“Yeah. You keep out the heat,” Ted said.
George readied his leg to give Ridley a tap, but Ted shot a finger into the air.
“Before you go. You wouldn’t mind if I ask a question.”
He didn’t have time to answer before Ted carried on.
“My boy William, well, he likes to shoot. Been taking his scatter-gun out into the woods recently. Now he’s young enough to still think he sees spirits and whatnot on occasion, but he swears up and down he’s seen you out there, near our border, walking on your own, out in the distance. I told him you’re speaking of a man who keeps to his front porch so much that he probably ain’t even left so much as the county in decades. Now tell me that boy ain’t seeing right.”
George took a moment. He would have to lie again, and it gave him the slightest pang of guilt knowing it was at the cost of the little Morton boy, who had yet to attain his father’s nature.
“It’s common for boys that age to see things,” he said, “whether that be spirits or shadows of nothing. William’s imagination has yet to be shot, is all.”
Ted shook his head with some satisfaction, as if the steadiness of George’s habits was confirmation of the world being right again.
“You take care now, George.”
George gave him a tip of his hat and finally relaxed as he led Ridley off at a canter. The afternoon was coming to a close; the sun played upon the trees with the touch of a soft tune, the road narrowing as it broke off toward his cabin.
He parked Ridley back in his stable next to the barn and took a minute to collect himself. The woods were behind him, the cabin to his front. The threadbare hangings Isabelle had woven covered the window of their bedroom. He thought for a moment he could see her figure there, watching him watching her, but the shadow never moved and so he let go of the idea.
The door was waiting for him. Once inside, the familiar steps up the stairs, the creaking hallway to the bedroom, the foot of the bed itself, where he could kneel and put his head upon her thigh, asking forgiveness for wrongs he had not committed. But the words weren’t there for him, as much as wished them to be. And there was one more errand for the day that needed to be done.
He put his saddlebags on the ground before the back door, unclasped it, and pulled out the one item he sought: a single pair of socks. He glanced up once more at the figure in the window, the shadow that was not his wife, and turned again, disappearing into the woods to repay a debt.
CHAPTER 5
Prentiss and Landry arrived back to their camp late enough that the shade of the trees brought goose bumps to their skin. Prentiss had no mind to eat, even with the potatoes in his knapsack that he’d got from the man in the tent. He was hungrier for sleep.
“I’ll cook you up something,” he told his brother. “But I’m saving my half till morning, and that don’t mean you get any of it before then, you hear me? Just because it’s cooked don’t mean it’s free to all comers, I know that’s how you think of it but you wrong there…”
He stopped when he saw, standing before the remains of one of their old fires, George Walker.
“Hello again,” George said, waving at them.
“Sir,” Prentiss said. “Mr. Walker.”
“Just George. I have something for your brother. My wife tells me he took some interest in our clothesline a few days back, when he was doused from the rain.”
He handed over to Landry a pair of socks.
“Landry?” Prentiss said. “I believe she might have the wrong man.”
“She was quite particular in her description. He’s very…unique in his appearance.”
The old man yawned and itched his backside. He had a lassitude greater than anyone Prentiss had never known, white or black. He seemed the sort who might walk the streets without his britches and not pause to consider it odd, let alone a reason to turn back home before his errands were complete. But given that his brother had wandered off a few hours earlier to a pond neither had ever laid eyes on before, Prentiss did not feel in a position to protest the claim further. Perhaps Landry really had strayed to the Walkers’ clothesline.
“It’s for helping me last night,” George said. “Consider us even.”
“I’m sure he’s very grateful,” Prentiss said.
Landry gave George a glance and sat before the fire pit, inspecting the socks.
“You’ll be happy to know we’re fixin’ to leave,” Prentiss said. “I think we’ll take to the camps up the road. You’ve been mighty gracious.”