His sense of time alters, and the day seems eternal. He has brought some of his schoolbooks and does homework in the morning, though in the chilly air he can only write for a certain length of time before he needs to warm his hands. From the high vantage of the cemetery he can see the whole shore of the pond, and he feels safe there at first. He holds his schoolbooks in his lap and scans the dark breadth of the pond. The world of Saturday morning, silent, unfurls.
Flocks of grackles descend like clouds coming down out of clouds, landing in the pecan orchard beyond the cemetery. The chorusing of their voices continues through the morning, an early flock, not much in a hurry, rooting through the leaves and branches for pecans that have fallen to the ground. The trees have begun to lose leaves, the green draped branches of summer have thinned and are lifted lighter. Even later in the morning when the sun does a better job of warming things, even then there persists the hint of autumn deepening.
He reads about the geography of Argentina, how the gauchos ride the pampas green and wide. He reads the history of the building of the pyramids by uncountable thousands of slaves. He reads about a boy who tries out for a baseball team, finds a hidden talent for pitching, and leads his team to a state championship. This last book he borrowed from the school library because he wanted to learn something about baseball, back in the long ago when it seemed to matter that he learn more about things like that. He knows that this feeling pertains to Roy in some way but he does not examine the link too closely, he reads the book in a dreamy way through early afternoon.
The presence of Roy is strong in the graveyard. Nearby is the place of the cherub, where Roy and Nathan lay on the ground. A long time ago this happened. Even now, the memory makes Nathan feel safe. But all his thoughts move distantly, and he cannot sustain any feeling; he reads and pauses, he breathes and stares at the ground. When he reads, the boy in the story is Roy, and that makes the book, too, move distantly, images far in the background. Roy absents himself from the scene. As if he were a dream, now dissolving.
Once, in the afternoon, Nathan returns to the house, tiptoeing across the back porch and through the open door. Mom lurks in the kitchen like a shadow. Dad's cigarette smoke curls in the motionless air, drifting from the direction of the living room. The weight of his presence drags Nathan as if toward orbit. Mom asks, silently, Where have you. been? Will you come home? Nathan eats the lunch of soup and crackers, answers, silently, I won't tell you where I am because you might tell him. The softness at the center of her face houses her pain. But she accepts the silence and turns away, and Nathan, hearing the heavy footfall of his father, hurries to the yard again.
"Is that Nate?" Dad's voice echoes behind, but diminished. In the yard, where October is draining the leaves from green to brown, Nathan sidles along the hedge, out of sight of the windows.
Roy appears suddenly near the barn. He carries a pail in each hand. His flannel shirt is buttoned to the neck, the sleeves rolled to the elbow. He marches from the barn door to the chicken house, boots crunching the gravel. Nathan's heart beats fast at the sight. But Roy retreats into the murk of the chicken house without a word. Stung, Nathan hurries to the pond.
In the afternoon he tries to sleep for a while, making a bed of the blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders. He has not thought far ahead. He stretches out on the blanket and uses his schoolbooks for a pillow. Lying in such a way that he can still survey the pond, he has only to lift his head. He closes his eyes. Sounds follow, and he jerks his eyes open and scans his part of the world. One after another sounds intrude: a broken branch as if a foot were stepping on it, the similarity of something to a cough, the shrill cry of a bird, or the wail of distant wildcat. His eyes come open for each sound no matter how tired or near sleep he is. He scans the edge of the pond for his father. He cannot feel safe.
Twilight finds him curled against a tree, hoping he will not get redbugs this late in the year. He has begun, dully, to consider how he will pass the night.
Night descends like a sharpened blade. Leaving the graves for the first time since afternoon, Nathan waits near the cluster of farm buildings. Early autumn brings a chill to the evening, and Nathan's thin shirt retains sparse heat. But the sensation of cold reaches him as if from far away. The facts of dusk surround him. Lights burn in the kitchens of his house and of Roy's. Roy's father ambles idly in the driveway, under western ranges of rose stained clouds. Roy's mother hovers in the square of light over the kitchen sink, dismantling the remains of the family supper. The rolls of fat over her elbows shiver back and forth.
