Yet the following day proves to be all Nathan could have wished. In the morning he sits in the seat behind Roy again, and on the way to school Roy talks to him in an almost intimate way. At lunch Roy sits with Nathan and afterward takes Nathan to the smoking patio. No friend takes precedence over Nathan, and no girl excites his attention.
Only once, when Nathan asks about prayer meeting, does the little fear return. Roy says the meeting was fine but refuses to look at him. All further questions about Roy's church stick in Nathan's throat.
That afternoon, when Roy parks the bus under the pecan trees, he tells Nathan to hurry inside and change clothes, he wants them to go for a hike in the woods while there's still light. To an Indian mound, he says, beyond the pond and the cemetery. He grins and lets the bus motor die. The door hardly swings open before Nathan dashes for his house.
In the kitchen his mother stands at the sink washing a cake pan and icing bowl. The room shimmers with afternoon light, filtered through red checked curtains, adding color to her face and hands. "I'm making a coconut cake. Do you want a little piece of layer?"
"No, ma'am. I'm not hungry"
"It's still warm out of the oven, it would be good."
"I'm not hungry for cake right now."
This disappoints her a little, but she goes on smiling warmly. "Well, did you have a good day at school?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, sit down and talk to me about it. What are you in such a hurry for?"
"Roy wants me to change clothes and come out to the woods with him."
She studies her dishes and frowns. Her glistening hands move deliberately. "What does he want you to go in the woods for?"
"To see this Indian mound."
"What do you want with an Indian mound?"
"I never saw one before."
She looks out the window. "There he is, too, waiting on you."
"Can I go? Is it all right?"
She goes on watching Roy, her face filling with worry. "I guess you can. But I don't want you to go too far." "Yes, ma'am, I won't."
"Remember, he's bigger than you are. You don't have to do everything he does." "Yes, ma'am, I know."
She dries her hands and kisses Nathan's forehead without looking at him. "Put on your everyday clothes. I'll tell him you're coming."
Nathan rushes upstairs, furiously erasing his mother's sadness from his mind. 'When, school clothes exchanged for everyday, he returns to the porch, she is fussing with her plants, pinching a dead leaf off the ivory, wiping the leaves of a snake plant with a cloth. She says to be careful in the woods, don't stay gone too long. Nathan answers, yes ma'am, yes ma'am, and bursts into the yard. Roy awaits beyond the hedge. The two boys run side by side through the apple orchard.
The rhythm of running carries them a long way, beyond the meadow. They crash through underbrush but make no other sound. Leaves strike the skin of Nathan's arms, stinging and caressing. Roy leads him west of the pond and cemetery; he lopes deeper into the woods, glancing back to make sure Nathan is keeping up. Roy laughs at the glory of motion, a bright, incomprehensible sound that echoes through the woodland. He leaps across a narrow stream where drooping ferns make elegant green arches, and Nathan follows, light, running as if he will never tire.
The forest is something other than a neighbor now, it becomes a new world. As the density of growth increases, the pace of their running slows. Soon it is easier to walk than to run, and Nathan draws abreast of Roy. Roy gives a look that instructs, that says he is pleased. The Indian mound is pretty close once they cross the creek, he says.
The land is rising. Nathan climbs past bent saplings and red leafed dogwood; Roy has run up the hill a little faster than Nathan and pauses, breathless.
The forest thins and light spills into the lower tiers of growth. Beyond a glade of trees, on a flat of land, a long mound rises. Only green grass grows on the mound, as if all other kinds of plants have been magically forbidden. Golden sunlight tumbles along the gentle slope.
Roy hangs his shirt from his belt loops. When Nathan does not follow suit of his own volition, Roy reaches for his shirt buttons.
The air, Roy's hands, light spilling down. Roy offers Nathan the shirt, tenderness in his expression, then runs down the long slope. Nathan threads the sleeves through the belt loops of his pants and follows. Roy vanishes momentarily, but Nathan, heart pounding from the run, finds him. Roy is a strong silhouette against the bright mound, walking toward it. Nathan overtakes him halfway up the mound.
Nathan draws near shyly and Roy refuses to turn. Roy's back muscles shift in a rhythm that seems strong and good. The warm brown skin invites Nathan's hands, but he refuses to reach. They are still climbing. A curious fact, Roy's breath labors more than Nathan's. When on the crest of the mound Roy turns, his ribs are beating open and closed like wings.
Nathan lays his hand against the pounding in the cleft of Roy's chest
Roy watches his hand, watches Nathan.
