Margaret and Franklin’s journey from the coast had been slower but more comfortable than either of them had had the right to hope. It had seemed as natural and inevitable as swimming upstream does for a salmon. They no longer felt defeated by America, as most emigrants had on the journey out, driven eastward by their failings. The mare had proven to be a sturdy companion, eager and accommodating, especially when persuaded by Franklin’s switch to brisk up her pace a bit rather than indulge her weaknesses for browsing and flagging. She repaid him with a session of nickering and some petulant shaking of her tail, but beyond that she was mostly, tooth and hoof, a neat, high-bred, dignified horse. However, she was used to being a riding mount, not a pack animal. Now she was required to tolerate bulky burdens — not only the increasingly fretful and impatient Jackie in her pannier and the second, balancing pannier stuffed full of fumed horsemeat but also a long net bag thrown over her haunches and containing anything useful — the toolbox, pieces of leather — that Margaret and Franklin could find. They’d come equipped as well with good materials for a tent. The cabins had not been short of canvas, fishing poles, rope, and netting.

Each morning Franklin strapped these cargoes as tightly as he could onto the mare, correcting any tendency to overtip or slew to one side with stone weights. But she was not used to carrying so inert a load and did her best, if not watched closely, to scrape against a tree trunk and bring the net bag off her haunches and even, occasionally, to buffet Jackie and the panniers.

Still, life for her was better with this family than it had ever been with the rustlers, so she had few excuses for complaint. The mare might have had greater cause to protest had either of the adults chosen to saddle her, but they had not. They had walked at her side, tugging at her lead only when the way ahead was narrow or they were fording water. Except for one tough day, when they had had no choice but to pick their way across the collapsed, bothersome, and puzzlingly extensive remains of an antique town, a sterile basin of cracked concrete, rubble, and building slabs from the old country, the land provisioned them. There was no lack of fresh water at that time of the year, and it was not necessary to beg for food or shelter. They had everything (except variety). There was no reason to seek out strangers. On those few occasions when they passed through farmland or a hardscrabble outpost where a few stalwarts had yet to emigrate, or when they chanced on bands of travelers, all Franklin had to do was show his shaven chin and head, and everyone would keep a distance. The worst that people would do was shout or, occasionally, throw a stone or a fistful of earth, not to cause any lasting harm but more to urge the flux to hurry out of sight.

Margaret and Franklin had cause to be genuinely alarmed just once. A gang of men on foot, trappers or landlopers by the looks of them, approached their camp one night, after dark, attracted by the smell of meat and the firelight and the opportunity to steal a decent horse. Franklin challenged them while they were a few paces off, but still they came forward. Margaret took Jackie out of sight, under canvas, and shushed her. But no sooner had the leading man seen Franklin’s head and noted his size than he and his companions lost any appetite they had for supper and theft. They disappeared into the night a little more swiftly than they had approached. You wouldn’t even want to murder someone with the flux. A splash of blood and you were dead. Even bruising your fists on such a sick man’s chin was dangerous.

Margaret and Franklin took more care from then on to pitch their camp somewhere concealed, and they learned to sleep with one eye working. Otherwise, the journey back proved kinder than their journey out had been. It was as if the country that had once been hostile to them was regretful for it and was now providing recompense — fewer dangers, warmer nights, softer going in a season that was opening up rather than closing down. It even decorated the way with early flowers. Margaret picked the largest and the prettiest, making a chain for Jackie and lacing the horse’s bridle.

“You’d better smell them when you pick them, Mags, town girl,” Franklin said. He’d been taught by his mother to hold any picked flower to his nose.

“So as not to waste the smell?” Margaret could see the sense in that.

“No, it’s because by smelling it you add a day to your life. Don’t smell it, and you throw a day away.” So for an afternoon they entertained themselves and kept Jackie amused by picking all the flowers they could find, sniffing fragrances, amassing extra days.

Franklin and Margaret had grown accustomed to setting up a net-and-canvas home for the night and making fire. But they were tired of it. The journey had been wearying. Jackie had proved to be less accommodating and dignified than the mare. She was by now fourteen or fifteen months old and, like all normal children of that age, preferred freedom to discomfort and play to travel. She had enjoyed the pannier for half a day at most, but after that she kicked against it when they tried to load her in. Once confined, she wailed and screamed in protest on and off throughout the day. As soon as the mare’s distressed breathing signified that they should stop for the night and Jackie was unloaded from her pannier, she became a toddling scamp, interfering with the tasks, getting too close to the fire or the mare’s hoofs, tasting anything she had not encountered before, be it a beetle or a pinecone. She saw the erection of the tent as an opportunity to roll among the nets and canvases, despite the irritation of her adults, who wanted only supper and sleep.

But Jackie loved it when Franklin sang to her. His antics did not quiet her. On the contrary, they made her laugh and yell, but they did keep her in one place. It didn’t matter that Franklin’s voice was flat and tuneless and that he knew only three songs, one of them a little bawdy and the other two burial hymns. She clapped her hands and wrists with pleasure. His volume delighted her. She adored the way he matched the words with hand movements, drawing out or pinching off the notes with his fingers. Best of all were the moments when Margaret, exhausted by the travel and up till then too tired even to smile, let alone play, could not stop herself from bursting out with laughter. “Pigeon, that’s terrible,” she’d say. And, “Stop, stop, stop! You idiotic boy.” He was a boy. Or drunk. Just look at him. No gravitas. (It was a pity, though, she thought, how quickly his beard was growing back. She’d never had the chance to kiss his chin and throat before they were masked again by hair.)

If they were lucky, Franklin’s singing would wear their daughter out. She’d laugh herself to sleep. And then Margaret and Franklin could wrap around each other, fully dressed, and make the best of nature’s mattress before — too soon — the dawn, the damp, and the cold put an end to sleep and any dreams of deeper mattresses and wrapping around each other without clothes, when they were lovers and not pals.

But this would be their last night living rough. Tomorrow, if Franklin could find some way across the river, if they could find a house in Ferrytown that had survived the fire, they would be sleeping under rafters.

It was a comfort to be so close to Ferrytown at last, though what they might find there was frightening. If they had hoped for lights and smoke or any other evidence of habitation, they were disappointed. The only signs of life from the far bank that night were dogs calling out to each other and the thudding of the clouds as, coming east, they bounced their prows across the mountaintops.

It rained without regret from midnight to sunup. It was the kind of rain that farmers love, sweet-tasting, temperate, and long-lasting, heavy enough to soak the earth “down to its boots” but not so heavy as to wash the soil away — a good start to the spring. But for Franklin it was unwelcome, a setback. Margaret had said that the raft often grounded on the crossing, so the water would be relatively shallow. He had planned to cut himself a long stout pole with which to test the river’s depth and then wade across to Ferrytown, from one shingle bank to the next. For once his height would be an advantage. And if the waters were too deep and strong at any point, he could lug one of the many pieces of dry timber that had been washed down over the winter, wedge its ends, and use it as a body bridge. Once on the other bank, he’d face the trickier problem of how to rescue Margaret and Jackie from the wrong side of the water.