The Last Runaway Read Free Page B

before?”
    Honor shook her head.
    “Keeps the snow off, and the bridge from freezing.”
    The bridges crossing streams and rivers from her childhood were stone and humped. Honor had not thought that something as fundamental as a bridge would be so different in America.
    They stopped after a few hours to give the horse water and oats, and to eat the cold corn mush Ohioans liked for breakfast. Afterwards Thomas disappeared into the woods. While he was gone Honor stood by the wagon and studied the trees on the other side of the track. They too were unfamiliar. Even trees like oaks and chestnuts she knew from before seemed different, the oak leaves more pointed and less curly, the chestnut leaves not in the fanned cluster she was accustomed to. The undergrowth looked foreign, dense and primitive, designed to keep people out.
    On his return Thomas nodded at the woods. “You’ll want relief.”
    “I—” Honor had been about to protest, but something in his manner made it clear she should obey him, the way one does a grandfather. Besides, she could not admit she was frightened of Ohio woods. She would have to get used to them at some point.
    She stepped off the track and into the trees, placing each foot with care onto dead leaves, mossy rocks and fallen branches. All around there was a raw, earthy smell of ferns and decay; rustling too, which Honor tried to ignore, reasoning that the noises must be made by mice or gray squirrels or the small brown rodents with furry tails and black and white stripes down their backs she had learned were called chipmunks. She had heard that the woods were home to wolves, panthers, porcupines, skunks, possums, raccoons and other animals that did not exist in England. Most she would not even recognize if she saw them—which in a way made them even more frightening. Apparently there were many snakes as well. She could only hope that none was in this patch of forest on this particular morning. When she was thirty feet or so from the road, Honor took a deep breath and forced herself to turn around so that she was facing the wagon, her back to the endless ranks of trees potentially hiding animals. Finding a place where she was shielded from Thomas, she lifted her skirts and squatted.
    Apart from the wind rustling the leaves and the birds singing, it was quiet. Honor heard Thomas open the hinged seat they had been sitting on, where there must be storage space. She heard his low voice, probably talking to the horse, reassuring it as Honor herself needed reassurance that wolves and panthers were not hovering. The horse replied in a low nicker.
    Honor stood up and rearranged her skirts. She could not relieve herself: being so exposed in the woods made her too tense. She looked around. This is as far from home as I can be, she thought, and I am alone. She shuddered, and ran back to the safety of the wagon.
    When she had climbed onto her seat, Thomas stamped his foot twice and they started again. Breakfast seemed to have awakened him. Though he did not speak, he began to hum a tune Honor did not recognize, probably a hymn of some sort. After a while the humming, the rattle of the wagon and jangling of the horse’s bridle, the wind, the birds—this ensemble of sounds lulled her, as did the track extending straight out of sight ahead of them, and the trees rippling by. She did not fall asleep, but settled into the familiar meditative state she knew from Meeting. It was as if she were having a two-person Meeting with Thomas right on the wagon—though Friends did not normally hum during it. Honor closed her eyes and allowed her body to sway naturally, harnessed to the rhythm of the wagon’s movement. Steady and comfortable at last, she sank down inside herself to wait for the Inner Light.
    It was all too easy to be distracted during Meeting for Worship. Sometimes her mind would be crowded with thoughts about a cramp in her leg, or remembering that she had forgotten to run an errand for her mother, or