Chapter 2

The years slipped by until it was the early nineties, and everyone our age had reached the age for talking marriage.

The village head's son in the next village over was getting married, and they'd set out more than a dozen tables for an open feast. Since our two families counted as distant kin, far enough removed to barely count, my parents sent me off to go eat at the wedding.

That day the yard was packed and loud, the smell of hearty pork-and-cabbage stew mixing with the sharp burn of cheap whiskey and drifting through the air.

I couldn't stand the racket. I gulped down two quick bowls of rice, then made an excuse about needing to check the irrigation ditch out in the fields and slipped off early.

Passing the tall cornfield at the edge of the village, I suddenly heard the sound of arguing.

"Carrie, I mean it, I'm serious about you! My dad just bought me a brand-new motorcycle. Be my girl!" a man's voice came, quick and urgent.

I pushed the corn leaves aside and looked. It was Dwayne Porter from our village, arms spread wide, pinning Carrie Fox against a haystack with no way out.

Carrie clutched the hem of her shirt, terror all over her face, backing away without stopping. "Get out of my way! I don't like you. Don't come near me!"

When she wouldn't say yes, Dwayne got desperate and stepped forward to grab her hand.

A hot, nameless rage flared up in me out of nowhere, and I strode out of the cornfield.

"What do you think you're doing!" I shoved Dwayne back with one hand and put myself in front of Carrie.

Dwayne stumbled, then saw it was me and spat on the ground with a sneer. "Nathaniel Dickerson? A penniless nobody like you playing the hero for a girl?"

I didn't bother with him. I turned and looked at Carrie, scared out of her wits, and my head went hot. I said it loud. "Keep your hands off her. She and I got engaged a long time ago!"

The words landed and Dwayne froze. Carrie stared at me too, her eyes going wide.

And right at that moment, a mess of footsteps came from the mouth of the path.

Carrie's parents had happened to leave the feast just then, and they heard every word.

Her mother rushed over two steps at a time, yanked Carrie behind her, and jabbed a finger at my nose, cursing at the top of her lungs.

"Ha! What are you, exactly? Go take a good look at your own sorry, dirt-poor self!" Her finger nearly poked me in the eye.

Her father's face went dark too, and he cut in, cold. "A family that can't even afford one whole ox, wearing pants patched in four places, and you think a toad like you gets to eat swan meat?"

People passing by stopped one after another to point and mutter, the buzz of their talk landing on my face like slaps.

"Dad, Mom! Don't talk to him like that, he helped me before!" Carrie was so upset the tears came, and she pulled hard at her mother's sleeve.

"You shut your mouth! Haven't you embarrassed us enough?" Her mother's hand came back around and slapped down on the back of Carrie's hand.

The crisp crack was piercing there beside the cornfield. Carrie clutched her hand, gave me one look full of despair, and turned and ran crying back into the village.

I stood where I was, both hands clenched into fists, nails digging deep into my flesh, and couldn't get out a single word to fight back.

That evening, sick at heart, I was crouched in the dim cowshed adding fodder for our old ox.

Then came a stumbling set of footsteps outside, and a figure slammed hard into the doorframe.

I looked back and got a bad scare. It was my childhood friend Morgan Clayton.

He had both hands pressed hard over his head, blood dripping down between his fingers, drip after drip, staining a big patch of his white undershirt red.

"Morgan! What happened to you? Did somebody rob you on the road?" I dropped the fodder and rushed to hold him up.

Morgan sucked air through his teeth against the pain, baring them as he swore. "Robbed my ass! I... I just went to Fairview to tell Carrie how I feel about her."

I froze. "She did that?"

Morgan bellowed, beside himself. "Damn right she did! I'd barely said I was sweet on her when she grabbed a rock off the ground, big as half a bowl, and smashed it straight down on my head!"

I looked at the three-inch gash on Morgan's head, and it made my skin crawl.

"Is she crazy or what? She used to be such a good, quiet girl!" Morgan kept cursing, the towel pressed against his head.

I stood in the cowshed, breathing the sharp reek of manure, and a heavy worry welled up in me all at once.

Was it her parents cursing her out in public that day that had done something to her? She couldn't have been shaken so badly that something had gone wrong in her mind, could she?