wisps of hair behind her ear.
âMaybe the same reason as you,â Sinkler said. âItâs
not like you can get whisked away from here. I havenât seen more than a couple
of cars and trucks on this road, and those driving them know thereâs prisoners
about. They wouldnât be fool enough to pick up a stranger. Havenât seen a lot of
train tracks either.â
âAnybody ever try?â Lucy asked.
âYeah, two weeks ago. Fellow ran that morning and
the bloodhounds had him grabbing sky by dark. All he got for his trouble was a
bunch of tick bites and briar scratches. That and another year added to his
sentence.â
For the first time since sheâd gone to fetch her
husband, Lucy stepped off the porch and put some distance between her and the
door. The rifle and axe too, which meant that she was starting to trust him at
least a little. She stood in the yard and looked up at an eave, where black
insects hovered around clots of dried mud.
âThem dirt daubers is a nuisance,â Lucy said. âI
knock their nests down and they build them back the next day.â
âIâd guess them to be about the only thing that
wants to stay around here, donât you think?â
âYouâve got a saucy way of talking,â she said.
âYou donât seem to mind it too much,â Sinkler
answered, and nodded toward the field. âAn older fellow like that usually keeps
a close eye on a pretty young wife, but he must be the trusting sort, or is it
he just figures heâs got you corralled in?â
He lifted the full buckets and stepped close enough
to the barn not to be seen from the field. âYou donât have to stand so far from
me, Lucy Sorrels. I donât bite.â
She didnât move toward him but she didnât go back
to the porch, either.
âIf you was to escape, where would you go?â
âMight depend on who was going with me,â Sinkler
answered. âWhat kind of place would you like to visit?â
âLike youâd just up and take me along. Iâd likely
that about as much as them daubers flying me out of here.â
âNo, Iâd need to get to know my traveling partner
better,â Sinkler said. âMake sure she really cared about me. That way she
wouldnât take a notion to turn me in.â
âYou mean for the reward money?â
Sinkler laughed.
âYouâve got to be a high cloud to have a reward put
on you, darling. Theyâd not even bother to put my mug in a post office, which is
fine by me. Buy my train ticket and Iâd be across the Mississippi in two days.
Matter of fact, Iâve got money enough saved to buy two tickets.â
âEnough for two tickets?â she asked.
âI do indeed.â
Lucy looked at her bare feet, placed one atop the
other as a shy child might. She set both feet back on the ground and looked
up.
âWhy come you to think a person would turn you in
if there ainât no reward?â
âBad conscienceâwhich is why Iâve got to be sure my
companion doesnât have one.â Sinkler smiled. âLike I said, you donât have to
stand so far away. We could even step into the barn for a few minutes.â
Lucy looked toward the field and let her gaze
linger long enough that he thought she just might do it.
âI have chores to get done,â she said and went into
the shack.
Sinkler headed back down the road, thinking things
out. By the time he set the sloshing buckets beside the prison truck, heâd
figured a way to get Lucy Sorrelsâs dress raised with more than just sweet talk.
Heâd tell her there was an extra set of truck keys in a guardâs front desk he
could steal. Once the guards were distracted, heâd jump in the truck, pick her
up, head straight to Asheville, and catch the first train out. It was a damn
good story, one Sinkler himself might have believed if he didnât know that all
the
Carol Marrs Phipps, Tom Phipps