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Like the shopkeeper's boy was?”
    “Not bad as that. Just off some. He injured his brain in the war. He's really good with the animals, though. He shows Reverend True how to work the oxen. And I tell him things about the world. Mostly he wants to know about the animals—do they have mules in China and so on. He was very enamored with the llamas of Peru.”
    Maddy stopped to pick up two buffalo patties. Her sack was bulging and Aiden took it from her. A warm breeze ruffled through the tall grass with a low swishing sound. Grasshoppers jumped all around them like popping corn. Aiden still sometimes had to hold back from catching them. Maddy went on about all the people in the wagon train. He didn't mind her endless chatter; it was comforting, the only thing the same from their old lives. It was a beautiful day, the first of May, with the sky so blue it almost hurt to look at. He felt strange, and it took him a while to realize why. He felt strange because he felt happy.
    “See them there?” Maddy pointed at an older couple. “They've been married twenty years, and they're going to run a sawmill in Seattle for her brother who got pulled into a machine. He lost parts of both his arms and almost his entire head, just enough left to keep his brain in. Will you not work with the machines, Aiden? When we get there? Please promise.”
    “Yes. If you'll please to God ease off the holding-in-the-brain kind of talk.”
    “I bet he looks like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, all stitched together!” Maddy giggled.
    “Stop!”
    She made a gruesome face at him and ran her finger in a harsh zigzag down one side of her skull. Aiden lunged at her and she darted away. She screeched with laughter as he chased her through the grass.

hat day Jackson decided to make camp earlier than usual. He figured they were about in the middle of Kansas and making good time. They were following the Smoky Hill River, but it was about to swing away into a big curve for about ten miles. The wagons would keep on traveling in a straight line the next day so they would camp before the bend to have water for the night. It was three o'clock and the sun was warm. The women decided it was a good chance to do some washing. Soon the afternoon rang with laughter and singing. Children splashed in the shallow water as the women beat clothes clean on the rocks. The men were banished to the high ground so the women could bathe, and the air filled with shrieks as they waded into the cold water. The men kept themselves busy mending harnesses and shoring up the wagons.
    After the women bathed, the men had a chance to wash, and some of them even did. That evening the whole camp smelled like soap, and a lot of the married people disappeared into their wagons right after supper, sending their children to play down by the riverbank. Marguerite, with a shine in her eyes and a blush in her cheeks, gave Maddy a novel to read and suggested she might find the light better down by the river. It was a slim “ladies’ novel,” which Maddy had never been fond of, but she knew when she was being asked to make herself scarce. Her parents used to send all thechildren out to the creek to “catch some bluefish” when they wanted some privacy. There were never any bluefish in the creek.
    Aiden decided to explore the river bluffs around the bend. It was just after sunset, and there was a low stripe of bright red along the horizon, with a deep blue sky just above, like a field of cornflowers. The water below was silver in the fading light. He was glad to be alone for a little while. The twilight coaxed out feelings and memories that he rarely allowed himself. He thought about the past and the lost, wondered about the future and simply enjoyed the miracle of being alive. Right now, the starving winter almost seemed like a bad dream.
    Suddenly the peace was disturbed by a sound in the bushes below. He slid the bow off his shoulder and crouched down. The bushes rustled again, far too vigorously