made and inscribed with a letter M on the headboard. They each breathed deep and even.
“They look nothing like us,” Jorah said, and Elspeth’s body jerked and she made to run away, but he latched his arms around her and held her as tight as she’d ever held Amos, and he said, “Whose children are these?”
C HAPTER 5
T he clarity of the memory startled Elspeth. She coughed, and tried to sit up, but the pain was too intense. At first, she thought she was in a high-ceilinged hotel room in another strange town but soon realized she was in the barn on her back in tremendous pain, and she couldn’t recall how she’d gotten there or how she’d been injured. A crow called to her from off in the darkness. She remembered walking up the hill and the fever-soaked nightmare of the bodies strewn about the house and then the flaming hot pain and understood she’d been shot and her children were gone. She cried out again, and Caleb appeared before her. It couldn’t be , she thought and tried to move, but she was too weak.
“Mama, it’s okay,” he said. He truly was alive—the knowledge sent a spasm of happiness through her, and the surge proved enough to roll her eyes back once more.
The night of Amos’s baptism, when the children had been put to bed, Jorah had told her that he’d seen the bodies of mothers before, and he knew Elspeth had not had a child. He sighed, letting the bookmark from his Bible slide between his middle and index fingers, and said, “For a while I convinced myself that it was possible. That the child could be”—he chuckled, an angry sound—“I thought it could be a child of God.” He ran his hand along the leather binding, but said nothing else and asked her no questions. Implicit in his silence was an understanding, she thought, that Amos and Mary would be enough for them. She left to work and trudged up the hill again with more money stuffed in her shoes and everything flowed well for a while. After two years, though, the urges returned. She spent entire nights cradling her arms and rocking on the balls of her feet in front of the windows.
When she’d come back with Caleb, Jorah hadn’t spoken to her for days. One evening, however, after she’d fed the baby and held him on her shoulder to burp him, she sensed Jorah in the doorway, watching them, and knew that something in him had thawed.
C ALEB DRAGGED THE dead animals through the woods—the smallest first to create a track that became tamped down and smooth—and to the edge of the cliff where he and Jesse had taught themselves to chew Amos’s tobacco, spitting thick streams of juice onto the rocks below. He threw the dead chickens, rolled the dead sheep, dragged the smallest of the dead pigs. The others he could not manage, though he tried. All this took the better part of the day.
He looked in on his mother every hour or so, wiped her forehead with a cloth despite the fact that the fever had abated, and fed her from the bowl of eggs he kept warm by the fire. The color had returned to her skin. He thought that she might live, not merely for another sunrise, but to stand and walk again. But with standing and walking came the prospect of speaking, and he would have to explain himself. He didn’t know how he could tell her about his fear, how it had clenched him into a ball and forced him down into the hay. He didn’t know how he could tell her that he’d heard Emma’s short scream, like the bleating of a lamb. How he’d hidden. How he’d seen them—had been within a hundred yards of his Ithaca and another few to the open loft door, from which he could have sighted at least one, aiming for the red scarf. How he’d shot her.
They would need a plan, and for the first time he began to think of a future. All he could tell his mother was that he planned on killing them. He assumed she would want the same. He sat in the open door to the hayloft with these thoughts. Snow fell, only scattered flakes at first, but then in
“They look nothing like us,” Jorah said, and Elspeth’s body jerked and she made to run away, but he latched his arms around her and held her as tight as she’d ever held Amos, and he said, “Whose children are these?”
C HAPTER 5
T he clarity of the memory startled Elspeth. She coughed, and tried to sit up, but the pain was too intense. At first, she thought she was in a high-ceilinged hotel room in another strange town but soon realized she was in the barn on her back in tremendous pain, and she couldn’t recall how she’d gotten there or how she’d been injured. A crow called to her from off in the darkness. She remembered walking up the hill and the fever-soaked nightmare of the bodies strewn about the house and then the flaming hot pain and understood she’d been shot and her children were gone. She cried out again, and Caleb appeared before her. It couldn’t be , she thought and tried to move, but she was too weak.
“Mama, it’s okay,” he said. He truly was alive—the knowledge sent a spasm of happiness through her, and the surge proved enough to roll her eyes back once more.
The night of Amos’s baptism, when the children had been put to bed, Jorah had told her that he’d seen the bodies of mothers before, and he knew Elspeth had not had a child. He sighed, letting the bookmark from his Bible slide between his middle and index fingers, and said, “For a while I convinced myself that it was possible. That the child could be”—he chuckled, an angry sound—“I thought it could be a child of God.” He ran his hand along the leather binding, but said nothing else and asked her no questions. Implicit in his silence was an understanding, she thought, that Amos and Mary would be enough for them. She left to work and trudged up the hill again with more money stuffed in her shoes and everything flowed well for a while. After two years, though, the urges returned. She spent entire nights cradling her arms and rocking on the balls of her feet in front of the windows.
When she’d come back with Caleb, Jorah hadn’t spoken to her for days. One evening, however, after she’d fed the baby and held him on her shoulder to burp him, she sensed Jorah in the doorway, watching them, and knew that something in him had thawed.
C ALEB DRAGGED THE dead animals through the woods—the smallest first to create a track that became tamped down and smooth—and to the edge of the cliff where he and Jesse had taught themselves to chew Amos’s tobacco, spitting thick streams of juice onto the rocks below. He threw the dead chickens, rolled the dead sheep, dragged the smallest of the dead pigs. The others he could not manage, though he tried. All this took the better part of the day.
He looked in on his mother every hour or so, wiped her forehead with a cloth despite the fact that the fever had abated, and fed her from the bowl of eggs he kept warm by the fire. The color had returned to her skin. He thought that she might live, not merely for another sunrise, but to stand and walk again. But with standing and walking came the prospect of speaking, and he would have to explain himself. He didn’t know how he could tell her about his fear, how it had clenched him into a ball and forced him down into the hay. He didn’t know how he could tell her that he’d heard Emma’s short scream, like the bleating of a lamb. How he’d hidden. How he’d seen them—had been within a hundred yards of his Ithaca and another few to the open loft door, from which he could have sighted at least one, aiming for the red scarf. How he’d shot her.
They would need a plan, and for the first time he began to think of a future. All he could tell his mother was that he planned on killing them. He assumed she would want the same. He sat in the open door to the hayloft with these thoughts. Snow fell, only scattered flakes at first, but then in
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