Minnow. James E. McTeer II

moved so he wouldn't freeze there forever. He moved only as close as he would have gotten if the man had been awake. His father slept, eyes closed, lips pursed as if whistling, cracked and dry. The skeleton beneath the blanket wasn't really his father but a wraith left behind. That thing couldn't work. That thing couldn't sing, or dance, or tell a story.

      "It's Minnow."

      He reached his hand out with two fingers extended, but then stopped. His mother walked in, and he withdrew his hand.

      She crossed the room and put a bowl of something next to the bed. She perched on the edge and looked down at Minnow's father but didn't say a word. She was wearing her favorite white dress. The one with blue flowers.

      "Just because he can't talk doesn't mean you shouldn't," Minnow said.

      "He never liked talking much anyway," she said.

      "But you'd like talking to him."

      She nodded and put a hand on his stubbly cheek.

      "You hear your son? Taking care of me?"

      Minnow stepped back, glanced at the door.

      "Stay."

      He stayed.

      "It isn't working," she said.

      The boy looked at his father.

      "I know."

      "The doctor knows something that might help. For his lungs. His breathing."

      "Did you get it?"

      "Not yet."

      "Let me go."

      She shook her head. "It's right in town. I'll go. It's not yours to do."

      "I can't do anything but watch. Let me go," Minnow said.

      She gave him one of his father's old leather billfolds, just a scrap of hide, and put a dollar in it with a piece of paper. She folded it for him. He put it in his pocket and pressed it down. More money than he'd ever had at once.

      "You got to go to Ander's for it."

      "On Bay Street."

      "Right on Bay Street. You get it, get yourself a soda if you can, and come home."

      She pressed down his hair with the same hand she'd touched his father with. The shaggy hair, sandy-colored like his father's once was, covered his eyes. She smiled.

      "Talk to him," Minnow said. "Tell him what you did today. Maybe what you dreamed last night. I'll tell him about my trip when I get back, and he'll feel strong hearing our voices."

      She looked away and then looked back. She straightened the loose collar on Minnow's summer shirt and leaned down to brush nothing off his chest and stomach.

      "You didn't learn to talk like that around here," his mother said. "Where did you come from, boy?"

      "From you."

      He left them in the quiet room.

      Minnow emerged from the house into the afternoon sun. It was a South Carolina summer, hot and humid. The heat hit his nerves and gave him life. No time to waste. His mother needed him, and his father. If things went well, he'd be getting a soda, too.

      He paused on the stoop to catch a breath of air and then crossed the dry, crackling grass to the road out front. He stopped on the verge and turned. A bigger trip might mean a brown sack with lunch in it. A trip out to the Island would mean a fishing pole or maybe a good walking stick. This was just downtown, though, just south to the river.

      He hesitated again and then returned across the yard to the stoop for his summer shoes. They were only barely holding together—a few scraps of leather connected by his mother's careful stitches—but they would add some protection to the thick padding his feet developed over the hot months when shoes were mostly negotiable.

      The road took him away from his house and his neighbor's shack and past a few old shanties on the corner. He waved at Mrs. Marcy, bent over her splintered picket fence, looking for anyone to talk to.

      The road to town from his house was a familiar route, and today its sights and sounds were a sideshow to the main event. He had a dollar, and everyone back home was depending on him. Even if he saw any of the gang, they'd have to wait. They wouldn't understand. They'd want to spend some of the money on candy, which might not be such a bad idea some other time. But not today.

      He passed Mr. Jack's inn, the first inn on the way to town, overflowing onto the porch with boarders. He passed the main stable for the Avery phosphate operation, smelling like hay and horse manure. He passed a tabby hovel where an old negro lived with his cat. The man made bread in an oven out back and sold it to people for cheap.

      An oxcart passed him, the ox with horns wider than the cart. A little man sat on the driver's seat, hauling a load of seed rice, headed away from town. A pair of men—probably sailors—passed on the other side, going the same direction.

      Another oxcart passed, and another, and then Minnow caught up with a strolling couple and overtook them. They looked like they lived on Bay Street and were just out enjoying the afternoon. The man had a pocket watch on a chain and a fancy hat, and she had a hat and a silk parasol. It was a nice day for a walk: hot but clear, cooler in shady places where spidery live oaks put their moss-draped arms across the road, or where palmetto trees spread wide emerald fans to sway in the river breeze.

      The dirt road widened, and he left the roadway to walk the brick path that wound alongside. He passed tall white houses with broad porches and went by the Episcopal church that his family had patronized generations ago when they had had more money and lived closer to the river. The white church had a grand steeple, and the whole place was surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence.

      Minnow walked into town, where low brick buildings were topped by white clapboard dwellings and a grid of dirt roads led past shops and stores and offices. He heard a party in a courtyard behind a gray tabby wall. People clinked glasses and women laughed over their husbands' voices. Horses clopped down side streets, and a mule brayed somewhere toward Bay Street and the river. The air smelled sweet, like the heady perfume of yellow jasmine flowers. Farther along he caught a whiff of something fruity and warm, like maybe a lady in one of the upstairs apartments baking a Saturday pie.

      He walked onto Bay Street, paved in cobblestones and flanked by the premier businesses of town. Locals and travelers alike walked up and down the wide street between horses and oxcarts. People talked and shopped under awnings and in the shade of buildings, trying to find respite from the sultry summer air.

      His favorite store was Roth's, the candy store all the way down on the corner. He liked the soft candy gumdrops and peppermint sticks and the way they mixed a soda just right. It would take longer to walk all the way down there, though, and his main concern today was time.

      He stayed close to the front of the shoe store on the near side of the road, watching people pass. Summer brought the planters in from the islands to escape the heat and the yellow fever. They strolled with their wives and children, spending money at whatever shops they liked. Sailors and seafarers walked the street, too, come in to town from Port Royal. You couldn't buy civilized things like fancy clothes or a cream soda in Port Royal, so they left that rowdy place to do their business in town. He saw a few kids. No one he knew, really, except a little boy from school. None of his gang. Even if they were around, they'd just slow him down.

      He slipped in behind a stinky ox and followed its cleared path down Bay Street, avoiding the milling crowd. He crossed and stood in the shade of the buildings on the other side, then walked with his hands in his pockets past storefronts and shop doors.

      He got to Ander's but stopped in the alley first. He walked down, just barely able to fit broad-shouldered through the brick passage. A salty breeze blew over him when he exited on the other side.

      The Newfort River wound behind Bay Street, reaching almost up to the back of the buildings. The