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walked to the door. He stopped for a moment, turning to face Standish.
    â€œThanks,” he said.
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    The words followed the boy into the darkness of the night.
    Standish rose bleary-eyed from the bed, scratching his head and trying to get his thoughts in order. He would have to start on the root cellar. The sooner he could get the food underground the safer it would be.
    The thought of ham and baked potatoes poked into his consciousness and then the memory of the boy. Maybe the lad was a figment of his imagination. Maybe the scent of roasting ham had swooped Standish into a land of whimsy. He stretched, willing the bones of his body to find their proper nooks and crannies. A shiver ran through him. It was cold in the cabin, but not cold enough to wake him. That was a blessing. How many nights had he spent trying to fold his bedroll around himself to ward off the icy air?
    He pulled his pants from a nail on the wall. That had to be the nail where Bele had hung his pants. It was too convenient for chance. The shirt came next. A shiver ran through Standish. He bent over, picking up a new pair of socks. The old pair, sole protection for his feet longer than Standish liked to remember, had gone into the stove last night. For a moment, he was afraid that the fire might recoil from the socks, as he had.
    Bath, he needed a bath. He needed a bath more than he needed breakfast, and his need for breakfast was rubbing his belly raw. He needed to fuel himself for the day’s work. Tonight he would soak in the Last Chance Emporium’s largest bathtub. He needed to free himself of the dirt permeating his being.
    Standish pulled on his boots and dropped a cloth into a washbasin on the stove. He scrubbed his face and neck, shivers following each drop of water down his back. Still, the cold water woke him up. It had served its purpose.
    Cold outside, colder even than the cabin, and when Standish first stepped into a patch of sunshine, he felt as though he had been kissed by God. He stretched again, opening his pores to the rays of the sun.
    Standish stepped into the outhouse, reminding himself to add quicklime to the malodorous mess down the hole. The spring-loaded door slammed behind him as he walked to the barn. Both horses chuffed as the door opened.
    â€œGood morning, Sally. I hope you slept well last night. Don’t worry, Hortenzia, I’ll be with you in just a minute.”
    Standish gave the horses oats, and then carried a bucket of water for each of them from the spigot. “Not good to have breakfast without something to drink,” Standish said, thinking again about the boy who came to dinner the night before. Not much to him, a shock of red hair about the color of spring willows. Mostly the boy was skinny and hungry, hungry for a long time. Only the gnawing need to eat could have pulled him through the cabin’s door.
    What was it that the shopkeeper had said…something about a neighbor, a Mrs. Belshaw. No, he hadn’t said anything, but he had said nothing in such a way as to set a mind to wondering. The shopkeeper had spoken as though something about Mrs. Belshaw was too terrible to talk about.
    Standish shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. He shifted through the images of the boy last night. Hungry, no doubt about that. Certainly, the child wasn’t well dressed. His shirt was two sizes too small and dirty and torn. Shoes, what about the shoes? Yes, when he stepped out of the cabin, Standish had seen the holes in the bottom of the boy’s shoes. No socks. What else? No bruises, no marks indicating the boy had been beaten. What was it, then, about Mrs. Belshaw and her boy that so discombobulated the shopkeeper?
    That didn’t matter, Standish decided. What did matter was digging a hole for a root cellar. The easiest way to do that was with the slip he had seen behind the barn. A slip is like a large scoop shovel with a handle on both sides. A horse