“As a teenager, my younger brother, Samuel, did odd jobs for an English neighbor. One evening, he came home with a battery-powered radio. He said the man gave it to him as a gift—that was his story anyway—and he stashed it in the hayloft.” He shifted in the seat, running his palms over his thighs. “Most nights, my cousins and brothers and I gathered behind the barn and listened to it when our parents were asleep. One of us stood watch, and the rest huddled around like it was some kind of magical box. We played it so quietly we could hardly hear the music, but I remember this song.”

A contraband radio. The guy was more interesting with every passing minute. She lowered the volume on the stereo. “Jonas Rishel, you rebel. Did you ever get caught?”

He hooked his thumbs in his waistband and puffed his chest. “I was the oldest and stood watch most often. I was very good at my job.”

Imagining him standing sentry behind that big red barn, she let out a giggle. “Do you still have the radio?” He gave a solemn nod, but the rascally glint persisted.

“But we never played it after that summer. One night during tobacco harvest, my youngest brother, Micah, was on watch. He must have been ten at the time. We were all exhausted from working the fields and far too tired to listen to music, but still, one by one, we sneaked out of the house. We were only outside half an hour or so when we heard our father’s voice. ‘Wake up, Micah Rishel! Where are your brothers?’ ”

She gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh, no.”

“Samuel picked up that radio so fast I didn’t see his hand move and threw it as hard as he could into the woods. Seconds later, my father appeared.”

A laugh burbled from her throat. “What did you do?”

Bracing his right hand on the dash and his left on the back of her seat, he turned with a bounce. His hat bumped the headrest and slid cockeyed. “I was terrified. We all were. We just stared at our feet and waited for the switch. But Samuel was fearless. In the sweetest, clearest voice, he said, ‘Father, have you come to pray with us?’ Standing there in the moonlight, he looked so like an angel come down from Heaven my father believed him.” He shook his head, one corner of his mouth lifting into a smile. “For the night, anyway. The next day while my father worked us to the bone hanging tobacco in the barn, Samuel slipped away and scoured the fields for that radio, but he couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“It was gone?”

“So we thought. Until a couple of nights later, after supper, we took a swim in the creek. I waded upstream a ways and, all of a sudden, I stepped on something hard.” He let out a laugh.