Chapter 1

Winter, 1994. A cold wind rattled the newspaper stuffed into the cracks around the window.

A bright red double-happiness paper was pasted on the peeling mud wall, and the cheap candle spat out a puff of dim yellow flame.

I sat curled in the corner clutching an old rolled-up bedroll, not daring to lift my head and look at the bride perched on the edge of the kang.

"We don't really have feelings for each other yet, so you take the bed, I'll sleep on the floor, and we'll let things grow slow." I forced the words out, stammering.

The moment I finished, there was a sharp swish. She yanked the red veil off her head and threw it hard in my face.

Her eyes were red, tears welling up in them, and she glared at me through gritted teeth. "If I hadn't faked being crazy, how could a bastard like you ever have gotten to marry me?!"

My name is Nathaniel Dickerson, born in a village so dirt-poor it barely made a sound, out on the edge of the Appalachian hill country.

Three generations of my family had scratched a living out of the soil. How poor? The iron pot we chopped and cooked in had been patched three times over.

I made it to the second grade, and then my family couldn't come up with the two dollars for the tuition.

My father squatted on the doorsill smoking his pipe half the night. The next morning he pushed a chipped, notched sickle into my hand, and just like that I dropped out and started working the fields.

That day the fall harvest had just finished, and the next village over, Fairview, had hired a rag-tag troupe to put on an opera.

Grown-ups and kids alike went pouring over there like they'd lost their minds, and I got swept along in the crowd.

Under the stage the dust hung thick in the air, and the whole place smelled of cheap pipe smoke and roasted sweet potato.

And right there in that rowdy crowd, I saw her for the first time. Carrie Fox.

She wore a floral blouse washed pale but perfectly clean, her hair combed into two glossy black braids.

She sat quietly on a little stool, cupping a small handful of shelled peanuts in her hands.

A bunch of runny-nosed little boys stood around her, watching her with hungry eyes.

She was smiling as she doled the peanuts out to them, and under that dust-covered stage her smile was so clean it hurt to look at.

The days went by one after another, and I grew into a half-grown young man.

My family was still too poor, so I borrowed a beat-up cart from the village and hauled our own cabbages and radishes to the town market to sell, up before dawn and back after dark.

The cart's wheels needed grease, so it screeched and groaned every time I pushed it, and the skin on my shoulder rubbed raw, scabbed over, and rubbed raw again.

That noon, the sun was fierce enough to melt the crust of the ground, and I was squatting in a corner of the market gnawing on a cold cornbread.

Then, from around the corner of the alley, came a burst of jeering laughter and a girl's cry of alarm.

I stuck my head out to look. A few small-town punks with dyed-yellow hair, the swaggering trashy kind, had a girl with a school bag pinned against a brick wall.

"What are you running for, sweetheart? Come watch a movie with us at the video parlor!" The ringleader reached out to grab the girl's braid.

The girl fought with everything she had, and her school bag dropped, the books inside scattering across the ground.

I looked closer. Wasn't that Carrie Fox? She'd have just started middle school around then, and she was scared so pale her face had gone white.

Something roared in my head. I slammed the half-eaten cornbread down on the ground, snatched up the carrying pole I used to shoulder my vegetables, and charged over.

"Let her go! In broad daylight, what do you think you're doing!" I bellowed, and swung the pole straight across the ringleader's back.

The punk went down with a scream, and the other two, seeing it, pulled bricks from their waistbands and came lunging at me.

I'd done heavy field work since I was small, so I was freakishly strong, and I saw red and swung wild until I'd flat-out beaten all three of them into scrambling off with their heads down.

Once they'd run off a ways, they stood at the mouth of the alley stamping their feet and cursing. "You just wait, kid! Don't you dare set foot in town again if you've got the guts!"

I stood there hauling in ragged breaths, dropped the pole, and turned to look at Carrie huddled against the wall.

She was shaking all over, tears welling in her eyes, but she bit down hard on her lip so she wouldn't make a sound.

I bent down and picked up her books one by one, brushed the dirt off them, and tucked them back into her bag before handing it to her.

I dug a folding pocketknife out of my pants pocket, the one I used to peel apples, its handle worn down until the red paint was all gone.

I pushed the knife into her hand and looked her dead in the eye, my face serious.

"From now on, don't back down. Any time some piece of trash like this dares to bully you, you take this knife and stab him!" I said, my voice rough.

She stared blankly at the little knife in her hand, then looked up at my mud-smeared face, and gave a hard nod.