Haints Stay Read Online Free Page A

commander
     continued to saw at the body before him.
    “Two blankets,” said a voice, “and tamped down earth evidencing a third
     body somewhere.”
    “Warm ?”
    “All warm.”
    “Women ?”
    “One woman and something small.”
    “A child.”
    “A family.”
    “They’re hiding then. Still here somewhere.”
    “Are you still here ?” The voice was yelling, turning its way through the
     darkness.
    Something within the boy wanted to cry out. He curled his lips inward and
     held them together with his teeth. Something was working its way up and out of him.
     He felt out of control and desperate, as if he were about to die. If he made a
     sound, they would be upon him. If they stepped any more in his direction, they would
     feel his presence and be upon him. If they discovered him, no one would save
     him.
    “Hey,” yelled the voice. “You.”
    “Set their things into a pile and burn them. If they’re on
     the run, whatever it is they’re running from will appreciate the help.”
    The three men gathered Brooke and Sugar’s belongings into a pile. Onto
     the pile they poured something that occupied the boy’s nostrils and brought water to
     his eyes. The pile took flame and two of the men grabbed the carcass of their
     mutilated catch and dragged it behind the two other men, who were now making haste
     before them.
    Brooke and Sugar’s few belongings burned, and the boy released into a
     small pile at the base of the tree behind which he had been hiding. He breathed and
     breathed and breathed again, imagining the four men appearing suddenly again and
     gripping him by the hair and dragging him out, out into the darkness where he would
     vanish completely and be no more.
    Brooke and Sugar appeared then at his side and Sugar lifted him. They
     moved from the rough fire spilling out onto the grass and crackling throughout the
     woods. They walked and the boy shook. Soon the woods were blue with the oncoming sun
     and they were in a landscape that looked no different than what had come before,
     other than its absence of fire, its relative quiet and the new light born from
     between the branches of the trees.
    “They took our food,” said Brooke.
    “They were locusts,” said Sugar.
    “Are they coming back ?” said the boy.
    “Not on purpose, I imagine,” said Sugar.
    “I’d like to kill them,” said Brooke. “I’d like our things back.”
    “Our things are gone,” said Sugar. “We’ll acquire new things.”
    “Not our deer,” said Brooke.
    “Our deer is gone,” said Sugar.
    “They’ve got our bundles,” said Brooke.
    “Why did you hide ?” said the boy.
    “Why did you ?” said Sugar.
    “We didn’t hide,” said Brooke. “We waited and watched.”
    “Were those men after you ?” said the boy.
    “No,” said Sugar. “They were after something else. But now they know
     we’re out here.”
    “And they’ve got our deer,” said Brooke.
    “Will you not be able to let this go ?” said Sugar.
    “I don’t think so,” said Brooke. “I’d like to eat. I’d like to avenge our
     blankets.”
    “Then we’ll return to the site and follow their trail until we overtake
     them,” said Sugar.
     
    The smell of the fire was still thick in the air. Its source, easy
     to locate. The ashes were wet — drowned hastily with water or urine — but still
     smoldering beneath a cool layer. Dew spattered the trampled grass. A bent streak of
     grass, mud, and blood led out into the woods.
    “They’re very long gone if they’re any kind of travelers,” said
     Sugar.
    “We’re traveling light,” said Brooke, “compared.”
    They poked into the ashes with a branch each and upturned nothing of
     use.
    The boy was shivering, wet with sweat and dew.
    Sugar handed him a pinch of tobacco from his sock and the boy put it in
     his mouth.
    “You smoke it,” said Sugar, a thin sticky paper pinched between his thumb
     and pointer finger.
    The boy spat out the threads and scraped at