house, occasionally crossing his path in some hallway or on some landing.
The tour told him little. It was an old place with no life invested in it. He descended the main staircase under the domed skylight, and sensed no presence other than his own and that of the animal that had followed him.
When it came time to leave, the dog was at the door waiting.
He left the place more secure than when he’d found it, and walked out into the grounds behind. It was there, near a row of cabins, that he met a young black man of around eighteen or nineteen. He was in baggy field hand’s clothes, leading a horse by its bridle.
The young man stopped and watched him until he’d drawn close enough to hail.
“Ain’t nobody here,” the young man said.
“You’re somebody.”
“But it ain’t me you’re looking for.”
“Who
“Same woman the sheriff’s men came looking for? They didn’t find her, neither.”
They started to walk together down the track. Sayers said, “Why do you think that is?”
“’Cause there ain’t nobody to find.”
Sayers looked at the horse he was leading. It was a dapple gray. He said, “Yours?”
“What of it?” the young man said.
“Woman I’m looking for hired a wagon, and a horse just like that one along with it. Nobody’s seen either since.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” the young man said. “This one’s mine.”
“You got papers for it?”
“Horse don’t read,” the young man said. “Keep looking. But don’t waste your time looking here. Try on down the river.”
Sayers looked at him sideways. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Out past the next bend. About three, four miles. Look for a yeller church. That’s what I’d do.”
“Thanks,” Sayers said.
He had an hour or two of daylight left. He started to work his way outward through the estates on the River Road, staying off the road itself and sticking to paths and dirt tracks.
Shortly after leaving Patenotre land, he came upon the burned-out remains of a wagon in a lane. Nothing remained but the ironwork among the ashes. But it was recent; the smell of the burning still hung in the air, and it would take a rain or two to wash it away.
He’d expected to lose the stray’s company when he reached the limit of its territory, but the dog stayed with him. It kept a slight distance in case he should suddenly turn and run it off, but otherwise it seemed happy to tag along.
Most of the big houses along here had burned just like the wagon, or else they’d been pulled down or had their roofs taken off. Occasionally, there’d be one that still had a family living in it, but they’d be like survivors camping in the ruins of an older civilization. The houses showed all the signs of having been abandoned by those who’d built them, their planks springing and with goats and chickens wandering in and out.
The land that he crossed was still being worked, but the big estates had been divided up into smaller holdings. Subsistence was now the aim, where once had come forth riches.
As darkness fell, he settled for the evening in the abandoned shell of an overseer’s house. He lit a fire in the empty grate, then broke out the provisions he’d brought.
He didn’t see the dog for a while, but then it came back carrying something dead, which it settled down with and tore up while he was eating. By now it was too dark for him to see what it had caught. The dog would retch on the bones and gristle, cough them up for further chewing, and eventually strangle them down again. This process seemed not to bother it at all.
Afterward, Sayers wrapped himself up in the blanket that he’d been sitting on, and bedded down with his pack for a pillow.
Sleep was a strange journey. It was as if he rolled off ledges into deep crevasses of insensibility, to be borne back up again by some rising force. He’d come so close to waking that his senses returned for a few moments, although the power of movement did not.
During one of these brief episodes, he was aware of the dog sitting in the doorway of the ruined cabin, looking up at the full moon. It turned its head to look back at him. Then he rolled off into the depths again.
FIFTY-ONE
When Sebastian Becker awoke in his hospital bed for the second time that day, it was to find himself looking up at the very face that he’d left behind in his dreams. Waking and sleeping, life and death; in that moment, the two states seemed to merge and become one.
“Hey,” Elisabeth said.
“Hey yourself,” he tried to say, with only partial success.
She reached over and smoothed away a couple of strands of hair that had become sweat-plastered to his forehead. He closed his eyes again for a moment, the better to experience her touch.
“How do you feel?” she said.
“Pretty good,” he said, opening his eyes. This time the sound came out more or less as he meant it to, and the words held together.
“That’s the morphine,” she said, managing a damp-eyed smile. “Don’t get too fond of it.”
She made a sudden sound of protest when Sebastian tried to flex his shoulders and raise his back from the bed. His bandages felt too tight. His entire chest felt too tight, and his stomach felt as if it had been punched with unbelievable force.
But, thanks to the morphine, this caused him no distress. When they came to withdraw the opiate, he’d feel differently. But until then…
He subsided onto the mattress. Small though the movement had been, the effort had all but exhausted him.
He took a breath and then said, “I had my chance at the reward, Elisabeth. She was right there before me and I missed it. She walked away from me. I’ve let everyone down.”
“Sebastian,” she said with a note of warning, “don’t say that. I won’t hear it.”
“But we’ve lost everything.”
“You’ve kept your name. You still have your reputation. And, by God, though you came within an inch of losing it, you’ve hung onto your life. Your son has a father and I have a husband. What compares with that? Anything else, we can rebuild.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Don’t worry about how. We’re the same people we were before. What we managed once, we can achieve again. Let Sayers pursue that blighted creature if he must, and let Sayers take the consequences of the chase. They’re no part of our lives now.”
One of the Sisters came to check Sebastian’s dressings, and Elisabeth stepped away for a few minutes.
When she returned, she studied him with some concern and said, “Is this tiring you, Sebastian? Should I leave? You won’t need to worry. I won’t be far away.”
He shook his head, and reached for her hand.
She settled again onto the chair beside him and said, “I’ve spoken to Mister Bearce. He’s a very nice man.”
After a moment, she said, “You must try not to laugh, Sebastian. You might cause yourself some damage.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She said, “As soon as I can get you home, I’ll find us somewhere cheaper to live. Shhh,” she added before he could object. “Mister Bearce will hold a position for you. He promised me. And perhaps I can find some kind of employment as well.”
“Work? You?”
“I’m sure there are all kinds of things I could do for a living.”
