My mother still has not said anything. But she does raise one eyebrow as she looks at me, sitting as I am with my chin on my chest and nothing but the crumbs from the big meal I’ve just consumed on the table in front of me.

She’s ready to listen.

I’m not ready to talk about it. How can I be? I have no idea what to say. I don’t even know what questions I want to ask.

I lift my head.

“Wado, agi etsi,” I say. “Thank you, my mother.”

I force a smile on to my face. “You are the best cook in Willstown.”

That brings a smile to my mother’s face, in spite of her concern. If you want to make your mother happy, tell her that you like the food she has made for you. It always works.

But now what? How long can I hold this smile before the weight of my worries pulls it back down into a frown?

I stand up.

“I . . . I am . . .” my eyes dart around the cabin.

What am I going to do? I’ve done all the chores that needed doing. It is not yet time to milk the cow and my mother already brought in the eggs from our hens. There’s nothing in the slop bucket to feed the hogs. And I mended every place in the fences that needed work.

Then I catch sight of my cane pole leaning in the corner. “I am going fishing!”

I walk purposefully over to the pole, pick it up. I can see out of the corner of my eye that my mother is nodding.

Good, she is thinking. His mind is on getting food, not going back again to his father.

“Wish me luck,” I say as I go out the door. “I will bring back a big fat catfish for you to fry.”

“Good luck, my son,” she calls after me. “I know that you will do well.”

I think that she does not notice that I have neglected to take anything along with me for bait. If I was really going to try to catch a catfish, I would be taking along some pieces of cheese or scraps of meat for my hook.

Perhaps she also did not notice me pause for the briefest moment before going down the steps from the porch.

That pause was to pick up the sheathed knife that my father loaned to me from where I had hidden it just beneath the outside windowsill.

CHAPTER 11

An Uncertain Fish

I’ve been here by the stream long enough for the sun to pass well into the midafternoon sky. My cane pole is next to me, but the line—which has nothing but a bare hook at its end—is still wound around the pole. I’ve been doing something other than fishing.