Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(22)

Benny straightened cautiously. “You can tell? How?”

“Echoes,” he said. “Those bullets didn’t travel far. They’re shooting at something close and hitting it.”

“Um … it’s cool that you know that. A little freaky, but cool.”

“Yeah, this whole thing is about me showing you how cool I am.”

“Oh. Sarcasm,” said Benny dryly. “I get it.”

“Shut up,” replied Tom with a grin.

“No, you shut up.”

They smiled at each other for the first time all day.

“C’mon,” said Tom, “let’s go see what they’re shooting at.” He set off in the direction of the gunshot echoes.

Benny stood watching him for a moment. “Wait … we’re going toward the shooting?”


Benny shook his head and followed as quickly as he could. Tom picked up the pace, and Benny, his stomach full of beans and the hated jerky, kept up. They followed a stream down to the

lowlands, but Benny noticed that Tom never went closer than a thousand yards to the running water of Coldwater Creek. He asked Tom about this.

Tom asked, “Can you hear the water?”

Benny strained to hear. “No.”

“There’s your answer. Flowing water is constant noise. It masks other sounds, which means it isn’t safe unless you’re traveling on it in a fast canoe, and this water isn’t deep enough

for that. We’ll only go near it to cross it or to fill our canteens. Otherwise, quiet is better for listening. Always remember that if we can hear something, then it can probably hear us.

And if we can’t hear something, then it might still be able to hear us, and we won’t know about it until it’s too late.”

However, as they followed the gunshot echoes, their path angled toward the stream. Tom stopped for a moment and then shook his head in disapproval. “Not bright,” he said, but didn’t

explain his comment. They ran on.

As they moved, Benny practiced being quiet. It was harder than he thought, and for a while it sounded—to his ears—as if he was making a terrible racket. Twigs broke like firecrackers under

his feet, his breath sounded like a wheezing dragon, the legs of his jeans whisked together like a crosscut saw. Tom told him to focus on quieting one thing at a time.

“Don’t try to learn too many skills at once. Take a new skill and learn it by using it. Go from there.”

By the time they were close to where they thought the gunshots were being fired, Benny was moving more quietly and found that he enjoyed the challenge. It was like playing ghost tag with

Chong and Morgie.

Tom stopped and cocked his head to listen. He put a finger to his lips and gestured for Benny to remain still. They were in a field of tall grass, which led to a dense stand of birch trees.

From beyond the trees they could hear the sound of men laughing and shouting, and the occasional hollow crack of a pistol shot.

“Stay here,” Tom whispered, and then he moved as quick and quiet as a sudden breeze, vanishing into the tall grass. Benny lost track of him almost at once. More gunshots popped in the dry

air.

A full minute passed, and Benny felt a burning constriction in his chest and realized that he was holding his breath. He let it out and gulped in another.

Where was Tom?

Another minute. More laughter and shouts. A few scattered gunshots. A third minute. A fourth.

Then something large and dark moved quickly toward him through the tall grass.

“Tom!” Benny almost screamed the name, but Tom shushed him. His brother stepped close and bent to whisper.

“Benny, listen to me. On the other side of those trees is something you need to see. If you’re going to understand how things really are, you need to see.”

“What is it?”

“Bounty hunters. Three of them. I’ve seen these three before, but never this close to town. I want you to come with me. Very quietly. I want you to watch, but don’t say or do anything.”

“But—”

“This will be ugly. Are you ready?”

“I—”

“Yes or no? We can head northeast and continue on our way. Or we can go home.”

Benny shook his head. “No … I’m ready.”

Tom smiled and squeezed his arm. “If things get serious, I want you to run and hide. Understand?”

“Yes,” Benny said, but the word was like a thorn caught in his throat. Running and hiding. Was that the only strategy Tom knew?

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now, follow me. When I move, you move. When I stop, you stop. Step only where I step. Got it? Good.”

Tom led the way through the tall grass, moving slowly, shifting his position in time with the fluctuations of the wind. When Benny realized this, it became easier to match his brother’s

movement, step for step. They entered the trees, and Benny could more easily hear the laughter of the three men. They sounded drunk. Then he heard the whinny of a horse.

A horse?

The trees thinned, and Tom hunkered down and pulled Benny down with him. The scene before them was something out of a nightmare. Even as Benny took it in, a part of his mind was whispering

to him that he would never forget what he was seeing. He could feel every detail being burned into his brain.