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there was a breeze. He shivered as he climbed down from the trailer. I had water boiling over a fire.
    “Morning,” he said. “Been up long?”
    If he used his eyes he would see the pile of fresh shavings and newly stacked shingles by the shaving horse at the south end of the clearing. “There’s coffee in the pot but I’m boiling more water if you want fresh. I have some apples, and what’s left of yesterday’s rice, but if you want eggs or bread, then you’d be better off eating on the road.”
    “Not too subtle, as hints go.”
    “I put a list of the clothes and other things I’ll need in the glove compartment of your car.”
    He nodded, but frowned. I waited. “I won’t, ah, I won’t bring any guns. Not across state lines.”
    “I don’t need a gun. Here.” I handed him a cup of scalding black coffee.
    “Ah, bless you.” He sipped, seemed to enjoy it as much as a fresh latte from one of his Borealis cafés.
    “The day after tomorrow, then.”
    “Aud…”
    “Drive carefully.”
    He smiled at me oddly, and carried his coffee to the Isuzu. The engine caught with a metallic shudder. He waved. I nodded. He turned in a circle and went back the way he’d come, leaving me to the wind and the birds and the smell of sawdust.

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CHAPTER TWO
    « ^ »
    I t was nearly midday and the clouds long gone by the time I hammered the last shingle into place and sat back. The birds were quiet, the sun streamed down, and for a moment the valley felt like a place out of time, secret and silent and still, where no one intruded and nothing ever happened. Then I saw that the gilding on the trees up the mountain wasn’t just sun but the first tints of autumn which would seep downhill until all was copper and russet and gold and, not long after that, bare.
    I climbed down the ladder and rattled the extension down after me; this afternoon I wanted to work on the ground-floor window framing. Once they were glazed, the cabin would be weatherproof.
    It would have been easy to buy precut framing, just as it would to get already-made roof shingles, but the fine details kept me anchored. I’d already split out the boards from good pine, and dressed them with what was probably the same drawing knife that had been used on the original. I’d found it with a stack of other tools in the falling-down hogpen years ago, when my father’s will had cleared probate and I first saw the place. Many of them had been too rusted to be saved but some I’d taken back to Atlanta, where I had sanded off the rust, sharpened the blades, and fitted new handles of smooth hickory. Then I’d oiled and wrapped them, and forgotten them, until grief drove me from the city and I made my way here, somehow, with everything I needed, without even knowing how or why, except that I had to rescue something from ruin.
    That meant no shortcuts. The original framing had been fastened to the logs with locust wood pegs. I’d destroyed those pegs pulling the rotting frames out, so I would have to make more. Metal pegs rot wood; it takes several decades, but every day I would imagine the deterioration eating at the logs and pine uprights.
    The pile of seasoning lumber smelled of sunshine and brittle beetle wings. I had to unstack several pieces before I found the plank of yellow locust I’d split out when I’d first arrived. I hefted it onto my shoulder, careful of its rough edges, then realized I should have worn gloves. Both hands were a mess of splinter scars, new, healing, and half faded. I should have been wearing gloves for months.
    The sawhorse stood in the sun. There was still no breeze, and cutting can be heavy work, so I picked it up with my left hand and carried it and the plank into the shade. There was no pain now in the injured arm and shoulder, not even a twinge.
    I marked the plank at inch intervals with a blue pencil, picked up the saw, and braced the plank on the horse with my left knee. Yellow locust is dense and hard, but the bright steel teeth