“We’ll manage somehow, Mama.”
And then Papa boosted her aboard Grace, and Dag, wrapping his reins around his hook, got himself up on tall Copperhead in one smooth lunge despite his sling.
“Take care of her, patroller,” Papa said gruffly.
Dag nodded. “I intend to, sir.”
Nattie gripped Fawn’s knee, and whispered, “You take care o’ him, too, lovie.
The way that fellow sheds pieces, it may be the thornier task.”
Fawn bent down toward Nattie’s ear. “I intend to.”
And then they were off, to a rain of good-byes but no other sort; the afternoon was warm and fair, and only half-spent. They would be well away from West Blue by time to camp tonight. The farmstead fell behind as they wended down the lane, and was soon obscured by the trees.
“We did it,” Fawn said in relief. “We got away again. For a while I never thought I would.”
“I did say I wouldn’t abandon you,” Dag observed, his eyes a brighter gold in this light than the beads on the ends of her marriage cord.
Fawn turned back in her saddle for one last look up the hill. “You didn’t have to do it this way.”
“No. I didn’t.” The eyes crinkled. “Think about it, Spark.”
Attempting to exchange a kiss from the backs of two variously tall and differently paced horses resulted in a sort of promissory sideswipe, but it was fully satisfactory in intent. They turned their mounts onto the river road.
It was all a perfect opposite to her first flight from home. Then she had gone in secret, in the dark, alone, afraid, angry, afoot, all her meager possessions in a thin blanket rolled on her back. Even the direction was reversed: south, instead of north as now.
In only one aspect were the journeys the same. Each felt like a leap into the utterly unknown.