We’ve almost reached the final bridge when Kiernan veers off the trail and pushes his bike a few yards into the woods. I follow and watch as he pulls a wrench out of the basket on the back of his bike. He removes both bolts from one of the two brackets that hold the motor in place, then he tosses the wrench and the bolt, along with the corresponding nut, behind a tree and drops the second nut and bolt into his pocket.
“Okay, the wrench I get. But why throw away the other bolt?” I ask.
“They’ll definitely have a wrench. But they’ll probably have to hunt for a nut and bolt to fit.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea.”
“You sound surprised.”
“No,” I say as we roll the bikes back onto the road. “It’s called a compliment. You’re supposed to nod and say thank you.”
“Really? I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
“That’s a bit of an assumption, isn’t it? I have to ration these things. If I hand compliments out too freely, they lose their value. And your ego—”
“Which you’ve bruised beyond belief by outshooting me and then refusing motorcycle lessons.”
I fake an annoyed look at his interruption. “As I was saying, your ego doesn’t need to be inflated.”
But as I say the words, I realize that I don’t think they’re true. Every now and then I catch him watching me at an unguarded moment, and his eyes are so vulnerable I almost feel like I’m looking at his eight-year-old self. He clearly enjoys the banter back and forth, however, and we seem to drop into that routine naturally. So naturally, in fact, that I can’t help but wonder if this is how he was with Other-Kate. Is he thinking the same thing I thought about Trey—that we so easily slipped back into our old (at least for me) and comfortable patterns? Or now that we’ve been around each other for a while and he knows me better, does he see someone who only looks like the girl he loved?
He laughs. “Ah, but I can always count on you to poke a pin in me if I puff up like a balloon.”
And I guess that answers my question.
Like the previous two bridges, bridge number six is just slats of wood with big gaps, through which you can see the murky water below. We roll the bikes onto the slats, and Kiernan says, “If my previous experience with the South holds true, they may offer us food and drink. Since we’re only guessing that Saul hasn’t been here yet, I’d suggest we avoid anything that might have come in contact with water from their well—so pretty much everything. If they offer, let’s turn the hospitality thing around on them. There’s a bag of candy at the bottom of the basket. I doubt these kids get sweets very often, and Jess gave me enough to last a year.”
“I hope it’s not that nasty hoarhound stuff,” I say, and his grin reminds me that it’s exactly what Other-Kate would have said.
About fifty feet beyond the bridge, the trail curves and the trees thin out to reveal a small cluster of buildings, circled by rings of farmland in varying shades of green and yellow, bordered on all sides by dense woods like the ones behind us. Two boys and an older girl are tossing a ball around in one of the fields ahead, about halfway to the village. It looks like they’re playing keep-away with a dog, a short-haired mixed breed of some sort.
“Kids,” Kiernan says, his voice flat.
“Yeah.”
“They’re ghosts, Kate. We have to think of them as ghosts. Nothing we can do to change it, so . . .”
“Okay. Ghosts.”
The dog either hears us or catches our scent, because it suddenly whirls around and barrels down the trail toward us, barking loudly.
The girl runs after him. “Bull! You get back here!”
Bull is, fortunately, much smaller than the Cyrist Dobermans. He’s at least part Boston terrier, with buggy eyes, a coat that’s brindle and white, and a whole lot of attitude. He stops about three yards in front of us, and Kiernan moves his bike ahead of mine, turning the wheel inward as a barrier.
The girl, who upon closer inspection is only a few years younger than I am, comes running up behind him, the two boys on her heels. They’re twins, around seven or eight years old, with reddish-blond hair hanging over their eyes, plentiful freckles, and overalls. Both sets of eyes are glued to our bikes.
They’re very lively ghosts.
“Bull, I said no!” The barking continues until she yells, “Bad dawg!” At that point it’s like someone flipped a switch. Bull’s bark morphs into a yelp, and he wriggles toward her, leaving a thin, wet trail on the dirt beneath him. I doubt the girl has beaten him, but I suspect someone has, and I’m pretty sure that someone yelled “Bad dawg!” at the same time.
The girl tugs downward on her dress, which is too tight and several inches shorter than the current fashion, and tucks a strand of long white-blond hair behind her ear as her pale blue eyes sweep over us, a bit warily. She takes in my split skirt and the bikes, then lingers for a few extra seconds on Kiernan. Her face turns pink, and her eyes flit back over to me.
“Don’t worry. Bull don’t bite,” the girl says.
As if to prove her wrong, Bull gives us one last halfhearted growl and sinks his teeth into the ball she’s holding.
The two boys nod, and one adds, “But he will latch onto yer leg if he gets a chance an’ sniff in places you prob’ly don’ wanna be sniffed.”
“He’ll pee on yer shoes, too,” says the other boy.
“Jackson, you hush your nasty mouth. You, too, Vern. There’s ladies present.”
Vern, or at least I think he’s the one she called Vern, gives her a sassy grin. “I don’ see but one lady, Martha. You ain’t nothin’ but a girl.”
Martha yanks the ball out of Bull’s teeth and flings it at the boy, but he ducks.
“An’ you even throw like a girl.”
The other boy claps him on the shoulder and says, “Good one, Jack!” Then they both run off toward the village. Bull looks longingly in their direction, but in the end, he decides to stick with Martha.
“Y’all ain’t from around here,” she says. It’s not a question, just a flat statement of fact. “You at the univers’ty up in Athens?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Matthew Dunne, and this is my fiancée, Kate Keller. She’s a student over at the Lucy Cobb Institute.” We had agreed earlier that his foreign-sounding name and my hyphenated surname would only add to our strangeness, but the fiancée bit is improv. He’s probably right, since being engaged would make it a bit more acceptable for us to be out alone, without a chaperone, but it still sounds weird.
“Martha Farris.” She dips into a faint imitation of a curtsy. “Them boys ’re my cousins, Jackson and Vernon. You’ll have to excuse ’em, miss, ’cause they ain’t got a bit of manners. We try, but it just don’t seem to stick.”
I respond with a nervous laugh. “That’s okay. I’ve seen worse, believe me.”
When she looks back over at Kiernan, he releases the bracket holding the motor and shows her the bolt in his hand. “We were out for a ride, looking for a good picnic spot, but I’m afraid we’ve had a mishap with one of the bikes. Don’t suppose you know anyone who’d have a wrench and maybe an extra bolt?”
“Hold on a minute,” Martha says, veering a few feet off the trail to collect the ball. Her face crinkles in disgust when she realizes it’s now coated with dirt, held in place by dog spit. She bends down to wipe it off on the grass before sticking it into her pocket.
“Come on. Earl’s got a wrench. Don’t know about a bolt, but he shoes the horses and fixes the wagon, so if he don’t have it, we ain’t got one.” She walks along the side of the trail next to me, with Bull at her heels, pushing through the tall grass along the edges. “Ain’t ever seen a skirt sewed up the middle like that, even up in Greensboro. Are ladies really wearin’ those in Athens?”