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still be hunting that panther.”
    Then he turned back, and I soon heard him going up the stairs beside the saloon. The abrupt way he left me on my own gave me a lonely feeling, for some reason. It wasn’t the dark—I walked around in the dark all the time, sometimes with G.T. and sometimes without him. I had enjoyed my visit with Wild Bill Hickok, but now I felt lonely. What I wished was that I could be grown-up, like Uncle Seth—grown-up enough to stop and talk with a woman bold enough to sit and smoke a cigar, at the top of the stairs, outside a saloon.

6
    W HEN I got home Ma was in the graveyard. I was feeling a little better by then—it was a pretty night and I had walked off the loneliness. There was no sign of Granpa and his pistol but as I was passing the graveyard I saw Ma sitting on a little wooden bench, by the graves. One of Ma’s sisters was buried there, and Granma Crackenthorpe, and my four little brothers who hadn’t made it through the winters. There were some pretty bad winters in Missouri, and our cabin wasn’t chinked too good. G.T. nearly died himself once, but with the help of an old woman who knew about poultices, he pulled through.
    Ma had little Marcy with her—the baby was snoring in the quiet way little babies snore.
    Sometimes I would get a knot in my throat when I came upon Ma sitting in the graveyard. I don’t think a person would sit in a graveyard unless they were sad, and I didn’t want to think about Ma being sad.
    But there she was, not saying a thing, just sitting on her little bench, amid the graves.
    â€œHi, Ma,” I said.
    She looked behind me.
    â€œSeth didn’t come back with you?” she asked.
    â€œI think he wanted to play cards,” I said.
    Ma motioned for me to sit down beside her on the bench, something she rarely did. When Ma went to the graveyard she usually made it clear that she wanted to be left alone.
    â€œDon’t be lying for him, Shay,” she said. “Let him lie for himself, if there has to be a lie.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t even know why I lied—it just came out. I don’t know whether Ma cared or not, what Uncle Seth did with Rosie McGee.
    It seemed to me the best thing to do would be to change the subject, to something I felt sure would get Ma’s attention.
    â€œUncle Seth wants to take G.T. and me with the posse,” I said. “The sheriff’s getting up a posse to go arrest the Millers, over at Stumptown, and Uncle Seth thinks me and G.T. are old enough to go along.”
    â€œDid you hear me, Shay?” Ma asked, ignoring my statement completely. “I said don’t lie for your Uncle Seth—and don’t lie for your Pa, either, if heever comes home again. Let grown men do their own lying—I mean it.”
    â€œYes ma’am,” I said meekly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said it.”
    Then Ma put her head in her hands and cried. The baby woke up and began to cry too. I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t dare leave the bench. I put my arm around Ma, but she kept crying. I knew that when Ma went out to the graveyard at night she went there to do her crying. We all knew that, and took care to give the graveyard a wide berth, if Ma was in it. But this time I had been careless and here I was. Ma cried and the baby cried—I felt for a minute like I might cry too, although I didn’t know of anything I needed to cry about. Mainly I just wished Uncle Seth would show up. He was the one person who could get Ma feeling better, when she was low.
    It felt like Ma was going to cry forever, but I guess it wasn’t forever. She stopped crying and then the baby stopped. Once they were both calmed down, Ma let Marcy nurse a little.
    â€œI’m glad you didn’t leave, Shay,” Ma said, when she was herself again. “The ability to stay put when a woman’s crying is not one most