Devils Unto Dust(43)

“We’re clear,” Curtis says, smiling over his shoulder. “Not so bad, right?”

A dust devil whips up in the distance, doing its lonesome spinning dance. The dust swirls and separates, evaporating into the air like it was never there at all. But I saw it; that counts for something. I risk a look back at Silver, and from a distance it looks harmless, sad even; all those empty houses suspended in time. I pity the unmade beds still waiting to be slept in, the overturned chairs that will never be righted.

“What’s wrong?” Micah asks me, nudging me with his arm. “You look more grim than usual.”

“Just spooked, is all,” I tell him. “Everything we hear about Silver, and there it is. It’s like seeing a ghost.”

“How hard did you get hit in the head?”

That makes me smile, like he knew it would. “Those stories scared you right enough, if I remember.”

“Not as much as Doc Kincaid’s story about the grass widow who wanted to marry him,” Micah says, nodding to Sam.

“Oh, her,” Sam says, shuddering. “That woman was a terror. I don’t think I ever saw Pa hide from anyone before.”

“How come you’re not hitched, Curtis?” I ask him.

“You offering?” he says with a smile.

“I already got two boys to look after, I don’t need another. But I can find you a nice yellow-haired woman if you’re interested.”

“Thank you kindly, but my heart belongs to another. I’m just waiting for her to come around.”

Ben snorts. “You’ll be waiting a long time, brother.”

“Anyone we know?” Sam asks.

“It’s not for me to say,” Curtis says.

Ben mouths a name at me, and I start to giggle.

“Elsie?” I repeat, and Sam and Micah break out laughing.

“What’s so damn funny?” Curtis asks.

I take a breath and choke back my laughter. “Curtis, Elsie runs the Homestead. Do you know how many men spend all day in there drinking?”

“So?”

“So there’s not a hunter in Glory who hasn’t propositioned her at least once. It’ll take more than time for her to come around.”

Curtis sighs heavily. “Then I’ll just have to prove I’m worthy. Always did like red hair.”

Sam and Micah make kissing noises at him until he swats them away.

“Curtis,” Ben says, his voice strange.

“Just y’all wait until you’re heartsick and see how kind I am.”

“Curtis!” Ben yells, and we all look at him.

“What?”

“That.” Ben points behind us. I whip around, hand on my gun, ready for a fight. There’s nothing there, no shakes, no nothing. But I’m staring at the wrong spot; I lift my eyes higher and see a reddish-brown wall rising into the sickly sky.

There’s no need to say it, but I do anyway. “Dust storm.”





35.


The last dust storm I remember was right before the twins were born. Ma was huge, her belly like a perfectly rounded egg. The storm didn’t hit us directly, but the sky was green and foul for days. Ma made us stay inside and stuffed rags into the cracks in the windows. I remember her squatting by the door, trying to plug the gap in the sill. Even locked inside, the air turned our eyes hot and bloodshot and made us cough up red dirt and spit.

“What do we do?” Sam asks, his voice tight. When no one answers, he looks at Ben insistently. “What do we do?”

“How far to the next box?” I ask, my mind racing. It’s got to be at least five miles since we left the station; it can’t be that much farther.

“Two miles,” Ben answers. I can see the muscles of his jaw working beneath his beard.

“It’ll hit us before we make that,” Micah says, his eyes calculating the edge of the storm.

“Curtis?” Ben asks.

Curtis still has his sight on the dust cloud, a deep wrinkle between his eyes.

“Curtis?” Ben asks again, loudly, and Curtis jerks his head to face his brother.

“Run,” he says, simply. “We run for it.”

Curtis checks his grip on Nana and starts to move.

“No, stop,” I call out. “Stop.”

“What is it?” Micah asks.

“Keep moving,” Curtis orders.

“But Curtis—”

“We can’t stop, Willie,” he says.

“We came this way,” I tell him. “We’re retracing our steps.”

“We have to get to shelter.”

“The hotbox is that way,” and I point in the opposite direction.

“We ain’t gonna make it to the box.”

It takes me a heartbeat to understand.

“You can’t be serious,” I say. “We can’t go to Silver,” and I hate how childish my voice sounds.

“It’s moving too fast; we can’t cover two miles. We get caught in that storm we won’t be able to breathe,” Curtis says. “We’ll be blind, and that sand can strip the skin from your bones.”

“But—” I don’t even know where to begin; this is madness. You run away from danger, not toward it.