I climbed into the van.
Amos sat with his coat open and one hand pressed below his ribs. The canvas bag rested at his feet. Beside it was the paper sack containing three remaining sandwiches.
“Donna says you’re hurting.”
“Donna says many things.”
“If she says hospital, we go.”
“No.”
“That isn’t a negotiation.”
His eyes hardened. “You bought me a ticket, Mr. Dawson. You did not buy command.”
The old Army voice had surfaced. Thin body. Steel underneath.
I sat across from him and let the rain hammer the roof.
“What’s in Bellweather, Amos?”
“A house.”
“There are houses everywhere.”
“Not that one.”
“Who are you going there for?”
His fingers found the watch.
I waited.
Finally, he said, “A boy who left when he was twenty-three and thought he would come back after one year. Then after five. Then after his parents died. After that, there was no one to forgive him for staying gone.”
“That boy is you.”
“He was.”
“What happened there?”
“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.
