The leaves were falling, seeking escape from the trees. What she wouldn't give to fly free like one of those lucky leaves and blow which ever way the wind took her. Oh, to be a leaf. To be anything but a hermit mountaineer's wife.

"Will you take me into town tomorrow?" she asked, face still pressed against the glass instead of looking at him. From what she'd seen driving through with her father, it was a small, podunk town with barely enough stores to line one street, but beggars couldn't be choosers. "I got some letters I want to drop off to Momma and Daddy."

He was sitting on the couch, resting after a long day of work. "Can't. I have things that need doing right here. It can wait another week."

A week seemed an eternity in this hellhole. She turned from the window to look at him. "It can't. And I need some fresh soap too." The plea had no effect on him. "I'll just go by myself and get it."

"No, you won't either," he said. "Not without my say-so."

She didn't appreciate his bullying at all. "You going to stop me?" she challenged.

"You bet I will. You'll do as I say, woman. We'll go in town together when the time is right." He shut his eyes and leaned back. The conversation over in his mind.

A prisoner, she thought for the 100th time, there was no other way of saying it. She was his prisoner. She turned away in an angry silence and went back to looking at the autumn landscape.

Thoughts dark, she realized death played a part in the escape the leaves made, a heavy price to pay for freedom. Her escape would be less messy. At this point, she was only biding her time. Formulating a plan was still a work in progress, but come up with one, she would.

She hadn't gotten to go with him when he'd gone to town the week before. He'd remarked that he hadn't known she would want to go, which had about had her pulling her hair from her head as she had declared, "Of course, I'd want to go! You think I like staring at the same four walls everyday?"

"Well, I'll take you next time," he said with a simple shrug, not realizing how disappointing and aggravating a situation it was for her.

"You amaze me. Have you ever been any further than the foot of this mountain?"

He scratched his head, not seeming to know where she was going with it. "I've been around to other parts of Tennessee, of course. Selling to make ends meet. Why?"

"Oh, never mind," she said with a longsuffering sigh.

She started from her thoughts when the littlest of the hunting dogs jumped up high enough to be window level, snapping and growling, looking as if he wanted a piece of her.

She moved over to the unstylish, old chair in the living room. It was a comfortable piece of furniture though. She had to admit that much.

She pulled out the one letter she had received from home. He'd at least had the decency to bring back her mail when he'd gone into town. She'd read it once before, but she was homesick enough that she read it again.

She laughed as she reread of one of Liburn's shenanigans, gluing serious Albert, another brother, to his chair. She could picture Albert's reaction so perfectly she couldn't help dissolving into laughter and was only sorry she had missed it.

Jackson looked up hopeful she would share the joke, but she didn't and he didn't feel right asking her to. The intimacy they shared in the bedroom after the lights had gone out didn't make for personal, relational intimacy, an unexpected and disappointing truth.

Alleghany folded the letter back up. Liburn, fun-loving and a prankster, was the brother most like her, but she longed to see them all. She hoped they were all eating well. She knew they wouldn't tell her if they weren't, which worried her.

She could feel Jackson's eyes on her, watching her. She looked up and glared. She normally enjoyed being looked at and admired but from Jackson she just found it annoying.

He got the message and got up to go outside.

"I'm going to go mess with the dogs," he informed her like she actually cared where he went.

She heard jingle of the "warden's" keys as he absent-mindedly shook them when he walked past. He kept the keys to the house and truck in his pocket at all times except when he laid them on the nightstand beside him when he went to sleep and she'd found he wasn't a deep sleeper. If she twisted too much or moved to get out of bed, he was up immediately asking where she was going or why wasn't she sleeping.

But where there was a will, there was a way and a plan at last took shape when she went back to looking out the window and her eyes fell on the rusty hunk of metal she had noticed from the get-go. It was a junk car that looked as if it hadn't run for a while and hadn't run too good while it was running. He must have been keeping it around for spare parts.

She was sure she could get it running again. She'd helped her father fix up old cars. They'd practically revived them from the dead. It would take some time, but it was time she had with no town nearby and Jackson going off most everyday. And it was a skill he didn't know she had. A skill she could use.

The dogs had formed a circle around him, tails wagging, tongues greeting like he was the greatest thing on two legs while he stood there and patted their heads. She couldn't wait for him to go out into the woods again, so she could pop the hood and see what exactly she was up against.