Nathan is also disturbed by the prospect. The tent and open air seem more inviting.
"This place is supposed to be haunted," Roy says, sounding wary. "My Uncle Heben says it was in a book about North Carolina ghosts. There was a picture of this house. The last full blood Kennicutt who lived here got killed by one of his slaves, and they cut his head off. So he still walks around the place at night looking for his head."
"You're full of shit," Randy says.
They look around at the somber setting. They stand in the remains of the front yard now, thick with poplars and privet; they are facing the house, within the broad curve of the carriageway, behind wildly overgrown hedges that border the approach to the main doors. The facade of the house has graceful lines, and there is something hospitable, inviting, about the spacious porches and broad doors, even given the present state of decay. It seems less like a mansion than some pleasant farmhouse that grew larger than expected. If it is haunted, the afternoon sun reveals nothing of its ghosts. But even so, the boys accept the facts as Roy presents them, that he has an Uncle Heben who once saw a picture of this house. That a headless ghost is said to roam the grounds, in a story famous enough to have been published in a book. They will sleep tonight in sight of a haunted place.
Burke gazes at the house with an expression of serenity, a peaceful emptiness.
They set up camp within sight of the main doors, near the creek, and sunset strikes a kind of bronze glow from the decay. As if the grass were burning. Amid the late afternoon changes of light and shadow, they set up tents. Roy finds rocks for the fire circle. Nathan heads off to gather wood and Randy follows. The two work quietly in the diminishing light, mindful of their noise as if they are in church, or in the library at school. Because of Randy's size, he has a hard time with the wood, the sticks and branches digging into the softness of his belly. He works without complaint, sweating as if it is summer, humming softly, Just as I am without one plea. Nathan finds himself humming too. The soft sound connects the two boys. Randy's air of gentleness makes Nathan feel welcome in his presence, though they hardly speak. They return to the campsite with armloads of kindling and branches, the driest wood they can find.
Burke splits the wood with a short ax, and the late sun falls over him from the west, flashes of warmth along his shoulders and back. He stacks the split wood, and Randy helps, till soon they have plenty for the night's fire. Most of it is dry enough to burn, Burke says, and wipes the sweat from his forehead. He winks at Nathan over Roy's head.
They eat supper early, with the sun setting at their backs. After cleanup, deep into dusk, they go exploring in the grounds behind the big house. In the overgrown yard beyond what was once a kitchen garden, they find a stone barn, doors hanging off the hinges, flaked with what remains of a deep blue paint. Inside the shell of the house, grass has overtaken the dirt floor, and the lofts have collapsed along the walls. Bats and swallows live in the rafters, darting in and out of a gaping hole in the roof. Behind the bam is a dairy and another long, low building near the wreck of a paddock fence. They recognize this as a stable by the layout of horse stalls and the remains of a wagon wheel, spokes rotted inside the iron rim. Nathan finds a bit of leather harness in the grass near one of the stalls, the soft leather coming to pieces in his hand.
Beyond the stable, down a just discernible path, stands a row of shacks. Most are still intact, though the roofs have rotted away, but one or two have collapsed to heaps of gray clapboard. Eerie, the street of some deserted town. Roy says these were the slave houses, a notion that sobers Nathan.
Out past the shacks he the once cleared fields of the farm, long since overgrown. One day even the house, even the stone bam, will be reclaimed by the forest. Amber light floods the grounds, almost horizontal, like a tide. Among the long shadows of trees and the burning of color against sun bleached wooden walls they wander. The silence of the place draws them close together, and by sunset they are walking almost shoulder to shoulder in the purpled light. They halt at the edge of a grove of cedars, outside of a low iron fence that bounds a patch of high grass. "My Uncle Heben said this was where they buried the slaves, right here. They buried the family somewhere else." Nathan finds the gate and steps through it The grass is waist high, and he picks his way forward carefully. He is well within the fence before he realizes he has come exploring alone; the others are gaping at him from the last of twilight. He stands in the murk under the trees.
