"Eli. Eli Rowan."
There were names that a man could hear without feeling anything, names belonging to employers, gas-station clerks, and strangers who came and went. Rowan was not one of them. Cole had spent years training himself to let that name remain unspoken. Hearing it from the mouth of a child struck some part of him that had never properly healed.
"Maybe you've got me mixed up with somebody else," he said. It was an answer his body produced before his mind had agreed with it. "There are a lot of riders on the road."
Eli shook his head. "Not with this one."
He pointed to the silver compass. Cole glanced down despite himself. Up close, the stitching had begun to fray where rain and sunlight had worn it thin. Darla's tiny uneven knot remained visible near the lower point. Evan used to tease her about that knot, saying she had made the rest of the patch too perfect and wanted people to know it was handmade.
"Dad told me to look for silver thread," Eli said. "He said there were six. He said the man I needed to find had gray eyes and a scar here." He touched his own jaw with one finger. "He said his best friend's name was Cole."
Cole's breath caught in his chest. "Who told you that?"
"My dad. In the things he left. Mom read some. And I read the picture."
A woman called the boy's name from across the diner. It was sharp with fright, though the fear was directed more at the situation than at the child. She reached them quickly, placed herself beside Eli, and rested one protective hand on his shoulder. From this close Cole could see that she was trying not to tremble.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I was on the phone. Eli, you can't just walk up to strangers."
"He isn't a stranger," Eli insisted.
"You don't know that."
Cole lifted both hands slightly, palms open, making no attempt to stand or move closer. "He's okay. He didn't do anything wrong."
The woman looked at him, taking inventory of his face, vest, wet gloves, and empty bowl. Her expression was guarded rather than unkind. She was measuring the risk of letting a conversation continue, and Cole understood why. He had spent enough time looking like the kind of man decent mothers warned their children about.
"Come on," she told Eli softly. "Let's finish eating."
Eli turned reluctantly. Cole should have watched them return to their booth and gone back to his coffee. He had become skilled at allowing the beginnings of connections to die before they demanded anything. That ability had kept his life simple, if not particularly happy. But the woman had turned her face toward the light, and suddenly he recognized something about her that had existed for years only in stories told around campfires.
"Mara?" he said.
She stopped. Slowly, she looked back at him. "What did you call me?"