It was like walking through a park at first or going off trail on a hike, never mind that he could hear the whisper of water surrounding the island. He found remnants of previous lives scattered here and there. Pieces of broken pottery, circles in the ground where dozens, maybe hundreds of pit fires had burned through, changing the landscape forever. He saw birds nesting, squirrels, and nutria rats. It was too cold for water moccasins, but in another season he would have added them to the list of wildlife. He’d been walking for twelve minutes or so before he came upon something that stopped him in his tracks. He stood so still he could hear the water dripping down his pants onto the hard, packed earth. He was staring at a conical hut almost identical to the one near Margaret’s people in Hopetown, only this one had rotted through in places, and part of its roof was hanging down. Through the holes in the wood-and-straw wall, Darren saw a flash of movement. He screamed Levi’s name and ran toward the hut.

He was within a few inches of it when a rock flew by his head. Another shot out of the hut, this one hitting him squarely on his left shoulder. A third rock hit Darren’s hip bone. “Go away,” he heard a voice say, one that was choked with snot and raw with rage. “I will kill you. I swear I will.”

Darren had to duck his considerable height to make it into the hut. What had been a holy site for Caddo Indians at one point now smelled like piss and bologna and the funk of an unwashed child missing for days. He was scrawnier than Darren had imagined, but maybe nearly a week out here without proper nutrition had whittled the boy down to this; his clavicle was showing through the oversize flannel shirt he was wearing, one of Leroy Page’s, Darren guessed. He wore the old man’s dungarees too, rolled three or four times at the ankle. He was covered in chigger bites that he’d scratched into angry red welts. Darren saw older scars on his legs too. He remembered Marnie saying Gil had hit the boy before and thought of all the wounds he didn’t wear on his skin.

“Let’s get you out of here, Levi.”

“I ain’t doing nothing niggers say do no more.”

“I’m here to take you home,” Darren said, crouching before the boy.