“You should go lay down,” Prentiss said.
“Stop treating me like a fossil. I can rest on my own accord, thank you.”
Prentiss put his hands up in defeat. “Just keeping an eye out for my own. We both know your bedtime. You gon’ be good and grouchy come morning at this rate.”
“I cannot wait to be rid of you,” George said, laughing. “It will be my pleasure to see you off once and for all.”
The hint of a smile formed on Prentiss’s lips, though he quelled it. The wind sought them once more, unbearably loud this time, an aching susurration seemingly born from the shadows, provoking urgent declarations among the trees, as though there were specters howling from the void. For a while they were at its mercy, and then, just as suddenly, things calmed again.
“I’d like to ask you something,” George said. He peered back at his son bundled in his blanket, resting peacefully. “It’s a favor. You owe me nothing, of course. Let’s make that clear. But perhaps you will grant it to me nonetheless.” Fatigue had subdued his voice but he carried on. “My son is…fragile. There’s nothing wrong with softness, but the world is a sharp place, if you will. Sometimes I fear for him. And I know there are wrongs, unforgivable wrongs, that you will always see when you look at him, but maybe you might find it in your heart to watch over him for me anyway.”
“George—”
“I trust you, Prentiss. If I knew he had you watching over him, even from a distance—”
“You have my word. And you ain’t gotta say nothing about it.” His tone betrayed no emotion, but the assurance alone brought George great comfort.
“I thank you,” he said.
“But I’ll ask you one in return,” Prentiss said.
“Anything.”
“That you get on back to bed.”
George met the request with a dismissive laugh yet obliged him.
“What about you?” he called back as he returned to his bedroll.
Prentiss told him he’d wake Caleb to cover the last hour. And then they’d be gone.
George wasn’t sure he could sleep through the wind, but when he woke again the skies over the ridge were blue and the horses were making noise to start off. Both the boys were awake, scrubbing the site clean of any markings.
Caleb considered him cautiously. “We’re past the county line,” he said. “If you want to head home.”
George had barely opened his eyes. “Why don’t you hand me some of that jerky. I’m hungry.”
It was the only answer he would give. They weren’t to safety. He wasn’t going anywhere until he had ushered them to it.
*
Strangely, as George grew more exhausted—his hip chafing at the labor of the ride, his hind end sore from sleeping on the ground—he thought less of his own woes and more of his son’s. By the time they’d reached their third day of traveling it was as though he was no longer present within his own body but was rather a dim source of supervision. When he hurt he wondered if his son hurt and when he rested he often startled himself awake and wondered if his son’s sleep was more peaceful than his own. It felt like the devotion of a mother, and notwithstanding a lifetime of finding such fawning behavior irrational on the part of Isabelle and other women, he was now attuned to it.
Meanwhile they’d ventured farther than he ever thought he would. The landscape continued to startle him, especially the river itself, which obliterated all his preconceived notions of nature’s power. It was the breadth of many men and he stopped their caravan for a time just to stand in awe of the rapids, a sight that prompted a fulmination of humility the likes of which he had never known.
“Well, this is just…” But George was too overwhelmed for words and sat down.
They left him alone in his silence, perhaps aware that what he needed, above all else, was some rest. When at last he went to stand, it took both boys to bring him up and he knew then that his excursion was coming to an end. He wouldn’t last much longer.
It was nearly night again. The ground grew soft and the heat wet. Limp tree branches hung low enough for their leaves to proffer even deeper shade. In the onrushing dusk he took special notice of a fallen log covered in so many ants that they moved like the current of an inky river, a great swell of black rolling on endlessly. He feared for their mounts upon the unsteady ground but both the mare and Ridley managed just fine, until they came to a deep swale that would call for wading through. They once again looked at George as though this might be the turning point for him.