In all our years of marriage I had never been pregnant. We both wanted a baby. Inside the tent, we often pushed our cots together and made love gingerly so as not to tip over onto the ground. But Albion always withdrew before we were done, frightened to have me expecting a child while we lived in such a state.

In mid-October the leaves turned and the nights grew colder. The tents in the morning were stiff with frost. Two scabs were shot to death at Felco, and the Number Eight tipple burned to the ground. The camp buzzed with rumors the next day.

“When the leaves fall we wont have no cover to shoot from,” one man said. “Our women and babies will freeze. Hit’s time to shit or git offn the pot.”

His name was Cecil Nunally. He was talking to Dr. Booker while I bathed his little girl. She had a fever of 104. After I towelled her dry, her mother took her up in a blanket and pressed her to her chest. The lint from the woman’s shawl clung to the child’s dry lips.

Isom Justice sent word that Albion should come to his house at nine o’clock that night.

“You come too,” Albion said. “Hit will be warm in the house.”

“They may not want me there.”

“Ifn they dont, you can talk to Gladys.”

I went gratefully, for the nights were now so cold that the only comfort was to huddle close to those you lived with. The Justices lived in a solid brick house on the hill at the end of Main Street.

Rondal Lloyd stood by the fireplace in the sitting room. He acknowledged me with a brief nod. His brother was there, and Dr. Booker and Ermel. Gladys welcomed me in and took me to the kitchen for hot chocolate. I sat by the stove and shivered with pleasure.

I liked Gladys Justice. She had stiff brown hair wrestled into a bun at the nape of her neck, full cheeks, and dusty skin which looked like it should be freckled but wasn’t. An oval picture of her dead father dangled on a chain at her neck.

The voices in the next room grew suddenly heated. Gladys and I looked at one another, and without a word picked up our chairs and went into the parlor.

“How the hell would they find out?” Rondal was shouting. “Who would tell them?” He looked at Albion but said nothing further.

Gladys leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“Cesco Thompson called Isom on the telephone from his honky-tonk. Said some gun thugs had been to his place drunk and was talking loose. They knowed exactly where Rondal was going to sleep tonight and aim to kill him.”

“I’ll just have to sleep somewhere else,” Rondal said.

“Hell you will,” Isom replied. “You know what the rumors is. Word is, you’re a dead man ifn you aint out of here soon.”