Amanda Coplin

There were times when the girls knew where the man was in the orchard, and times they did not. These times they trod slowly and carefully, not that they thought he would harm them—not really—but it had become a kind of game. You might turn the corner into an orchard row and find him there, walking toward you or away, or maybe you saw his legs, his trunk, obscured in leaves.

She sat on a blue velvet-cushioned stool. A man she could not see—he was in the ink-black darkness before her—told her to hold very still. He was taking her picture. Did she know what that meant? Don’t move your mouth, he said. Sit still. Try not to blink.

She stole a horse in a neighboring town—it was easy enough, outside a tavern at night—and discovered the nest morning, having ridden the better part of the night, a venison sandwich in the saddlebags and, sewn into a handkerchief and stuffed into a hidden pocket, bills of money.