Devils Unto Dust(51)

“There, up ahead,” Curtis calls at last, his voice weary. “I see it.”

“Longest two miles I ever walked,” Ben says. “I’m baked.”

We drag ourselves to the hotbox, dead on our feet. It looks small in the night, a dark shape in a sea of dark shapes.

Curtis reaches the box first and hauls himself up the ridged side. The rest of us watch; I sway slightly trying to stand in place, and Micah drapes an elbow over my shoulder to prop himself up. Curtis pulls at a latch and swings open the hatch at the top, ducking his head down to check inside.

“All clear,” he says, sighing. “It’s gonna be a tight fit. Good thing none of you like to eat. Find some kindling and we’ll get a fire going.”

The ground cover is sparse, but I pull up some tanglehead grass and Micah and Sam collect whatever brush they can find that will burn. Curtis and Ben find a spot to dig a bowl into the dirt.

“Is it safe to build a fire?” I ask, throwing my heap of grass into the pit. “Won’t the shakes see it?”

“That’s the point,” Ben answers. “They don’t like fire, mostly stay away from it. Some animal thing, I reckon.”

“I reckon,” I say, soot from the last fire still on my skin.

“Besides,” Ben adds, “even if they see it, least this way we can see them, too.”

It doesn’t take long for the brush to catch, and soon the air fills with the crack and spit of burning branches. It’s so dry that the fire hardly smokes. It casts a small glow, enough I reckon to see the shakes just before they kill us. I should be scared, out here at night, but I’m so tired. I used up all my fear today; I don’t have any left.

“You look beat,” Micah says to me.

“So do you.” Streaks of dirt and sweat run down Micah’s face, and Sam’s hair is thick with dust. Ben has it worse; his beard is two shades lighter and dripping sweat that’s soaking into his shirt collar. I can’t see my own face but I can picture the dark circles under my eyes and my lips are so cracked and dry that they sting when I lick them.

“I reckon we’ve all seen better days,” Sam says, wiping his face with a dirty sleeve.

“I bet that Hide Town feller don’t seem so bad right about now,” I tell Ben.

He runs a hand through his beard, shedding dust. “The fix is worse, but the company’s better. Least y’all can shoot worth a damn.”

Somewhere along the way, Ben dropped the gravelly voice, too tired or too scared to keep up the act. More and more he’s looking to Curtis to take the lead, just like the rest of us. I feel a pang of guilt; Curtis is trying so hard to keep us safe, and I’ve already brought danger among us. I look over at him; he’s standing alone and apart from the rest of us, the price of being a leader. I swear the wrinkles on his forehead are deeper than they were a day ago.

“That should last awhile,” Curtis says, poking at the fire. “Let’s get some rest.”

Sam and Micah climb up first and I wait for them to drop into the box before I head up. I dig my fingers into the grooves, the wood still warm from the day. I reach the top and take a moment to look out across a desert made murky and remote by the starlight. It’s dark inside the box but I can make out the top of Sam’s sandy head, and I try not to land on him when I drop down.

“Ow,” Micah hisses at me when I knock him with my elbow.

“Oh, hush,” I say. “I barely touched you.”

The air inside is warm and close, and I can hear Micah and Sam breathing like they’re inside my head. The box clearly wasn’t meant to hold many people; I have to stoop a bit or my head bangs against the tin roof.

“I’m coming down,” Ben says from above us, and I press myself against a wall but still get a boot in my face.

Ben lands with a grunt and suddenly we’re face-to-face and standing very close to one another. I’m all too aware of the dirt on my cheeks and I sincerely hope the sour smell in here isn’t just me. Of all the things for me to worry about, it’s stupid to care what Ben thinks of me; it shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

“Room for one more?” Curtis asks from above.

“Not really,” Ben answers.

“Too bad,” Curtis says, and lowers himself down. There’s not much room to maneuver, but he manages to squeeze himself in.

“Well,” he says, pulling the hatch shut and fastening the latch, “I’ll take first watch. Make yourselves comfortable.”

Ben snorts and Sam gives a tired laugh. We have to sleep sitting up, but we’re tired enough I doubt anyone will care. I lost my blanket and my ripped-up shirt, but I still have my coat; I pull it off and scrunch it on the ground and crawl on top. Micah sits next to me, his head tilted back against the wall. From Sam’s deep breathing, he must already be asleep. I rest my head on Micah’s shoulder, my knees pulled up to my chest.

“You think we’ll find Pa in Best?” Micah asks me, his voice close to my ear.

“I hope so.”

He pulls something out of his pocket, and I squint in the dark to see it. His pocket watch, the broken one that he’s kept all these years. It spins lazily, and I can’t see them, but Pa’s initials are engraved on the back: JHW.

“You know, this is the only thing he ever gave me,” Micah says. “And he only let me keep it ’cause it’s broke and he couldn’t sell it.”