to mention Abigail, so I said, “I pinned the money to the clothesline.”
“Of all the stupid notions,” Albert began.
“At least if people spot us now, we won’t look like fugitives from Lincoln School.”
“Three dollars,” Albert said and looked ready to wring my neck.
“I could tell those folks needed the money.”
“I don’t care about the money. I’m worried they’ll report us.”
“Then the cops will just think we’re riding the rails to somewhere.”
“Yeah? And why is that?”
Because it’s what I told Abigail, I wanted to say but said instead, “Because that’s what makes the most sense.”
Albert shook his head in disgust. “Let’s get going. We need to put distance between us and those three dollars.”
Albert and Mose bent hard to their paddles, and I sat in the middle with Emmy, brooding. It seemed to me that no matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough for Albert. Well, fine, I thought, the hell with him. I drilled the back of his head with my eyes, imagining a dozen scenarios in which he was the one who screwed up royally and I had to save him and he finally realized how lucky he was to have me for his brother.
Near evening, clouds began to mount in the west, and we could see lightning along the horizon. Emmy watched the threatening sky with fear-filled eyes.
“We need to find someplace to sleep inside tonight,” I finally said to Albert.
Mose splashed his paddle lightly on the water to get our attention. He pointed toward the south side of the river and signed, Orchard.
Beyond the trees lining the Gilead lay a familiar sight—the boughs of apple trees, just as they’d been in the little orchard on the Frosts’ farm. They were dark green in the waning light and welcoming.
“Maybe we can sleep there,” I said.
“Let’s see.” Albert guided us to the riverbank. “You two wait here,” he said and signaled for Mose to follow him.
When we were alone, Emmy looked at the apple trees with longing. “I miss Mama.”
“I know.”
“Do you ever miss your mama, Odie?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But it’s been a long time since we lost her.”
She reached inside her overalls and drew out the photograph I’d saved from the farmhouse rubble and studied it, then looked up at me while little tears rolled down her cheeks. “Will I always miss her, Odie? Will it always hurt?”
“I suppose you’ll always miss her, Emmy,” I said. “But it won’t always hurt.”
I could hear now the grumble of the lightning in the distance, and I could smell the rain on the wind that came before it. Albert and Mose finally returned.
“There’s a farmhouse and barn and such on the other side of the orchard,” Albert said. “A good-size garden with an old potting shed. The shed’s small and probably leaks some, but there’s no lock on the door and it’ll be a roof over our heads. We could sleep there tonight and be off early in the morning before anybody in that farmhouse wakes up.”
Lightning split the sky not far to the west, and the boom of thunder followed a few seconds later. I felt the first big drops of rain begin to fall. We didn’t have a lot of time to think it through. We gathered our things, stowed the canoe and paddles among thick brush on the riverbank, and made a run through the orchard for the potting shed on the other side.
I saw the farmhouse, a simple black shape in the near dark with a dim light showing through one window. The barn was not especially big, not like Hector Bledsoe’s back near Lincoln. Like so many of the farms we’d seen, this was a hardscrabble operation. We ducked inside the potting shed just as the sky opened and rain began to fall in sheets. The lightning was on top of us, and there was a wind with it that howled through the gaps in the old plank siding of the shed. Emmy held to me and to Mose and squeezed her body together as small as she possibly could.
It was clear the shed hadn’t been used in some time. There were no tools inside and it smelled of mildew and rot. The floor was dirt, but at least it was dry, and being in the old shed was far better than being out in that wicked weather.
When the storm finally passed, the sky cleared almost immediately. The moon came out, full now, and broad bars of silver shone through the windows of the potting