He turned his hands palms up and laced his fingers together. He made a church steeple with his forefingers, as his father had taught him to do when he was a boy. He remembered the poem that went with the action of his hands:
Here is the church
And here is the steeple.
Open the doors
And see all the people.
The squawking and jabbering of the crows grew dim in his ears. The shadow of the woodpile wove a pattern in the trees.
Tim’s head snapped up. He must have been sleeping for several hours. The sky was quite dark. He was sure he had been wakened by a noise, but now he couldn’t hear a sound. Red was very still, but Tim noticed that his eyes were wide open. Tim looked to see what had caught Red’s eye. Not more than fifty feet from them a man sat, rigid as stone, on a good-sized horse. He appeared to be a farmer and he carried a musket across his saddle.
Red’s arm was resting by his side. Tim stealthily gripped his wrist to let him know he was awake and wouldn’t make a noise. The horseman scanned the field; the horse dipped his head and jingled his bridle. The man kicked the horse’s flank and rode away, keeping close to the edge of the field, looking both ways, as if he were on a tour of inspection.
Tim watched as he disappeared, and Red said, “That was a very close call.”