“There’s hardly a piece of equipment in that mine I can’t fix, and I can mine more coal than most. Coal!” He laughed. “Smothering and sweating for coal!” He threw the yoke at the peg where it customarily hung. He threw too hard and bouncing off the crossbeam, it crashed to the floor. David pushed up onto his elbow. “I can work my way to Virginia City on the railroad, Sare.”

“David, don’t tease.” Sarah clung to his arm.

“Maybe I’m not.”

Her eyes started to fill. “You got to stay with me, Davie. Gracie’s little and hateful and Lizabeth’s just a baby.”

He gathered his sister to his shoulder, patting her back with his big hands. “Don’t cry; there’d be Mam and Walter.” She clutched at his shirt, crying harder. “Well, Mam anyway. Walter’s just Pa all over again. Or maybe Sam Ebbitt. You got your friend Karen. You and Karen get on real good.” David jounced her like a mother with a fussy baby. The tears poured down her cheeks. “Come on, Sare, don’t cry anymore and I’ll tell you something.”

“You don’t know nothing,” she sobbed.

“I do too-Mam told me. Swear to God.”

“Swear.” He did. She sat up, cocking her head to one side like a bird. “Now tell me.”

He started to climb down out of the straw. “Nah. I got to go.” She pounced on him, pulling at his beard, and he fell back laughing. “Okay, okay. Let go and I’ll tell you. There’s a new schoolteacher coming.”

“You’re not joking me, David?”

“Mam said. You calling Mam a liar?”

“A schoolteacher! It’s been forever.”

“Six weeks.”

“Almost forever,” she amended. “What’s he like, this one? Mr. Richardson was rumply and smelled.”

“You speak mean of the dead, they come back and get you.” He moaned and rolled his eyes.