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"I know who it from," Rose Rose said. "I know what knife everyone got--I know what they all look like." Although it was not a switchblade, it made Angel jump to see how quickly she opened the knife using only one hand. "Look what Muddy do," she said, laughing. "He been sharpenin' it to death--he wore it half away." She closed the knife against her hip; her long fingers moved the knife around so quickly that Angel didn't notice where she put it.
"You know a lot about knives?" Angel asked her.
"From my father," she said. "He show me everythin'."
Angel moved and sat on the bed next to her, but Rose Rose regarded him neutrally. "I told you," she began patiently. "You don't wanna have no business with me--I could never tell you nothin' about me. You don't wanna know 'bout me, believe me."
"But I love you," Angel pleaded with her.
After she kissed him--and she allowed him to touch her breasts--she said, "Angel. Lovin' someone don't always make no difference."
Then Baby Rose woke up, and Rose Rose had to attend to her daughter. "You know what I namin' her?" she asked Angel. "Candy," Rose Rose said. "That who she is--she a Candy."
In the morning, on the downhill side of the harvest, everyone got up early, but no one got up earlier than Rose Rose. Angel, who had more or less been imagining that he was guarding the house all night, noticed that Rose Rose and her daughter had gone. Angel and Homer got in the Jeep and drove out to the cider house before breakfast--but there was nowhere they could go that morning that Rose Rose hadn't been to ahead of them. The men were up and looking restless, and Mr. Rose was already maintaining his stoical sitting position in the grass in front of the cider house--the blanket completely covering him, except for his face.
"You too late," Mr. Rose said to them. "She long gone."
Angel ran and looked in the cider house, but there was no sign of Rose Rose or her daughter.
"She gone with her thumb, she say," Mr. Rose told Homer and Angel. He made the hitchhiking sign--his bare hand emerging from the blanket only for a second before it went back into hiding.
"I didn't hurt her," Mr. Rose went on. "I didn't touch her, Homer," he said. "I just love her, was all. I just wanna see her--one more time."
"I'm sorry for your troubles," Homer Wells told the man, but Angel ran off to find Muddy.
"She say to tell you you was the nicest," Muddy told the boy. "She say to tell your dad he a hero, and that you was the nicest."
"She didn't say where she was going?"
"She don't know where she goin', Angel," Muddy told him. "She just know she gotta go."
"But she could have stayed with us!" Angel said. "With me," he added.
"I know she thought about it," Muddy said. "You better think about it, too."
"I have thought about it--I think about it all the time," Angel said angrily.
"I don't think you old enough to think about it, Angel," Muddy said gently.
"I loved her!" the boy said.
"She know," Muddy said. "She know who she is, too, but she also know you don't know who you is, yet."
Looking for her and thinking about her would help Angel to know that. He and Candy would drive south along the coast for an hour; then they would drive north, for two. They knew that even Rose Rose would know enough about Maine not to go inland. And they knew that a young black woman with a baby in her arms would be quite exotic among the hitchhikers of Maine; she certainly would have less trouble than Melony getting a ride--and Melony always got rides.
Mr. Rose would maintain his almost Buddhist position; he made it through lunch without moving, but in the afternoon he asked Black Pan to bring him some water, and when the men were through picking that day, he called Muddy over to him. Muddy was very f
rightened, but he approached Mr. Rose and stood at a distance of about six feet from him.
"Where your knife, Muddy?" Mr. Rose asked him. "You lose it?"
"I didn't lose it," Muddy told him. "But I can't find it," he added.
"It around, you mean?" Mr. Rose asked him. "It around somewhere, but you don't know where."
"I don't know where it is," Muddy admitted.
"Never do you no good, anyway--do it?" Mr. Rose asked him.
