Handy smoothed the grip by shaving away delicate bits of wood in thin, curling slivers. Kory, less refined but making steady progress, worked on his own. He was a quick study, deft and careful as he mimicked Handy’s process. Now, though, his hands hung idle between his knees, the task he’d been so keen on when they got up that morning forgotten. Like Talus, he scanned the edge of the woods.
“Who might come back? Your dad?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s been two years,” said Handy. He recommenced work on the shot.
“I know.”
“From what he wrote, I don’t reckon your father would let anything keep him away so long.” Another curled shaving wafted like a golden hair to the porch floor.
“If…” Kory was slow to choose his words. “If he had to go far away for help, farther than the Webb’s. Way past town, even. It could take a long, long time.”
Handy said nothing.
“How far is it to the cities?” Kory asked.
Handy worked steadily. “Which cities?”
The boy was silent for so long Handy glanced up at him. Kory’s forehead bunched in a ladder of wrinkles that seemed to drop the weight of ages into his young face. “The ones outside of New Hemings.”
He was struck by Kory’s miserable lack of understanding, but he knew it well. If not for the intervention of older siblings, he would, himself, have grown up in a welter of ignorance about the world that would make this boy’s question look learned and nuanced. Kory was trying mightily to understand the outside world with only the truncated knowledge of an isolated eleven-year-old. He leaned over and pointed to Kory’s slingshot handle. “Feel the little ridge right here?” He ran the pad of his thumb over the place he meant. “You’ll want to bring that down just a hair. Otherwise a shot might rotate off true when you pull back.”
Kory touched the handle where Handy had indicated and nodded. He went back to his task with obvious relief.
“There are big cities way east of here,” Handy said, “and even more of them to the south.”
“How far?”
“Far. Hundreds of miles. No easy roads.”
Kory chewed his top lip and gazed out into the trees, eyes soft and unfocused. Finally he nodded and brushed his long bangs away from his face.
Handy set his knife aside and gave the boy a simple, solid pat on the shoulder. They both commenced their task of creating a useful thing. The enormity of time and distance—days, miles—receded into the shadow of need, and now.
Inside, Arie and Curran made a second circuit of every crevice and cubby of the cabin’s downstairs bounty. Each time Arie passed the open front door, she glanced at the three of them out there: quiet man, quiet boy, quiet dog.
She’d taken Handy aside at first light and suggested he broach Kory with the news that they’d be leaving soon. “Keep it simple,” she said. “He’ll want to know why. I don’t want to scare him if we can help it, but it’s important that he understand there’s good reason for us to go north.”
“And if he doesn’t want to go?”
“I’ve said it before. Child or no, it’s his choice. He’s old enough for that. We couldn’t force him to leave here in any case.”
Watching them talk and work, Arie was impressed once more by the boy’s equilibrium. He often seemed as self-contained as a tortoise. A line of concern marked the space between his eyebrows, but it was impossible to tell if that was due to Handy’s news or by Kory’s concentration on his knife work.
“No more food,” Renna told her. The two sofas and the wide hearth served as her central prep and packing area, and she surveyed the accumulation with a wary eye, hands on hips. “I can’t believe I just said that, but we couldn’t carry half this much.”
“And we haven’t even gone through the loft, the root cellar, or downstairs,” Curran said. He pulled on his beard, dark eyes cataloging the heap of goods. “Wish we had a truck.”
“What we need is a mule,” said Arie. “Or a llama. Damned good pack animals, llamas. Temperamental, though.”
“Sounds like some people we know,” said Renna. She didn’t look at Arie, concentrating instead on shifting a five-gallon bucket of dried rice from one place to another. “Ouch! Dammit,” she hissed, straightening up and kneading her bad hip with both hands.
“Let me,” said Curran. He grabbed up the bucket as if it were no heavier than a stick of kindling and put it where Renna pointed. “You should sit down a while,” he said.
“Great idea,” she sighed, and eased onto a large footstool, baring her teeth at the effort.
“I’d say it serves you right for your smart remark,” said Arie, “except you’re absolutely correct about my temperament. How else did a stringy old hen like me make it this far?” Standing behind Renna, she dug her thumbs into the woman’s shoulder muscles in rhythmic circles. “We should all take a little break.”
Renna closed her eyes and surrendered once again. From the first night Handy had dragged her, wounded and feverish, into Arie’s world, she’d put herself—quite literally—into the old woman’s hands. She could entertain the most detailed fantasies about staying here with Handy or about sneaking back in the dead of night by herself. But the reality was, they were leaving. It was happening, and she was going with them. She let her head droop low as Arie worked out kinks from her shoulder to her neck, soothing knots she didn’t even realize she’d had.
Kory bounded in from the front porch. “We’re finished. Look at this.” He held his slingshot out to Curran for inspection.
Curran took it from him and looked it over. “You made this yourself?” he asked. He held it at arm’s length and squinted with one eye between the Y. “You’re a natural. Maybe you could make one for me.”
The boy’s expression of satisfaction lit him up from head to toe. “I will,” he said. “Handy’s going to teach me to shoot it now. You should come with us.” He held out his hand for the weapon. “I’ll let you borrow it for practice.”
“I appreciate it,” Curran grinned. “I’ll check with the boss here and see if I can go out to play.” He cocked his head at Arie, giving Kory a wink.
“Before you start,” Arie said to Kory, “I need you to do me a big favor. And you should take your shot with you.”
“Okay. What is it?”
She smoothed her palms off the points of Renna’s shoulders and flexed her fingers. “I left something up at the spring last night, by accident, and I’d like you to hike up after it.” She described the mandala to him. “Curran made it for me, and it’s precious. I’m aggravated with myself for forgetting it.”
“Don’t worry,” Kory said. He spun toward the front door, shoving the slingshot in his back pocket. “I’ll be right back.”
“Whoa, there,” said Arie, catching him by one elbow.
He stopped short. “Huh?”
His open expression, always so eager to help, made her want to tousle his hair or, gods forbid, pinch his smooth cheek. She kept her face serious, though. “I want you to take your rifle, too,” she said.
Now he hesitated. “It’ll only take a minute,” he said. “I go up there all the time. Every day, almost.”
Arie nodded. “Today is a little different,” she said. “Last night we had a visitor.” Kory’s eyes went round, and the other adults stood very still. “It was a wolf, not a person.” Behind her, Curran breathed a sigh of obvious relief. “But that doesn’t mean we can let our guard down. Look at Talus.”