The Pecan Year

The January cold came mean that year, slicing through Caleb's canvas jacket like it wasn't there. He stood at the cattle gate where the county road ended and Whitlock Orchards began, the duffel bag heavy against his shoulder, the same bag he'd carried into Macon State three years ago. The bag smelled like industrial detergent and someone else's cigarettes. His hands were still soft—that was the first thing he'd noticed stepping off the Greyhound in Albany, how his palms had gone smooth as a child's. Three years of kitchen work and laundry detail, no calluses worth keeping.

The pecan rows stretched ahead in their geometric silence, bare branches against a sky the color of dirty water. He could see where the hurricane had come through. Whole trees bent double, their crowns touching earth. Branches thick as his torso snapped clean and lying where they'd fallen four months ago, bark stripped white, raw wood already graying. The northwest corner looked like God had dragged a rake across it.

He didn't move toward the house yet. The gate was unlocked but he made himself stand there anyway, duffel cutting into his shoulder, feet going numb in the boots they'd given him at release. Boots that fit but weren't his. Nothing was his except what fit in the bag.