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Elizabeth checked the cloth that hung from her sidesaddle as it flopped against the neck of the black mule named Ink. Mazy hoped she would get fed at this gathering, find something to fill the emptiness of their leaving, calm the uncertainty.

    Jeremy Bacon stood in the center of a cluster of men shaded by the maples that arched over the log building. Lilac bushes threatened to bud. Tobacco smoke circled the face of Hathaway Wilson, who drew on his pipe, then used it to make some point, all eyes turned in his direction. His right hand he stuck in his paisley vest as though holding his heart. Jeremy stood taller than Hathaway and several others, even without the hat he'd left hooked over the saddle's horn.
    Mazy couldn't hear their words, but bursts of laughter rose from the group and then quieter sounds, nods of heads, pats on suspender-crossed backs. Several men bore the sun marks of a hat wearer, forehead paler than cheeks. There seemed to be looks of admiration directed at her husband, perhaps even looks of longing. It didn't seem possible that so many men could want to uproot, take their families into danger andbeyond, or that so many others would admire them for it. It stretched her understanding of how different men and women were.
    “This west thing is a craze, that's what it is,” Adora Wilson said. The formidable-looking woman, broad shoulders, narrow waist, now stood beside Mazy. She wore a pink bonnet with a stiff pasteboard brim that shaded a face that was just beginning to wrinkle. “You'd think they were boys discovering a new fishing hole and not sure if they want to share the news or keep the treasure to themselves. My own husband among them.” She fussed at her bonnet, removed it. “I don't know how you'll manage, Mazy. I simply could not do it.” The last words came out like hammer pounds.
    “Hathaway's not thinking of going, surely.”
    “Oh, the subject was raised, but I put my foot down. And Charles balked.” Adora nodded to her son, a striking man who leaned against the tree scraping at his fingernails with a knife. He wore a white, collar-less shirt, button pants. One ear had a healed-over notch, visible even in the shadow of his gray hat. Mazy never liked to have him wait on her in the Wilsons’ mercantile: Charles always came around the smooth counter to stand beside her, liked to brush his fingers over hers when she handed him the book of cloth. “But the west fever's affected us…” Adora continued. “Tipton's fallen in love with that Tyrell Jenkins.”
    Mazy's eyes wandered to the man notable for his large forearms, his short but sturdy-looking legs, and his stellar reputation. He was said to be a skilled smithy, and she'd heard that in his back room, he fed orphaned kittens from a glove.
    “I imagine a farrier'd be welcomed well on a westward train,” Mazy's mother said, joining the twosome, waving away flies from the table as she talked. Elizabeth had met Adora last year, had only a brief conversation, but Mazy's mother knew no strangers, could carry on as familiar as a lifelong friend “You could do worse for your daughter.”
    “ButTipton's only fifteen,” Adora said, lifting her chin. “And a mite headstrong.”
    “Ponder where she got that,” Elizabeth said.
    Adora frowned. “She'd make any man's head turn like an owl's, but not out of wisdom, I'm afraid. She's been whittling on her father about marriage and heading west. With Tyrell. So far, he's stood firm, which he best do. We waited seven years to marry.” She straightened her broad shoulders, fidgeted with the tucks that spread across her wide bosom. “‘Til he had the store going strong. No reason she can't wait until Tyrell's good and settled. He can jolly well come back to pick her up. Hathaway told him that trail runs east just the same as west.” She fanned her face with her hands, lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “‘Course I think she'd do much better, with Tyrell out of the picture.” She leaned