I made good time downriver, my feet eating up miles as fast as my legs would move ’em. By the time the whole round sun sat in the sky I was already halfway to Wenatchee, where I hoped to catch the man who had my horse.

The leaves on the trees by the river were already into their fall changing, painting my path with all their reds and yellows and oranges. Funny how them colors are thought to be such a beautiful thing, when what it really amounts to is their dying. It was pretty, though, anyway. Puffy pink sunrise clouds hung in the sky above the foothills of the mountains that crowded all around me and the river. It was the kind of sight that would have made Mama put her hand to her cheek and say, “Oh, bless the world for its beauty!” I did raise my head to take it in from time to time, for her sake. But I kept my hand on the bulge of the gun in my satchel. The world sure enough ain’t all beauty.

I was still trying to get my head around how Mr. Grissom had sold my Sarah away from me. I should have known. I kicked myself for not seeing it, for not getting suspicious at the way he and the stranger, Mr. Ezra Bishop, had been talking. How they’d whisper and hush when I came around. It had been strange, but I reckoned I knew better than to question or bother Mr. Grissom. And then he’d sent me off, on that fool’s errand to check his stock pens up on the ridge. By the time I’d gotten back, Ezra Bishop and his string of ponies were gone and night was coming on. I’d done my normal chores and duties and it wasn’t ’til after dinner, when Mr. Grissom was halfway into his first bottle, that I’d gone out to feed and brush Sarah and found her stall empty.

My heart burned with a fierce kind of anger. I kicked at the rocks in the ruts, spitting mad just thinking about it. My sweet girl Sarah. She was all I had left in the world. I shook my head and cut away from the road, through the brush down to the river.

The Wenatchee River was calm here, flowing smooth and quiet down to the mighty Columbia. I knelt on the smooth round stones of her bank and scooped the water up to my mouth with both hands. My ears filled with the gentle, near and far sound of the water as it bubbled ’round rocks and tumbled its way over little dips. “That’s the voice of the river,” I could hear Mama’s voice say. “A river tells a different story to every living soul. It’s got one just for you, Joseph, if you listen.” I couldn’t help but wonder what kinda story the river was telling me now, as I was heading alone down this road with a gun in my satchel and a grudge in my heart. I didn’t know if I would like it. Or if I’d like the ending.

I drank my fill in slurping handfuls, but the water had lost some of its sweetness. It wasn’t until I stood up and turned back toward the road that I saw the great pine just in the distance, the one standing watch over the small grassy clearing dotted with crude stones and wooden crosses.

I’d darn near missed it. I’d sure enough been lost in my thoughts, thoughts of what had happened and what might be coming. I’d darn near missed it.

I looked down the road toward Wenatchee. I didn’t have any time to lose, but I reckoned a few minutes more wouldn’t weigh much against the hours I had to make up.

And if I really wasn’t coming back, I knew there weren’t no way I could leave without saying good-bye to Papa.

My anger melted away like the morning frost as I made my way over to the little graveyard. There were only a handful of graves, lovingly but clumsily marked.

I knew right where his grave was, there in the knee-high grass. I’d visited it enough times in the months since he’d died, any time I could find when Mr. Grissom would let me slip away.

It weren’t even a cross, just a wooden marker cut from an old door. I’d had no real money, and no way to get anything better. I’d carved the words into the wood myself.

WILLIAM JOHNSON, it said. 1855–1890. That was it. I’d run out of room. There was too much to say, far too much, to fit on that old board. I could have had a forest of boards for carving and not had enough space to say everything that was in my heart.

“Hey, Papa,” I whispered, looking down at his grave. There weren’t no breeze and the grass stood still, like it were listening.

“Well, I’m off. Mr. Grissom done sold Sarah off, and I aim to get her back. I don’t know that I’ll ever be coming back here.” I blew out a bitter breath and looked away from his leaning board. It sure enough didn’t feel right, leaving him here with this sorry marker, with no family around to lay flowers or remember him. But I s’pose leaving graves behind is just something you do in this life, until you get to your own. I rubbed at my nose and sniffled.

“I won’t never forget nothing you told me, Papa. I’ll make you proud. I swear and I promise that I will.” I took just one breath to calm the hard lump in my throat. I weren’t going to say my last words to Papa like a crying little boy. I was his son, and I aimed to live up to that.

I sniffed again and nodded. “Yes, sir. There are things that have to be done in this world, and it’s our duty to do ’em right. Like you always said. And I intend to do this, and do it right.” I bent down and yanked up some grass that had grown too long, nearly covering his name. I saw a little stone there, round and white, resting up against his grave marker. I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket.

“Good-bye, Papa,” I said, and then turned and walked away.

*  *  *

I knew the names of the folks in the few scattered homesteads and cabins I passed, some right on the wagon road and some farther away, tucked up by the hills. It was full morning now, and twists of smoke curled from the chimneys or pipes of most of the homes. There were some sounds here and there of chopping wood or other labor, but I didn’t slow or stop. Not until Frank Jameson’s place, anyway. It was right there by the road. He was out sitting on a stump, eating, and he saw me coming.

“Mornin’, Joseph,” he said as I walked up. He wiped his hand on his pants and held it out to me to shake. I smelled the sweet breakfast smell of his pancakes and my mouth went right to watering but I bit my tongue and shook his hand.

“Morning, Mr. Jameson.”

“Mr. Grissom’s got you out on the trail early today, don’t he? What business he got you on?”

“It’s business of my own today, sir. Me and Mr. Grissom have parted ways.”

Mr. Jameson’s eyebrows went up. “That right? Well, that’s much more in your favor than his.”

The sun was still rising higher and I felt the trail pulling me on, so I cut right to it.

“Did a man pass through here last night, sir? A Mr. Bishop, with a string of ponies?”

Mr. Jameson poked at some food in his cheek with his tongue and nodded.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Couple hours before sunset. Heading down Wenatchee way, he said. Asked if I had any horses to sell.” He squinched up one eye and looked at me. “I coulda swore I saw that Indian filly of yours in there with his, Joseph. The red-and-white paint?”

I gritted my teeth and nodded.

“Yes, sir. Mr. Grissom—” I had to stop for a step to keep my anger down and my words civil. “Mr. Grissom sold her in my absence, and I aim to catch up to Mr. Bishop and buy her back.”

The muscles in Mr. Jameson’s jaw tightened with an angry ripple.

“Sold your horse? That old cuss sold your horse?”

“Yes, sir. But I reckon I’ll find Mr. Bishop in Wenatchee and have it all straightened out by lunchtime.”

“Well. Yeah. I do hope so, Joseph.”

“Thank you, sir. I best be going.”

I was set to leave, but a thought had been nagging me all morning, and I had to put it to rest. I reached into my satchel, pulled out my papa’s pistol, and held it out to Mr. Jameson, grip-first.

“Could you please return this to Mr. Grissom, sir, next time you see him?”

“Ain’t that your papa’s pistol?”

“Yes, sir. Well, it was. And I felt I had the right to take it. But … I reckon I changed my mind. My papa said if Mr. Grissom were to take care of me, all our supplies and goods were his. I s’pose that includes his gun along with the rest.”

I locked my eyes on Mr. Jameson’s, trying to keep the sounds and sights of my papa’s death out of my mind. They came back to me sometimes too strong, and I needed to keep myself steady. But I’d never forget that awful day. The wagon jerking and turning over, rolling down that hill, my papa crushed beneath it. The hours of sitting there watching him die, with no doctor and nothing to be done. The tears that had leaked stubbornly from his eyes, his ragged whisper over and over, “I’m sorry, son. I’m so sorry.” Mr. Grissom had come along, heading to his measly cabin, and I s’pose he’d done his best to help. But there was no helping what was wrong with my papa, and my papa’d known it. With his last breaths he’d begged Mr. Grissom to care for me, and promised him all our homesteading goods. I shook my head to chase them clinging ghosts away.

Mr. Jameson looked angry, but I knew his anger weren’t for me.

“No, son. I aim to give Mr. Grissom something next time I see him, but it ain’t gonna be your papa’s gun. That is yours, Joseph. It was your papa’s, and now it’s yours, true as anything. I wouldn’t call what that dog did takin’ care of you, neither … more like takin’ advantage.”

His eyes narrowed and his voice got lower.

“Listen, son. You may need that gun, up ahead. Mr. Bishop seemed in a hurry, and he’s on horseback. You may have to chase him up and over the mountains. There’s bears up there, and plenty of rattlesnakes. And you, what, twelve?”

“I’ll be thirteen in February, sir. I ain’t no boy.”

Mr. Jameson nodded. “Maybe not. But you ain’t quite a man yet, neither, and this ain’t always friendly country.” He pushed the gun back toward me. “You take that, and you feel good about it. Your papa would want you to.”

His last words got me. I bit my lip and slid the gun back into my satchel.

“Now, you listen,” Mr. Jameson continued. “You be real careful with that Ezra Bishop fella. He had an ugly way about him, and he’s got a bad name ’round here. You keep your wits about you, and don’t give him a red cent ’til he hands you the bridle to that pony of yours.”

“Yes, sir. All right.”

“Hold on a bit,” he said, then disappeared into his cabin. He came back out with a handkerchief tied in a bundle. “There’s two pancakes in here, and a piece of salt pork. Eat it as you walk.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hand. “No use fighting. I ain’t sending you off with an empty stomach.”

“Thank you, sir. I sure do—”

“I know, I know. Now get going. You got a lot ahead of you.”

I was only a few paces down the road when he called out, “She didn’t want to leave you, you know.”

“Sir?”

“Your horse. What’s her name?”

“Sarah,” I said, turning back.

“Right. Well, she was fighting him the whole way, jerking and pulling, trying to get back to you. Never seen a broke horse fight like that. It was everything he could do to keep her going. Madder than a hornet, he was.” His last words hung with a warning behind them. Like he was trying to tell me something, but was afraid to. My hands clenched into fists.

“Was he whipping her?” I asked. “Was he whipping my horse, Mr. Jameson?” My voice was winter steel, cold and hard.

Mr. Jameson licked his lips and squinted, then nodded.

“Yes, son. His arm is gonna be clean wore off by the time he gets to Wenatchee, he was whipping her so hard to keep her moving.”

My fingernails bit like rabid dogs into my palms. My breath shook through my nostrils. I didn’t trust my voice to talk, or my heart to say any words my mama would’ve approved of. Ezra Bishop was whipping my horse? He was whipping my sweet Sarah?

I turned and marched quick and dark as thunder toward Wenatchee, glad for the gun I carried.