04 The lad, plaid-clad and mud-spattered, reads Twain, huddled on a bench under the sputtering porch-light, aching from raking hay from sunrise to setting, feeding his grandfather’s Holsteins. An orphan, glaze-eyed and dip-mouthed. The boy mutters, “Huckleberry, Huckleberry…” Juices dribble to the dimple on his chin. If Grandpa wakes to catch me flipping pages and chewing chaw… He shudders. Tucking the book into bushes by the porch-step, he plunges into the woods. Robed in night, Nature groans like his grandfather after supper, its voice creaking over the heads of dulled pines, muted oaks, and damp maples. These trees crack their branches like the fingers of ancient patrons, reminiscing centuries. If only to startle them… Sucking in moist breaths of moss, lichen, and clouded North Star, he pounds through the leaves, scattering them like rustling spirits in a cemetery, awakening the katydids with his calloused feet, yodeling down Little Dipper to drench the trees, outrunning Orion and orphanage, sprinting away from the sunrise, flailing for Mississippi. If he catches me— The Fugitive for Mississippi by Meghan Wells
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