“Where’re you headed?” he asks over the noise of the rain beating down around us. His voice dips and falls like it’s dancing to its own music.

“I been hired out,” I tell him. “I’m headed back to the Johnson plantation.” I reach into my pocket for my pass to prove I ain’t a runway. He don’t look like a slave catcher, but then he don’t need to be one to check me. The pass is damp and the ink is blurring. I don’t know if the words are too watered over to read, but I hold it out to him anyway.

“What’s that?”

“My pass, sir.”

He looks at me like he don’t know I got to show him a pass if he asks for it. As I hold it, heavy drops of rain hit the paper, smearing it worse.

“I don’t need to see that,” he says. He turns to his skittish horse and scratches its neck.

I fold the pass and tuck it back into my pocket. The rain is coming down harder and I press in a little closer to the trunk and wring out the hem of my dress.

“I’m looking to see what blacksmithing I can find on the estates around here,” he says, crossing over to his chestnut horse and stroking the wet from its mane. “I just worked a stretch at a tobacco farm a few miles past the last town.” He tips his head the way we came. “The Parson’s plantation.”

I ain’t been off Jubilee since I got here, except for the last few days at the Wellebys. Never heard of a Parson plantation. I bite my lip and keep quiet.

He steps away from his horses and faces me. “So, do you know any plantations nearby that could use a blacksmith?” His eyes are soft and he smells of wood-fire smoke.

I shake my head, and look down at the scuffed leather of his shoes.

A boom of thunder cracks across the sky startling him, me and his horses. The gray one bucks and he grabs its reins, talking to it soft and calm. The next crack of thunder is even louder and the horse thrashes against his harness and tries to rear. Soon enough, the chestnut one starts to bucking every which way too. They’re going to hurt themselves tied up to the wagon like that. The man reaches over, unhooking the large gray as thunder cracks a third time. The horse jerks back as he’s releasing it, driving the coupling into his hand.

“Ahh, damn it! Bloody hell!” he roars. The man cradles his hand under his arm as the gray horse shoots off up the road. “Begging your pardon,” he says to me.

My face pulls up in surprise for him to be begging my anything. I want to tell him to show me his hand. If he’s cut himself, I can help, but I don’t say it. Instinctively, though, my eyes search the scrub grass for feathery clumps of yarrow plants while he frees the second horse.