“My father worked the coal seams. My mother took in sewing. I slept beneath a roof that leaked over the left side of my bed. There was a pear tree outside the kitchen window, though it never grew a decent pear.”
His voice softened.
“I want to know whether the tree is still there.”
“That’s all?”
“No. But it is enough to explain.”
The van door opened. Donna climbed inside, carrying her medical bag.
Amos glared at me as if I had summoned an executioner.
Donna checked him, listened to his chest and took his blood pressure twice. The rain eased while she worked. Her expression did not.
“You need evaluation,” she said.
“I was evaluated three weeks ago. They found death. Unless you have a cure in that bag, I’d like to continue.”
“Your heart could be involved.”
“My heart has been involved since Missouri.”
Donna looked at me.
I looked at Amos.
Brotherhood is easy when every road is dry and the choice costs nothing. It becomes real when somebody must decide whether loyalty means carrying a man forward or forcing him to stop.
“We call his doctor,” I said.
Amos started to object.
“No call, no Kentucky.”
He hated that. He hated it enough to agree.
Donna spoke with the oncologist for twelve minutes, describing the pain, pulse and medication. The doctor advised a hospital if the symptoms worsened, but said Amos could continue if monitored and if he understood the risk.
Amos took the phone.
“I understand,” he said. “I understood before I left.”
When he handed it back, his hand shook.
We continued.
Mack and eleven others turned home at the next interchange. The separation hurt them more than Amos knew. Each rider approached the van, shook his hand and apologized.
Amos gave every one the same answer.
“You came farther than I had any right to expect.”
Near dusk, the storm moved east and left a strip of red light beneath the clouds. The highway steamed. Our reduced convoy crossed the Mississippi, engine notes echoing between concrete barriers.
Amos watched the water.
“In 1968, I crossed a river at night with a man who could not swim,” he said.
“Vietnam?”
He glanced at me. “You know?”
“You fold your coat like military bedding. You correct kilometers. And you treat pain as a personal insult.”
That almost-smile returned.
“His name was Tommy,” he said. “He claimed a man raised in Kentucky had no business needing to swim. Said the creeks back home never got deep enough.”
“What happened?”
Amos rubbed the watch through his pocket.
