“He was baiting me,” Lady Mae said suddenly.

“Who was?”

“The Deputy. The one that came to see me.”

“How’d he bait you?”

“Just think he was trying to get me to do something, say something. Heard it in his voice, the way he just showed up at the depot and talked about your pa.”

She slipped. “Arbuckle, I didn’t mean—he didn’t—”

But there, in her living room, it was done. Arbuckle sat stock still, his chin taut, and stared at Lady Mae as if he had never seen her before. She thought he was furious, but it was not anger that he worked in his jaw. No, it was a heavy sadness.

“Arbuckle, I—”

“What do you mean talked about my pa?” He moved his arm off of Lady Mae and turned on the sofa to look at her.

“He was just trying to get to me—knew talking about you would—said he saw you by your—where your shack was.”

“And?” he asked.

“Said something about you going the same way as your pa.”

“That all?”

She wished she could lie to him, but he was Arbuckle and knew her no doubt as well as he knew his own heart. And so she admitted, “Weren’t just that. Something about the way he said it—don’t know, sounded like something, though.” She was just talking, unsure of what she was even saying. How could she describe the thick warning that he spat at her, how it had tumbled toward her like a weed? “My mama,” Lady Mae said. “She hadn’t thought—didn’t think to ask the why or the how. And I guess for a second she was there doing the asking. I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Go on now. What did he say?”

“Didn’t say nothing, not really. Said something about hoping you weren’t more trouble than you’re worth. Don’t know. Maybe I imagined it.”

A look that she would remember up until her last moments came across his shadowed face. It was not one of curiosity nor alarm as she expected it to be. Instead, a kind of revelatory satisfaction danced about his chiseled features, as if the thing she said he had known all along and had been merely biding his time until she realized it herself.

“You didn’t imagine it. I knew that fire weren’t no accident.”

“How do you know? He could’ve meant anything by it—”

Arbuckle brought his hand up to her cheek, brushed his fingers on her skin. “Same as I know what I got to do right now.”

“You ain’t doing nothing. And that’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Well, it weren’t yours to keep from me.”

Lady Mae wished to put her arms around him and say of course it was him and he took them both from us and even though he was a bastard, he was your father still. She wanted to pull his head down to hers and kiss his cheeks and his eyelids. But then he said, “Go on and get some things together. We’ll leave as soon as it’s dark.”