Chapter 49
Each morning, Rachel settled the pack straps against her back.
She tightened the left strap first, then the right, then eased the chest clip into place so it didn’t pull across the tender line beneath her ribs.
The stitches had come out, and the wound had closed, but the skin still felt raw and tight.
It woke her whenever she rolled onto her left side.
By the third mile, the pack always shifted enough to rub the scarred tissue.
She adjusted it, adjusted it again, and finally accepted the ache as the cost of moving forward.
Their food had dwindled to careful measures.
Rachel split the remaining rice into portions so small that Sophie noticed.
The dried beans went the same way, counted and counted again before the evening fire.
They’d eaten the last apple from the bridge town two days after leaving Jonah’s yard, and the salt packet was nearly empty.
Water was still the one thing they could usually find, though Rachel boiled every cup now and saved the last purification tablets for when there was no other choice.
Sophie walked three paces ahead or three paces behind, depending on the terrain.
She’d stopped asking about Rachel’s side, which meant she’d seen the wincing and understood that questions only made Rachel lie.
The silence said enough. The landscape opened around them on the fifth day after the rail yard.
Strip farms gave way to larger properties, some abandoned and others clearly still tended.
Fresh earth showed in the turned rows. Fences had been repaired.
Livestock had been moved into protected pastures. Rachel checked the map less often.
She saw the Keller place from a rise in the road.
The farm sat half a mile back from the pavement, reached by a gravel drive that curved between mature oaks.
A two-story farmhouse stood beyond the trees, with a covered porch and a barn whose doors were shut.
Several outbuildings were nearby. A chicken coop showed behind wire fencing, and a hand pump stood near the back door.
Smoke rose from the chimney in a thin, steady column. Someone was home, and someone had fuel.
“They’re not going to let us stay,” Sophie said.
“Probably not,” Rachel said.
“We should try anyway.”
“I know.”
Thomas Keller met them at the end of the drive with a rifle cradled across his forearm. He didn’t aim it, but he made sure they saw it. He was in his sixties, with a weathered face and thick, work-worn hands. His eyes moved from Rachel to Sophie and back again.
“We’re not looking for handouts. We’re looking for work in exchange for a safe place to sleep and whatever food you can spare.
I can keep records, organize supplies, and handle light chores.
She’s good with animals and follows directions.
We’ve been on the road for weeks, and we’re not carrying anything you need to worry about,” Rachel said.
Thomas studied her for several seconds. His wife stood on the porch behind him, gray-streaked hair pulled into a bun, and a kitchen towel in her hands. Two children peered from the doorway, a boy around ten and a girl slightly younger.
“Your side bothering you?” Thomas asked.
“It’s healing,” Rachel said.
“Not healed, though. Come inside, both of you. My wife will want a look at that before you lift anything.”
The farm ran with a competence Rachel hadn’t seen since before the highway.
The hand pump drew cold, clear water from a deep well.
The chicken flock had thinned to maybe twenty birds, but they still produced enough eggs to matter.
The root cellar held potatoes, carrots, turnips, and onions in wooden crates labeled with dates and quantities.
Shelves along the back wall carried sealed jars of vegetables, fruit, and meat.
A grain bin in the barn held enough wheat and corn to stretch meals through careful rationing.
Three generations shared the property. Thomas and his wife, their adult son and his wife, their two children, and an elderly aunt who sat near the woodstove knitting socks from unraveled sweaters.
Everyone worked. Because Rachel was injured, Thomas gave her a ledger at the kitchen table and put her in charge of tracking the stored produce.
She sorted potatoes by size and condition, recorded each jar removed from the cellar, and tracked the remaining grain by the cupful.
The work was light enough that her side only hurt when she reached too far.
Sophie fed the chickens, gathered kindling from the woodlot, and carried water from the pump to the kitchen.
By afternoon, the Keller children had pulled her into a game with sticks and a hoop target scratched into the dirt.
Sophie tried to look indifferent, but Rachel heard her laugh when the younger girl scored a point.
That evening, they ate around the kitchen table under the warm glow of an oil lamp.
The meal was boiled potatoes, a shared egg scrambled with wild onions, and fresh bread made from the day’s ration of flour.
No one spoke much. The food mattered too much to waste attention on talk.
Sophie sat between the Keller children. When the boy joked about his sister’s aim, Sophie laughed without covering her mouth.
The sound was brief and genuine. Rachel looked down at her plate so Sophie wouldn’t notice.
Later, after the children had gone to bed, Sophie helped the elderly aunt sort knitting yarn by color.
Rachel stood on the porch as the night turned cold.
Her breath clouded in the lantern light.
“There’s enough work here to justify two more through winter. Not charity. Work. You keep those records straight, help with lighter chores once that side knits up, and the girl pulls her weight with the children and the kindling. We get by,” Thomas said quietly.
Rachel started to answer, then stopped. Sophie stood in the shadow near the doorway with one hand on the frame. Her face was still, but her eyes stayed fixed on Rachel.