4
Caleb spent the night in a tree.
He was utterly miserable but not physically uncomfortable. Zeke, his friend who had built the hide, kept it stocked with a sack of provisions and a clay water jug that still tasted of the shine it had once contained. When the clear night sky drew down an early summer frost, Caleb wrapped himself in old burlap and stayed warm enough. But his desolation robbed him of sleep. The thought that his own stupid mistake had cost him a final night with his family stabbed him repeatedly. If only he had drawn his father away, warned him in secret . . .
In the first grey light of dawn, Caleb ate several handfuls of dried fruit and nuts and drank his fill. Then he heard a soft whistle from below, and a head appeared in the entry. “I figured you’d be here.”
“Trying to calm down the elders.” Zeke was Caleb’s age but a head shorter. Caleb’s best friend possessed a slender, childlike frame and limbs that looked frail as a bird’s. His eyes were dark and furtive, his face narrowed into the point of his long nose. The other children called him Rat Boy.
Zeke’s father had died when a section of the family mine collapsed. His mother had never recovered and gradually faded away, leaving her only son to fend for himself. He’d gone to live with Dorsey, his uncle, but his five cousins didn’t take to this strange little boy invading their already crowded home.
“I know why you did it,” Zeke said. “But why did you have to make so much noise?”
“Maddie contacted me. For one instant. I was still . . .” Caleb hung his head. “I’m such a fool.”
“No argument there.”
“If I could only take back the night.”
Zeke shrugged. “It had to come out sooner or later.”
Around the time Caleb discovered his new ability, Zeke started bringing in game. The entire enclave talked about his growing ability to hunt. Foxes that had been tearing up henhouses became pelts that Marsh took to market. Venison, quail, pheasant, even wild boar showed up regularly in the butcher’s front window. Zeke was never fully accepted, but at least now he was respected. The young man had found a calling. Caleb was the only one who knew how his restless spirit yearned for more.
He and Zeke hunted together, united by secrets they shared with no one else. Caleb’s father had seen the boy’s need and set up a room for him in the stables. Zeke used it from time to time. But by this point the boy had grown half wild. Or so the rest of the enclave thought. Caleb knew better.
Caleb asked, “Are you still coming with me?”
“Don’t talk silly. We been through all this a dozen times. Let it be.”
Caleb fumbled with some way to tell him just how much that meant, but all he could manage was, “I’m glad.”
Zeke handed over the sack he carried. “Marsh said to give you this.”
Inside were a change of clothes, a bar of soap, a razor, a brush, two late winter apples, and a slab of meat in two slices of fresh bread. Caleb’s eyes burned anew from knowing that this was his father’s way of saying he was still loved, and family. “We best be heading out.”
They mostly held to game trails. They stayed close enough to the road to listen for Caleb’s father, then halted by a creek where Caleb washed and shaved. When they reached the meeting point, they slipped into the undergrowth and waited. An hour or so after sunrise Zeke hissed a warning, and a few moments later Caleb heard a wagon wheel squeak.
But as he rose to meet his father, Zeke pulled him back down. Caleb started to swat at Zeke’s grip, when he saw how his friend was crouched. Zeke’s head was canted to one side, his gaze flickering. Caleb knew that look. He settled back down, tense and ready for trouble.
Two wagons came around a distant curve. His father rode in the lead and Dorsey managed the second. Four saddle horses were tethered to the rear gates. Caleb felt his throat swell up tight. He had no idea what he was going to say to his father.
Then an all-too-familiar voice yelled from the trail leading uphill, “There they be!”
Both wagoners jerked in surprise as Harshaw rode into view. Three strangers emerged from the woods behind him. The clansman called, “Where’s your boy, Marsh?”
Caleb’s father demanded, “What business is that of yours?”
“We aim on taking him, is what.”
Dorsey asked, “Who’s this you’re riding with, Harshaw?”
“That ain’t any of your concern. None of this is.”
Dorsey directed his words to the three armed men. “Don’t believe I’ve seen you around these parts before.”
“And I’m saying our business ain’t with you, Dorsey.” Harshaw pointed at Marsh. “It’s with the trader’s outcast breed.”
Marsh cried, “My son is no outcast!”
Dorsey snarled, “You best shut your face if you know what’s good for you. We’re still inside the Catawba boundary. The elders have had their say and that’s the end of it.”
“It’s my word against yours, where we stand!” The man’s dark beard almost hid the glimmer of his teeth. “And I say we’re beyond the enclave’s markers. Which makes it within our rights to take the boy for the ransom on offer.”
Marsh and Dorsey exchanged baffled glances. “What on earth are you going on about now?”
Harshaw used his rifle to jab the air between them. “Atlanta Township’s offering good silver for abominations like your boy. Charlotte too, if the rumors are true.”
Dorsey turned to the three strangers. “What business is this of yours?”
The oldest of the three had an old knife wound across his forehead, like someone had started to scalp him. Another odd streak of white ran down the center of his beard. “We come after the boy, like he said.”
Marsh’s voice had grown hoarse with unaccustomed rage. “You’re not touching my son.”
“We got to go through you, we will.” Harshaw leaned over and spit a stream of brown juice into the dust. “Any who get in our way’s gonna hang from that oak—”
Harshaw’s words were cut off as Zeke leapt straight from the forest to the back of Harshaw’s horse.
Zeke moved so fast and silently that he was in place before the men could react. He set a knife to Harshaw’s neck and said, “I’m thinking you need yourself a shave.”
“Boy, you looking to get yourself killed?”
“I was about to ask you the very same thing.” Zeke gripped Harshaw’s collar with one hand and kept the knife’s blade tight on his neck. “Careful, now. Else you’ll want to cause these men to dig you a grave.”
When one of the strangers started to draw his gun, Caleb shouted from the undergrowth, “You keep your hands where I can see them.”
Marsh yelled, “Caleb? You all right, Son?”
“Sure thing, Pa. I got them covered.”
Harshaw snarled at Zeke, “You poke me with that thing, it’ll be two graves they’ll be digging!”
“Maybe so. But what difference does that make? You been saying for years I’m not worth the air I breathe. Now drop your gun and tell your men to do the same.”
The three strangers might have argued, except for the fact that Dorsey and Marsh now had their own weapons out and aimed. Harshaw warned, “You done writ your death sentence, boy.”
Zeke poked the blade in deep enough to draw blood. “Tell them. Or die. It’s your call.”
The man with the white-streaked beard said, “Nobody gets nothing from a shoot-out.”
Harshaw cursed and flung his rifle to the crumbling asphalt. “Do what he says!”
“Pistols too,” Zeke said. Only when the last gun fell to the earth did he slip off the horse’s back. “Nice doing business with you.”
Dorsey stood on the wagon seat, his gun steady on the disarmed men. “I believe it’s time you headed on back to wherever you came from.”
“The elders are gonna be hearing about this!” Harshaw sawed at the reins so hard his horse reared. He yelled at Zeke, “Catawba enclave ain’t your home no more. Don’t you ever come back.”
“Ain’t you heard? I haven’t had me a home for years.”
They waited in silence until the four men disappeared around the first bend. Then Caleb scrambled from the undergrowth. Soon as he appeared, Marsh dropped the reins and leapt to the earth. He rushed over and gripped his son in an embrace so fierce Caleb felt new tears squeezed from his eyes. “Oh, Pa, I’m sorry.”
“You’re all right. That’s the most important thing.”
Dorsey’s wagon seat creaked as he stared down the empty road. “Harshaw’s spent the best part of his life searching for the bullet writ with his name.” He climbed down and walked over to Zeke. “Son, how’d you ever learn to move like that?”
Zeke was shaking slightly now from the aftermath of combat. “Just picked it up somewhere, I guess.”
“Well, you did good.” Dorsey studied his nephew. “Harshaw was right. Best you not come back, not for a good long spell.”
Zeke shrugged. “I ain’t got a whole lot to come back to.”
Dorsey offered his hand. “You ever need anything, you holler. I’ll do what I can to see you right.”