Weight 

James stood on the porch of the antebellum-style house and smoked a cigarette. The fields were wide and flat, stretching to the horizon, where the light always seemed sharp and clear. It was the farm his father had worked, the farm his father had ruined, and now it was his. A dog barked somewhere far off, and James squinted against the morning sun. He thought about going inside, but he didn’t.

Later, as the day had warmed, he found the boy. The barn smelled of hay and grease and old wood. James had gone in looking for a length of rope, but he saw the boy curled up behind the stacks of feed sacks. The boy looked at him, his eyes dark and scared, like a rabbit’s when it knows it’s trapped.

“What the hell are you doing here?” James said.

The boy didn’t answer, pulling his knees closer to his chest.

“You deaf?” James said.

“I’m running,” the boy said finally.

“Running from what?”

The boy didn’t answer. James didn’t press him.

He looked at the boy, thin and dirty, his clothes torn. He knew he should take the boy into town and let the sheriff take care of it. That was what his father would’ve done. But James didn’t move. He stood there for a long time, staring at the boy.

“Stay here,” James said at last.

He didn’t know why he said it. The words felt strange in his mouth, but he voiced them anyway.

The boy’s name was Samuel, and James found he could make things with his hands—hooks, lines, lures. Good ones, too. The kind you could sell. James figured if the boy was to stay, he might as well earn his keep.

“You ever fished?” James asked him one afternoon.

“No,” Samuel said.

James laughed. “You make these and don’t fish?”

“I don’t make them for me,” Samuel said.

James didn’t have anything to say to that.

Grace came in the spring, when the dogwoods were blooming. She was visiting from town, bringing quilts her church had made. Her smile was quick and sure, and when she talked, she looked at you like she was reading every thought in your head.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” she said to James.

“Not much to say.”

She laughed at that, and it wasn’t cruel. It was the kind that made you want to hear it again.

James thought about her later while he fixed the fence on the north side of the pasture. He didn’t know why he was thinking about her, but he was.

Samuel stayed in the barn, but it got dangerous to keep him there. People asked questions.

Neighbors came by more often than they used to. James felt the stares, the glances that lingered a second too long.

“You can’t keep hiding me,” Samuel said one night.

“I’ll decide what I can do,” James said.

Samuel didn’t argue. He returned to shaping the bit of wood in his hand, his knife scraping softly in the dark.

When the men came, they didn’t come quiet. They arrived with loud voices, lights, and dogs that barked and pulled at their leashes.

“James,” Grace said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yeah,” James said. “I do.”

He stood on the porch, his rifle in his hands. The men shouted, their faces lit by the swinging lanterns.

“You can’t protect him, James,” one called. “You know that.”

James didn’t answer. He just stood there, the barrel of the rifle resting lightly against his palm. He could hear Samuel breathing behind him, quick and shallow.

“You go home,” James said finally. “All of you.”

The men didn’t move at first. Then, one of them spat on the ground and turned. The others followed, their voices low and angry as they headed back toward the road.

The farm was quiet again, but it didn’t feel the same. It would never feel the same.

James stood on the porch and smoked a cigarette. The sun was setting, the fields golden and soft in the fading light. Grace came up behind him, and he heard her footsteps, light on the wood.

“You did the right thing,” she said.

“Maybe,” James said. He dropped the cigarette and ground it under his heel.

The weight of the past was still there, but it felt lighter now, like a shadow that was starting to fade.