“You was lonesome then,” I said, “and you are now. I can tell it. Why wont you let me love you?”

“All right. I am lonesome. That make you feel better?” He turned his face away. “Carrie, you ask too much. You would take what I do so damn serious. I like a woman to help me forgit. With you, I’d never git away from it.”

“You dont know that. You’ve never given me a chance.”

“I aint ready to give you a chance. I aint ready to give nobody a chance.” He nodded toward the door. “Let’s go back inside.”

“No. Hit’s too close in there. I dont feel very good.”

“Suit yourself. But I got to pick some more ifn I want to git paid.”

Inside I watched him put his arms around Isom’s shoulders. They laughed together. I turned up the road toward Albion’s, stumbling in the darkness. Once I fell and skinned the palms of my hands. At last I reached the barn. The rough board door opened with a rusty scream and I went inside. A bat flapped past my head and then all was still.

“Old man,” I whispered, “I know how you felt.”

I groped past the mule and the milk cow, found an empty stall and huddled in the corner.

“Come git me!” I called out. “I dare you. Make me crazy like you.”

The sleeping cow breathed with a slow, regular snuffling sound. My eyelids were heavy. I leaned back against a bale of hay. Albion would not find me here. No one would ever find me and I would never need to be with anyone again.

When I woke it was still dark. A hand rested on my shoulder and a light blinded me.

“Carrie? Thank the Lord! I was worried to death trying to find where you’d gone, and when I saw you a laying like that—you was—your head was all rolled back like—”

I sat up and rubbed my stiff neck. Albion set down the lantern and knelt beside me.

“Why’d you have to find me?” I moaned. I burst into tears. “Leave me be.”

“No. I aint leaving you alone. You had enough of that. And so have I. You aint the only one that’s been crying tonight. I been doing nothing but walking and crying ever since I seen how you looked at that feller. I been fooling myself, I reckon, because you aint never looked at me that a way, and I doubt you ever will.”

“You mean you aint seen Granny Combs tonight?”

“I aint seen Granny Combs. I walked to the head of Kingdom Come and back down to the school. Since then I been looking for you.”

“I wanted to be with that old man that kilt himself. I know how he hurt.”

“No. Hit’s a different hurt. You dont want to be like him.”