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underside of his cylinder
vibrated.
    An incident has occurred above.
    It would give himself something
else to think about for the next few years besides eating children. The clock
continued to click away in his brain. Twenty-eight years, ten months, two
weeks, three days, fourteen minutes, and thirty-one seconds.
    Thirty-two…
    Thirty-three…
    Thirty-four…

Chapter 8
    Willem glanced back over his
shoulder more than once as they headed west. The forested hills were still
there but fading fast. Behind those hills, and another full day’s walk, was
Burn—the town he’d been born and raised in. Until yesterday morning, Willem had
never ventured more than a quarter-mile from the safety of its walls.
    “I’d keep my eyes trained ahead if
I were you,” Cobe suggested. “The lawman says we ain’t going back to Burn any
time soon.”
    “Just taking a few last looks,”
Willem answered, “in case we don’t ever go back.”
    “Don’t talk like that. We’ll be
back...someday.”
    Ahead of the boys, Lawson rode
Dust. The big horse ambled along, kicking up dirt for them to chew on. Trot sat
awkwardly behind the lawman, his arms clutched around Lawson’s waist. Willem
shook his head. “Not much worth looking at ahead, unless you like staring at
Trot’s dirty old ass crack.”
    Cobe smiled. “Last night, I thought
we were done for. The lawman fed us and kept us safe. Lucky for us, he decided
to keep heading west.” He still didn’t like, or particularly trust, the lawman,
but facts were facts.
    “But why? Why would Burn’s only
law-keeper up and leave? What’s to stop him from killing us all, brutal-like,
and headin’ back? Trot? You think that braindumb’s gonna rescue us?”
    Lawson’s reply made the one-armed
boy jump. “I could’ve let the howler eat you and yer brother. I could’ve shot
you while you slept. I could tell Dust to kick yer head in right now, and leave
you to rot. There’s a thousand easy ways to kill a little shit like you. So why
don’t you quit thinkin’ what a treacherous, mean, son of a bitch I am and keep
yer mouth shut.”
    Willem looked to his brother and
Cobe shrugged.
    Trot cleared his throat and changed
the subject. “No one saw me leave Burn. I snuck out of town right after you
rode out.” He twisted around on Dust’s rump and grinned at the boys. “I
followed the horse tracks. I can track real good!”
    “Why did you leave Burn?” Lawson
rumbled. “You heard what Lode said. Yer stupidity makes you one of the safest folks
in town.”
    “Sick of being teased. Sick of
people slapping and kicking me. I got pride too, you know…not much, but I got
some.”
    “Pride will get you killed. Being
stupid ain’t such a bad thing.”
    “Just got sick of it is all,” Trot
muttered.
    They rode and walked for another
hour. They hadn’t seen the sun, but it was wicked hot. The clouds, still heavy
and gray, had a way of trapping the heat close to the ground. The land was
pretty much the same blasted scape Cobe and Willem were used to seeing, growing
up in Burn. Cobe kicked at the dirt in frustration. Where had he hoped to go?
What would they have found on their own?
    As if sensing his thoughts, Lawson
brought Dust to a stop and climbed down. He handed his leather water canteen to
Cobe and helped Trot down next. “You had the right idea,” he said to Cobe, as
the boy handed the container off to his brother, “leavin’ Burn like you did.
The folks there, and in Rudd, have no clue what things are like further west,
once you get past them first set of hills.” He settled against a big rock and
beat the dust from his hat against one leg. “There’s other towns…some bigger
than Burn…most smaller. Things are worse there. They don’t even got a river to
plant crops by. Whatever they can seed grows on spit and hope.”
    Cobe sat in the dirt and Willem
joined him. The boys remained silent and listened to the lawman tell them what
the world was like. Trot stroked Dust’s coarse