Burning Bright - By Ron Rash Page 0,55

forty, though in these times people often looked older than they were, even children. The Confederate wore his cap brim tilted high, his face tanned to the hue of cured tobacco. Not the way a farmer would wear a hat or cap. The gaunt face and loose-fitting trousers made clear what the tote sack was for. Lily hoped a couple of chickens were enough for him, but the boots did not reassure her of that.

“Afternoon,” he said, letting his gaze settle on Lily briefly before looking westward toward Grandfather Mountain. “Looks to be some rain coming, maybe by full dark.”

“Take what chickens you want,” Lily said. “I’ll help you catch them.”

“I plan on that,” he said.

The man raised his left forearm and wiped sweat off his brow, the tote sack briefly covering his face. As he lowered his arm, his grin had been replaced with a seeming sobriety.

“But it’s also my sworn duty to requisition that draft horse for the cause.”

“For the cause,” Lily said, meeting his eyes, “like them boots you’re wearing.”

The Confederate set a boot onto the porch step as though to better examine it.

“These boots wasn’t requisitioned. Traded my best piece of rope for them, but I’m of a mind you already know that.” He raised his eyes and looked at Lily. “That neighbor of yours wasn’t as careful on his furlough as your husband.”

Lily studied the man’s face, a familiarity behind the scraggly beard and the hard unflinching gaze. She thought back to the time a man or woman from up here could go into Boone. A time when disagreement over what politicians did down in Raleigh would be settled in this county with, at worst, clenched fists.

“You used to work at Old Man Mast’s store, didn’t you?” Lily said.

“I did,” the Confederate said.

“My daddy used to trade with you. One time when I was with him you give me and my sister a peppermint.”

The man’s eyes didn’t soften, but something in his face seemed to let go a little, just for a moment.

“Old Mast didn’t like me doing that, but it was a small enough thing to do for the chaps.”

For a few moments he didn’t say anything else, maybe thinking back to that time, maybe not.

“Your name was Mr. Vaughn,” Lily said. “I remember that now.”

The Confederate nodded.

“It still is,” he said, “my name being Vaughn, I mean.” He paused. “But that don’t change nothing in the here and now, though, does it?”

“No,” Lily replied. “I guess it don’t.”

“So I’ll be taking the horse,” Vaughn said, “lest you got something to barter for it, maybe some of that Yankee money they pay your man with over in Tennessee? We might could make us a trade for some of that.”

“There ain’t no money here,” Lily said, telling the truth because what money they had she’d sewn in Ethan’s coat lining. Safer there than anywhere on the farm, she’d told Ethan before he left, but he’d agreed only after she’d also sewn his name and where to send his body on the coat’s side pocket. Ethan’s older brother had done the same, the two of them vowing to get the other’s coat home if not the body.

“I guess I better get to it then,” Vaughn said, “try to beat this rain back to Boone.”

He turned from her, whistling “Dixie” as he walked toward the pasture, almost to the split-rail fence when Lily told him she had something to trade for the horse.

“What would that be?” Vaughn asked.

Lily lifted the ball of thread off her lap and placed it on the porch’s puncheon floor, then set the half-finished coverlet on the floor as well. As she got up from the chair, her hands smoothed the gingham around her hips. Lily stepped to the porch edge and freed the braid so her blonde hair fell loose on her neck and shoulders.

“You know my meaning,” she said.

Vaughn stepped onto the porch, not speaking as he did so. To look her over, Lily knew. She sucked in her stomach slightly to conceal her condition, though his knowing she was with child might make it better for him. A man could think that way in these times, she thought. Lily watched as Vaughn silently mulled over his choices, including the choice he’d surely come to by now that he could just as easily have her and the horse both.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen,” Vaughn said, though whether this was or wasn’t in her favor she did not know. He looked