“Walking the whole way?”

“I'll be walking. You're going to ride.”

“Gee-yap!” cried Arthur Stuart.

Alvin set off at a trot, but before long he was running full out. He never set foot on that road, though. Instead he took off cross country, over fields, over fences, and on into the woods, which still stood in great swatches here and there across the states of Hio and Wobbish between him and home. The greensong was much weaker than it had been in the days when the Red men had it all to themselves. But the song was still strong enough for Alvin Smith to hear. He let himself himself fall into the rhythm of the greensong, running as the Red men did. And Arthur Stuart– maybe he could hear some of the greensong too, enough that it could lull him to sleep, there on Alvin's back. The world was gone. Just him, Arthur Stuart, the golden plow– and the whole world singing around him. I'm a journeyman now. And this is my first journey.

Cavil Planter had business in town. He mounted his horse early on that fine spring morning, leaving behind wife and slaves, house and land, knowing all were well under his control, fully his own.

Along about noon, after many a pleasant visit and much business well done, he stopped in at the postmaster's store. There were three letters there. Two were from old friends. One was from Reverend Philadelphia Thrower in Carthage, the capital of Wobbish.

Old friends could wait. This would be news about the Finders he hired, though why the letter should come from Thrower and not from the Finders themselves, Cavil couldn't guess. Maybe there was trouble. Maybe he'd have to go north to testify after all. Well, if that's what it takes, I'll do it, thought Cavil. Gladly I'll leave the ninety and nine sheep, as Jesus said, in order to reclaim the one that strayed.

It was bitter news. Both Finders dead, and so also the innkeeper's wife who claimed to have adopted Cavil's stolen firstborn son. Good riddance to her, thought Cavil, and he spared not a second's grief for the Finders– they were hirelings, and he valued them less than his slaves, since they weren't his. No, it was the last news, the worst news, that set Cavil's hands to trembling and his breath tostop. The man who killed one of the Finders, a prentice smith named Alvin, he ran off instead of standing trial– and took with him Cavil's son.

He took my son. And the worst words from Thrower were these: “I knew this fellow Alvin when he was a mere child, and already he was an agent of evil. He is our mutual Friend's worst enemy in all the world, and now he has your most valued property in his possession. I wish I had better news. I pray for you, lest your son be turned into a dangerous and implacable foe of all our Friend's holy work.”

With such news, how could Cavil go about the rest of the day's business? Without a word to the postmaster or to anybody, Cavil stuffed the letters into his pocket, went outside, mounted his horse, and headed home. All the way his heart was tossed between rage and fear. How could those northerner Emancipationist scum have let his slave, his son, get stole right out from under them, by the worst enemy of the Overseer? I'll go north, I'll make them pay, I'll find the boy, I'll– and then his thoughts would turn all of a sudden to what the Overseer would say, if ever He came again. What if He despises me now, and never comes again? Or worse, what if He comes and damns me for a slothful servant? Or what if He declares me unworthy and forbids me to take any more Black women to myself? How could I live if not in His service– what else is my life for?

And then rage again, terrible blasphemous rage, in which he cried out deep within his soul, O my Overseer! Why did You let this happen? You could have stopped it with a word, if You are truly Lord!

And then terror: Such a thing, to doubt the power of the Overseer! No, forgive me, I am truly Thy slave, O Master! Forgive me, I've lost everything, forgive me!

Poor Cavil. He'd find out soon enough what losing everything could mean.

He got himself home and turned the horse up that long drive leading to the house, only the sun being hot he stayed under the shade of the oaks along the south side of the road. Maybe if he'd rode out in the middle of the lane he would've been seen sooner. Maybe then he wouldn't have heard a woman cry out inside the house just as he was coming out from under the trees.

“Dolores!” he called. “Is something wrong?”

No answer.

Now, that scared him. It conjured up pictures in his mind of marauders or thieves or such, breaking into his house while he was gone. Maybe they already killed Lashman, and even now were killing his wife. He spurred his horse and raced around the house to the back.

Just in time to see a big old Black running from the back door of the house down toward the slave quarters. He couldn't see the Black man's face, on account of his trousers, which he didn't have on, nor any other clothing either– no, he was holding those trousers like a banner, flapping away in front of his face as he ran down toward the sheds.

A Black, no pants on, running out of my house, in which a woman was crying out. For a moment Cavil was torn between the desire to chase down the Black man and kill him with his bare hands and the need to go up and see to Dolores, make sure she was all right. Had he come in time? Was she undefiled?

Cavil bounded up the stairs and flung open the door to his wife's room. There lay Dolores in bed, her covers tight up under her chin, looking at him through wide-open, frightened eyes.

“What happened!” cried Cavil. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I am!” she answered sharply. “What are you doing home?”

That wasn't the answer you get from a woman who's just cried out in fear. “I heard you call out,” said Cavil. “Didn't you hear me answer?”

“I hear everything up here,” said Dolores. “I got nothing to do in my life but lie here and listen. I hear everything that's said in this house and everything that's done. Yes, I heard you call. But you weren't answering me.”

Cavil was astonished. She sounded angry. He'd never heard her sound angry before. Lately he'd hardly heard a word from her at all– she was always asleep when he took breakfast, and their dinners together passed in silence. Now this anger– why? Why now?

“I saw a Black man running away from the house,” said Cavil. “I thought maybe he–”

“Maybe he what?” She said the words like a taunt, a challenge.

“Maybe he hurt you.”

“No, he didn't hurt me.”

Now a thought began to creep into Cavil's mind, a thought so terrible he couldn't even admit he was thinking it. “What did he do, then?”

“Why, the same holy work that you've been doing, Cavil.”

Cavil couldn't say a thing to that. She knew. She knew it all.

“Last summer, when your friend Reverend Thrower came, I lay here in my bed as you talked, the two of you.”

“You were asleep. Your door was–”

“I heard everything. Every word, every whisper. I heard you go outside. I heard you talk at breakfast. Do you know I wanted to kill you? For years I thought you were the loving husband, a Christ-like man, and all this time you were rutting with these Black women. And then sold all your own babies as slaves. You're a monster, I thought. So evil that for you to live another minute was an abomination. But my hands couldn't hold a knife or pull the trigger on a gun. So I lay here and thought. And you know what I thought?”

Cavil said nothing. The way she told it, it made him sound so bad. “It wasn't like that, it was holy.”

“It was adultery!”

“I had a vision!”

“Yes, your vision. Well, fine and dandy, Mr. Cavil Planter, you had a vision that making half-Wbite babies was a good thing. Here's some news for you. I can make half-White babies, too!”