The Major doesn’t answer, but his lips press thin.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I protest. “My uncle wants me alive.” In a voice too quiet for the Buckeyes to hear, I add, “You know why he wants me.”

“Your uncle, yes,” Becky says. Her baby gives a little hiccup, and milky spit bubbles between her lips. As Becky pats the baby’s mouth with her apron, she adds, “But I wouldn’t put it past Mr. Dilley to do worse than he was told, just for spite. He loathes us. I’m sure of it.”

“What did we ever do to him?” Jefferson asks.

“We exist,” Tom says simply. “Look at us. Look at who we are.”

We’re a half-Cherokee boy, a one-legged war veteran, three confirmed bachelors, and two uppity women. Little does Frank know we also have a runaway slave with us, but I’d die before I told.

“You’re a dab at riding, Lee,” Tom points out. “You shoot better than Frank, hunt better. You disagreed with him in front of everyone—more than once. Then you turned out to be a girl.”

He says “girl” the way you’d say “thief” or “murderer,” like it’s the worst thing ever. I know Tom doesn’t mean it like that, but he’s right about the way Frank Dilley sees it. Dilley’s the kind of fellow who feels that being a white man makes him better at everything than everyone who isn’t. And if the facts prove otherwise, he’ll try to destroy the facts.

“It’s a good thing he doesn’t know everything about me,” I say.

“So what do we do?” Jefferson says.

Henry has been quiet this whole time. He looks down at his boots, shuffling them in the mud. “I’ll do whatever you all decide,” he says softly.

“You have no opinion at all?” the Major says.

Henry gives us a sheepish shrug. “Honestly, I’m not sure gold mining is for me. I’d like to see San Francisco someday. Maybe even Oregon. But . . .” His gaze shifts to Tom. “I don’t want to leave my friends.”

Jasper starts to protest, but I interrupt. “There are some things that don’t add up,” I tell them. “With my uncle, I mean.”

“Such as?” Jasper says, squinting against the morning sun, which is full up over the mountains now.

“Dilley kept referring to him like he was a rich, powerful man. And I guess he is, a little. He was a fancy lawyer down in Milledgeville, did well enough for himself. But he didn’t have that much money.”

“He stole all your gold,” Jefferson says. “Remember?” Then quieter, so the Buckeyes can’t hear: “That stash you and your family had. It was worth over a thousand dollars! Then he sold your homestead, right?”

I nod. “But he spent nearly a thousand dollars just buying passage on a ship for him and Abel Topper. Besides, Frank Dilley and that weasel Jonas Waters and those Missouri fellows aren’t working for free. I guess what I’m asking is this: How can he afford to buy out all our claims? He’d need four times what he stole from me. Maybe more. Where did that money come from?”

“Maybe he’s wealthier than you thought,” Becky says.

“Maybe it’s all a bluff,” Jefferson says.

“Maybe . . .” The Major is still rubbing at his beard as his mind turns on the problem like a mill. “He’s working for someone else.”

Jasper’s mouth forms an O.

“Someone with money,” Becky says.

“Daddy once told me that Hiram had a problem with debt,” I say. “He was impatient. Didn’t want to wait around for life’s finer things, so he borrowed and bought and got himself into so much debt he couldn’t see straight. Daddy bailed him out once. He bailed himself out another time. And that’s all I know about that.”

“So maybe he’s in debt again,” the Major muses.

I whisper, “And he knows just the witchy girl to get him out of it.”

Chapter Nine

I let the thought sink in. A shiver runs through me like Hiram’s shadow is already blocking out my sun. Then someone clears his throat behind me, and I jump.

It’s Old Tug. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “I’ve been talking with my boys, and we ain’t in no hurry to accept this deal. Seems nefarious. Besides, if we wanted to spend our lives working for a rich man, with aught to show, we’d have stayed in Ohiya.”

Becky smiles bright enough to light the gloomy sky. “I’m so glad to hear that, Mr. Tug.”

He blinks, caught in her brilliance, but he collects himself quickly. “We think this Dilley fellow means business, though. I’d bet my last snuff he started them fires. So if we’re going to stay and prospect here, we need to do something about him.”

The Major steps forward. “I could not agree more, sir.”

“I’ll ask again,” Jefferson says. “What do we do?”

Everyone starts throwing out ideas. Old Tug wants to find Frank Dilley and help him come to an accidental end, and even though the idea doesn’t set right in my gut, I can’t say I’d be sorry. Henry suggests we flee to Oregon Territory and give farming a go. “A good wheat crop is practically worth its weight in gold,” he says. “Maybe in Oregon we’d see the Robichauds again.”

Becky wants to build up the town, inviting more and more people to stay to increase our numbers. “He can’t take down a whole town, isn’t that right?”

The ideas come fast and fierce, but none of them are good enough.

“I’ll do it,” I yell, interrupting everyone. “I’ll do it.”

“Do what?” Becky says.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” Jefferson says.

“I’ll go to Sacramento.”

Everyone starts to protest, but I hold up a hand to forestall them.

“Not with Frank. I’ll go of my own accord. Maybe I’ll take a couple of you with me, if I get volunteers. I need to face my uncle, find out what’s going on. Maybe he’s working for someone else. If so, this person needs to be informed what kind of man my uncle really is. At the very least, if I leave, you’ll all be safe for a spell. It’ll buy us time to come up with a real plan.”

“No way, Lee,” says Jefferson, his voice low and furious. “Not a chance. Once your uncle has you, he’ll never let you go. And I . . . You can’t . . .” A muscle in his jaw twitches.