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to her as a woman rather than a girl.

“What’re you doing for heat in there?”

“Wood. Smoke had Fishbone check the stove for leaks. And there’s a propane backup.”

He nodded. “You can take any dead wood around here, but I’d ask you, don’t cut any live trees out of my windbreaks.”

She’d already taken some dead wood.

“Go ahead and take any of that stuff behind the hay barn if you can split it. I let landscapers drop off extra wood there, but it’s mostly stumps with roots. You can borrow my wheelbarrow from the barn, but be sure to put it back where it is now, on the lower level.” He paused. “You really want to live out here on my land?”

“On the river. I might move somewhere else when I get a bigger outboard.”

“I’ll mention it to the neighbors, tell them not to be surprised if they see you. A few years ago, I took pity on a fellow, let him spend the winter in my chicken shed. My wife was furious. He rigged up an old kerosene heater, burned the shed down.”

Margo nodded. “I won’t burn anything down.”

“My wife may not be crazy about this situation when she figures it out, but Smoke says you’re a grown person. He thinks you know what you’re doing. Leon says you’re some kind of throwback. He admires you.”

Margo didn’t know what throwback meant apart from fish too small to bother eating. She thought about all the things the farmer and his wife must have in their kitchen, all the pans and ingredients, the utensils, the rolling pins for piecrusts, stoves with coils that glowed beneath pots, windows that let in the sunlight, big overhead light fixtures for when there wasn’t enough natural light. Those were the things Margo had given up for now, for her life on the river. She was sure the farmer’s wife, like Joanna, had all kinds of cotton cloths for cleaning up messes in the kitchen and a washing machine to wash them in, chairs that scraped against wood floors when they were pushed out from tables, a chest freezer that could hold a whole deer. Maybe Margo was giving up too much to live out here on a boat, giving up too much for the freedom to travel away from here if she had any trouble. But for now she knew she would be giving up more if she tried to live any other way.

“I don’t want to live in anybody else’s house,” she said. She had four cooking pans that she loved, one from the Indian and three from Smoke, and they were sufficient for any meal she’d wanted to make so far. She had two propane burners plus the top of the woodstove. She loved the small, white-painted kitchen drawers with elegant handles into which her few utensils fit. Her dining table folded up against the wall, and the seats folded down to become her bed. The curtains over the window were a pattern of leaping fish in different colors. She’d washed the curtains and hung them back up. She couldn’t imagine the fuel bills for a big house like the farmer’s, all that waste heating room after room, indoor space that a person like Margo, who had the whole river for her home, didn’t need.

“That’s good,” the farmer said. “I don’t think my wife would like some unknown young woman living in her house. But you’re right in thinking that if it got too cold, I’d feel I ought to invite you anyhow.”

“Thank you for the permits, sir, but please keep off my boat,” she said. “No men are welcome here.”

• Chapter Twenty-Two •

“Less than two weeks,” Smoke told Margo one morning in early February. His voice had become rougher, and sometimes Margo had to lean close to make out his words. His speech was often fractured by long wheezing breaths. A family court decision was pending, and Smoke was certain he would not be allowed to stay in his house. Margo was fearful about other things, that Smoke would fall down or that he would cough so hard he would simply stop breathing. She reached out and brushed a toast crumb from his whiskered cheek.

Fishbone, who rarely stayed more than a few minutes at a visit now, before or after taking out his boat, insisted the nieces were taking Smoke’s case before the judge because they cared about him and they couldn’t stand to see him killing himself. “They’re harsh ladies,” he said, “but