Echo Burning

Bobby isn’t. He’s staying in the barn.”
    “Why?”
    “I think a horse is sick.”
    The maid dumped the stack of plates and slid one out, leaving three of everything.
    “So I’ll have to carry it down to him, I guess,” she said, irritated.
    “I’ll take it,” Reacher said. “You’re very busy.”
    He followed her back to the kitchen and she piled the first four pancakes off the skillet onto a plate. Added a little butter and maple syrup. Reacher wrapped a knife and a fork into a napkin and picked up the plate and walked back out into the heat. He found Bobby where he had left him. He was sitting up, doing nothing.
    “What’s this?” he said.
    “Breakfast,” Reacher said. “I had a change of heart. Because you’re going to do something for me.”
    “Yeah, what?”
    “There’s going to be some kind of a big lunch, for Sloop getting back.”
    Bobby nodded. “I expect so.”
    “You’re going to invite me. As your guest. Like I’m you’re big buddy.”
    “I am?”
    “Sure you are. If you want these pancakes, and if you want to walk without sticks the rest of your life.”
    Bobby went quiet.
    “Dinner, too,” Reacher said. “You understand?”
    “Her husband ’s coming home, for God’s sake,” Bobby said. “It’s over, right?”
    “You’re jumping to conclusions, Bobby. I’ve got no particular interest in Carmen. I just want to get next to Sloop. I need to talk to him.”
    “About what?”
    “Just do it, O.K.?”
    Bobby shrugged.
    “Whatever,” he said.
    Reacher handed him the plate of pancakes and headed for the house again.

    Carmen and Ellie were sitting side by side at the table. Ellie’s hair was wet from the shower and she was in a yellow seersucker dress.
    “My daddy’s coming home today,” she said. “He’s on his way, right now.”
    Reacher nodded. “I heard that.”
    “I thought it was going to be tomorrow. But it’s today.”
    Carmen was looking at the wall, saying nothing. The maid brought pancakes in on a platter. She served them out, two for the kid, three for Carmen, four for Reacher. Then she took the platter away and went back to the kitchen.
    “I was going to stay home from school tomorrow,” Ellie said. “Can I still?”
    Carmen said nothing.
    “Mom? Can I still?”
    Carmen turned and looked at Reacher, like he had spoken. Her face was blank. It reminded him of a guy he had known who had gone to the eye doctor. He had been having trouble reading fine print. The eye doctor spotted a tumor in the retina. Made arrangements there and then for him to have the eye removed the next day. Then the guy had sat around knowing that tomorrow he was going into the hospital with two eyes and coming back out with one. The certainty had burned him up. The anticipation. The dread. Much worse than a split-second accident with the same result.
    “Mommy? Can I?” Ellie asked again.
    “I guess,” Carmen said. “What?”
    “Mommy, you’re not listening . Are you excited too?”
    “Yes,” Carmen said.
    “So can I?”
    “Yes,” Carmen said again.
    Ellie turned to her food and ate it like she was starving. Reacher picked at his, watching Carmen. She ate nothing.
    “I’m going to see my pony now,” Ellie said.
    She scrambled off her chair and ran out of the room like a miniature whirlwind. Reacher heard the front door open and close and the thump of her shoes on the porch steps. He finished his breakfast while Carmen held her fork in midair, like she was uncertain what to do with it, like she had never seen one before.
    “Will you talk to him?” she asked.
    “Sure,” he said.
    “I think he needs to know it’s not a secret anymore.”
    “I agree.”
    “Will you look at him? When you’re talking to him?”
    “I guess so,” he said.
    “Good. You should. Because you’ve got gunfighter’s eyes. Maybe like Clay Allison had. You should let him see them. Let him see what’s coming.”
    “We’ve been through all of that,” he said.
    “I know,” she answered.

    Then she went off alone and Reacher set about killing time. It felt like waiting for an air raid. He walked out onto the porch and looked across the yard at the road where it came in from the north. He followed it with his eyes to where the red picket fence finished, and beyond that to where it disappeared over the curve of the earth. The air was still clear with morning and there was no mirage over the blacktop. It was just a dusty ribbon framed by the limestone ledge to the west and the