The morning was lighter. But it was still too early for most people to be up and, save for Lard Head, who lay sleeping in front of the store, there was nobody around Tenney's Crossing. From the last house a little white dog ran out, yapped ineffectively at the mule, and scuttled back into the shadows when she lunged at him.
The mule broke into a fast canter and Joe let her run. Then, of her own accord, she slowed to an easy trot and walked on the upgrades. This was a wagon road, and sometimes wagons made the trip between Tenney's Crossing and Hammerstown when they were heavily loaded and in wet weather. The ruts on either side of the road were deep and uneven, and here and there they had been filled in with rocks. The bleached bones of an ox that had died on this road and been dragged aside were scattered about a grassy little dell.
The sky brightened, and Joe forgot his doubts. He felt light-hearted, almost gay, as he rode through forest broken by an occasional clearing. Little Emma, he assured himself, would be all right because she was always all right when her mother took care of her. And about the lost crops there need be no worry. If a man couldn't do one thing he could always do another, and the only really unfortunate men were those who wept, but did nothing else, when trouble came.
The mule had stopped cantering and trotting and was walking now. But she had a very fast walk, she covered ground much more swiftly than a walking man, and she was not fighting him any more. But Joe continued to watch her closely and to feel with his knees for any change in her. Mules were expert pretenders. They struck when it was least expected. However, if a man knew mules, they always gave some warning.
A mighty hunger mounted within Joe as he thought of the breakfast Barbara would prepare for her mother and brothers and sisters. But if he'd stopped for breakfast he would have risked awakening Emma and the youngster. And he'd had to leave early because time was important. He must find out about the west, then take back to Emma everything he discovered.
They came to a long, gently slanting downgrade, and the mule trotted again. A white-tailed deer with twin fawns at her heels floated like a shadow across the road in front of him and stood on the forested hillside. A singing pleasure rose in Joe, and he slowed the mule as he passed because he wanted to look more closely at the doe and her dappled babies. He wished that Emma might be along, for she always enjoyed such sights, too.