Or not quite all alone. There’s still one person I can turn to for help.

Jefferson and a couple other boys from school spend an afternoon digging graves for Mama and Daddy. I found out it would cost me twenty dollars to have headstones made, and maybe I could witch up enough gold dust given a little time, but not without raising questions. So I ask Jefferson to make a pair of wooden crosses for now.

The day of the funeral dawns icy clear. Meltwater from the warm snap froze overnight, leaving the trees, the eaves of the barn, and even the henhouse dripping with tiny icicles. The whole world sparkles so bright in the winter sun it’s almost hard to look at.

After finishing my morning chores, I wash up and don my best dress—a brown wool with lace cuffs, and a pointed waist with pretty yellow piping. Mama and I finished it just last week.

I can’t get the corset very tight without help, but the dress buttons up with surprising ease. It has the fullest skirt I’ve ever owned. I remember twirling in place during my final fitting, admiring how high the hem lifted in spite of the fabric’s weight. Mama scolded me for showing off my petticoats.

I stand before our tiny mirror to put on her locket, and I see her face staring back at me. Everyone says I have her eyes—widely spaced and mostly brown, a little too deep-set. But I look like her more than ever today. I seem older, with thinner cheeks and sunken eyes. I haven’t eaten much these past few days.

I reach around the back of my neck and clasp the locket in place. I flip out the lace collar to cover the chain. The pendant rests just above my heart. It’s a relief to feel the gold sense come back, even a little. I may never take off the locket.

Someone knocks at the door. I glance at the table to make sure my revolver is still there. I’ve been keeping it handy these past few days, because whoever killed my parents is armed with at least a Colt. If my visitors have found it strange that I never open the door unarmed, they haven’t said.

I grab the revolver and head toward the door, feeling a stab of embarrassment; the steps leading up the front porch still have bloodstains on them, though I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed. They’re brown-black now, not like blood at all. Still, if I don’t replace them soon, I’ll see Daddy’s body in my mind’s eye every time I step outside. Maybe Jefferson will do it for me.

And it’s like I’ve summoned him with a thought, because I swing the door open and there he is, his gaze downcast and his wrinkled hat in hand. Nugget sits at his heels, her tail thumping.

He blurts, “I’m going west, Lee.”

It’s like a kick in the gut. “What? When!”

He looks up finally, and I gasp, for his right eye is the color of spring violets and swollen shut. “Now,” he says.

“Oh, Jeff, what happened? Was it your da? I’ll kill him if he—”

“Come west with me.”

The sorrel mare is tethered at the bottom of the steps. Two saddlebags hang over her sides, and Jefferson’s long rifle rides high in its saddle holster near her withers. “That nugget you gave me. I should’ve given it back, but . . . I just came from Free Jim’s store. He bought it off me. Gave me enough to buy a stake in a wagon train.”

“It never belonged to me. It was yours to do with as you wanted.”

“Then come to California with me. You could sell this place to Mr. Gilmore today.”

A vision passes before my eyes: clear mountain brooks sparkling with gold flecks, nuggets winking up from pine needle–choked earth, game so plentiful you’d hardly have to leave your back porch to shoot. For a girl like me, California is the Promised Land.

“Leah, we’d have enough money to buy our way there if you sold—”

“I . . . I don’t know.” Is that what his marriage proposal was about? Finding someone to help him buy his way there?

“Mr. Gilmore has had his eye on this place for years,” he insists.

I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m just a girl, and I can’t sell what I don’t own until I get my hands on Daddy’s will, proving the place is mine.” I’m not sure how I’ll do that. Uncle Hiram was the one who drew it up, years ago. “This is my home, Jeff. I’ve worked so hard to build it into something nice. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, or how I’ll run this place, but . . .”

He steps forward until his body fills the doorway. When did Jefferson become so large? “Then let’s just go.”

Oh, dear Lord, but a hole is opening up in my heart again, just like the one that started gaping wide when I saw Daddy’s boot in the snow. “I have to go to the funeral, and then I have to sort through Mama’s and Daddy’s things, and then there’s my chickens, and . . .”

He plunks his hat back on his head. “I know you, and I know you want this. When you change your mind, find me in Independence, Missouri. I’ll wait a spell for you. Can’t head west until the prairie grass starts to grow, anyway. Otherwise, the sorrel mare will starve. But I can’t wait too long either, else I meet winter in the mountains.” His lips press into a firm line. “I’ll wait for you in Independence as long as I can.”

I watch him walk away, the hole growing wider and deeper. Sunshine falls onto his shoulders, lighting him up like a torch, and for a moment I can hardly breathe.

He pauses. Turns. Sadness tugs at his eyes as he says, “Seems like I’ve been waiting for you to come around my whole life, Lee. But a man can’t wait forever and stay a man.”

And with that, my best friend in the whole world is gone.

Chapter Six

I’ve hardly closed the door on Jefferson’s retreating back before another knock sounds. I smooth down my hair and check my hairpins before opening it again. It’s Mrs. Smith, wife to the judge and mother of Annabelle.

“Oh, Leah dear, I was worried something had happened to you.” She frees one spindly, gloved hand from its fur muff to pat my cheek, but her gaze moves beyond me, roves the interior of the house. Looking for untidiness to gossip about, I’ll wager. Or hoping giant sacks of gold will magically appear on the kitchen table.

“Everyone is waiting for you graveside,” she explains at last.

She’s wearing a funeral-appropriate black gown with velvet panels, but it’s her locket that catches my eye and makes my throat buzz a little. It’s gold, like Mama’s, and etched with interlinking hearts. It contains photographs of her husband and Annabelle, taken when the Smiths visited Charleston on holiday. I know this because Annabelle told everyone at school about it when they got back.

Mama would never have allowed such an expense. The locket I now wear contains a tiny tuft of my baby brother’s hair.

“Aren’t you coming, dear?”

Does Mrs. Smith realize how lucky she is to have a whole family? “Yes,” I say to the locket. “I . . . I just needed a moment to myself.”

“Of course.” Her tone holds a whiff of disapproval. “I’ll walk with you.”

“Thank you.”

She grabs my hand and yanks me out the door. Judge Smith waits in the walkway, and he tips his hat as we descend the stairs. “Glad to see you, Miss Leah,” he says.

I mumble something polite as the Smiths take up posts at each shoulder. They are both long and lanky, and they walk with unerring purpose and perfect posture, certain of their significance in this world. I am towered over. Hemmed in. Imprisoned.