The Homecoming of Samuel Lake. Jenny Wingfield

fine, high cheekbones and lush black lashes and a mouth that was fuller than it looked right now—because right now it was pulled tight, into a hard, brave line. Those black eyes of his were cutting right to her soul. Those fierce black eyes. He was, she thought, the damnedest thing she’d ever seen.

      “You,” she said, “talk an awful lot about killing, for somebody who’s not hardly big enough to pee standing up.”

      But you couldn’t even insult him. He just cocked his head to one side to show that nothing bothered him.

      She got up again. “Go home,” she said.

      He didn’t budge.

      “Go home,” she pleaded. And this was Swan Lake, who never begged.

      He still didn’t budge.

      “Well, I’m going,” she warned. And she did. One step at a time. Hating every minute of it. Worrying all the way about that kid, and what was going to happen to him, whether he’d get snake-bit, or spider-bit, or be some animal’s supper. And where was he going to sleep? Would he dig a hole and curl up in it? Were his instincts that good? Or would his hateful daddy come raging out in search of him, and if he found him, what would happen then? What?

      Maybe she should go back and get the kid, and take him up to his house, and give him over to his mother—but she had a feeling that mother wasn’t much protection. So maybe she should go back and get him, and take him home with her. But you can’t do that sort of thing. It’s kidnapping, even if it’s a kid who does the ’napping. Swan didn’t really think she’d go to jail for it, not as long as the law was still drinking for free at Never Closes, but she knew the story wouldn’t have a happy ending.

      She made up her mind that, as soon as she got back to Grandma Calla’s, she was going to get her daddy to go find that kid and take him home and talk to his parents. Nobody would really dream of killing Samuel Lake, and even if they did think about it, they couldn’t succeed. Samuel Lake enjoyed the Protection of the Lord.

      The hard part about this plan was going to be coming up with a good enough lie to explain why she’d been where she’d been, but Swan had tremendous confidence in her lying ability. And if worst came to worst, she could always tell the truth.

      As it happened, she didn’t have to tell anybody the truth, or a lie, or anything else. She was almost back to Grandma Calla’s when she sensed something or someone behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, and there he was. That tough little guy. Walking ten or twelve paces behind her, as silent as an Indian.

      “Do we have a plan?” Willadee was asking Samuel. They were lying in bed, curled together, the same way they had been for the past hour. They’d gone to bed before anyone else, which was something they almost never did. As wild about each other as they were after all these years, they still didn’t like to be too obvious about things like hustling off to their bedroom before it was really bedtime. This once, though, it had seemed to be the only way to get some privacy.

      Willadee had told Samuel about John Moses, and the things that happened the day he died. (She didn’t mention the things that had happened the night before. She reasoned that Samuel had enough of a load to bear right now, she could tell him about the beer some other time. Maybe.) She’d also told him about how Calla had taken to going down to the living room in the middle of the night, wearing one of John’s old shirts over her nightgown, and just sitting there by herself, for hours at a time. Willadee had found her there one night, and asked her if she needed to talk about anything.

      “It’s too late for talking,” Calla had told her sadly. “I had a million chances to tell John how I missed having him in bed beside me. How I wanted to smell his hair, and feel his skin, and touch him in the night. I should have swallowed my pride, but I wouldn’t, and now I’m choking on it.”

      Samuel had listened while Willadee poured out her story, and when she asked him please not to ever let walls grow up between them, he’d promised that he wouldn’t. Then he’d told her about the annual conference, and how the superintendent had explained to him that, nowadays, churches had different needs than they’d had in the past, but that it wasn’t over for him, he still was licensed and all, there just didn’t seem to be a suitable place for him this year, so maybe he should contemplate, really contemplate, positive changes he could make, improvements he could make, in his ministry.

      “They don’t want preachers anymore,” Samuel had told Willadee, his voice heavy. “They want social directors.”

      “Well, you have to stand for what you think is right.”

      “I think feeding my family is right, but I don’t know how I’m going to manage.”

      “We’ll manage.”

      “Will we?”

      “Why, yes, you know we will.”

      Several times, they had almost started making love, but the bed was so old and the springs so creaky that they’d decided to wait either until everyone else in the house was bedded down, asleep, or until inspiration struck and they figured out a way to have each other without risking getting funny looks at breakfast the next morning.

      “Do we?” she asked again now. “Do we have a plan?”

      “I could go looking for some oil,” Samuel said. “I could oil the springs.”

      “I didn’t mean that kind of plan.”

      “I know you didn’t.”

      “We have to figure someplace to live.”

      “I know we do.”

      He was quiet for a moment. Just his breathing, the only sound. Strong and deep and steady. Then he said, “Willadee? What about the floor? Would you be really insulted, if we just did it on the floor?”

      “Not insulted. But they’d still hear us.”

      “We could be quiet.”

      “Maybe you could.”

      He laughed. Couldn’t help it. She hushed him with a kiss. After a little bit, he said, “I think I’m supposed to be scared or something, Willadee. I mean here I am with a wife and kids, and no job, and no house, and you know what, Willadee?”

      “What, Samuel?”

      “I’m scared, all right.”

      She didn’t like this. Him being afraid. Him hurting. It was the worst part of this thing, that he should be hurt. Samuel, of all people.

      She said, “Damn these springs.”

      “What was that?”

      “I said, ‘Damn these springs,’ Samuel.”

      Willadee kicked off the covers and sat up in bed. She drew her knees up underneath her and knelt beside her husband, leaning over him, kissing his neck, his chest, his stomach. Her hands touching, giving. He shifted his weight, pushing up against her hands. The bedsprings creaked rudely.

      He let out a low moan that wasn’t quite as low as he’d meant it to be and said, “Love of God, Willadee,” and then, “Willadee, I need you so.”

      Her mouth moved against his skin. Taking. Talking.

      “Good thing, preacher boy. ’Cause if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to live through all I’m about to do to you.”

      Downstairs in the swing, Bernice Moses was having a glass of iced tea with lots of lemon. Her ear was trained to the upstairs bedroom that happened to be right above the spot where she was sitting. She was listening intently. Listening, and not smiling. For the most part, Bernice had gotten everything she’d ever wanted out of life, and none of it had made her happy. There was only one thing she’d really wanted that she hadn’t gotten, and she was positive that if she could get it (no, when she got it), she would be deliriously happy. At last.

      What she wanted was Samuel. And what was in her way was Willadee. What had been in her way,