Long Upon the Land by Margaret Maron Read Free Book Online Page B

them once they have shed their drenched outer garments, then forages for more wood until the flames leap up. A large oak branch serves as a drying rack for their wet clothes and as the warmth begins to thaw those little faces, the younger one stops crying.
    “My name’s Sue,” she says. “What’s yours?”
    “Frank,” the smaller boy whispers.
    “You’re brothers?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “I’m Robert,” the other boy says shyly.
    “Well, Robert, is your house very far away?”
    He shakes his head and gestures toward the creek. “Just over yonder. Daddy’ll come looking us if we ain’t home for dinner.”
    As it isn’t quite eleven, Sue knows that could be at least an hour away.
    “You think he’d hear if I blew the horn?”
    “Maybe.”
    Worth a try , thinks Sue. She piles more dead limbs on the fire, then goes over to the car and blows the horn three times, waits a few beats, then blows it three more times. She repeats the sequence twice before returning to the fire.
    “Let’s hope he notices,” she says.
    “He will,” says Robert, and little Frank keeps looking up past the old ruined house as if he expects their father to suddenly appear.
    She has just stood to go try starting the car again when she hears an engine. A moment later, a battered old pickup truck comes down the slope and skids to a stop nearby.
    “Daddy!” the little boys cry and they drop the blankets to run to the tall man who emerges from the truck.
    He scoops them both up in his arms. “Here, now. What’s happened to y’all? How come you’re so wet?”
    Sue retrieves the abandoned blankets and drapes them around those small bare shoulders.
    Frank is sobbing into the safety of his father’s chest and words are tumbling from Robert. “We was larking on the ice and it broke and she pulled us out but then her car wouldn’t start. We near ’bout drowned, Daddy.”
    Sue realizes that this is the fiddle player from last Saturday night. “Kezzie, is it?” she asks. “Kezzie Knott?”
    She sees his blue eyes widen in recognition but now her own reaction is setting in and she is suddenly shaking with anger.
    “What sort of father lets little boys like this play around a creek with no one watching them?”
    In a voice cold with matching anger, he says, “A right sorry one, I reckon, Miss Stephenson.”
    He carries the boys to his truck and sets them down inside with the blankets still tucked around them. “Where’s y’all’s clothes, son?”
    “I’ll get them,” Sue says and goes over to the branch for them.
    The man follows. “What’s wrong with your car?”
    “Flooded.”
    “I’ll start it for you,” he says.
    “Don’t bother. I’m sure it’ll start by the time I’ve finished cutting a tree.”
    He frowns. “Tree?”
    “A Christmas tree. That’s what I came out here for and I’m not leaving without one.”
    “And what was you planning to cut it down with?”
    Sue looks around blankly. “I had a saw. I must have dropped it when I saw them fall through the ice.”
    “Show me.”
    “No. You need to get them home to warm dry clothes.”
    “They’ll be fine. I left the heater running.” He sees where their footprints had left the bushes and heads toward the creek.
    Reluctantly, Sue follows and soon finds the saw where it has fallen.
    Kezzie Knott stares out at the broken ice for a long moment, then takes the saw from her. “Which tree you want?”
    Wordlessly, Sue shows him the one she decided on earlier. Minutes later, it’s tied to the top of her car and he’s poking around under the hood.
    “Try it now,” he says and to her relief, the engine catches.
    “What about the fire?” she asks through the rolled-down window. A fine rain has begun to fall.
    “I got a shovel,” he says. “I’ll throw some dirt on it. You better get on back to town ’fore this rain turns to ice.”
    As she takes her foot off the brake and starts to roll up the window, he puts his hand on