Page 175 of The Fire Line

“I don’t know.”

That was the problem. Jay had no right to expect Harris to produce something he himself had not been willing to say.

Farther down the fence, Evan and Noah worked within sight. Harris glanced toward them before asking, “You got enough for the film?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Jay should have left it there. Instead he said, “You asked me to stay with you.”

Harris’s hand tightened around the post driver. “What?”

“On the mountain.”

“You were havin’ trouble breathing.”

“I know.”

“Needed you awake.”

Jay remembered that. He also remembered Harris’s hands against his face, the fear beneath his voice, and fragments of words that had followed him into the hospital even when he could no longer place them in order.

“You said it like it mattered.”

Harris finally met his eyes. “It did. You could’ve died.”

Nothing about the explanation was false, which somehow made it worse.

“Right.”

Jay turned, but Harris said his name before he had taken more than a step. When Jay looked back, Harris seemed to have reached the edge of something. His mouth opened, his attention flicked toward Evan, and whatever he had nearly said disappeared.

“You should get back.”

Jay waited a second longer than dignity recommended before nodding. “Sure.”

He crossed the pasture without looking behind him.

* * *

For the next two days, Harris gave Jay exactly the amount of distance Jay had never asked for. He was everywhere and somehow never with him: beside the adjusters, along the fence line, at meals, crossing the yard with tools in his good hand. Whenever Jay coughed, Harris still looked up, and whenever he carried anything heavier than a camera battery, Harris seemed to materialize nearby with an objection. Otherwise, he left him alone.

By Saturday afternoon, Jay had had enough of being respectfully avoided.

He found Harris stretching wire in the lower pasture and picked up one of the replacement posts.

“What’re you doing?”

“Helping.”

“You got packing.”

“I delegated.”

“To Eli?”

“Obviously.”