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the discussion.
    He reached Baker’s
Yard and put Josephine in her stall beside Chester, Mrs. Baker's
brown quarter horse for the night.
    ___
    Bull and Jones
were the first up. Narrow watched his brothers leave the loft,
heard the barn door open and shut then climbed down after them. He
peered out the front door and saw Jones fastening up his pants.
Bull was casting his head from side to side, scanning the horizon
and sniffing the air.
    "Bull’s after
breakfast," he told Porkchop when he returned to the loft.
    "Good. Go get some
water from that well out front."
    "It’s all busted
up. It can’t be any good."
    "Well, look
around. There has to be another source of water."
    Outside, Narrow
looked around the yard. He didn't want to see Pater or have any
kind of a repeat of yesterday. Around one corner of the barn a
large white plastic cistern stood on wooden blocks. White plastic
eavestroughing funnelled water from the roof into the cistern and a
tarnished faucet had been hammered into it near the base. A metal
bucket hung on a nail off the barn wall and Narrow grabbed it and
set it beneath the tap. As he loosened the faucet, clear rainwater
gushed forth.
    Inside, Porkchop
built a fire in the stove. She sat in front of its open door,
relishing the heat, considering their situation. She would be
nineteen soon and had been looking after her siblings for as long
as she could remember. She knew everything that needed to be done
at the orchard and was angry that they’d had to leave their home.
But she also knew the Landlord; had known him all her life. He was
always angry, always yelling, and he never looked at them if he
could help it. Sometimes he would stare at Titania for a few
seconds but that had only started happening after her accident. He
didn’t like being touched and would flinch and jerk away if any one
of them so much as brushed his sleeve. It wasn’t a surprise that he
hadn’t wanted to keep them on.
    She supposed she
ought to be grateful to Pater but her only impression of him so far
wasn’t a good one. She fed in a birch log and leaned back when the
bark caught fire and started to spit. She would simply have to wait
and see.
    Bull had made a
beeline for the north woods; Jones followed at his brother's pace.
He'd only ever been allowed short spurts of speed at the orchard,
to fetch something or someone in a hurry at Ma's command. He tried
not to think about it much usually, but sometimes all he could
think about was running for hours and hours, never stopping.
    "We've got a ways
to go," said Bull, stopping. "There's game but it'll be a
while."
    "Okay." Jones
started to walk on but Bull remained. Bull wasn't particularly
sensitive to what people were feeling but it was impossible for him
not to see and be annoyed by Jones' constant fidgeting beside
him.
    "If you want to
run, go ahead. Go east, but not too far. Listen for the signal."
Bull blinked and Jones was gone. He saw an after image of his
brother's grinning face.
    Bull ambled north,
taking in the details of the forest. It was predominantly deciduous
with enough tree variety for excellent hunting grounds as well as
food and building materials. There were also many well worn paths,
human and animal. He had smelled as much from the road
yesterday.
    He strayed off the
path he was on to check out an old foundation. He sat down on one
of the exposed footings. It looked like the remains of a house. He
waited a while to let Jones work off his energy then whistled,
wa-wa, the two short syllables of the Nellsen bird. Jones returned,
smiling and red-cheeked, and they continued north into the
woods.
    Bull soon sniffed
out a small hare and three pigeons. Jones made short work of them
all, snapping the necks of each one, quickly and without feeling,
his hands a blur of motion from the moment he snatched the hare
diving into its warren, to the last pigeon, which he caught mid-air
as it tried to fly to safety. Jones carried the hare by its hind
legs, its head dragging near