Chapter Thirty-Six, Part Two

They talked again at recess, and still more as they rode Baltazar to the store after school, but it was clear to Sophie that Mateo wasn’t going to budge on the topic of Kentucky. Well, maybe if she could just convince him to start heading north with her, she could change his mind along the way. But of course, she couldn’t tell him that was the plan.  “Fine,” she said. “Tell me about Santa Fe.”

And he did. It was the capital of the USS and full of important people. They had old buildings there, and museums, and a big monument to the civil war. There were parades and festivals, and there was music and dancing on the town plaza almost every weekend. The city was lit up with electric lights from big solar panels on the flat roofs, and there were telephones so people could talk to each other without leaving their homes. There were motorcycles and even a few automobiles on the streets. It was truly a place of wonders.

Sophie had seen Lexington and Trinidad, so she wasn’t much impressed with this description, but she didn’t let on. Santa Fe sounded like just another city, but since it was along the rail line to Kentucky, there would be no harm in stopping to see what it was like. “How about we make a deal. We’ll go to Santa Fe. But if we don’t like it after a couple weeks, we’ll get back on the train and go to Kentucky. Okay?”

Mateo was silent as he considered. He was quiet for so long that Sophie began to think all the answer she would get was the clopping of Baltazar’s hooves in the dust, but finally the boy nodded. “That sounds reasonable. It’s a deal.”

#

Carrying out their plan was easier said than done. On a page deep inside her school notepad, Sophie made a list of all the things they would need for the journey, wracking her brain to remember what she and her father had taken with them on their trip just six months before. Of course, the weather was colder now, so they would have to take that into account. Warm blankets needed to be on her list, as well as gloves, hats, and extra socks.

Mom would’ve known exactly what to pack. She left El Cid in the middle of December and rode her horse all the way to Kentucky. Sophie sighed. If Mom hadn’t died, none of these last crazy months would have happened. Or they would’ve happened in a different way. Maybe they would have traveled down here for the inheritance, but Mom would have never consented to make shop keeping in Castaño a permanent arrangement.

Well, if that was what Dad wanted, he could have it. And he could have his cowardice too, in not taking up for Mateo. Sophie would make everything right and show her father just how easy it really was. She bent back over her notepad. They would take beef jerky, of course. And some of those dried potato flakes they sold out of a barrel at the store. With a little water, her flint and some tinder, she could make some good dinners along the road.

Should she take a tent? Sophie mulled it over. A tent would add a lot of bulk, and Mateo wouldn’t be able to carry much on Baltazar. She and her father hadn’t needed shelter most nights when they traveled, but there had been one time it rained. Dad had made a shelter using just a tarp and some branches. Sophie didn’t quite remember how he did it, but it couldn’t be very hard. She would just take a tarp, then.

Sophie thought again of her mother. Had she taken a tent or a tarp on her journey? Why hadn’t she asked more about that trip while Mom was alive? Sophie had thought she had all the time in the world.

She hadn’t realized she was about to cry until she sniffled and felt tears sting her eyes. She swiped at her nose in annoyance. There was no need for this. Her mother hadn’t cried, and she wouldn’t either.