Despite all Fiji had to occupy her thoughts, soon the walking became more difficult as the ground began to rise. This land had never been settled or farmed, and it had only been grazed by extremely hearty goats. She stumbled more than once as she made her way across the rocky terrain that gradually rose to end abruptly on the cliff overlooking the riverbed. Keeping her eyes on her feet was a pain, but necessary. There were rocks; there were snakes. You had to be alert here.

Fiji saw something slithering off into the shelter of a rock just at that moment, and she snarled at it. She was not a happy camper. She was not any kind of camper at all.

“You okay?” said Bobo, and she looked up. He’d walked back to check on her. Goddess bless him, he was a kind man.

“I’m fine,” she lied, feeling the blush on her cheeks. “I’m not a great hiker. I’m kinda slow. But steady!” she added brightly. Briefly, she considered apologizing for intruding on him the other night, but she concluded that she had nothing to apologize for.

“You don’t have to be fast,” he said, falling into step with her. “You got nothing to prove.”

“No, I don’t,” she agreed, glad to look at it that way. “Not a damn thing.”

“Where are you from, originally?” Bobo asked. “I can’t believe we’ve never talked about it. Shared our origin story, as they say.” Sharing personal data was not a casual thing in Midnight. As if he feared his question might be too intrusive, he volunteered, “I’m from Arkansas.”

“I grew up outside Houston,” Fiji said. “But my mom’s folks were originally from this general area. West of Fort Worth. My great-aunt, who was way older than my grandmother, married Wesley Loeffler, who had settled here. They met at a dance, Aunt Mildred told me.” She smiled. Quite a few people had thought Mildred Loeffler was cross and crotchety, and a few more had feared her. But Fiji had loved the old woman.

“And what did Wesley do?”

“He ran the five-and-dime, the one that’s boarded up just north of the filling station. Back then, they all thought that Midnight would grow, that it would outshine Davy.”

“What happened to Wesley?” Bobo asked.

“He died pretty young; at least, what we would think of as young. I believe he had complications from a ruptured appendix. He and Great-Aunt Mildred never had any kids, and she never married again.”

“Tough,” Bobo said. “How’d she make a living?”