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hoofbeats fade into the distance. He listened until he could hear nothing but the dry whisper of the morning breeze, then he started back. He thought about cutting across the dun hills and down through the riverbed to get home. Instead, he walked straight back to town.
    They might have been waiting for him in front of the church — Mr. Brewster, Sally Brandt, Mr. Mendoza and . . . Dad. Jeremy faltered as they all turned to look at him, wishing in that terrible, frightened instant, that he had gone with Dan after all. They looked at him like they had looked at Dan yesterday, hard and cold. Mr. Brewster walked to meet him, slow and stifflegged, and Jeremy wondered suddenly if they’d hang him in Dan’s place.
    “You little, crippled snot.” Mr. Brewster’s hand closed on Jeremy’s shirt, balling up the fabric, lifting him a little off his feet. “You let Greely out. I saw you. Where’s he headed?”
    “I don’t know,” Jeremy said.
    Mr. Brewster hit him.
    Red-and-black light exploded behind Jeremy’s eyelids, and his mouth filled with a harsh, metallic taste. He fell hard and hurting onto his knees, dizzy, eyes blurred with tears, belly full of sickness. Mr. Brewster grabbed him and hauled him to his feet again and Jeremy cringed.
    “Knock it off, Ted.”
    Dad yanked him away from Mr. Brewster. “I lay hands on my kids. Nobody else.”
    “He knows where that bastard’s headed.” Mr. Brewster breathed heavy and fast. “You beat it out of him or I do.”
    “He said he doesn’t know. That’s the end of it, you hear me?”
    “You talk pretty high and mighty,” Mr. Brewster said softly. “Considering you had to beg for help last winter. Seems like you ought to shut up.”
    Jeremy felt his father jerk, as if Mr. Brewter had punched him. He felt his father’s arms quiver and wondered if he would let go, walk away.
    “Seems like we all pitched in, when mice got into your seed stock a few years back,” Dad said quietly.
    Mr. Brewster made a small, harsh sound.
    “Come on, Ted. Let it go.” Sally’s shrill exasperation shattered the tension. “While you’re standing there arguing, Greely’s making tracks for Boardman.”
    “We got to split up,” Mr. Mendoza chimed in.
    “Let’s spread.” Mr. Brewster glowered at Jeremy. Abruptly he spun on his heel. “I bet the bastard headed west,” he snarled. “We’ll go down the riverbed, cut his tracks.” He stalked off down the street with Mr. Mendoza.
    Sally Brandt pushed tousled hair out of her face, sighed. “I’ll go wake up the Deardorfs,” she said. “We’ll spread north and east. You take the south.”
    He felt his father’s body move, as if he had nodded. Jeremy stared down at the dust between his feet, tasting blood on his swelling lip, heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst through his ribs. He felt Dad’s hands lift from his shoulders, tensed as his father moved around in front of him, blocking the rising sun. But all he did was to lift Jeremy’s chin, until he had to meet his father’s eyes.
    “I thought you’d go with him.”
    Jeremy looked at his father’s weathered face. It looked like the hills, all folded into dun gullies. Not angry. Not sad. Just old and dry.
    “If we find Greely, we got to hang him,” Dad said. “Right or wrong, we voted, Jeremy.”
    “I was going to go.” Jeremy swallowed, tasting dust. “You had to ask for food. Because of me.”
    His father’s face twitched.
    Without warning, the firefly popped into the air between them again, pale this time, a flickering shadow in the harsh morning light. Jeremy sucked in his breath, snuffed it out as his father flinched away from it. “I’m sorry,” he cried. “I didn’t mean to make it. It just . . . happened. It makes Rita Menendez laugh. I won’t do it again ever.”
    “Do it again.” His father’s hand clamped down on Jeremy’s arm. “Right now.”
    Trembling, afraid to look at his father’s face, he made the firefly appear