Page 193
“Where are you going?” Lore called after him.
“To cut some fucking steel.”
* * *
68
The time was 1730; the sun would set in three hours. For the moment, Peter had done all he could. He was well past the need to sleep but wanted a moment to collect himself. He thought of Jock as he walked to the house. He had no particular allegiance to the man; he had been a callow and obnoxious kid who had nearly gotten Peter killed. The rifle was probably wasted on him. But Peter recognized that day on the roof as a turning point, and he believed in second chances.
The security detail was gone.
Peter darted up the stairs and raced into the house. “Amy?” he called.
A silence, then: “In here.”
She was sitting on the bed, facing the door, hands folded neatly in her lap.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She looked up. Her face changed; she gave him a melancholy smile. A peculiar quiet took the room—not merely an absence of sound but something deeper, more fraught. “Yes. I’m fine.” She patted the mattress. “Come sit with me.”
He took a place beside her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She took his hand, not looking at him. He sensed she was on the verge of some announcement.
“When I was in the water, I went someplace,” she said. “At least, my mind did. I’m not sure I can explain this right. I was so happy there.”
He realized what she was saying. “The farmstead.”
Her eyes found his.
“I’ve been there, too.” Strangely, he felt no surprise; the words had been waiting to be said.
“I was playing the piano.”
“Yes.”
“And we were together.”
“Yes. We were. Just the two of us.”
How good to say it, to speak the words. To know that he was not alone with his dreams after all, that there was some reality to it, though he could not know what that reality was, only that it existed. He existed. Amy existed. The farmstead, and their happiness in that place, existed.
“You asked me this morning why I came to you in Iowa,” Amy said. “I didn’t tell you the truth. Or, at least, not all of it.”
Peter waited.
“When you change, you get to keep one thing, one memory. Whatever was closest to your heart. From all your life, just the one.” She looked up. “What I wanted to keep was you.”
She was crying, just a little: small, jeweled tears that hung suspended on the tips of her lashes, like drops of dew upon leaves. “Peter, will you do something for me?”
He nodded.
“Please kiss me.”
He did. He did not so much kiss her as fall into the world of her. Time slowed, stopped, moved in an unhurried circle around them, like waves around a pier. He felt at peace. His senses were soaring. His mind was in two places, this world and also the other: the world of the farmstead, a place beyond space, beyond time, where only the two of them resided.
They parted. Their faces were inches apart. Amy cupped his cheek, her eyes locked on his.
“I’m sorry, Peter.”
The remark was strange. Her gaze deepened.
“I know what you’re planning to do,” she said. “You wouldn’t survive it.”
Something came undone inside him. All strength drained from his body. He tried to speak but couldn’t.
“You’re tired,” Amy said.
She caught him as he fell.
—
Amy laid him on the bed. In the outer room, she pulled her frock over her head and replaced it with the clothing that Greer had fetched for her: heavy canvas pants with pockets, leather boots, a tan shirt, the sleeves torn away, with the insignia of the Expeditionary on the shoulders. They possessed a warm, human odor—a smell of work, of life. Whoever had owned these articles was small; the fit was nearly perfect. On the back porch the soldiers slept soundly, like babies, hands tucked under their cheeks, lost to all cares. Amy gently relieved one of his pistol and tucked it into her trousers, against her spine.
A deep quiet held the street, everyone in hiding, bracing for the storm. As Amy made her way toward the center of town, soldiers began to take notice, yet none spoke to her; their minds were elsewhere, what did one woman matter? The exterior of the stockade was unguarded. Amy strode purposefully to the door and stepped inside.
She counted three men. Behind the counter, the officer in charge glanced up.
“Help you, soldier?”
—
The sound of tumblers: Alicia raised her eyes. Amy?
“Hello, sister.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193 (Reading here)
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268
- Page 269
- Page 270
- Page 271
- Page 272
- Page 273
- Page 274
- Page 275
- Page 276
- Page 277
- Page 278
- Page 279
- Page 280
- Page 281
- Page 282
- Page 283
- Page 284
- Page 285
- Page 286