“I suppose I did that too.”
He didn't hand it over right away. He stood holding it at chest height with both hands, like a man delivering something he wasn't sure he was supposed to be delivering.
“The mean one looks like me,” he said.
“It is you.”
“I figured.”
He held it out, and I took it. For a long beat, neither of us moved. I was painfully aware of my bare feet, the hole in my T-shirt, and the fact that he was looking at my face instead of anywhere else.
Biscuit came around the doorframe, pushed past my legs, and sat down on Treyton's boot.
“Traitor,” Treyton said. Biscuit thumped his tail.
“He sleeps here now,” I said.
“I noticed.”
“I didn't —”
“I know you didn't. He picked you.” Treyton bent down and scratched behind Biscuit's ears with the same hand that had been holding the sketchbook. I watched him do it. His hand was big enough to cover both of Biscuit's ears at once and his knuckles were scarred in three places. I pictured that hand on the spokeshave the other day… the way he'd held it, the way it had moved on the wood … and I was thinking about it on me. Then I tried to make myself stop thinking about his hand, which was something I’d been thinking a lot over the past five days.
He straightened, and the top of my head reached his collarbone. I hadn’t registered exactly where the top of my head reached until this moment, with him standing one step above me and me barefoot on the porch in a marathon shirt with a hole init. His shoulders blocked the sun coming up behind him, and I had to tip my chin up to look at his face.
I caught him staring at my mouth.
He looked away fast enough that I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it.
“Trail's wet up the south fork,” he said. “I thought you might want to know if you're heading out today. We got snow on the peaks last night.”
“Thanks.”
“Stay off the second switchback. The runoff's worse than yesterday.”
“Got it.”
Having delivered his message, he took two steps backwards. Biscuit stayed on the porch. Treyton glared at him. Biscuit looked back. Treyton sighed — the first real evidence I’d heard that he was capable of feeling anything — and walked away without calling the dog.
I watched him go until he faded into the shadows of the trees, then closed the door. Then I sat down at the kitchen table with the sketchbook and turned to the page he'd seen. The one with the stubborn flower. Scowling. I’d drawn it days ago when I'd been mad at him for being a wall.
Today the flower looked less mean to me.
I waited ten more minutes and had a second cup of coffee. Then I put on actual pants and walked outside to start the SUV.
It was still early but I could have sworn I saw a goat. The animal stood in the middle of the dirt road about forty feet from my cabin. It blinked up at me like I was the one out of place.
“Hi,” I said, not quite sure yet that I wasn’t hallucinating.
The goat took one step toward me.
“Um, what are you doing out here, goat?” I’d spent time up in Vermont, so I’d crossed paths with goats before. They believed in getting through whatever barrier happened to be in their waythen shaming whoever had put it there by holding them in deep contempt.
I crouched down slowly, the way I'd crouch down for a strange dog.
The goat took two more steps.
“Hi, friend. Where do you live? Who do you belong to?”
