Matt leaned on the shovel and took a deep breath. He was getting his strength back, but it was a slow and frustrating process. He’d put his clothes on yesterday morning and stayed off his pallet the whole day. When he’d finally lain down that night, he’d been dizzy and shivering, but he’d dropped off to sleep right away and woken up feeling stiff but rested. He’d taken the shovel from Annie’s hands this morning and told her to let him start to carry his weight around her cabin, and he intended to start by fixing her fencing. One hour after that announcement he was sweating and exhausted.

“Gentry!”

He looked up and saw her on the porch, waving her arms. He dropped the shovel and ran.

“What? What’s the matter?”

“Ben just squeezed my hand!”

He ran into the cabin and stopped behind her. She picked up Ben’s hand and stroked his arm with her other hand. She was speaking softly and smiling.

“I told you he was still here with you,” she whispered. “Matt’s here.”

“Can you hear me, Ben?”

Ben Littleship’s eyelids fluttered, and his lip trembled. Matt held his hand, now cool and bony and slack.

“Squeeze my hand if you can, Ben,” he said.

Annie continued to whisper nonsense, telling Ben that it had been a beautiful day and that she had made more chicken stew, while she straightened his blankets and touched his legs. Just as Matt was about to lay Ben’s hand on the mattress, he felt it. Just a quick bit of pressure but not a random act, he was certain. He pulled the rocker beside the bed and sat down while Annie spooned some water and broth into Ben’s mouth.

“Look,” she said, “I’m not just dribbling this in his mouth. He’s swallowing it on his own.”

Matt’s throat closed as he blinked back tears and fought an overwhelming urge to cry. He lost that battle when Annie walked away from the bed. He dropped his head in his hands and wept, not sure if he was weeping for Ben or for himself.

She touched his shoulder and crouched down beside him. “You’re an awfully sad man. Why are you crying? Your friend squeezed your hand. He was awake there for a few moments. Aren’t you glad?”

He wiped his tears on his shirt and swallowed the lump in his throat. “Of course I’m glad. Of course I am.”

“But you’re still crying.”

Maybe this was why he drank. When he was sober for any stretch of time, he felt sad, and not just unhappy as a passing notion, but rather the gut-wrenching sort of despondency that made day to day living a painful reminder of what he’d done and not done and the weight of regret on his back feel as if he carried a boulder there as big as the one that had broken Ben’s leg.

“I’m like this when I’m sober,” he said with a harsh laugh.

“You’re a drinker then?”

“Didn’t have the means for it even if I’d have found it during the war. But these last four years, well, it started out as a celebration of being out of the army, and that the war was finally over, and some other things, but then it was just what I did. It kept me from feeling like I do right now.”

“Why do you hate yourself so much?”

Hate myself? How does she know? Matt looked at her and tried to understand why he was even talking to this woman. He’d never talked to anyone about it, and the thought of facing his mother and knowing that eventually she’d wheedle it out of him was half the reason he hadn’t wanted to go home all these years.

“Lots of reasons. There’s plenty to hate.”

She sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him, near the fire. “I’ve been sad and angry, too.” She looked up at him. “I didn’t want to live with so much hate in my heart. I’ve let it go, mostly.”

“When did you lose your father?” he asked her.

“The spring of sixty-two,” she said and stared into the crackling fire. “He was never popular around here and was the kind of fellow who always said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But he loved us and did his best, even though I think losing Momma was more than he could bear.”

“What happened to him?”

“The Thurmans happened to him.”

“The Thurmans?”

“They own the mill where the North River runs through the other side of town. The Confederates set up camp near the mill, and the Thurmans supplied them with food for the soldiers and their animals and blankets from the houses all around Bridgewater, including this one. Daddy let it go for so long, but then he just got so mad. He went to the camp to complain that we wouldn’t have enough to get through the winter and saw them beating a colored man, Tom Henry. They shot Daddy in the street.”

“I was a Confederate soldier,” he said.

“I knew you were before you told me.”

“How’s that?”

“The winners went home to celebrate. The losers kept killing or wandering ’cause they didn’t want to go home.”

He was staring at her in a strange way that made her uneasy. His eyes were pleading and searching hers for answers or comfort or something she didn’t understand and perhaps he didn’t, either. She could picture him shooting another man dead on the battlefield, or off for that matter, but she could also picture him mending a fence as she’d seen him do that morning. Even as broken as she sensed he was, he was still a man looking to do right after his path had strayed from the straight and narrow. He was gentle, even tender, with Ben Littleship when he fed, talked to, and teased the old man. She could see Littleship meant something to him, that people mattered to him.

“I’ve done things, horrible things,” he said and looked down at her. “Things I can’t even bear to repeat.”

“Is that why you don’t want to go home?”

“I never said I don’t want to go home.” Gentry leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees and stared straight into the fire. “My family is . . .”

Annie watched him stare into the fire and open his mouth as if to speak several times. He was lost to her, and to the here and now, in those moments. “Tell me about your mother.”

He turned his head sharply, bringing his face close to hers. “My mother? She’s a saint among women. Her mother and father and sisters were murdered by outlaws who then kidnapped her. She was on her way to being sold off as a slave when my father rescued her, killing all her attackers. He carried her to an abandoned cabin and let her heal. Mother’s daddy was a preacher, and he was taking his family farther west to build a church. That was back in forty-two.”

“And then they got married?”

“She was supposed to marry a young preacher, but he didn’t treat her right; in fact, Daddy laid him out flat. Mother told me Daddy asked her to marry him shortly after and she insisted they get married right away.”

“She was that in love with him?”

“Well, I think it was more that she wanted to observe the proprieties. They were working on Paradise, our family property, fixing it up, and Mother would have been alone with Daddy and not married to him.”

“What would she have thought about you staying here?”

He shook his head. “It would not be happening. In fact, now that I’m well, I’ll be sleeping elsewhere.”

Annie sat down on the hearth, still warm from the cooking fire, and set her head on her knees. “Don’t be sleeping in the barn on my account.”

“Why not?” he asked as he turned his head to look at her. “You’ll have to live here when we leave. You won’t want folks talking about you or thinking less of you.”

“Won’t be any different than it is now.”

“But I won’t have it be on my account.”

* * *

Matthew had stood up from Ben’s bedside after rubbing his hand one more time. The man had drifted in and out of consciousness over the last week or so after he woke up the first time, but each day he was awake for longer periods and more lucid. Matt had gone back outside to work, digging a new fence hole, taking the better part of an hour to do it, sweat running down his face and back. There was something calming about doing the labor and living where he was. His tension and bleakness seemed less with each day and he was glad of it.

Annie walked toward him down the slope. “Here. I thought you might need a drink.”

“Thank you,” he said and drank every bit of water in the jar. He handed it back to her and wiped his mouth. “How far is Bridgewater from here?”

“A little over a mile. Not far,” she said and shaded her eyes to look at him.

“I’ve got to get myself some clothes. Much of my pack that had been strapped across Chester’s rump must have washed away that day. I don’t even have a clean shirt to change into.”

“There’s a general store where you can get some ready-made things.”

“And I want to talk to someone about the closest rail line. I’ve got to decide whether I can even get Ben on a train or whether I should buy a wagon and take him home overland.”

“How will you ever do it alone?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. But I do know that I’ve got to him Ben home. He’s the one that came looking for me after Daddy died. I owe him.”

“There’s a butcher, Dinson, near the stables in Bridgewater who usually has chickens for sale. We need some canned goods and sugar, too, if you go to the general store. Will you bring them? I have some coins in the house.”

Matt shook his head. “We’re eating at your table. You’re caring for Ben. I have enough to pay for whatever we need.”

Later, Matt saddled his horse and mounted him. “Are you ready to do a little reconnaissance, Chester?”

The horse tossed his head and started walking. Matt guided him through some thick trees as Annie had told him to do and came out on a well-worn road, wide enough for two wagons. He soon found himself winding down a shallow slope with houses and cabins and some lean-tos on either side. Bridgewater proper came into view as well. He could see several church steeples and a courthouse dome above the town’s rooftops. He rode Chester at a trot down the main street until he saw a barber pole, where he dismounted and tied the horse to a post. The door stood open, and Matt went inside.

“Need a shave and a haircut,” he said.

“Sit in that empty chair there.” A man wearing a long apron stood straight from shaving his customer and pointed with the razor in his hand. “The nigger’ll take care of you.”

“Yes, sir,” the old black man said as he wrapped a hot towel around Matt’s face after he’d seated himself. “We’ll take good care of you, sir.”

Matt let his eyes close as the old man shaved him and listened to the conversation between the other barber and his customer, as they discussed their wives and relatives and other townspeople Matt had never heard of.

“Sit up now, sir, so I can trim your hair,” his barber said.

“Sounds like you’re from down south,” Matt said.

“I is, sir. I is from the south.”

“That’s enough, now, Royal,” the other barber scolded in a sharp tone. “Customers don’t need your story.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Hadlon,” the old man said and kept clipping away around Matt’s ears.

“Is there a train depot in Bridgewater?”

“No,” Hadlon said. “You’d have to get over to Harrisonburg for a station. But Bertram Miles over at the post office can tell you the schedules and such.”

* * *

“Mr. Miles?” Matt asked as he leaned against a wooden counter, rubbed smooth on the rounded end. “Are you Mr. Miles?”

A short man, wearing a long white apron, a dark vest, and string tie, turned, a large basket in front of him. “I’m Miles. What can I do for you?”

“Hadlon from the barber shop told me that you know the schedules for the train that comes into Harrisonburg.”

“I do.”

“I’ve got a sick friend that I’m trying to get home to Winchester. I was hoping you’d be able to help me.”

“You the fellow living over at the Campbells’?”

“I am.” Matt was going to leave it at that but then thought maybe he’d like to hear what the townsfolk thought of Annie. Maybe their view of her wasn’t as poisoned as she’d led him to believe.

“Miss Campbell saved my life and my friend’s, too, and allowed us time to recuperate. My friend is still bedridden and it will be difficult for him to travel, but we’ve imposed on her generosity far too long.”

“Generosity? The Campbells? You don’t know them very well, do you?”

Matt leaned over the counter. “Miss Campbell has been extraordinarily kind to two strangers. I take offense at your inference.”

“You go right on and be offended,” Miles said as he picked up a stack of envelopes and pulled his glasses from the top of his head down onto his nose to read them. “She’s nothing but a country tramp anyway.”

Matt felt the typical bubble of anger that started in his stomach, making it churn, and headed to his neck and face, coloring him red and making him want to reach across the counter and pick up the postmaster by his shirt and shake him hard. But what had anger done for him so far? Wasn’t it his fury that led to his drinking, which led to shame and more disappointment and anger circling around again until he met a whiskey bottle that could help him forget? And hadn’t he just come very close to losing his life? Had he learned anything? Could that cold, rushing water have given him a second chance? After all, why did he care what this man thought about anything? He took a deep breath.

“Mr. Miles. I need help transporting my friend. Do you have a written schedule for the Harrisonburg train?”

Miles pointed to a mass of loose papers at the end of the counter. Matt sorted through wanted posters and forgotten receipts until he found an advertisement for the Harrisonburg Station. He folded it, put it in his pocket, and walked out the door.

The general store carried all the clothing he needed, although none of it was well made, but there was no tailor in town so he had to satisfy himself with what was ready-made. He chose heavy cotton pants and lightweight shirts, several of each, jarred peaches, ten pounds of sugar, coffee, and lard. He went to the stables and stowed all of his purchases other than a new shirt and pants in Chester’s saddlebags.

Matt headed for the small building beside the stables. A bell tinkled as he opened the door.

“Help you?”

“Yes. I need a chicken or two. Do you have any freshly dressed that I can stop back for in an hour?”

“I do,” a young man said from behind the counter. “How many did you say?”

Matt turned his head when he heard the sound of an ax hitting wood. He glanced out an open door behind the counter and saw an older man slaughtering chickens and heard the caterwauling of birds in the yard. “Just one for now. I’m not far from here out at the Campbell place.”

The man behind the counter shook his head and eyed Matt. “Maybe don’t be reminding folks about the Campbells. She’s had enough troubles as is. Why are you there anyway?”

“My friend and I were heading to Winchester and came down a trail near her property a month ago or so. We got caught in a mudslide. Miss Campbell saved our lives.”

“So, it’s not a rumor.”

“No, it’s no rumor, but why do folks even care? It appears that Miss Campbell minds her business and takes of herself.”

“True or not, she’s got enemies in this town.”

Matt shook his head. “Seems to me she’s a poor farmer just eking out a living and minding her own business, but kind enough to share what little she had with two strangers.”

The butcher looked up quickly when the bell tinkled again. “Ah. Mr. Thurman. I’ve got your order all ready. Step aside and let Mr. Thurman get to the counter, sir.”

Matt took a long look at Thurman. This was the man who owned the mill and supplied the Confederacy. And shot her father. He guessed Thurman was sixty years old or so. He was a big man, an inch more than Matt’s six foot, and probably still strong although getting fleshy with age. His hair was dark and stringy and his lips red and large, in contrast to his very small eyes, now concentrating on Matt.

“What are you looking at, boy?” he growled.

“He’s just leaving Mr. Thurman,” the butcher said.

Matt turned to the counter. “Be back in an hour.”

He walked out the door feeling eyes on his back, and he didn’t think it was just the butcher staring him out the door. He stopped outside near a window and looked in. Thurman was looking at him and he stared back, wondering if this was a scab that ought to be picked or left to heal. Matt stared for a few long moments and continued on until he was on the main street. He stopped a fellow and asked if there was a bathhouse in town and was directed to a hotel across the street that had bathing rooms on the first floor.

He sank down in the hot water, wetting his hair, soaping it and his whole body. He relaxed back against the copper tub and let the heat work his muscles. A young girl came into his room carrying buckets.

“More hot water?” she asked.

“Dump it in And take those clothes there to the burn pile.”

The girl looked at the clothes, picked them up, and turned back to him, eyes downcast. “Mister? The burn pile? You sure, sir?”

“You want them? Take them.”

She nodded. “Thank you, sir. I’ve got a brother that sure could use them.”

“Both pants pockets have holes, and there’s a tear in the knee that needs fixing.”

“Ma’s real handy with a needle. Made all our clothes. She’ll sew ’em up.”

“She a seamstress, huh? I could use some pants and shirts made to fit me right. Does she have a shop?” He unwrapped the cigar he’d bought at the general store. He looked up when he didn’t hear a reply and saw the back of the girl hurrying out the door.

He stayed in the tub, chewing on his cigar and thinking, until the water cooled. He toweled off, dressed in his new clothes, and looked in the mirror hanging near the door. His eyes looked clearer than they’d been in years. He’d lost the paunch that often marked drunks, which he’d sworn to himself that he’d never acquire but had.

“What’s the girl’s name that carried in the water?” he asked the clerk at the hotel counter as he paid for his bath. “She said her mother was good with a needle, and I need some clothes made up.”

“Here’s your change, sir,” the clerk said and handed him some coins as he busied himself with an open ledger.

Matt waited until the clerk looked up from the account book. “Do you know anything about this seamstress? The girl’s mother?”

The clerk shook his head. “Leave it be, mister.”

“Leave what be? I asked about a seamstress.”

The clerk leaned over the counter. “Leave it alone, I said. That girl needs her job,” he whispered harshly.

“I don’t know who you think I—”

“Everybody knows you’re staying at the Campbell place. It’ll just cause trouble for her. Leave her alone.”

Matt would have asked more questions, but after a moment’s reflection, he realized he might never get answers, truthful ones anyway. It seemed that everyone in the town was terrified to talk to him. It was clear it was because he was staying at Annie Campbell’s, but he had no idea why. He imagined she’d have to tell him.

He got Chester from the stables and walked the horse to the butcher’s.

“Got that chicken ready for me?” he asked when he went through the door.

The man nodded and put the bird in a burlap sack and handed it across the counter. He looked up at Matt with a pained expression. “I was rude before.”

“Everyone in this town is nervous and not very happy to see me, and I’m guessing that Thurman has something to do with that.”

“Mr. Thurman has ways of making things difficult for a businessman. I’ve got a wife and children and my wife’s parents to support.”

Matt tipped his hat. “We do what we have to, don’t we, and sometimes we do what we don’t have to do as well.”

He had one more stop to make, the telegraph operator’s. It was time to let his mother know where they were.

* * *

“Can you sit up just a bit for me?” Annie asked Ben Littleship when the light of day was just coming in the window above his bed. “I’ve cooked a canned peach that Matt brought from the general store in with your oatmeal. You’ll have to chew it up.”

She stuffed pillows behind his back while pulling him forward by the shoulders. It seemed like he weighed next to nothing. She remembered what he looked like when she dragged him into the wagon that day at the river. He wasn’t huge but he had muscles and mass to him. She smiled at him and continued propping him up, glad he was able to talk to her now instead of just squeezing her hand and nodding. He was nearly sitting straight, his head against the pillow, his arms slack at his side.

“I’ve probably tired you out, flopping you around and yanking at you, haven’t I?”

He laughed softly, his hollow cheeks swelling. “And I thank you that I’m even here on this earth to get yanked around,” he said.

She sat down beside the bed, picked up the bowl of oatmeal, and blew on its contents. “I’ve been glad for the company. It gets lonesome out here.”

“Why don’t you move to town? I’ve never been wide awake and farther than this bed to see your property here, but I’m sure there’s a lot of work for a young woman all alone.”

“No. It’s best I stay here. I can’t keep the farm as nice as I’d like, but I get by.”

“Matt helping you?”

She nodded and dabbed his mouth with a rag. “He’s been helping. He’s in the barn now, mucking the stalls.”

“He better be making up a bed out there. His momma would be angry knowing he was living in the same house as a young, unmarried woman, and he knows it. Eleanor Gentry would not have to say a word, either.” Ben chuckled. “That woman has a way of looking at a man and making him feel like the lowest worm when she’s disappointed with something he says or does.”

“She sounds like a woman to be reckoned with.”

“She is, missy. She is. Even when I feel like closing my eyes and not opening them ever again, I think about how happy Miss Eleanor will be when she lays eyes on her youngest son.”

Annie wiped Ben’s chin and gave him a sip of water before pulling the extra pillows out from behind him. He was asleep moments later. She sat beside his bed stroking his arm and thinking how fine it would be to have a close family like the Gentrys. She admitted to herself that she wasn’t just lonely for people around her, she was lonely for connections. Without her mother, father, or brother, there was no one. And more than that, she was lonely for a man. Lonely for how Madeline and Tom were when they were together. Touching and looking at each other and sharing a connection that Annie knew nothing of. Or making babies together in the still of the night—where had that random thought come from?

“Did he eat?”

She jumped in her seat. “Oh. I didn’t hear you come in—I was daydreaming. What did you say?”

Matt smiled and her stomach flopped. He was finally and completely well and putting on muscle and weight every day with all the chores he was doing and the massive amount of food he consumed. She’d forgotten what it was like to cook for a hungry man, and a big one at that. Matt Gentry was as thick-chested as he was broad-shouldered, with powerful arms and a thick, corded neck. He’d finished the fence posts, fixed a hole in the shed roof, and was working on the barn now.

There was no wonder any longer why she’d been barely able to move him on that day at the river. She’d not noticed then, of course, she was too busy concentrating on saving his life. She hadn’t noticed much, either, when he’d slept fitfully in front of the fire day and night. By the time he got out of his sickbed, he’d lost weight and muscle and his skin was sallow. And now she thought he was as handsome a man as she’d ever seen even knowing he could be hardheaded and angry and sad.

“He did eat,” Annie said, now recalling his question. “I propped him up with pillows, and he ate nearly the whole bowl of oatmeal and had a few sips of water.”

“That’s good,” he said, but his smile lessened as he stared at Ben. “How am I ever going to get him to Paradise?”

“You can’t go yet. You’ve got to reconcile yourself to that. He’s got to get stronger.”

Matt nodded and sat down on the rocker. “Sometimes I forget how close he was, how close both of us were, to dying.”

“You must be tired. You’re getting maudlin. You’ve been working all day.”

“I am tired, and often maudlin, but I’m just going to sit here a few more minutes and then get back to the barn.” He looked at her. “I’m almost done building a bunk in the loft for myself. I’ll be sleeping there tonight.”

“Oh,” she said and felt her cheeks get hot. Any other time, she’d have been glad to get a man out of her house, away from her when she was sleeping and vulnerable, but hadn’t she just been thinking about making babies? Did she trust Matt Gentry? What a novel thought. “I never thanked you for the peppermint candy you brought back when you went into town a few days ago. I haven’t had any for ages.”

“Town,” he said and stared at her. “Some strange goings-on in Bridgewater.”

Annie stood and pulled the covers tight over Ben’s shoulders. “I’m not sure what you mean, but I do thank you for the sugar and whatnot, too. The garden needs tending. I’ll be out back if you need me.”

“Tell me about the Thurmans, Annie.”

She shrugged and stepped into her old boots. “I already told you. They own the mill. Daddy should have never said anything to them about old Tom.”

“There’s more to it than that. Everywhere I went in town, they already knew I was staying here. The butcher warned me off, saying that I would cause you grief by mentioning your name. Thurman came in while I was there.”

She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. “I hope you didn’t say much.”

“I didn’t. I don’t know the whole story. But I intend to.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t care what you believe, Matt Gentry,” she said. “It’s none of your business.” She stalked off through the door and around the side of the cabin toward the gate and the garden beyond. She was pulling wild onions and grasses out from between the bean plants with a fury.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked, having followed her out.

“I’m not afraid of anything. It’s just none of your business.”

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” he said softly, just feet away from her.

She was on her haunches pushing dirt against a tender bean sprout, when her eyes suddenly clouded with tears. His shadow blocked the heat of the sun on her back, but she didn’t believe that was why she felt chilled.

“You’ll be gone one of these days.”

He sank down to his knees beside her. “There’s more to this than him killing your father, although that’s awful in itself. Why would he bother you now? Why does it matter to him?”

“The Thurmans own this town. There’s nothing to be done about it.”

“Where’s your brother, Annie?”

She jerked her head up. “Dead in the war. You know nothing about him.”

“I don’t think so. I was reading from your bible to Ben and found a baptism paper. He was too young to have been in the army.”

Matt wasn’t sure he wanted to hear her story and had put off asking his questions. He didn’t know if he wanted to listen to whatever atrocity had been committed on this property, on this family. He was certain there was some ugly history, and she might not be prepared to tell him. He’d watched men, some wearing blue and some wearing gray, treat men and women and children cruelly, to the limits, he imagined, of humanity. He’d watched it with his own eyes and done nothing about it. He’d been as horrible as the ones wielding their knives and their fists and their guns and their taunts, and drank his way through the next few years trying desperately to forget his cowardice and bone-deep despair that he’d forgotten or ignored everything he’d been taught since he was a small child.

Somehow this felt different. He wasn’t avoiding her tragedies or turning his head away, and he knew he must hear the stories first to lift the pain of them from her. She bore a solitary life and the work of a farm, in addition to saving his life. He owed her, and perhaps he could banish some of his own demons by taking on some of hers. Somewhere in the last few days or weeks, she’d stopped simply being the person he owed his life to—he could hardly call that simple, he supposed—and become a woman. Just that. A woman.

“Teddy wasn’t like other children,” she said finally, as she looked over the garden on her left and then lifted her face to the sun. “He was slow to learn and never really acted like he was much more than five or six years old. But he was such a loving little boy. My mother died during childbirth, and I raised Teddy while Daddy worked the farm, taking care of the hogs, and we had chickens and cows then, too.”

“I was ten years old when he was born. Momma had taught me to read and do my numbers and sew and even embroider. Her family was from Tennessee and had some money. She was accustomed to city life, her father being a lawyer with some stature in his town, and even the state. Daddy met her when he traveled there with a cousin. They fell in love, and she came here, to Daddy’s family farm. I wonder when she realized things would never be better, that they’d never move to town and that she’d only have two or three dresses to her name as long as she lived. Daddy wasn’t happy that she was schooling me and teaching me to set a table correctly and speak well. He thought it was presumptuous for a girl child, but he never pushed back overmuch to her. I think it was her way of saying, ‘I live here in this hovel. I’ve sacrificed everything for you. I’ll raise my daughter as I see fit.’ Anyway, after Momma died giving birth to Teddy, he was mine to bring up. Daddy was in a decline and I feared he’d take his own life, even when I was young girl. He’d sit at the table, holding his gun, with a faraway look that scared me. Looking back, I wonder if he didn’t intend for Thurman to kill him that day. He had no special feelings about the coloreds in town.”

“When did Teddy die?”

“Just two summers ago, sixty-seven. I can still hear his voice in my head if I close my eyes and think about him, but it’s fading. My memories are fading.”

“What happened to him?”

She stood up and stretched her back. He stood, too, and followed her down the garden row, past the property fence and into the trees. It was cool and shady, and Matt wiped the sweat off his neck with a kerchief. She sat down on a stump, and he leaned against an oak tree a few feet away. She was crying, he realized then, and bent down on his knees in front of her.

“You don’t have to tell me, Annie. I know he died. I know it was horrible, and I can see you mourned him as if he’d been a natural son.”

She turned to face him but her eyes never rose above his chin. “They hung him in the barn. He was terrified and calling my name. His neck didn’t snap and he hung there, alive, fighting to breathe, while I watched and those animals held me back. While they all watched.”

She was gasping with each word, clearly reliving every second of what must have been the most horrible thing a mother could possibly see. He picked up her hand, which was hanging limp over her knee, and rubbed it. She was staring off in the distance, tears running down her cheeks and off her chin.

“It’s over now,” he whispered. “Your brother is at peace.”

She lifted her eyes to his and focused on him. “Is he?”

“Yes. I’m certain of it.”

“You’re a faithful man, then?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not. I’ve done killing, and seen others do worse. There are things worse than a quick death, as you know. How can I be a faithful man?”

“You believe in heaven, though.”

“My mother read the bible to us. We learned our letters from the bible. There’s a heaven. My mother told me so, and I believe it because she believed it. It’s true. There is a heaven, and there most certainly is a hell.”

“Teddy’s in heaven then,” she said and looked skyward.

“Why were they here that day?” Matt asked.

“I’m a woman. Why do you think they were here?” She rose quickly from the tree stump she sat on.

He stood, his fists clenched at his side. “What did they do?”

Annie walked past him to the cabin. “Nothing. They did nothing.”

* * *

“What’s went on here?” Ben asked when Matt stopped in the cabin for a drink of water late morning. He’d been turning over more ground for a bigger garden, after hearing Annie wish she had room for fall corn and onions and potatoes. There was not a doubt in his mind what Ben meant.

“Has she said something to you?”

“No,” Ben replied. “She didn’t have to. There’s a sadness there and some fear, too. She told me her father and brother died in the war.”

“There’s some real ugliness in this town. The Thurman family owns the mill and did some killing, including her father and her brother. She told me they hung her brother a few years ago when he was twelve and that she was mother to the boy as her mother had died birthing him. She said he wasn’t quite right in the head.”

“Who hung him?”

“Town folk and the Thurmans. They don’t care for the Campbells.”

“She’s no threat now,” Ben said. “But she’s still afraid, I think.”

Matt nodded. “There’s more to it. I just don’t know the whole story.”

Ben shoved himself up as much as he could, knocking the bible that had lain on his lap to the floor. “You’re going to have to fix this, Matthew. You can’t just leave her. You’ve got to fix this for her.”

“I know,” he said and picked up the bible and laid it on Ben’s lap. “Don’t get yourself all worn out about it. I’ll take care of it.”

“Well, Gentry men just don’t let women be treated poorly or threatened. Don’t care how long you’ve been away. You know your duty and what Miss Eleanor and Beauregard would expect.”

“I do,” Matt said. That being the source of his conflict.