“Maybe you can stay. If you asked, maybe your parents would let you live here.”

“They won’t.” He shifted to his back, watched a circling hawk. “They called last night, and said how they’d be home next week, and meet me at the airport and… Well, they won’t.”

“If they did, would you want to?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to go back?”

“I don’t know.” It was awful not to know. “I wish I could visit there and live here. I wish I could train Jones and ride Dottie and play baseball and catch more fish. But I want to see my room and go to the arcade and go to a Yankee game.” He rolled toward her again. “Maybe you could visit. We could go to the ballpark.”

“I don’t think they’d let me.” Her eyes turned sad, and her bottom lip quivered. “You probably won’t ever come back.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Do you swear?”

“I swear.” He offered his hand for a solemn pinky swear.

“If I write you, will you write me back?”

“Okay.”

“Every time?”

He smiled. “Every time.”

“Then you’ll come back. So will the cougar. We saw him the very first day, so he’s like our spirit guide. He’s like… I can’t remember the word, but it’s like good luck.”

HE THOUGHT about it, how she’d talked of the cougar all summer, had shown him pictures in the library books, and the books she’d bought herself with her allowance. She’d drawn pictures of her own and hung them in her room, among her baseball pennants.

In his last week on the farm, Coop worked with his penknife, and the carving tool his grandfather let him borrow. He said his goodbyes to Dottie and Jones and the other horses, bade a not very fond farewell to the chickens. He packed his clothes, along with the boots and work gloves his grandparents had bought him. And his beloved baseball bat.

As he had on the long-ago drive in, he sat in the backseat and stared out the window. He saw things differently now, the big sky, the dark hills that rose up in rocky needles and jagged towers and hid the forests and streams and canyons.

Maybe Lil’s cougar prowled in them.

They turned in the far road to the Chance land to say another goodbye.

Lil sat on the porch steps, so he knew she’d been watching for them. She wore red shorts and a blue shirt, with her hair looped through the back of her favorite ball cap. Her mother came out of the house as they pulled up, and the dogs raced from the back, barking and bumping their bodies together.

Lil stood, and her mother came down, laid a hand on her shoulder. Joe rounded the house, stuffing work gloves in his back pocket, and flanked Lil on the other side.

It etched an image in Cooper’s mind-mother, father, daughter-like an island in front of the old house, in the foreground of hills and valleys and sky, with a pair of dusty yellow dogs racing in madly happy circles.

Coop cleared his throat as he got out of the car. “I came to say goodbye.”

Joe moved first, stepping forward and offering a hand. He shook Coop’s and still holding it crouched to bring them eye-to-eye. “You come back and see us, Mr. New York.”

“I will. And I’ll send you a picture from Yankee Stadium when we clinch the pennant.”

Joe laughed. “Dream on, son.”

“You be safe.” Jenna turned his cap around to lean down, kiss his forehead. “And you be happy. Don’t forget us.”

“I won’t.” He turned, suddenly feeling a little shy, to Lil. “I made you something.”

“You did? What is it?”

He held out the box, shifting his feet when she pulled the lid off. “It’s kind of stupid. It’s not very good,” he said, as she stared at the small cougar he’d carved out of hickory. “I couldn’t get the face right or-”

He broke off, stunned, embarrassed, when she threw her arms around him. “It’s beautiful! I’ll always keep it. Wait!” Spinning around, she dashed into the house.

“That’s a good gift, Cooper.” Jenna studied him. “The cougar’s hers now, she won’t have it any other way. So you’ve put part of yourself into her symbol.”

Lil bolted out of the house, skidded to a stop in front of Coop. “This is my best thing-before the cougar. You take it. It’s an old coin,” she said, as she offered it. “We found it last spring when we were digging a new garden. It’s old, and somebody must’ve dropped it out of their pocket a long time ago. It’s all worn so you can hardly see.”

Cooper took the silver disk, so worn the outline of the woman stamped on it could hardly be seen. “It’s cool.”

“It’s for good luck. It’s a… what’s the word, Mom?”

“A talisman,” Jenna supplied.

“A talisman,” Lil repeated. “For good luck.”

“We’ve got to get on.” Sam gave Cooper’s shoulder a pat. “It’s a long drive to Rapid City.”

“Safe trip, Mr. New York.”

“I’ll write,” Lil called out. “But you have to write back.”

“I will.” Clutching the coin, Coop got into the car. He watched out the back, as long as he could, watched the island in front of the old house shrink and fade.

He didn’t cry. He was nearly twelve years old, after all. But he held the old silver coin all the way to Rapid City.

3

THE BLACK HILLS

June 1997

Lil walked her horse through the morning mists along the trail. They moved through high grass, crossed the sparkling waters of a narrow stream where tangled vines of poison ivy lurked before starting the upward climb. The air smelled of the pine and the water and the grass while the light shimmered with the delicacy of dawn.

Birds called and chattered. She heard the burry song of the mountain bluebird, the hoarse chee of a pine siskin in flight, the irritable warning of the pinyon jay.

It seemed the forest came to life around her, stirred by the streams and slants of misty light sliding through the canopy of trees.

There was nowhere in the world she’d rather be.

She spotted tracks, usually deer or elk, and noted them on the tape recorder in her jacket pocket. Earlier she’d found buffalo tracks, and of course, numerous signs of her father’s herd.