We are returned, in our recounting, into the days which closely followed the hegira of Nicholas Baker – which was his egress from our tenancy in pursuit of more gainful employ. In the morrow and overmorrow after, many things happened or were said which were domestic and necessary to the restoration of the joint concord at Ghost Perch, but irrelevant to your (and the general) interest. One matter though, must be noted; since this turn rose to the forefront of my attention – of my worries and my aspirations, even as we prepared in earnest for the northerly Spring drive of our herd.

For in the meantime of all else, it had happened that I was somewhat touched by the Argument.

It was afternoon: in the meaning that our clock had only just struck the hour past noon. Our luncheon sat comfortably in our bellies and our hands stung with wood-ash wash from morning chores. I was sat astride old Applejack, who was in a contemplative mood, and my cousin Ursula shared the saddle with me. The reins were not in my care, as Mister Sadiqi held the mare’s lead and led afoot.

Yet even then, the final and first note of the Revel niggled me, out from the opposite side of creation. I could not shake it.

“There will be some discomfort in riding,” our man explained, “the saddle is no kind of passive repose. A few miles on: it’ll weary and batter you.”

Mr Sadiqi’s broad hat was tied down (that day) by a leather cord under his chin, and his loose rain slicker was featured of a high collar. Hunching up his shoulders, he kept the brim of the first protectively over the circumference of the second. At the times we passed between the cover of turf, his high leather boots squelched where the land’s dimples pooled mud.

“Are y’alright so far, Ursula?” He asked, stepping with care to direct the horse over the firmest ground. “You say the word, and we can take a break,” he declared. But he did not slow.

The gentleness of the sun-shower was a welcome meteorology to me. Sprinkling, cool rain fell from gauzy cloud through the bright of daylight. Hints of prism-light flickered, and so I (for a moment) imagined Newton his-self, secluded in his study and hunched over his quartz at discovery. Outside my thoughts, the state of being hydrous, yet warm was cleansing. Invigorated, I felt I was left more room in my skull for its various computations. I used as many of those as I could wrangle: towards my own distraction from the Argument.

My head was uncovered, and my hair lay flat with damp. To some measure, I was forced to crane my neck backwards, so as to avoid a mouthful of Ursula’s hat and the waxy taste of lanolin. I pinched up the back corner of the oiled cotton so that the brim would gutter away from my front.

“Ai!” Ursula swatted my leg with the viciousness of panic. “D-do not let me go, cousin, I should fall. You’d not suffer me such indignity, I’ll not have it!”

“Urla, you lymphatic ninny,” I grumbled, “off o’Applejack, you could scarce topple if you leant overside to tie your boots.”

“Don’t raise your voice to your sister,” our man snorted mildly. He patted our horse’s snout and directed her hooves to skirt a stone.

“Mr S! Can’t we just fetch up ol’ Jibanananda?” I groused, “mightn’t he be more apt an equine for my lessons? Urla hasn’t much need for me, excepting for her apprehensions, which I’ll dare say’re undue.”

“Todd, first of all – actually item zero, don’t… equine? Don’t ever trade out a simple word just to pack in extra syllables. Doesn’t make you sound smart, it’s actually a little bit annoying.”

I do admit, I shut my trap at that. Mr Sadiqi raised a finger, shook it and continued.

“But, real item one: you’re being unfair to Ursula to forget your own first time alone on saddleback – twasn’t exactly a case of rodeo-ready. Second thing, relax. The only goal we’ve got today is building up your callouses. Because I guarantee you: if we all left tomorrow on the trail, your butt would fall right off your back by the end.”

I flushed, and Ursula suppressed a snicker.

“Third: you are sure not riding on MY horse” Mr Sadiqi laughed under his breath, “I’ll put you on Ernst P Dubya first.”

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Under the ensuing quiet (and the threat of being set astride our mule) I was forced again to contend with the lingering, invasive reverberence of Lonely Nick’s last chord. I did not quite know how it had come to be mine, and I could not know how I might give it back. It is the fragile nature of Grace to be a substance which can shake a mountain or break like sugar-glass; to be a thing which passes easy and invisible between us, but whose sensation is overwhelming and solitary.

I will not say this was the first I’d come to carry rayles of my own, only that ‘till then I’d never known what it meant to be holding a contrary authority. Imagine this: if a soul might come to regard a mirror, and contemplate its other-side, and then ere they’ve done left its presence to uphold a conviction the same reflection’d been extended alongside and parallel to everything. Well. That is where you should understand the space to be, which was the origin of the tone that vexed me.

“Sir, what am I meant to do with the reins when I’ve got them?” Ursula kicked her feet idly and out from under her poncho. It was not her custom to wear britches, and she’d borrowed hers a size too large. Truthfully, I suspected the pair as having once been mine. Ashli would not willingly suffer so wide a fit of pants.

“Is there some special kind of signs,” Ursula continued, “by which I tell the horse how to turn, like such, or like so?”

We were passing at last into reach of the east fence. This section was made up from rusting panels of corrugated metal, and we were forever in discussion on the subject of replacing it. I think there was some concern it presented a poor impression to our neighbors (in the years after we’d come to know we had some).

“Well, yes,” the first hand tilted his head. It was a wobble he sometimes had the habit of, in lieu of nods. “Todd will show you the basics in a moment, and we’ll go over the rest in due time. But honestly, most of the time the reins are just there to remind your animal it’s got the bit in. Yanking them around will only do you good if you mean to hurt the horse.”

Our east gate had not been constructed with much in the means of human ingenuity. It simply had chains, one on either side, the right of which unfastened by means of a pin. Then the whole thing could be muscled so as to pivot from the left. The inelegance of its mechanism offended me.

“So,” Mr Sadiqi clapped his hands dry from the manipulation of the gate, then waved us through and restored his gloves. “We’re leaving the bounds of the Freehold, which puts us where?”

I showed Ursula the loose grip I kept the reins with. It was only the slightest shake I gave the leather, and the most feather-light pressure I pressed in with my knees. Applejack knew her business, and advanced through our border at a walk.

“Outside our lands, is the unclaimed,” I answered.

“Do you intend to mean the wilds here?” Ursula asked to clarify, “or Sir, is your question extended to all of the countryside?”

The first hand swung the gate shut, and took a pace to catch us up (which was not much). “More specifically,” he hinted. “To here as a place and as a matter of law.”

My cousin and I shared a look, which did teeter her a mite precarious (I saved her quick enough, but turning all the way backwards ain’t easy when your perch is locomoting).

“I am not meant to think this is the commons, yet?” Ursula guessed once she’d recovered.

“Commons is only what’s set aside for grazing land, and by explicit arrangement,” I asserted with a low commitment to confidence.

“Right,” our instructor encouraged. He twirled his finger in a loop over his head, which was a directive to make a circle and progress to a trot.

“Like the Asphalt Ocean,” I suggested.

“That’s right,” Mr Sadiqi confirmed. He strolled forward over gravel and onto a stretch of pavement. "Lands held in Open Range Commons are not to be claimed, and that’s by gentleman’s agreement. Ursula, how many holds do we share our grazing lands with?”

“I,” she hesitated, “know of one, Sir. I think. Them Indians.” The girl turned her face away, but her ear displayed her blush. “I am afraid do not know what kind. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, well obviously Ursula, it’s not about kinds. But, I’m about eighty percent sure the Maytubbys are Choctaw by heritage. Ed’s wife was Muscogee Creek, so the extended family is -”

Mr Sadiqi shook his head. “Anyway, fairly offensive, but correct. The only rights we recognize to the northern graze are the Maytubbys’ at Broccoli Springs.” He raised his voice as I guided Applejack out to a wider radius. “Though we’ll be obliged to offer the same to any true hold which asks. What about west?”

“That’s the Tates who drive the capitol graze,” I supplied. I knew since their name was sometimes the subject of Momma’s conversation. “At Ruby Ridge Ranch.”

“Very good, and do you know why they’ve named their hold like that?” Mr Sadiqi turned on his heel to watch us as we rounded him.

Neither I, nor my cousin had a suitable answer; though the question may have been rhetorical.

“Because Dalton Tate is an absolute crazy person,” declared our man soberly. “How about south? Last one.”

“South of us is Flatrock Ranch,” Ursula hollered. “I only know it since their Missus is a girl.”

“Margarit Vega! And we always say woman! I’m not sure if Maggy Vega’d flay you alive, or give you a chocolate if you called her a girl to her face! So how about let's not...”

Mr Sadiqi’s shout trailed off. His hat was in one hand, and he ran his other over the white rough of his hair. Following the tilt of his chin, I was impelled to search out the patch of sky which was the object of his regard. There, in an open window of blue, hung a distant white bird in the shape of a cross.

"I'm assuming -" I swallowed. It occurred to me that wings were meant to move, and these did not. "That there is what an aeroplane looks like?"