Chapter One Before Sunrise
1753
I left before the sun rose.
The house was dark. No lamp burned. Even the dogs did not stir. I stood a moment at the edge of the packed earth. The quiet pressed close. The fence line was faint against the paling sky. Beyond it, the road waited.
I had meant to leave without looking back. Instead I turned once toward the house. Nothing moved within it. Thomas had said little the evening before.
He had not stopped Edwin from leaving.
Nor had he asked him to stay.
When Edwin spoke, I listened before the others did.
The yard felt larger after he was gone.
I kept a smooth stone in my pocket—bound with twine to a blue-jay feather. Edwin had left it in the yard the morning he rode out, as though he meant to return.
I did not know then how much of a life a man could spend simply carrying what had been placed in his hand.
The morning light came slow over the ridge. The fields behind me thinned into brush and then into timber. I did not turn again. The sound of my steps carried farther than I liked. The first night I meant to ride farther, but the light failed sooner than I judged.
I built my fire poorly.
The wood smoked before it caught. My fingers stung from striking flint. When the flame took hold at last, it burned low and uneven. I ate and lay awake longer than I meant to. Every crack of branch sounded sharp in the dark.
For a time I thought of turning back. I pictured Thomas in the yard. Not surprised. Not angry. Jean would stand a step back, her hands folded as they had been that day, watching to see what I would do.
When morning came, the fire was ash and the grass silvered with frost. My horse stood quiet, breath rising in pale clouds.
I saddled without haste.
The road ahead ran straight and empty between the fields.
By midday I had reached the outskirts of Staunton. The town was little more than a scatter of timber buildings near the courthouse and a tavern set close to the road. Wagons stood in uneven lines. Men moved in and out of the yard, arguing over loads and livestock.
No one asked where I had come from or where I meant to go.
I approached a man looking for work. He dismissed me with a look of disgust and said, "Plow hand."
I kept looking and asking. A man near the well looked me over once and said, "You sleep light?"
"Yes," I answered.
"You'll need to," he said. "Two horses went missing last week." He nodded toward a string of pack animals tied near the shed. "Stay with them tonight. See they don't wander."
I carried messages and held reins for men who spoke over me. I learned which horses shied at shadow and which would stand against a storm.
One evening, after driving cattle farther north than I had meant to go, I slept beside the road without fire. The sky was clear and wide above me. The ground was hard, but I did not mind it.
The road did not ask questions. It did not turn back.