He didn’t want to look at Kate’s map in the rain. The paper was thin and he was afraid if it got wet it might come apart. They were just east of the railroad line. He hoped they were close to Unionville.
They hadn’t traveled as fast as they had hoped they would, but if they could keep moving they might reach North Carolina in two or three days. They had thought about hopping a freight as one went by, but the risk was too great and they couldn’t ride the railroad very far. It ended at Spartanburg.
Tim looked across the ravine through a curtain of rain. Their prospects couldn’t seem worse. They had eaten the last two eggs and roasted and divided the last ear of corn. The rokeeg wouldn’t last long.
They couldn’t hope to find friends until they had crossed the state line, and even then they couldn’t tell a Unionist by the cut of his clothes. North Carolina might not be the promised land. They would have to travel a hundred and thirty or forty miles, crossing the Great Smokies before they would see a Yankee uniform.
Tim slept until noon and when he woke the rain had stopped and the leaden clouds were blowing away, leaving patches of clear blue sky.
Tim touched Red’s shoulder, and Red opened his eyes. He stared at the poncho above his head. His face showed no emotion. He was silent for a minute before he spoke. “Well, we bargained for this. We knew we had no more than a fifty-fifty chance.”
“Let’s push on.”
They walked north northwest for an hour or so on a narrow, overgrown road. They saw a house, then cut to the right and into a thicket where they stumbled and kicked through the thorny undergrowth and hopped over winding freshets that had come with the rain. When they broke clear at last their hands were bleeding and their clothes were torn, but they had left the house a mile behind. Tim saw a little stream that hadn’t been muddied by the rain.
They stood for a moment and looked around. There was no sign of life as far as Tim could see. “Let’s take a bath,” he said.
“Are you out of your mind, lad? It’s chilly as the devil this afternoon.”