“You are going to run with an injured leg, no money, and a child who has just spent four months keeping you alive?”
“Yes.”
Clara leaned back.
“Stupid.”
Thomas looked toward Samuel.
“Does she always—”
“Yes.”
Clara ignored both.
“What exactly are you afraid of?”
“Jail.”
“For what?”
“Theft.”
“How much food?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Maybe twelve dollars.”
“Horse?”
“Returned.”
“Did you injure anyone?”
“No.”
“Rob at gunpoint?”
“No.”
“Then we determine what is real before you uproot Anna again.”
Thomas looked away.
Clara continued:
“You have been punished by things you imagined for four months.”
“That does not mean the law imagined them.”
“No.”
“It means we investigate.”
Thomas’s voice became bitter.
“Easy for you.”
Clara went very still.
Samuel knew that posture.
Thomas did not.
She said:
“No.”
He looked at her.
“It is not easy for me.”
“I came here because towns are full of people who decide what I can do before I open my mouth.”
“I have lost work because employers thought customers would dislike seeing me.”
“I have been refused rooms because furniture might break.”
“I have had doctors blame every pain I ever felt on one number.”
“I understand wanting to disappear before somebody else decides you are a problem.”
Thomas said nothing.
Clara softened.
“But disappearing nearly killed you.”
He looked toward Anna.
She was asleep by the stove.
That ended the argument.
Samuel rode into town as soon as the lower road opened.
The sheriff was not waiting with chains.
There was, in fact, no active warrant from the county.
The shopkeeper whose food Thomas stole had reported it, but withdrew the complaint months later after learning why.
The horse owner was more complicated.
He wanted payment for three days of lost use.
Nothing more.
“He brought her back brushed better than when he took her,” the man admitted.
Samuel stared.
“So why did everyone say there was a warrant?”
The sheriff shrugged.
“People talk.”
Four months of hiding.
Because people talk.
Samuel returned furious.
Thomas listened.
Then began laughing.
Not because it was funny.
Because grief sometimes turns relief into a sound too close to madness.
Anna cried.
Clara held her.
Thomas owed eleven dollars and forty cents.
Samuel offered to pay.
Thomas refused.
Clara approved the refusal.
“Good.”
Samuel looked at her.
“What?”