you in any hotel. We got everything. A whole life in a wagon. No clouds in the
sky neither.”
When they were outside the city limits he stopped to fill a lantern with whale
oil and hung it on the hook of the wagon post, ready to light. Now she became
acutely aware of how alone they were together. Apart from the rustlings of small
animals, the only sound was the soft clop of hooves on hard-packed dirt. They saw no one on the side of the road and no other wagons passed them. Neither of
them spoke for a long while.
As long as rays of daylight still slanted through the branches, Olivia could admire the beech, maple, basswood, oak, and hickory trees. Uncle Scruggs was
right about that too. The woods towered to the sky and they were so green it hurt to look at them. The ground was thick with ferns, berries, and wild grapevines.
But since the sun had set, all she saw out there was dark and darker dark. When
Mourning stopped again to light the lantern Olivia felt even more isolated, the two of them trapped in a tiny circle of light.
Mourning cleared his throat and made an effort to fill the silence. “They say
the land ’round here be real good,” he said. “Black and rich. It be mostly clay bottom, so you gotta ditch it to drain the water off. They say you gotta look for a
sandy spot, if you be wantin’ to build, cause that clay ain’t much to be livin’ over in wet weather.”
Olivia could think of nothing to say. Her whole body ached and all she
wanted was to sleep.
“That what the man in the feed store say.” He rambled on, sounding as ill-at-
ease to be alone together as she felt. “Land be rich as a barnyard, level as a floor,
and no stones to clear away. The more you farm it, the more the clay be gettin’
worked up into the soil and the better wheat it raise. So I guess my main job gonna be cutting trees. Corn ain’t gonna ear in the shade.”
“How can you see where we’re going?” She peered nervously ahead of them.
“I ain’t tryin’ to get at look at them monsters over there, hidin’ behind all them trees,” he teased. “All I gotta worry about is where these animals gonna put
their foot down next. I got plenty a light for that. You gotta stop worryin’ five steps ahead, Livia. All we gotta do is stay on this road till we get to the turn to
this Fae’s Landing place. I figure that take us four, five hours. That where we gonna set us down to sleep. Come morning, there be light to see the trail and they ain’t gonna be no more bogeymen out there. We gonna find our way all
right.”
“Sleep on the trail? We can’t just lie down on the ground.”
“Say who? Course we can.”
“What if there are snakes?”
“They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them. You wanna be ’fraid in the dark,
they plenty a things scarier than a poor old snake. ’Sides, what you think you gonna sleep on tomorrow night at your uncle’s place? Ain’t gonna be no one
waitin’ to turn down no bed for you.”
She sighed in concession. Of course he was right. She turned in her seat to check that the loaded Hawken rifle and her possibles bag were still there, right
behind her. They rode in silence for a while longer and then, bored, Olivia asked
if she couldn’t drive for a while.
“What for? I ain’t tired.”
“I’ve got to learn sometime, so it might as well be now. In all the known world, there can’t be a flatter road than this one. It doesn’t look to me like there’s
a hill in the whole entire state of Michigan.”
“This wagon be almost brand new. I gotta break it in.”
“That’s a tub of eyewash, Mourning Free.”
“What you know ’bout wagons? You ever work at the livery? Spoke a wheel?
