Adam Goodenough watched the sun tracing the treeline on its way to evening. A light breeze played over the packed dirt in front of the cabin, making the leaves and the air whisper, carrying a vestige of afternoon's warmth, and a thin counterpoint of cold nights to come. It was not the cold ahead which unnerved him, however, but the darkness. Darkness had been undone in his life, its meaning violently slewed from rest to harm and destruction, from sleep to terror. He reflected on the pounding of his heart, marching ahead without let in spite of the terror, anger, grief and loss which had been suddenly deposited there, unexpectedly sudden, brutish, pain and a sense of loss as deep as his soul could see.

He thought bitterly of the night -- only a few months ago? Un believable! -- when he had learned of young Jacob's arrival in the world and thought with warmth about Mrs. Miller -- Elizabeth's -- kind remark about visiting him with the baby in a gentler time. All that was displaced by the dark river in his heart, which would not subside. He thought of past choices. What if he had never put his hand to assist in this madness, this "underground" which was in fact not hidden but completely vulnerable. Was he wrong? Disloyal? Was the South so deep in his nature, then, that he had betrayed his own being by turning against it?

He went back to the doorway and went over to the crude lopsided table where Elizabeth sat staring blankly into time. She looked up at him, somewhat startled.

"I have to go back and tend to some things at the mill before I leave. But I would like to accompany you. That is, if you do not object. I could catch up with you upstream -- I think I know the song well enough by now."

She smiled wanly, but he noticed that her eyes brightened in spite of her emotional and physical exhaustion.

"I would be honored, Mister Goodenough. And thank you. It will make our trip that much safer."

He nodded, returning her smie with the best that he could muster, amazed at the sheer resilience and spine of the woman. Death's hand had withdrawn from her face, although its scars still showed in every line. But he could see that life was in her, and determined to move her forward, and he dropped his head in a wave of relief, a huge compound tension of fear and agony that he had not even known he was carrying unwinding in a rush from his shoulders and his stomach and his very breath. Some small hope, there was. All that he asked, and it was there.

He turned and busied himself with saddling, stroking Thunderbolt's broad flanks more to comfort himself than the big stallion; he kept himself turned toward the horse's side, hoping she had not seen the flood of emotion that had crossed his face or the wet tracks it had left there.