highboy in a corner, atop it resting the Irish Book of Kells—that Latin manuscript of the New Testament. The white and satiny shine of a pair of slat-backed, split-bottomed chairs made from gouged buckeye where Lottie and Marissa sat as they carded and spun. Those Cumberland baskets filled with weaver’s spools, warping frame, wool and cotton cards, flax and hemp hackles. The old family safe, its doors lined with hammered tin, where Mrs. Guthrie stored her flour and herbs away from the ever-present mice and spiders, its poplar wood softly yellow in the firelight from so many scrubbings.
Yes, Titus thought, forcing himself to turn quickly before he gave in. Yes, there would surely be pain in his leaving.
She loved him.
But perhaps every bit as great was the pain he felt right then at leaving without ever telling Marissa to her face that he loved her too. He hoped the few words in that note would say it for him.
He was more afraid than he had ever been. Not strong enough nor brave enough to tell Marissa to her face. To say that he loved her, but he still had to go. He wasn’t man enough to do that, so he stole away before he caused her even greater pain: marrying; beginning a family; her believing they were putting down roots. Then he would up and leave her.
No. The pain he felt at that moment was nowhere near as great as her pain would be if he failed to leave right then. So he would let the note tell her, and decided to leave in silence.
Heading southwest through the timber, he kept himself deep among the trees before he circled back to the west, then pointed his feet due north. Those first moments in turning away had been so hard. All through the first hour. And that first day—the pull still so strong. Her smell clung to his shirt every time he opened his blanket coat and brought the homespun tow cloth to his nose—forced to remember what he was leaving behind, to remind himself of why he had forced himself to go.
Titus had struck the river the following day near Grand Tower Rock as the Mississippi angled lazily toward the northwest, his mind still coming back again and again to Marissa.
Now he had nothing more difficult to do but follow the river to St. Louie.
And pray that glittering old French city was enough balm to ease the sharp pain he still carried even after all these days and distance put between them.
With his heels now, he set the old horse into motion, his eyes still straining to find in all the aching autumn blue overhead that solitary osprey.
“Whereaway you bound, my son?”
With a start Titus peered up at the old man leading a fine horse up to his evening fire. Night came early, and with it the cold as he drew near the city of his dreams.
“St. Louie.”
“Ah.” The older man halted, staring down in study at the fire a moment, then regarded the youth and the rifle across his lap. “I am but a poor wayfarer. Do you mind if I share your fire and a bit of conversation this night?”
He tossed another limb onto the flames and shrugged. “I was just getting used to the lonesome.”
Turning toward a tow sack he had tied behind his old, worn saddle, the stranger said, “I have food to offer, young man. You decide to share your fire and your talk, I’ll share supper.”
Looking more closely now at the dance of the firelight across the man’s deeply seamed face, Titus decided he liked the gap-toothed grin. The eyes were kind, yet possessed of great, great sadness. “What you got to eat?”
“Capons. A farmyard cock—castrated to improve the flavor of his meat for the table. Fresh as can be, I suppose. Butchered this morning just before I took my leave of a farmer’s place north of here—a family where I spent the night as their guest.” The old man squatted, began tugging at the huge knot in the tow sack. “The truth to it, we stayed up most of the night talking on ships and kings and sealing wax.”
Bass watched the bony, veiny old hands struggle over that knot, thinking how strange this stranger was—to talk in such an outlandish, confusing manner.
“I mean to say we spoke of all sorts of critical matters.” The stranger tugged the tow sack open.
“Didn’t know what the hell you meant.”
“Aye, easy to see that on your face, young man.” He pulled forth a dead bird, handing it over to Titus. “This one be yours.” Then stuffed his hand into the sack again and pulled forth another, smiling with those gapped teeth. “God’s rich bounty.” Laying the bird aside, he next retrieved four potatoes and a half-dozen ears of corn from the sack. “I must tell you the corn might be past its prime—long gone is the sweet milk in the ear, I say. But they truly will do for a man hungry for the manna of the fields.”
Titus put his hand over his mouth, catching himself about to laugh. After all these past days of loneliness and dark brooding, it brought merriment to him just listening to the way this old man talked.
So he asked of his guest, “Where are you off to?”
Raising an arm that looked more like a winter branch inside the huge, ill-fitting coat he wore, the stranger pointed off here, there, and over there. “No place special. Off to where the spirit moves me. God tells me where I am to go—as He told the wandering Israelites of Moses and Joshua of old. Yet, truth be it, I—like you—am alone. Alas, that is God’s condition yoked upon the shoulders of some, is it not, son? As many as we might have around us, family and acquaintances, we are still alone in this life, and God makes the only sure friend we will ever truly have.”
With a snort Titus said, “I had me lots of friends.”
From beneath the bushy eyebrows that stood out like a pair of hairy caterpillars on the pronounced and bony brow, the stranger sneered, “Yes—I can see by all these companions you have brought along with you on this journey.”
“They are here!” he snapped at the sudden, harsh judgment, and tapped a finger against his chest. Then added, more quietly, “Right in here.”
For a long moment the stranger regarded that, then smiled warmly as he tossed Bass three ears of the corn. “Yes. I believe you might just be the sort who would hold a friend dear in your heart. But be busy now: find us something to boil our corn and potatoes in.”
“I ain’t got nothing near big enough—”
“Tied on the far side of my saddle,” the stranger interrupted. “A wandering wayfarer like myself must always have himself an all-purpose kettle in which to boil anything and everything that God provides for the table. For a prayerful man of the Lord, nothing he finds is ill-gotten gain.”
“You lost me on your track again.”
“God has taken care of me for more years than you have been breathing, young man. And I trust in Him for when there are not folks to take me in and spread their board before me. At such times God will provide me the opportunity to feed myself.”
Titus looked down at the capon, a castrated rooster grown plump for the table. “You … you didn’t steal all of this, did—”
“By the heavens, no!” he roared, laughing. “The farmer I spent last night with—but I already told you, didn’t I? Get that kettle of mine from the horse and see that it’s filled with water from yonder creek. Once you’ve removed his saddle for me, you best be plucking feathers from that bird, unless you want to mud him.”
Titus stopped on his knees. “M-mud him?”
“Ahh, yes,” he said, regarding the fire pit. “You seem to have a good bed of coals going already. Let’s mud these gamecocks tonight, my young friend. You go on about your chores and get to boiling those fruits of God’s fields while you and I find a spot of dirt where we can mix in a little water to make a good, stiff mud.”
“You ain’t told me what the hell for.”
The old man laughed easily, that gap-toothed mouth working with a throb. “Not what the hell for! For a
“They’ll cook up like that?”
“And when we drag them out of the fire, prepare to dine on the outskirts of paradise, my young friend,” the old man explained. “All we have to do is crack the hardened mud shell, and in pulling it off, we tear away the feathers.
When it came time for everything to come off the fire and out of the coals, Titus discovered he was much hungrier than he had ever imagined. He hadn’t eaten like that in days. Ever since that last of Lottie’s meals … Lottie
