The fact was, it would have been fine for George if the journey never ended, as his homecoming would mean a reckoning with Isabelle. Of course he wished to tend to her. Of course he wished to help her face the injustices wreaked upon them both. But what they shared had limits. It was a mutual passion for independence that had brought them together in the first place, the ability to go through vast segments of the day in silence, with only a glance, a touch on the back, to affirm their feelings. In doing so the bond between them had strengthened over time, and although it was not prone to bending, its single weak point lay in the quiet embarrassment that it existed in the first place—that two individuals who resolutely dismissed the idea of needing anyone else were now helpless without each other.
“What is a man to do?” he said to the donkey.
While possessed by these grim thoughts, George passed Ted Morton’s home. Unlike the other houses this far along in the country, Ted had built his almost directly upon the road, as if the bountiful stretch of acres he owned behind it wouldn’t do. This made things difficult when Morton’s wife, a woman so severe and translucent in her visage as to seem composed of pure crystal, had instructed him to build a fountain at its front. The resulting creation of cherubs and fairies hugged Stage Road so tightly that its water leaked past the property line and beneath the feet of whoever walked there. This struck George as an act of decadence, an intrusion on public land, and moments like this one—the trickle streaming beneath Ridley’s feet, caking dirt into his hooves—brought with them the hum of contempt he routinely felt toward the man.
An emotional response he could have conveniently buried within himself had Morton not been standing before the fountain, staring at it from beneath his sun hat with rapt concentration. His wheat-colored locks fell to the nape of his neck, and he blinked when lost in confusion, bestowing on his usual countenance the look of a man with something regularly caught in his eye.
He turned when Ridley drew near and gave George a half smile.
“George, you old horse thief, how you doin’？”
“Just fine,” he lied. “And yourself?”
“We’re holding up.”
Ted inspected the fountain more closely, and the way his eyes scanned it, George knew he was in for a conversation.
“One of my boys, I paid to have him learnt with the stonemason in town. He kept this thing running, and now he picks up and runs off to God knows where. I put money into that boy and he acts like I ain’t never done a damned thing for his scrawny ass.”
“A shame,” George said.
Ted spit brown on the ground.
“I’d say.”
There were usually many hands running around the property, but now the place was ghostly. He’d titled the home—another offense, in George’s mind, giving a title to anything not breathing—Majesty’s Palace. It was large enough to demand constant upkeep, its gilded accents so fragile that they seemed made more for tending to than anything else. And behind the home, George knew, the compound of cabins had been kept padded with enough bodies to rebuild ancient Rome, plenty to keep the home and farm operating smoothly.
“Could be worse, though,” Ted went on. “Still got a good fifteen hands that are happy to carry on working. I hear Al Hooks lost the whole lot of his, sixty healthy bodies he fed and bred himself. Can you imagine?”
“I suppose I can’t,” George said.
Ted gave him the typical look of disgust he employed whenever George’s Northerly roots were alluded to. Men like Ted often found him untrustworthy, as if the offense of running away from one’s home knew no barriers of color. Nantucket or the plantation, it was all the same.
“They say that General they got in charge now…what’s his name…”
George recalled the circular he’d found on his front porch, proclaiming the town of Old Ox an asset of the North, as ordered by President Lincoln and executed by a brigadier general named Arnold Glass. Apparently, Roth’s Lumber Mill was the prized possession, from what he’d heard of it. He gave the general’s name over to Ted.
“Yeah, Glass,” Ted said. “They say he aims to be hands-off, let folks do as they please. But he ain’t said how we’re supposed to make do without no help. How we’re supposed to carry on with nothing. Can’t even get a damn fountain fixed.”
Pitiful, George thought, as Ted stared at the leaky fountain, helpless to a fissure he had no capacity to fix.
“I can only wish you luck with your repairs, Ted. As with all the rest.”