Free Woodsburner by John Pipkin Page A

meaning “protection.” Emma seemed to accept this as true. He knows that his name sounds like an American word, but the similarity is only an accident of language. No one but Emma has ever seemed willing to believe that his name could be a different thing altogether, a word unto itself. His father told him that it was the name of kings, but most people in the New World uttered the first syllable like an accusation.
    Emma's voice traverses the shrinking space between them and settles gently in his ear.
“Odd-mund Hus!
There you are. Mr. Woburn said he set you at clearing the far corner, and in such a wind as this. I cannot reason with that man. Not when his mind is fixed I cannot.”
    Odd feels his feet lose the rhythm of walking. He moves toward her awkwardly, stepping between the chickens pecking at the pale yellow kernels sprinkled in the dirt. Only now does he notice the noisy clucking.
    “Did you eat breakfast this morning?” Emma asks as if it were the most pressing question of the day.
    “I did.”
    “There's always something for you in my kitchen, you know. Bacon and biscuits today. Hot coffee, too. Why you don't come in every morning I'll never understand. It does no good to put something cold in your belly the way you do. I thought surely you would come in to warm yourself at the stove.”
    Odd wades through the chickens, and he almost trips to keep from lumbering right into Emma, headfirst like a goat. He imagines falling into the warm folds of her flesh, wrapping his arms around her, tumbling to the ground, and the very thought prickles the skin up and down his legs. Emma is staring at him, as if waiting for a reply, and Odd wonders if she can tell what he is thinking.
    “This morning I had much to do,” he offers.
    Emma folds her arms and taps her foot. “I know what you were doing.”
    Odd sucks on the dead tooth and tries to avoid her stare.
    “I saw you this morning, Oddmund Hus, standing out there for a half hour.”
    Odd sucks harder on the little tooth, almost hard enough to pull it from its socket. He knows she saw him staring at the clothesline. His eyes dart toward the neckline of her dress and he drags themaway. He looks instead at the porch, the sky, the chickens. To his amazement, despite the rising panic and embarrassment and the noisy clucking, he feels a stirring, a warm, heavy rising.
    “I… I…”
    Emma holds up a chapped hand. The wedding band is outlined in red where the finger has swollen around it. “I know what you were about. I saw the glow at your cheeks….” Odd feels the urge to run, wishes he could hide. “Staring off into space, deep in thought, you were. Looking right through this world. It's a philosopher you are, Oddmund Hus. I've told Mr. Woburn a thousand times, what he's hired is no farmer. I told him he's got himself a philosopher in his employ.”
    “Mrs. Woburn … I …”
    “Don't think I don't comprehend. I've met plenty of deep-thinking men. There's no shortage of them hereabouts. Something in these parts does it to a person, gets him thinking on the things he cannot hope to see.”
    Odd's eyes dart over Emma's face, drop to her shoulders, her arms—sneaking, creeping, fighting against his own will—across her wide bosom, and back up to her face. He does not see any signs of straps or laces, but he knows they are there.
    “You are a thoughtful man,” Emma says, her final judgment.
    She stoops to brush away a chicken perched on her toe, and Odd cannot pull his eyes away from the inviting cleft at the neckline of her dress—the soft skin, the dark recess, all right there before him. He cannot let her catch him looking, but he looks anyway, a short fugue of quick glances. The urge to run away comes upon him again.
    “Why did you call for me, Em—Mrs. Woburn?”
    “Oh.” She straightens and points over his head. “What is that?”
    Odd follows the line of her finger, and the tingling in his legs ceases; the heavy warmth dissipates. She is pointing