It wasn’t until they were back on the road that it occurred to her belatedly that he had just probably fed her his supper, and he’d given her that pasty out of pure kindness of heart when he saw how poorly provisioned she was. But she couldn’t un-eat it, so all she could do was be thankful for it, determined to add him to her evening prayers. At least they had roasting ears, her cornbread, and berries, so he wouldn’t go to sleep hungry.

Finally they moved onto a road running down the middle of a broad spit of tree-covered land with a couple of small houses on it that ended at the Lake. And here the Lake was even broader than it was back at Soddy. Late afternoon sun made everything a mellow gold, the rippling surface of the Lake looked molten, and that green-water smell was back again.

Dead ahead of them was a dock, and tied up to it was a contraption so perilous-looking that Anna felt a wash of terror at the thought that this thing and it alone was going to take them across the lake to the other side.

It was a cobbled-together raft-like contrivance roughly big enough to hold a couple of wagons, with nothing more than a couple of ropes serving as railings. It looked as if it was floating barely above the water. There was a sort of shack at one side of it in the middle, and on the opposite side, what looked like a water wheel.

“That there’s the Igou Ferry,” said Jeb. “Thet’ll get us t’other side, an’ if the current ain’t bad, we kin get fur enough along the road on t’other side that there’s a farmer I know’ll let us use his haybarn fer the night.”

Anna wasn’t given a chance to comment or object. As she clung to the wagon seat, the mule pulled the wagon aboard the rickety thing, not stopping until her hooves were nearly in the water at the front. Jeb climbed down, took eight wedges of wood from under the seat, and wedged two under each wheel to keep the wagon from rolling either forward or back, then came around to her side and held out his hand to her. “Gotta come down, Annie,” he coaxed. “Y’all bein’ up there so high, least little move y’all make’ll start the whole thing a-rockin, an’ y’all don’ want that.”

No, she most assuredly did not! Moving as carefully as if she and the wagon were made of glass, she eased herself down to the wood of the raft with his help. And since the dubious shelter of the cabin seemed to be the least fragile spot on the entire ferry, she plastered her back to it.

Smoke came from a tin chimney on the roof, puffs of steam from the window in the rear of the shed, and she felt and heard a steady thumping and chuffing on the other side of that wall. A man with a cloth “bucket” hat on his head, in overalls streaked with black grease and a faded flannel shirt, came out of the shed to greet Jeb. They clearly knew each other very well, and exchanged some jokes she simply didn’t get. “An’ who’s this?” the man asked after a bit of joshing, turning to her.