“I’ll go with you,” Isom said. “Make sure nobody bothers you on the train.”

“Your mommy and daddy must be tore up,” C.J. said.

“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “They’re real tore up.”

He raised his head at the tone of my voice.

“It’s you I’ll miss,” I said. He smiled.

“Talcott?” Isom asked.

“I aint talked to him. You better watch he dont kill nobody over this.”

“We can still yet play music in Kentucky,” Isom said. “Aint that far.”

“Sure,” I said.

We rode the train to Justice, the gun thugs following all the way. We went into a cafe on Court Street and bought some ham sandwiches. Then we gave the thugs the slip in a dark alley. Around midnight we found a swinging bridge across the Levisa.

“What’s your name?” Isom asked.

“Lloyd Justice.”

“Good.” Isom grinned. “They’s a passel of us Justices in these parts. One more wont make no difference. You write my daddy. Aint nobody will mess with his mail. He’s got friends, you know?”

We shook hands.

“Dont git a new fiddle player,” he said.

The bridge was an old one, not well kept up, and some of the slats were missing. I went slowly, gripping the railing and swaying, bearing on my shoulders the death of Johnson, the abandonment of my brothers, the renunciation of my mother. I stepped onto the firm ground of Kentucky. Isom was a shadow on the distant shore. I waved to him. Then I headed south toward Pond Creek.

Part Two

Nine

CARRIE BISHOP

I HAVE TRAVELED OUTSIDE THE MOUNTAINS, BUT NEVER LIVED apart from them. I always feared mountains could be as jealous, as unforgiving, as any spurned lover. Leave them and they may never take you back. Besides, I never felt a need to go. There is enough to study in these hills to last a lifetime.

Justice town, where I went to nursing school, is different from Grapevine. Grace Hospital is built so high up the hillside that I could see much of Justice and Paine counties from my window in the nurses’ quarters. I loved to rise early in the morning and watch the mists rise like ghosts from the far hilltops.