I lifted my head and looked at her.

"Juliana, will you back me up on this?"

Juliana went blank.

"Back you up on what?"

I said it slowly, word by word.

"That you're the ones telling me to go in and save her."

"That if I touch Patsy Fox, it's to save her life."

"That once she comes to, whatever she says, none of you turn around and bite me for it."

The faces of the sent-down girls went ugly.

"Dustin Delgado, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Patsy's about to die and you're standing there worrying about this?"

"She's a woman. You think she'd smear her own good name just to frame you?"

The exact words. Word for word from my last life.

I laughed.

It made their faces uglier still.

Out in the river, Patsy seemed to run out of patience. Her body dropped hard, sinking lower into the water.

The bank erupted all over again.

"She's going under!"

"Dustin Delgado, if you don't save her now, that's murder!"

Juliana panicked and grabbed at me to drag me in.

But I turned, pulled a long bamboo pole from the edge of the field ridge, and pushed it straight into the water, bracing it under Patsy's shoulder.

"I'll save her."

"But I'm not going in."

"You girls come over and haul the pole."

Not one of them moved. They just stood there staring at me like fools.

I said it coldly.

"Weren't you all in such a hurry to save her?"

"Now that it's your turn to lift a hand, every one of you just stands there?"

The girls flushed red.

Juliana clenched her jaw and finally stepped up to grab the pole.

"Don't just stand around. Get her out of the water first!"

Only then did the others lend a grudging hand.

Patsy was dragged ashore soon enough.

She was soaked through, her face bloodless, lying on the ground without a twitch.

One of the girls crouched down and patted her cheek.

"Patsy?"

"Patsy, wake up!"

Patsy didn't respond.

Someone looked over at me.

"Dustin Delgado, is she still breathing?"

"Hurry, give her mouth-to-mouth!"

I stepped back.

"I don't know how."

The girl got frantic.

"How can you not know how?"

"Last month the commune medic came out and taught us first aid. Weren't you the one who learned it best?"

"The medic even praised you, said your compressions and your breaths were the most textbook-correct of anyone!"

I said it evenly.

"All I know how to do is drag her out of the water."

"Mouth-to-mouth, that kind of thing, isn't proper for a man like me."

"Which of you wants to do it?"

The girls fell silent in an instant.

Juliana hesitated too.

She reached out and checked Patsy's breath under her nose.

"Still breathing."

"She just swallowed water."

The words had barely left her when Patsy broke into a violent fit of coughing.

She spat up a few mouthfuls of water and slowly opened her eyes.

Everyone let out a breath.

But the next second.

Patsy suddenly clutched at her collar, and the tears rolled down all at once.

She looked at me, her voice shaking.

"Dustin Delgado…"

"Why did you try to hurt me?"

Everyone on the field ridge froze.

I looked at her.

Here it came.

Patsy sobbed until she could barely catch her breath.

"I was only passing by the river."

"He blocked my way out of nowhere."

"When I wouldn't talk to him, he shoved me into the water."

"He said if he saved me, I'd have no choice but to marry him."

A few of the sent-down girls blew up on the spot.

"Dustin, how can you be so shameless?"

"You wouldn't go in the water just now, was that because you were scared we'd find out?"

"No wonder you kept demanding we witness it. You'd already worked out how to clear yourself!"

Someone had already lunged forward and grabbed me by the collar.

"I said it, the way he dragged his feet and wouldn't save her, he's obviously got something to hide!"

"Patsy's just a girl, and she just came back from the edge of death. Could she really make up a lie like that?"

Juliana's brow drew tight too.

"Dustin, you'd better explain this."

I looked down at the hand fisted in my collar.

In my last life, the militia had pinned me to the ground exactly like this.

Muddy water poured into my mouth, and I couldn't get out a single complete word of explanation.

But this time, I didn't struggle.

And I didn't rush to defend myself.

I only lifted my head and looked at Patsy. "You're saying I pushed you into the river?"

She nodded through her tears.

"It was you."

"I saw it with my own eyes."

I asked again: "You're sure?"

As if my calm enraged her, she cried louder.

"Dustin, you're still trying to deny it?"

"I'm a woman. Would I throw away my own good name just to frame you?"

The eyes on me had changed completely now.

Disgust, contempt, anger.

Exactly the same as my last life.

But this time, I only turned and pointed to the far end of the field ridge.

"Then you'd better explain something."

"I stood right there banging the gong the whole time, from start to finish."

"On the mud by the river, there's only one set of footprints. Yours."

And my footprints stopped at the edge of the ridge, a good thirty feet from the bank.

I watched Patsy's face freeze in an instant, and slowly began:

"Patsy."

"You say I pushed you into the river."

"So tell everyone, then, how did I push you in from thirty feet away?"

The crowd went dead silent, terribly so.

Juliana's face shifted through several colors before she managed a thin attempt at smoothing things over.

"Patsy just went in the water. She's rattled, not thinking straight."

"She got a few words wrong, that's all. She didn't mean it."

"We're all comrades in the same brigade. Let's just drop this."

Patsy stood there pale, biting her lip, saying nothing more.

I didn't press it either.

I just knocked the hand off my collar, shouldered my hoe, and headed home.

But I knew.

Patsy wasn't going to let it end there.

Sure enough, over the next few days she kept angling for chances to be alone with me.

She carried a bowl of sweetened brown-sugar water to my house, saying she wanted to thank me for saving her life.

I called Carina Lambert over from next door right away.

"Patsy's had a bad scare. Carina, sit with her a while."

She staged a fall by the well and reached out for me to help her up.

I flagged down the sent-down girls passing by.

"Give Patsy a hand, would you."

After a few rounds of this, the look she gave me turned colder and colder.

Like she wanted to tear a strip of flesh right off me.

I only found it funny.

In my last life, I never understood how to keep myself clear of suspicion.

I thought as long as I stood straight and did right, saving someone was just saving someone, and helping was just helping.

Only later did I learn.

When someone is out to ruin you.

Even breathing is a crime.

That night, a heavy rain came down.

I didn't sleep at home. I went to the brigade warehouse to keep the night watch.

A few days earlier I'd made a point of mentioning it to Marcus.

"Lots of rain lately, and the warehouse is full of this year's seed. If the roof leaks, we've got real trouble."

He decided I was careful and thorough, so he had me take turns on watch with two of the militia.

I signed my name in the night-watch book.

And made sure the bookkeeper caught the time.

"Dustin Delgado, arrived eight o'clock."

The bookkeeper even laughed at me. "What's got you so serious, kid?"

I laughed too, but said nothing.

Past midnight the rain came harder.

I sat in the warehouse doorway, listening to the water drip off the eaves, and I wasn't the least bit sleepy.

Because I knew.

Patsy would make her move soon.

In my last life she ruined me with a single sentence.

This time the riverbank hadn't worked.

She was sure to find something filthier.

At the first gray light of dawn, a wail of crying broke out at the edge of the village.

"Help! Somebody help!"

"Dustin Delgado attacked me!"

My head snapped up.

The two militiamen jumped too.

"Who's shouting?"

I stood, calm. "Come on."

"Let's go see."

By the time we reached my door, a crowd had already gathered.

Patsy stood there with a coat thrown over her shoulders, hair a mess, crying so hard she could barely keep her feet.

She pointed at the door of my house, her voice shaking.

"Last night I came here out of kindness, to explain the riverbank thing to Dustin."

"But he dragged me inside."

"He shut the door, and he tried to..."

She couldn't get the rest out through her sobs.

The people around erupted.

"Dustin Delgado again?"

"The riverbank business was already off, and now a woman comes running out of his place."

"Patsy's a woman on her own. She wouldn't keep falsely accusing him of something like this, would she?"

Juliana's face darkened as she turned to me too.

"Dustin."

"What have you got to say for yourself this time?"

I didn't look at her.

I looked only at Patsy.

"You're saying I attacked you in my house last night?"

She nodded through her tears.

"It was you."

"Don't even try to deny it."

I suddenly smiled.