“Mrs. Walker,” Wade said, “your son committed a foolhardy act last night, holding an officer of the law at gunpoint and freeing a prisoner from his cell. I also have reason to suspect that he’s stolen a horse of mine. I’ll have more proof once I see him on it. Which, I might add, is the only result that will come of this. He will be found, along with the prisoner, and I will see to it myself, considering the sheriff here has had some trouble managing on his own.” Hackstedde looked away when Wade glanced in his direction. “I plan to keep that judge in Selby. And he is ready to act when those boys are brought before him.”
The wind soughed again, and all the men were made to hold on to their hats. Isabelle let her hair fly free, whipping in the air about her face.
“You whine as if you’re the victim of a crime when we both know quite well what August has done!” she yelled. “You disgust me. As for the rest of you, I can’t imagine how you sleep a wink at night knowing you’ve been stupid enough to go along with this madness. I can’t listen to another word of it.”
This last part was enough to make Gail clear his throat and speak up.
“It’s for the good of the town, Mrs. Walker. I think you might come around when you think about what your son has—”
“Mr. Cooley,” Isabelle said, “you’ve worked those fields over there since I’ve lived in this cabin and not once have you said a single word I’ve paid any mind to. I don’t plan to start today.”
Gail shuddered. Wade’s face looked as red as it had after he’d been spit on. The dog was barking maniacally as it headed farther toward the road and Isabelle hoped it would spook the horses enough to throw the men off their saddles.
“Your son is a blight,” Wade said, “and the Negro is worse. It’s as simple as that. There will be consequences for what your family has wrought. Let that be known here and now.”
In classical Wade fashion he had gifted her a declaration so absurdly biblical, so unabashedly histrionic, she could only roll her eyes in disgust.
“If the world was just, Wade Webler, I would say the same about you and yours.”
“I’m giving you one last chance to tell me where they’ve gone off to.”
She crossed her arms resolutely and stared him down in stony silence.
“So be it,” Wade said. He turned to the man with the dog. “Lead the way.”
The men swung their horses round to leave.
“I don’t ever want to see you here again,” Isabelle said. “I’ve got a rifle in the cellar and I might not know how to use it, but I can learn.”
With his back to her, Wade pulled off his hat to bid farewell.
George and the boys would have a half day’s head start. She prayed it was enough.
*
Two days and nights of peace followed. On the third night, sleeping again on George’s chair, as she had since he’d left, she woke with a start at some tenebrous hour—the wind hissing furiously, the house creaking and moaning so loudly that it seemed fit to collapse under its own anguish. She wished to call out, as she often had during the past few days, yet there was no one to call out to. The most immediate humans she knew of were Ted Morton and his family, and if she had it her way it would be a lifetime before she saw any of them again. She considered going upstairs, if only for the change of position, but with George and Caleb and Prentiss still out in the elements, as far as she knew, it felt wrong to give in to a more pleasant sleep. There was no question in her mind that the three of them were dozing somewhere on a rough forest floor and she felt the ongoing urge to commiserate, as though she might thereby somehow lessen their burden.
She knew it was silly but misery felt appropriate under the circumstances. Perhaps she was simply lost to her fatigue—her wits slipping, leading her to odd conclusions and wild flights of fancy. Or maybe there was little practical difference between exhaustion and outright madness. In any case, to ponder it further only kept her motionless on the chair, captive to the darkness and the wind. Since the departure of her husband and son, her hearing had refined itself to an almost inconceivable perception. She could make out even the pecking of the chickens, so pronounced to her that it sounded like ice being chipped off a block. The grasshoppers were gathered in the forest, but their hum carried such that they seemed to be right outside the window, fighting to be let in.
Yet it was an unfamiliar sound that troubled her most. At first she attempted to ignore it, but when that failed, she rose to locate its source. Like twigs snapping, but louder—loud enough to break through the intermittent thrashings of the wind. She went out the back door and listened. It took some time to discern it, but yes, there it was, steady, like the quiet crackle of frying oil. And then a disturbance in the dark sky—a flickering ember disappearing into a cumulous fog of smoke stretching over the forest—told her what it was.