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By Root 754 0

’t even seem to have a head. He was hunkered down with his arms crossed in front of him on the fence and an old, dusty-looking fedora pulled down over his ears. His whole body leaned against his arms in an unnatural way, like a pole leaning against a fence. Everything about him appeared unnatural, in fact, from the way his arms in the blue work shirt bent in curves, as if his elbows were rubber instead of hinges, to the trunklike aspect of his big lumpy legs in those jeans. Garnett got the strangest feeling, as if he’d turned up in somebody else’s dream wearing no clothes. He felt a blush creep down the front of his neck, though there was no one here to witness it. Thanks be to the Lord for that, no witnesses. He set his gun down gently on its butt end, with its bore against the trunk of the cherry, and stepped through the gate, a few paces onto Nannie’s side, to get a better look at the face.

But of course there was no face. There was just a stuffed pillowcase with a hat on it, stuck down into a stuffed shirt and pants. Garnett recalled the locust rail and crossbeam Nannie had been nailing together in her garage. He nearly fell to his knees. For the last two days he’d been burning up with suspicion and ire and jealousy. Yes, even that. He’d been jealous of a scarecrow.

He turned to leave before things got worse.

“Garnett Walker!” she cried, coming around the corner of her house in a hurry.

He sighed. Between Garnett and Nannie, things always did get worse. He should know that by now. He should just give in. There was no paddling upstream against this river. “Hello, Miss Rawley.”

She stopped short, with her hands on her hips. She was wearing a skirt, probably getting ready to go to the market. She always prettied herself up a little for market day, in her calico skirt and her braids. She looked quizzical as a little bird, with her head cocked to the side. “I thought I heard somebody over here calling me,” she said.

Garnett looked at his hands. Empty. “I was coming over to see if you needed help. Any help loading up your truck for the Amish market. I know how it is for you this time of year. When the winesaps start to come in.”

He could have laughed, for how surprised she looked.

“With winesaps,” he added emphatically, “when it rains, it pours.”

She shook her head. “Well, will wonders never cease.”

“I’ve lived next door to an orchard for the better part of eighty years,” he prattled on, sounding foolish even to himself. “I have eyes. I can see it’s enough work to break a donkey’s back.”

She looked at him sideways. “Are you angling for another pie?”

“Now, look here, I don’t think that’s fair. Just because I’ve offered to help you out, you don’t have to act like the sky’s falling. It’s not the first time.”

“No,” she said. “You gave me the shingles, too. Those were a godsend.”

“I think it would be fair to say I’ve been a good neighbor lately.”

“You have,” she agreed. “You’ll have to forgive me if it all takes a while to sink in. I’m just blessed off my rocker these days. I’ve come into an embarrassment of riches.”

He wondered what that could possibly mean, and whether it was polite to ask. “I didn’t know you had relatives anywhere,” he tried. “To inherit from.”

She laughed, laying her hands flat on the front of her skirt “That’s just what I’ve done,” she said, “I’ve inherited a relative. Two of them, in fact.”

Garnett became a little confused, thinking briefly of the man hanging around on the fence, who of course was no man at all, with no interest in anyone’s inheritance. He waited for Nannie to explain—which she always did, if you waited long enough.

“Deanna Wolfe,” she said simply. “She’s coming to live with me.”

Garnett thought about this. “Ray Dean’s girl?” he asked, feeling briefly, nonsensically jealous of the young Ray Dean Wolfe, who’d courted Nannie for more years than most people now stayed married. Nannie had been so happy in those days, you could hear her singing on any day but a rainy one. But Ray Dean Wolfe was buried in the cemetery now.

“That’s right, his girl Deanna. She’s like a daughter