We walked. We walked and now for the first time my feet hurt. My legs were hurting, too; with every step my hips seemed to grind in their sockets. My hands felt swollen. My fingers felt thick and dry as the cured meats hanging in the smokehouse. We walked and walked, and with every step the thread of smoke we were walking toward receded. That’s how it felt, as if the distance between us, instead of shrinking, increased. I despaired, but then I reminded myself of how the Captain and Genoveva, on the first few days of my journey, had seemed to remain a constant distance from me no matter how fast I pedaled toward them or how much time I spent off the path, whether at the Other Side or lying stunned on my back at Something Happened Here.
Dusk turned to darkness and I could no longer see the smoke, but the smell of burnt corn became stronger, until finally I saw lights and began to run. Squares of light in the gloom. The long, low shape of a building. My breath rasped in my throat, my eyes watered with the cold, and I almost missed the footpath leading off the dirt road.
The path brought me to a stable. I smelled horses, and thought, Genoveva! and rushed inside. The first stall housed a brown draft horse. The second, a gray. The third was empty. The last had a cob, but it was a palomino.
I hadn’t really expected to find Genoveva, but it felt like a blow all the same.
The draft horses seemed to be dozing, but the cob stuck his head over the stall and nickered. “Sorry,” I said. “I haven’t got anything for you.” Then I remembered that wasn’t true. I put down the basket and took off the rucksack.
I didn’t know why I did that, why I took the time to give a carrot to the cob, when I had a sick kitten that needed tending.
The cob ate almost politely, turning his head away while he munched and swallowed, then swinging it back to find the carrot and bite off another piece. The stable was warm. The straw smelled fresh. I thought of sleeping here for the night. There was the one empty stall. It wasn’t that I feared knocking on the door of the house. But it made me weary to think of accepting help from another stranger.
Then the kitten gave another sneeze, and her breath was crackling badly, and her need made me bold.