Jed stood alone behind the barn, hands deep in his coat pockets, the ridgeline fading into shadow. The cedar branch leaned against the shed wall, still damp in spots from where he’d rinsed off the silt.
He didn’t know why he’d brought it in, not exactly. Just that it felt right to burn something that had been through floodwater and still held together.
The wind cut low through the trees. He turned, picked up the branch, and headed toward the house.
The frost came early that night, settling over the pasture like breath held too long. The stars hung sharp overhead, not twinkling but steady, cold and clear.
Joel struck the match, shielding the flame from the breeze as it caught on the edge of kindling. The fire-pit had been his idea—simple stones ringed around a bare patch of earth near the edge of the ridge. Jed had helped stack them earlier that day, one-handed but stubborn, muttering the whole time about symmetry and heat flow.
Now the flames licked upward, slow at first, then sure.
Jed stepped out from the house with a thick cedar branch in one hand. Not fresh, but not old either—weathered just enough to crack loud when it burned. He’d found it near the creek, half-buried in silt from the last flood. Same bend where things had once gone wrong. It wasn’t clean wood—it was carried wood. But it burned.
Joel moved aside to let him through.
Jed laid the branch across the top of the fire, not saying a word.
The flames took hold.
The cedar popped and hissed, sap still trapped deep in the grain. Smoke curled white into the night air, rising toward stars that did not blink.
They stood in silence, faces lit orange and gold.
Joel finally spoke, voice low. “Feels like the kind of night you don’t get again.”
Jed nodded. “It is.”
He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the same carving knife Joel had once found on the porch rail. He didn’t open it—just held it a moment, then set it beside the fire.
“I don’t want to carry anything unclear anymore,” Jed said. “Not with you. Not with God.”
Joel watched the fire.
Jed went on. “I’ve prayed a lot of prayers these past weeks. Some loud. Most not. But I keep comin’ back to the same one.”
He looked up.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God…”
His voice didn’t shake. But it was rough from the inside out.
“Give me the strength to be your brother, not your temptation. To build with you, not burn.”
Joel’s eyes stayed on the fire, glassy in the glow.
Then he spoke—quieter, but thick at the edges.
“I’m done runnin’.”
Jed looked at him.
Joel didn’t blink. “I ran from Athens. From the church. From the ache. Even from this—whatever this is.”
He stepped forward, closer to the heat.
“But I ain’t runnin’ anymore. I don’t want to pretend I don’t feel what I feel. But I want to walk it different. Carry it clean.”
Jed swallowed hard, throat tight.
Joel extended a hand.
Not soft. Not trembling.
Just strong and open.
Jed reached out and clasped it.
Not like a greeting.
Not like goodbye.
But like something being bound in place.
Their hands gripped firm, and the fire cracked louder—one loud pop like a punctuated amen.
(Chapter from Weathered Fields in the Jed and Joel series. Contact me if you’d like to read the full story!)
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