Read The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope for Free Online Page B

and bundled on the floor when I returned with the rest of the blankets and quilts. I took two warming bricks from the stove and folded them in flannel. After I eased a pillow under his head, I lined the bricks up at his feet, then wrapped myself in a blanket, lay down behind him, and pulled the remaining quilts over both of us. I had no idea how long he had been out in that cold storm; I needed to keep him warm. I shivered and pressed up close.
    Who was this strange man? How had he come to be buried on the edge of my field? What was wrong with him? With his face? I decided I should give him a few more minutes, to make sure he was warm. I should be as warm as possible, too, before starting down the hill to Mildred’s to call Momma and Daddy. They would know what to do. I’d have to go soon. The steady applause of rain continued on the metal roof. The expansion of his ribs as he breathed reminded me of sleeping with my sisters. I felt that odd hum in my chest again and, despite my plans to go for help, I fell asleep.
    I woke suddenly. We were still spooned up tight, my arm around him. We hadn’t slept very long. The stove still radiated heat. Early evening light shone through the windows. Rain pounded hard on the roof and windowpane, drowning the sound of the strange man’s breath, but I felt his chest rise under my arm.
    Curious, I lifted a corner of the blanket from his face. He was grotesquely, vividly ugly. His skin was lumpy, rough whorls like burn scars. Worse than the woman in the photograph Frank had left. I’d never seen such jaundice, an unnatural dark yellow. Only his cheek and part of his nose were visible, a flat nose, small like a baby’s, with no bridge. How could I have missed that? The memory itself seemed dreamlike. I lay the blanket back across his scarred, bare shoulder and let it fall forward to cover the side of his face again.
    I got up. Outside the dining room window, the sky was a solid iron-gray. I had no telephone and the road was out. There was no way to get this poor man to anyone who could help him. I didn’t want to leave him alone.
    He must be a soldier, I realized, horribly disfigured from the war. But how had he stumbled naked onto my land and ended up nearly buried in the mud? What was wrong with him?
    An unfamiliar scratching sound came from the porch, followed by a sharp bark. I opened the back door and Hobo darted in. He went immediately to the man on the floor, sniffing voraciously and wagging his tail. The barn cat followed, her fur as damp as Hobo’s. Rain blew in with them.
    Farm dogs and cats are not let in the house; their jobs are outside. I’d occasionally tried to bring Hobo or the cat in just for the company and to have a pair of eyes to look at while I talked to myself. But Hobo, out of his usual territory, would be shy inside and usually stayed near the door. The cat, an opportunist, always curled up close to the stove or the pantry. Now both circled the man, sniffing him vigorously, and then lay down, Hobo at his feet and the cat near his chest.
    I let them stay. The kitchen was more companionable with them there, the man somehow less exceptional. The rush of cold air that had surged in with them dissipated.
    Rain drummed, shooting off the roof and hitting the ground in a solid sheet. Dusk fell, but no houses were lit down the hill. The electric poles were down. The only illumination was farther away, the faint light of the mill’s generator.
    I knew I should check outside to make sure the drainage was still good beside the house. But first we needed food.
    I lit a couple of lanterns, loaded the stove, and, stepping around the man, the cat, and the dog, I began to make some biscuits. While the biscuits baked, I went out to the front porch. Wind whipped the trees near the bank and slanted the rain nearly horizontal. But the runoff sluiced efficiently away from the house. A thin film of ice slicked the floorboards. Carefully, I hurried back inside, feeling oddly calm,