Shell said, “You could at least get us something to eat, find me a dry shelter, and build a fire after you locate a pile of dry wood.”
The wolf stood and shook the water from its coat, then laid back down in the same place. For an instant, Shell had thought the animal was going to do at least one of the things he requested. He pulled the edge of the blanket over his head to keep the water from running out of his hair onto his face.
He closed his eyes and waited. The rain would have to stop sooner or later, and if nothing else, he was grateful it hadn’t turned to snow. Snow! It was summer, and he was so cold he thought of snow.
The wolf leaped to her feet and snarled in alarm. A man trudged up the hillside. Shell mentally ordered, Go. Hide.
In an instant, the wolf disappeared into the underbrush as if it had never been there. The man turned out to be a boy not much older than Jammer, probably fourteen at the oldest. The thought of his brother and home tugged at his feelings. He hadn’t missed his old life until now, but Shell buried those feelings.
“That your dog that ran away?” the boy called.
“Uh, yes. She doesn’t like strangers.”
“What kind is she?” The boy continued to walk up the path as he talked, carrying a bow in one hand and three arrows in the other. “Looked like a wolf for a minute.”
“She’s a herder, a mixed breed, I think,” Shell said vaguely, then quickly added, “I have sheep and goats at home.”
The boy came closer and lifted the hood keeping the rain from his face. He appeared thin, but something about his eyes told him the boy was lonely and didn’t get the opportunity to talk to many. Shell glanced back down at the valley and the neat and tidy farms lined both sides of the single dirt road. One farm stood out, a ramshackle house sitting near overgrown fields. The fences leaned or had fallen.
Shell asked, suspecting the answer, “Which is yours?”
“The one you’re looking at. Ma and Pa passed on a few years ago, and I don’t have brothers or sisters.”
“Any kin at all?”
The boy sat in the mud beside Shell. “Supposed to be some over on the coast. I heard they live near Fleming. Fishermen.”
Fleming. Shell knew of it from the family messengers. It was a large seaport, and it was his probable destination before sailing for Breslau. Shell asked, “The farm’s not doing too well?”
“Had to sell or eat all the stock. Some were killed by neighbors who want my farm. No money to buy seed to plant; even if I still had a plow, so nope. Things aren’t doing well.”
Shell wanted to change the depressing subject. “Why not stay in your house until the rain is over?”
“Because deer don’t like to move around in the rain any more than you. They tend to hunker down and wait it out. Best time to hunt.” He held up the bow, a battered weapon with a string that looked ready to snap the next time it was pulled. The arrows looked no better.
“I’ll trade you some food for shelter.” The words had tumbled from his mouth before he took the time to think about them.
“Deal!” the boy snapped and stood. “Call your dog and let’s eat.”
From the eager reaction, Shell wondered how long it had been since the boy had eaten. He stood and said, “The dog doesn’t like people. He’ll be fine out here.”
They slogged down the trail through a few inches of traitorously slippery mud often covered with a few inches of brown water. One thing Shell learned quickly was that he couldn’t tell how deep a dirty puddle was by looking at it. He fell twice, then watched the boy step over them, and Shell learned a new lesson.
“Hey, you got a name?”
“Pudding. That’s what my mother used to call me.”
Shell shook off the name with a smile. “What did your father call you?”
“Mostly ‘hey you’ or ‘get busy.' He didn’t talk much.”
The small farm house was still a way off, across a field that appeared partially flooded. They would have to go around. Shell said, “I have a friend that I left behind a few days ago who didn’t like his name. We chose a new one for him. Now, I’m not going to call you either of those names your father did, and the one your mother used is worse.”
“What're you saying?”
“While we walk, let’s think of a new name for you. Something that ‘fits’ you, as my friend Quester said. What do you think?”
“I like Henry.”
“That’s it? Just like that, you’d like to be called Henry? There are a thousand other names, why Henry?”
“I had a horse named Henry and I liked him most of the time.”
Shell couldn’t contain himself. “Most of the time?”
“He bucked some. I didn’t like him then.”
“Okay, I guess Henry is a better name than most, and it’s settled. From now on, you are Henry.” He knew by the smile on the boy’s face that they’d chosen the right name.
At the door, Henry reached ahead and lifted the latch. The door tilted and threatened to fall off the rotted leather hinges. Inside was worse. A year’s accumulation anything the boy carried inside filled the large single room. A brick oven and flat cooktop looked unused because of a broken half-repaired chair lying on top, along with antlers, a carved cane, and a stack of colorful rocks.
“Firewood?” Shell asked.
“Nope. I just wrap a blanket or two around me.”
Shell glanced at the moldy blankets the boy used and refused even to wipe his feet on them. “People around here haven’t offered help?”
“The farms on both sides want my land. They keep other people away.”
Shell went to the brick oven. At one time, it had been a showpiece, built with proud hands. The curve of the front edge, the flat top made of a single slab of granite that must have been hauled from elsewhere, and the stone chimney reaching out of the ceiling told of craftsmanship. Shell pulled the chair down and broke it into pieces before stuffing them into the open grate. He cleaned the rest of the clutter away and sparked a fire.
Water dripped through the roof in a dozen places. Shell found more wood to burn, and his anger grew with each lick of the flames. The fire didn’t warm the room until the bricks absorbed enough heat, then it threw heat off like a small sun.
“Have they offered to pay for your land?”
“Old man Smithson,” he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, “he said why pay when I’m going to leave, and he’ll take the land.”
“The farmer on the other side?” Shell asked.
“He says he’ll fight Smithson for his rightful part.”
Shell warmed his hands over the fire as he muttered, “I’ll bet he will.”
Henry pulled a filthy blanket around his shoulders. “You said something about eating?”
Shell’s backpack held food for a few days at best. He sensed the wolf nearby and tried to tell her wanted more meat, like the deer haunch it had provided for him and Quester. The wolf didn’t answer, but Shell realized the animal was up and trotting back up the hill, probably searching for a scent. Shell struggled to imagine a deer haunch. Again, no response came.
But he was warm and his clothing steaming as he hung them near the fire, but out of the way of the steady streams falling through the cracks in the roof. In places, he could see the sky where shingles were missing.
They ate hard bread and strips of venison; a meal Shell was getting tired of eating every day, but Henry devoured it. Shell settled on the hard floor after using the flat end of a board to scrape away most of the accumulated dirt and whatever else covered it.