Tolliver was at my side, helping me up. “You little son of a bitch,” he said to the boy before me. “Don’t touch her again. She wasn’t doing anything to you.”

I didn’t say anything, I only stared up into his eyes, my good arm across my middle. He might hit me again. I wanted to be ready this time.

But the only thing that happened was a lot of talk. Tom Almand apologized over and over. Tolliver made it clear he wasn’t going to let anyone else pound on me. He also made it clear that he didn’t want the boy anywhere around me again. Tom thought we shouldn’t have been trespassing. Tolliver said the police had been glad to welcome us here to this same spot the day before. Tom informed us that it wasn’t the day before and that we needed to get the hell off his property. Tolliver said we’d be glad to, and he was lucky we weren’t calling the police to report his son’s assault on my person.

I sagged against Tolliver as he helped me out to the car. He was in a complete state. He was trying so hard not to say “I told you so” that he was practically bursting at the seams. But God bless him, he managed not to say it.

“Tolliver,” I said, when we were safely in the car and on our way back to the cabin.

He stopped in mid rant. “Yes?”

“Right after he hit me, before he started yelling at me, the boy said, ‘I’m sorry. Come find me later,’” I said.

“I didn’t hear him say that.”

“He said it real low, so you wouldn’t hear. So his dad wouldn’t hear.”

“He said you should come find him?”

“He said he was sorry. Then he told me to come find him later.”

“So is he schizophrenic? Or is he trying to persuade his dad that he is?”

“I think he’s trying to persuade his dad of something, I’m not sure what.”

The rest of the drive back to the cabin, we were silent. I don’t know what was in Tolliver’s head, but mine was busy trying to understand what had just happened.

When we parked at the top of the slope again, we noticed that the Hamiltons’ place was silent and still except for the smoke rising from the chimney. Maybe they were taking a nap. That sounded like a good idea.

“I’m not pleased with myself, thinking like a seventy-year-old,” I grumped as we made our way down the drive to the steps up to the door.

“Oh, I bet we’ll think of something to do that the Hamiltons aren’t doing,” Tolliver said, in such an intimate voice I felt all of my blood rushing to a critical point.