a dangerous lie as soon as the notion takes me. So to keep my thoughts from my uncle, I busy myself with hunting. Game is scarce this late in the year, but I still bag a small deer, two snowshoe rabbits, and five golden squirrels. Becky makes stew from the squirrels. It’s terrible—watery and oversalted, with spongy onions and a single shriveled turnip for flavor. We eat every single drop.

“You named that baby yet?” I ask her one night as we’re scraping dishes.

“Not yet,” she says.

As I set out to hunt the next day, I find myself remembering the people we’ve lost, like Therese and Mr. Joyner. Even Lucie, who left. So on the last day of our respite, I start collecting rocks. I pile them one atop the other until I’ve made a noticeable mound.

“What are you doing?” Jefferson asks, happening by.

I think of my parents’ rickety wooden crosses. Soon enough they’ll be gone, worn by sun and ice or toppled by wind. “We couldn’t bury Therese,” I say. “But we can still leave a marker for her.”

“You didn’t even know her!” he says.

I’m about to snap back, but the sadness in his face makes me say, “I’m sorry, Jeff. I didn’t mean anything bad. It’s just . . . She was going to teach me how to knit.”

His frown deepens.

Quickly, I add, “What I mean is, I’ve never had a lot of friends. Just you. I feel like I lost a good friend before I even had her.”

He stares at me, long and hard.

“I’m not going to mess up like that again,” I continue, to fill his awful silence. “For every Hiram I’ve met, there’s been a Therese or a Becky Joyner. People I end up taking a shine to, once we give each other a chance. And it’s too lonely out here, if you don’t give people a chance.”

The pain in his eyes fades and is replaced by something softer and calmer. “Lee . . .” he says, searching my face.

An invisible force pulls me toward him, like molten gold lighting up my insides.

“I . . . I’ll help,” he says, and he’s off before I can answer, bending to gather a few rocks of his own.

Hampton sees what we’re doing and adds more rocks to our pile. Gradually, the rest of our company trickles over and starts helping. The mound grows, higher and higher until we’ve built a proper monument, something no one passing this way could possibly miss. Mr. Hoffman hacks down two large pine branches and nails together a rough cross, which we stake into the ground and bolster with more rocks.

Jefferson pulls out his knife. He starts to etch letters into Mr. Hoffman’s wooden cross, but changes his mind. Using his sleeve, he wipes off the surface of one of the larger rocks and etches there instead: “Therese Hoffman.” He stares at his handiwork a moment, then he adds: “Andrew Joyner. Mary Lowrey. Josiah Bledsoe. Athena the Cow.”

We heave off the next morning, ready to tackle the Sierra Nevada.

For once, I expect the worst but get the best. The Sierras are even steeper than the Rockies, and we’ve no spare wagon parts left in case something goes awry. But the land is lush and beautiful, and we now have eighteen souls in our company, if you include the baby, and only one wagon to handle. We lose one more ox to sour feet, but the other animals thrive in the mountains, with its fresh supply of clean water and grazing.

Blue mountain jays flit between pine boughs. Trout dart through crystal streams, and late summer flowers bloom in wild meadows surrounded by granite edifices wondrous enough to make your heart stop. Lowering our single wagon down even the steepest slopes proves little burden when shared among us all.

In spite of all this, my soul is troubled. I keep to myself as much as possible, and I take every excuse to go off and hunt.

Becky walks beside me sometimes, content to endure my silence. She’s different now. Lighter on her feet, with an easy smile. Sometimes she lets me hold the baby, who gazes up at me with bright-blue eyes as she blows little spit bubbles through her lips.

“What’s wrong, Lee?” Becky asks one afternoon as we trek through a spongy alpine meadow. She has the baby against one shoulder and pats her bottom as she walks.

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve been so quiet. You don’t even talk to Jefferson much.”

I bend down to pick up a pinecone that has rolled into the grass from the tree line. It’s perfect and pristine, untouched by jay or squirrel.

“Still thinking about your uncle?”

“Yes.” I reach between grooves with a forefinger and snag a pine nut. “Hiram will find me. Somehow, he will.”

“Men can be relentless,” she agrees, “when they think a woman belongs to them.”

I don’t have a chance to ask what she means, because Olive calls for her, and Becky excuses herself. I stare after her, wishing I could tell her more. Wishing I could tell someone. It turns out that a girl with all the friends in the world is still lonely when she’s keeping secrets.

My gold sense is a tiny tickle on the eastern slopes, but once we cross the divide it swells, becoming ever-present, almost uncomfortable. I tell myself to pay it no mind, that there will be plenty of time for gold later. But once in a while, when no one is looking, I can’t help crouching down and sifting through stream gravel until I find the thing that sings so clear to me. By the time the mountains give way to rolling golden hills dotted with oak trees, I have almost seventy dollars’ worth in my pockets.

One afternoon while we’re resting the oxen, I catch Jefferson scowling at me. He’s right to be angry. I’ve been avoiding him. Having him near reminds me that I’m keeping secrets, that even though I wear Lucie’s skirt most days, I’m still a liar.

The scowl on his face darkens when he notices me staring, becomes something deep and sorrowful. My chest squeezes with the realization: I’m hurting him.

My feet stride toward him even before my mind registers my decision. I grab his arm and pull him aside under the cover of a giant sprawling oak. It’s time. It’s past time.

“Lee—?”

“There’s something I have to tell you. A secret.”

His face goes blank. “I’m listening.”

Trust someone, Mama said.

My heart races. In my whole life, I haven’t told a single soul. Jefferson is a good person to try it out on. The best person.

“Lee?”