“If they did, would you want to?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to go back?”

“I don’t know.” It was awful not to know. “I wish I could visit there and live here. I wish I could train Jones and ride Dottie and play baseball and catch more fish. But I want to see my room and go to the arcade and go to a Yankee game.” He rolled toward her again. “Maybe you could visit. We could go to the ballpark.”

“I don’t think they’d let me.” Her eyes turned sad, and her bottom lip quivered. “You probably won’t ever come back.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Do you swear?”

“I swear.” He offered his hand for a solemn pinky swear.

“If I write you, will you write me back?”

“Okay.”

“Every time?”

He smiled. “Every time.”

“Then you’ll come back. So will the cougar. We saw him the very first day, so he’s like our spirit guide. He’s like… I can’t remember the word, but it’s like good luck.”

HE THOUGHT about it, how she’d talked of the cougar all summer, had shown him pictures in the library books, and the books she’d bought herself with her allowance. She’d drawn pictures of her own and hung them in her room, among her baseball pennants.

In his last week on the farm, Coop worked with his penknife, and the carving tool his grandfather let him borrow. He said his goodbyes to Dottie and Jones and the other horses, bade a not very fond farewell to the chickens. He packed his clothes, along with the boots and work gloves his grandparents had bought him. And his beloved baseball bat.

As he had on the long-ago drive in, he sat in the backseat and stared out the window. He saw things differently now, the big sky, the dark hills that rose up in rocky needles and jagged towers and hid the forests and streams and canyons.

Maybe Lil’s cougar prowled in them.

They turned in the far road to the Chance land to say another goodbye.