Willis stood stock still in deep shadows, his eyes wide and his breath reined in. He knew what he had heard and the fire it started in him was enough to make him feel faint in spite of his sturdy 250-pound strength. He had come along the little mud trail leading out to his shack, was half-way around a curve in the path and heard a voice he thought he knew saying ""I'll see you in Illinois,"

He stepped off the path under a juniper that hung over the way and peered into the night. He could make out the faint light of Mille and Aug's cabin door, and the moving shadow of a form moving across the light -- an odd rhythm to it -- the one-leg carpenter! And in a flash, he understood.

He stayed frozen under the overhanging branches as the old seaman limped past making his way back toward the house-servant quarters behind the big house.

He moved forward on the path, then, to where their little rundown place was, and stood at the stoop, his mind fevered and his heart chilled at what he was aiming to do. Finally he could not stand still any longer, and he raised his giant hand and knocked on the new door, still smelling of pinesap and looking out of place in the decay of the rundown shack.

It was August who swung the door open, his eyes wide and his whole manner tense with alertness and suspicion.

"August, lemme in fo'a sec. I gots some serious talk to do here."

August knew Willis well, had worked back to back with him laying road stone, hauling scrub, stacking lumber. He stood back and the giant ebony-faced man stepped into the doorway light and through, and found himself facing an equally alert and suspicious woman holding a large cast-iron fry pan at the ready.

"I swear I will never betray yo nor ever let you down no way, no time, ever. I will hunt for you, carry for you, do for you what you need done. But you got to take me along -- got to!! ". He paused, sweating in the cool night air, talking more and faster than he ever had.

"You need the extra strength, however you gonna go. An I caint stay here no longer!! Take me with you!!"

Millie's faced paled and she stepped up behind August and held his arm, the fry pan forgotten. The two of them, man and wife, conspirators in a dark land, stared at each other without words for a full minute.

August finally broke the spell of apprehension and turned to Willis, waiitng in the doorway, a muted pleading look in his eyes that August had never seen in the giant man's face before.

"Shut the door, Willis", August said. "Don' jus' stand there like a damn fool."