It was cool in the shade of the trees, and the branches muffled the noise from the younger kids, so they could imagine they were alone. They both had cheese and cornbread--Grace had blackberry preserves on hers, and she broke off a piece to share with him. The jam was tart-sweet and soaked into the bread.
"My father says I have to leave school after this year."
Donner wasn't surprised. "What will you do?"
"Work at home, I suppose. Until I get married." She made a face with her berry-stained tongue sticking out.
Donner looked at her, at the shape of emerging breasts beneath the fabric of her overalls, imagining Grace as a grown woman, married. She'd always been wild, a freckled rebellious redhead who liked to run and ride horses and climb down in the quarry for no reason other than it had been forbidden. But her father was strict, an Elder of the Witness Church, and not one to spare the strap, as the Bible advised godfearing parents to bring up their children.
"You're good at school stuff, you'd make a good teacher," he suggested.
"But Miz Keller is the teacher."
This was indisputably true, and why would the settlement want to support two teachers? Miz Keller didn't look very likely to die, and Donner didn't know what else to advise.
"What are you going to do?" she asked him in turn.
"I'm working for Doc."
"I mean, when you leave school."
"That's what I mean. I don't just do chores, I've learned a lot of horse-doctoring already."
"Really?" Her expression was aversion and envy both. Grace loved horses. But of course the Trusdales were Witnesses, and they were the worst about uncleanness and sin and things like blood and doctoring. "I wish I could go live up in the woods," she said suddenly. "All by myself. I'd catch squirrels to eat and cook them with wild mushrooms."
Donner knew she mostly said such things after a run-in with her father and his leather strap. Nevertheless, he offered, "I could go with you. I could cut down trees and build us a cabin."
"We'd go way past the boundary, where no one would ever come find us," Grace added wistfully.
"Past the fence?" It was an electric fence that enclosed the entire enclave and would kill anybody who tried to get past it. It was intended more to keep strangers out than prevent people from leaving, although as Donner recalled, if the Witnesses were right, maybe the plague had by now mostly wiped out human life in the rest of the world and there was no reason for the fence any more. But the rule still was: once you crossed the boundary, you were unclean, and could never come back.
Still, if he were with Grace, it might be worth it.
)
