After waiting for an eternity for the dog to do something, he finally does. He turns, walks stiff-legged over to the back porch and groans softly as he plops down. He looks so old to you now that your fear has turned to pity.

Keeping a wary eye on him, you start packing the vegetables into your bag. You hold out a turnip to eat on the way because you are half starving after all that hard work.

You don’t want to overstay your welcome so as soon as you drop the last one in, you turn tail and head back the way you came toward the tracks.

You’ve walked nearly a mile when you hear a strange sounding cough behind you. You whirl around only to find the hound several paces away. He stops and stares up at you.

“Go home,” you command, but he only looks at you. “Get!”

You take a couple of steps backward and he takes a couple forward. You think about picking up a rock and chucking it at him, but he’s as big as you are. If you made him mad, you wouldn’t stand a chance. The best thing to do would be to ignore him and he’ll head back home on his own when he’s darn good and ready.

Over the course of the day, you grow more and more comfortable around your new companion and when you stop for a rest you discover that embroidered in his faded collar are the words “Ol’ Sam”.

“It’s nice to meet ya, Sam. I’m Billy. I bet you’re hungry.”

You pull out a handful of chips for Sam and a turnip for yourself to munch on. He greedily wolfs them down. You’re tempted to give him more, but you can’t afford to since they’re the only thing you have that will keep the longest and he’ll probably leave soon anyway.

When night comes and it gets too dark to see, you find a decent place to bed down and give Sam another handful of chips while you wash down an onion with lots and lots of water. You give Sam a drink in an old tin can that you found on the tracks earlier so he doesn’t get too thirsty either.

Sam lays down alongside you and his body warmth is somehow comforting. You drift off to sleep more easily than you ever remember doing and don’t stir even once in the night.

The sun is already peeking above the mountains when you wake. Even though you have kinks all over from sleeping on the ground, you feel absolutely wonderful. It’s the first good nights sleep you’ve had in a long, long time.

After both of you have eaten lightly, you set off once again down the tracks. Sam isn’t hanging back like he did yesterday. He walks right beside you—matching you step for step. You try to take it easy on the old guy and stop for regular rest breaks, but you cover a lot more ground than usual. The day just seems to fly by and by the time night comes, you are completely worn out.

You start looking for a good spot to sleep when Sam suddenly stops and lets out a hair raising growl. You flinch instinctively and look down at him—frozen in your tracks—and see the hackles standing up from the top of his head to nearly the length of his back. He isn’t looking at you so you follow his gaze and see something really big and tan colored crossing the tracks up ahead. It is long and has a tail that looks as long as its body. It takes you a moment to realize that it’s a cat. A big cat.

It pauses and stares at you for a few moments while Sam’s growls steadily grow in volume and pitch. Something about that thing clamps you down deep in the core and you can’t move a single muscle. Your skin tingles and your muscles burn. Then all at once the cat shoots off like a rifle shot across the field toward the mountains in tremendous leaps until it finally fades into the background.

Your legs let go and you crumple right where you stand. All your strength has evaporated and you feel cold chills running all through your body. It’s a good thing Sam was here with you or that thing might’ve decided you were dinner. You throw your arms around his neck and squeeze with what little you have left in you. He just stands there looking in the direction the great cat ran and doesn’t move.

When you find a spot and settle in for the night, you give Sam a double helping of tortilla chips. He finally eats the last one, but doesn’t seem quite as interested in them as he did last night. You wish that you had something else you could give him, but he wouldn’t like the raw vegetables nearly as much. The next time you see a gas station or store, you’re going to buy him something with meat in it.

You lie down like you did last night and he stretches out against you just as he did before. You feel warm and safe and once again you sleep right straight on through.

Morning comes early and as you lie there stretching the kinks out, you notice that Sam isn’t there. You sit up and call “Sam?” and don’t hear anything.

You jump up and look all around as far as you can see and still there is nothing. “Sam!” Your ears prickle as you start to think the worst. You quickly shove those thoughts aside and jump to your feet.

You run up on the higher ground of the tracks and look all around. You finally spot him way back up the tracks walking back the way you came. “Sam!” He pauses for a moment without turning around and then continues on his way. You want to run after him, but that would only make it worse. He’s been gone from his home too long already and just needs to go back. You watch him until he’s little more than a speck before returning to collect your gear.

You’re more wary as you go now. Your senses seem heightened and for the first time on this trip you feel more like a wild animal than a person. Your eyes are in a perpetual squint and are constantly sweeping over the terrain from one side to the other. Every far off movement of a bird or hare doesn’t escape your notice and you feel more alive and in tune with the world around you than ever before. With the long nights returns the restlessness and you resume the catnaps during midday.

Where the track you’ve been following veers alongside another, you peer down the slope at the great train yard you’d left days ago. You’ve finally made it back and can continue on with your journey into the west.

You find a garden hose curled up on the side of the first house you come upon and there’s no one in sight. You refill your water jugs and take off before someone spots you. You’re well stocked up again for a while at least.

The train yard looks so different in the light of day. There are so many things going on and machinery loading and unloading the cars that you are a bit afraid to try to make your way through. You’ll either have to bite the bullet or else skirt around it and hopefully find another opportunity somewhere down the line.
> You go around
It wasn’t worth the risk to you so you head around the yard and make your way toward where the tracks resume. By the time a train leaves the yard, you find that it is moving much too fast for you to board it so you set off once again down the tracks on foot.

Every couple of hours you have to ditch the tracks and hide behind a boulder or in a shallow ravine until a train passes. This is the busiest set of tracks that you’ve been on and if anyone spotted someone your age out here alone they would certainly report it.

You have to take a break so you find a nice clear spot away from the tracks to kick back in and lean back on the bag. You have a sudden urge to pull out the card Jane made for you and look at the old postcards while you rest. You trace each line drawn in crayon on the page with your finger and think back to those few magical days. It seems like so long ago now. A lot has happened and every day that has passed seems to have steadily grown worse than the last. After you do this one thing, you should find someone nice to live with like Jane dreamed of. Surely there’s someone out there that would love and take care of you, someone you can depend on. You carefully refold the letter and slip it into your pocket and put everything else back into the treasure chest before giving your eyes a rest.

You don’t even notice when you start to drift off, but you are rudely awakened by a brutal gust and find that a strong wind has kicked up. The dust and sand scour your face and you can barely breathe even with your shirt pulled up over your face. You stagger around trying to find some kind of shelter behind a rock or something, but there doesn’t seem to be anything nearby and you probably wouldn’t be able to see one anyway unless you were right on top of it.

Your foot suddenly finds nothing but open air and you tumble headlong down a steep embankment. Your bag disappears as it goes one way and you go another. And then the world slips away into blackness.

You wake to find your arm twisted under you—your shoulder screaming out in agony. You have scrapes and tiny cuts from the side of your face all the way down your legs. It takes a couple attempts before you’re able to roll over and sit up.

You push yourself to your feet and look up at the steep incline that you fell down and don’t think you’d be able to climb back up there even if your arm wasn’t throbbing like it is. You can see the coat caught on a rock protruding from the ground near the top. One of the plastic jugs tied to the sleeves is crushed and the other one looks like it just exploded when it slammed into the ground. You don’t see your bag anywhere.

You pace back and forth along the base of the cliff looking for any trace of your stuff and finally have no choice but to give up. You head down the wash and hope that it doesn’t dead end.

The feeling finally comes back in your arm. You can move it, but not without pain and there’s a huge black and green bruise that goes from your shoulder to half way across your chest.

The wash spills you out on the edge of a two-lane highway and there isn’t a car or a sign or anything at all except brushy desert and rocks for as far as you can see. The train tracks must be somewhere beyond the ridge behind you, but you’d never be able to get back to them that way. You look up at the sun and figure that you might as well keep following it since it has already led you this far.

You close your eyes, take a deep breath and then set off down the road.

You’ve been walking for hours when a car pulls out onto the blacktop from a gas station up ahead that you didn’t even know was there. The hot blazing sun reflecting off the pavement has made you half blind and has given you such a raging thirst that it feels like no amount of water could ever hope to quench. You don’t know if you’ll even be able to make it as far as the gas station.

You’re torn between whether or not to flag the car down when it gets close or to find somewhere to hide until it passes by.
> You flag down the car
You stagger up to the edge of the road and raise your hands. The car slows down for a moment as the rear passenger window rolls down. As it gets nearly even with you, a bottle flies out and hits the pavement halfway to your feet. You don’t have the strength or energy to jump to the side so you can only stand there and watch as it bounces off the asphalt and hits you dead center in the chest before you can react.

The pain is so sudden and intense that the wind is knocked completely out of you. Your face feels like it swells to nearly twice its size and burns all the way to your ears. You slump and fall to your knees.

The car screeches to a stop and the driver’s door opens. “Why in the hell would you do that to a kid?! I oughtta kick your ass. You could’ve killed him, you know that?”

You gasp for breath and can’t take in any air. You want to cry due to the immense pain, but your eyes are so dry that they can no longer produce tears. Your vision starts to waver and you fall forward. Just before you eat the blacktop, you feel hands grab you and swing you back into a seated position.

“It’s okay. I’m here to help. He was just being a dumbass and didn’t know that he might actually hit you.”

You wheeze and can feel your lungs slowly start to fill with air. Your vision is still fuzzing in and out, but it’s slowly beginning to clear.

“What’s your name?” asks the teenage boy with closely cropped hair.

You rock back and forth trying to help force more air into your lungs, and only wheeze louder in answer to his question. You look around to see several more teenagers standing around you.

“Take it easy, man. Don’t try to rush it. I’m not going anywhere.”

You’re not sure you want to tell them your real name. After all, one of them just tried to kill you. Maybe it was an accident and maybe it wasn’t. You try to think of a name—any name—and a sudden image of little Timmy that lived down the street from you before your parents got a divorce pops into your head. You remember how he used to say his name and before you can correct it, out comes “Tim-O-tee.” You take a deep breath and try hard not to laugh or even smile. “Timothy. My name is Timothy.”

“What are you doing out here all by yourself, Timothy?”

“I’m lost. I don’t know where this is.”

“Where do you live? We’ll take you home,” says a slightly gruffer voice off to the side.

You shrug as you try to come up with something to tell them. You look around, trying to come up with a story they might believe and your eyes settle on a far-off vertical rock piercing up through desert floor. “A long, long ways from here. I was s’posed to stay by the camper, but I wanted to look at the rocks.”

One of the boys sucks air in through his teeth.

“That wasn’t very smart. Kids get lost out here all the time and die,” says the one crouched down by you. “Where were you going? Maybe we can find your parents or get you to someone who can.”

If they take you to the cops, you’ll never make it to the Grand Canyon. You have to change the subject. “I’m so thirsty. I need water.”

The boy reaches up and snatches a bottle from one of the others and says “Here, drink this. We’ll get you some water.”

You tip the over half full bottle and guzzle the orange soda down without stopping. It burns like fire and doesn’t help even a little, but it’s wet and wet is better than nothing.

“We’ve gotta get back. We can’t take him with us,” says another boy under his breath.

“We’re not leaving him out here, alone,” snaps the one you’ve been talking to, “Not here!”

“There’s a gas station right there! It’s not like he’s lost out in the middle of the desert.”

“We can’t go driving all over the country looking for his folks,” says another.

“You shoulda thought of that before you chucked that bottle him!” he hisses up at the boy with slicked back hair—who just pivots around on his heels and stalks back to the car. Turning back to you, he says “C’mon. We’ll go find a phone or something,” picking you to your feet and helping you to the car.

You hang back as the boys head into the gas station. If they call the police, they’ll take you home and you’ll never get to the Grand Canyon for Jane.

As soon as the door swings shut, you dash to the end of the building and swing around the corner toward the back. There is a stack of oil drums at the base of the hill out back and you run in behind them. You hope this will be enough because there is no other cover close by that you can see.

You squeeze into a hole between two of the drums that are resting on the ground and wait. It isn’t long before you hear them talking from not too far away from your hiding spot.

“Where could he have got to?” asks the boy that’s been trying to help you.

“I dunno. He just ran off, I guess. Maybe we just imagined the whole thing.”

“Maybe he’s a spook and just went invisible,” laughs a third.

“Don’t be a moron,” says the first, “He’s just scared.”

“We can’t go traipsing all over the desert looking for him. When he gets tired, he’ll come back. We’re already gonna be late as it is.”

“I guess. I just wanted to help the kid out, is all.”

“Let’s just go before we get into trouble, ourselves.”

You hear the car engine start and gravel raining down in their wake before you poke your head out. You can’t risk going inside because they probably already told whoever is in there about you and the police might still show up.

You spot a coiled hose on the ground by the corner of the building that you must’ve run right by without even seeing. It’s just what you need. You trot over and reach for the faucet, but the handle has been removed. You study it a minute before picking up the hose a little at a time—working the contents out to the end—and manage to get a good mouthful of scalding hot water. You fight the pain and as soon as it’s cooled enough, you choke it down.

You can’t go any further in this heat so you look for any kind of shade to get out of this blistering sun. You spot a low-lying rock a little ways up the hillside behind the building and judging by its angle it might offer some shelter from the sun. You drag yourself over to it.

It looks like it would be the perfect place for a den of snakes, but peering under the shelf you see no sign of anything. You wedge yourself underneath where you’ll wait for nightfall before heading off again.

You open your eyes to find that you are shivering. The temperature has dropped considerably. If you don’t end up freezing, it’ll at least be a welcome relief compared to that awful sun.

After pulling yourself out, you stand and slink down the hill. Your feet are like bricks, but you have no other choice other than to go on.

The gas station parking lot is deserted except for a run-down old pickup truck loaded down with all kinds of junk and covered with a tarp. It’s parked in the shade of the pump lights around the corner of the building and you have to walk around it to get to the highway.

As you pass by it, its yellow license plate catches your eye. It says Arizona in green letters across the top and Grand Canyon State on the bottom.

You peek around the corner of the building and see an old hunched over Indian man with a pony tail halfway down his back stepping up to the cash register.

This could be your lucky break. You could try asking him for a ride, but what if he says no? Maybe hiding under the junk in the back and hope for the best would be smarter way to go. It won’t be long before he’s heading this way so you’d better hurry and make up you mind.
> You ask for a ride
You lean against the corner of the building to wait for the old man to step out and when he finally does, you rush over to meet him just as he reaches the corner. Even though he’s walking crooked, he’s still manages to jump back like a cat about to be stepped on.

“Can you take me to Arizona?”

He cuts his eyes around the dark parking lot. “No.” He starts walking toward his truck.

“Please? I need to go to the Grand Canyon.”

“No.”

“Can you take me to the railroad tracks? I can walk the rest of the way.”

“No.” He opens the door and climbs in.

“Can you take me to the next town, then? I gotta find a new map ‘cause I lost my all my stuff.”

“No.”

“Do you have any water?”

He pulls the door shut, starts his truck and pulls it in gear.

You watch as he backs up and then drives off into the night. By the pump lights, you can see the trail of dust he left in his wake. Maybe you scared him or maybe that’s just the way he is. It doesn’t matter now.

You look around at the door to the gas station. There’s no way you can go in there. You’ll have to think of something else.

Maybe you can climb up the ridge behind the station and from there you might be able to see the tracks. It’s dark enough that you wouldn’t be able to see them until morning—which means that you’ll have to find a place to sleep for the night. You could keep going down the highway and maybe figure something out along the way. You don’t have any water so you’ll have to walk only at night and find cool places to sleep during the day. Whichever way you go, perhaps you’ll run into another farmhouse along the way to get more stuff.
> You take the road
You can probably make more miles on the highway than you could climbing the mountains and crossing the desert. Surely you’ll run into railroad tracks sooner or later. There are probably more houses along the road, too.

You head around behind the gas station to stay out of the light and then make your way to the blacktop. There are no yard lights within sight, but you’ll probably see one before too long. You just have to make as many miles as you can while it’s still dark.

You can still feel the heat of the day leeching out of the asphalt and the occasional slight breeze feels good against your clammy skin. Your mouth is dry, but you can probably manage to make it through the night since it isn’t really all that bad right now. You should make it just fine.

You watch a shooting star that traverses nearly the whole western sky before burning itself out far to the south. Your wish is the same as you’ve had from the very beginning—to make Jane’s dream come true. It isn’t until a little while later that you start kicking yourself for not tacking a little water onto that wish. Oh, well. Surely you’ll find some before long.

Even though there are no landmarks to go by, you somehow know that you’ve covered many a mile. There’s a blacker circle in the sky that looks like it might be a moon in a day or two. Until then, you’ll just have to make your way as best you can in the dark.

The night has somehow become a comforting friend instead of the dreaded enemy you once feared. You don’t even know how it happened. It just—all of a sudden—did.

Mile after mile and you don’t see much more than a vague dark shape every now and then out some distance from the side of the road. They would’ve been monsters lurking and ready to pounce only a few short weeks ago. Now, they’re just big rocks.
> You migration
In the lights of an oncoming car, the highway looks like it has little rippling waves on it. They’re flowing from one side of the blacktop to the other. This must be some kind of dream, but you don’t remember falling asleep.

As the car gets closer, you can see that they aren’t waves at all. They’re snakes! Dozens of snakes. They move weird, though, throwing a loop and dragging themselves up to it before doing the whole process all over again.

Snakes don’t move like that. They slide along on their bellies as they slither along. This has to be a dream. Still, you wouldn’t want to be bitten by a dream snake any more than you would a real one so you try not to let them get too close.

You look up and the headlights flash in your eyes. You can’t see anything. You don’t know whether to get off the road or just keep going. It is a car, though. You’d better at least get off the road so you take a step sideways.

Zzzht-zzzht-zzzht!

You know that sound! And it’s much too close! You leap backward, but—whap!—it’s too late. Your leg is on fire!

“Aaaah!” You fall sideways and—whap!—another hits your arm. Whap! Whap! Whap! You’re being struck from all sides now. Your arms, your legs, your face. Even the top of your head.

The headlights are on you now and you hear the brakes squeal to a slow stop. Your whole body feels like you’ve fallen into a campfire and you can’t pull yourself out. Your body starts to quake and you’re helpless to stop it.

“Oh my God in heaven!” shrieks a woman getting out of the car. “It’s a kid and he’s been snake bit!”

Your tongue grows two sizes and wedges tight in your throat. You can’t breathe and you feel like you might pop from the building pressure. Even counting the beating you got from Mom, you’ve never felt such intense pain. It crashes through your body like a tidal wave.

The headlights waver and grow steadily brighter and brighter until they fill your entire field of view. In the intense light, you can see Jane standing there looking down at you. She’s shaking her head. She reaches down and takes your hand—cupping it in hers. The only thing you can see now is her face against the blinding white light.

The burning sensation swallows you whole.

— The End


You lean against the corner of the building to wait for the old man to step out and when he finally does, you rush over to meet him just as he reaches the corner. Even though he’s walking crooked, he’s still manages to jump back like a cat about to be stepped on.

“Can you take me to Arizona?”

He cuts his eyes around the dark parking lot. “No.” He starts walking toward his truck.

“Please? I need to go to the Grand Canyon.”

“No.”

“Can you take me to the railroad tracks? I can walk the rest of the way.”

“No.” He opens the door and climbs in.

“Can you take me to the next town, then? I gotta find a new map ‘cause I lost my all my stuff.”

“No.”

“Do you have any water?”

He pulls the door shut, starts his truck and pulls it in gear.

You watch as he backs up and then drives off into the night. By the pump lights, you can see the trail of dust he left in his wake. Maybe you scared him or maybe that’s just the way he is. It doesn’t matter now.

You look around at the door to the gas station. There’s no way you can go in there. You’ll have to think of something else.

Maybe you can climb up the ridge behind the station and from there you might be able to see the tracks. It’s dark enough that you wouldn’t be able to see them until morning—which means that you’ll have to find a place to sleep for the night. You could keep going down the highway and maybe figure something out along the way. You don’t have any water so you’ll have to walk only at night and find cool places to sleep during the day. Whichever way you go, perhaps you’ll run into another farmhouse along the way to get more stuff.
> You climb the ridge
It would probably be best not to walk along the highway where a cop might see you. You’ve come a long way and you don’t want to be taken home when you’re so close you can almost taste it.

You head back around the building and plunge into the darkness. The sky overhead is crowded with stars, but since there is no moon out tonight they offer very little light to see your way by. You’ll have to take it slow and easy so you don’t step into a hole or trip over something in the dark.

You take small steps. With each one the ground seems to get steeper and steeper until you finally have to crawl on your hands and knees to keep from sliding back down the hill. It would probably be much easier in the daytime, but it would be a lot hotter and you would need water.

The ground becomes rocky and some of the stones are so big that you have to go around them. You keep working your way toward higher and higher ground until you run into a cliff that you can’t climb, then you follow along its base. Every now and then, your foot dislodges a rock and you listen as it gets fainter and fainter until it finally tumbles out of earshot.

At long last, the cliff starts to fall away and the ground begins to slope around it. You keep going until you find a crevasse that leads right up through the middle of it. It’s probably the only way through so you heft yourself into it and it’s just like climbing stairs in the dark. You keep going up and up and up until you reach the top and the stars seem to hover right straight in front of you.

You can’t see the ground on the other side and you sure don’t want to plummet off a cliff so you make yourself as comfortable as you can and wedge yourself in for the night. You pull your knees up and fold your arms against the cold. You close your eyes to try to sleep your way to morning. Maybe then you will be able to see whether you can climb down the other side or if you’ll just have to turn around and find some other way.

The sky starts to brighten a dingy dishwater gray. You couldn’t sleep at all last night thanks to the cold. That’s fine, though, you can find a nice shady spot and sleep through the sun. First things first, though, you have to get off this mountain.

You stretch your stiff legs out from under you and pull yourself up with the wooden clubs that are your arms. Through the gap in the rocks, you can see a narrow, winding rock shelf snaking its way around the far side of the rocks. You can’t see where it ends, but it beats going back down and all the way around.

Out across the valley, you can see a gray line at the base of the far away cliffs. It must be the tracks. It’s a long ways away. The sun will be up before too long and you’ll have to find a place to sleep in a few hours so you’d better get moving.

You wriggle your way over the top of the rocks and stretch out your toes until you can feel the ledge beneath them. It’s a little wider than your shoes are long so it shouldn’t be all that hard to stay on.

Taking small steps and crowding the rock face as best you can, you slowly make your way down and down. It’s actually easier than it looked from the top.

The sun spills its rays over the far horizon and they blanket you in their warmth. Your stiff muscles melt away. You can see farther now and the rocky ledge spreads out onto a slope several dozen yards away. You’re going to make it just fine.

You look down to see just how much farther you have to go and it grabs you. Everything looks so tiny down there. The world sways—first one way and then the other—and your legs no longer want to move. You clutch the rock face with all your strength and take tiny breaths so you don’t accidentally push yourself backward off the ledge. You’re legs start shaking and your palms get all sweaty.

You close your eyes and feel the blood racing in your veins. You know you have to keep going, but how? If you fall off, it would take a long, long time to reach the bottom. You might not even pass out and feel the whole thing when you splat!

Don’t be such a fraidy cat.

She’s right. You can do this. You snap your eyes open and start the tiny sideways steps again. It doesn’t take long for you to reach the rocky slope. From there, you memorize the mountain peak you need to walk toward to get to that gray line and then set out to make it as far as you can before the sun gets too high.

You’ve covered quite a bit of ground when you find several big boulders in a roughly circular formation and sit beneath the largest one for its shade. You manage to nap quite nicely until the sun gets far enough to the west that you have to move to a different shady spot.

When the sun has dipped more than halfway behind the horizon, you set out to make as many miles as you can before it gets too dark to see. You feel weak from hunger and from lack of water, but your will pushes you on.

About halfway through the night, you look up to see a tiny sliver of moon directly overhead. It’s no wonder that you’ve been able to keep going this long. Even with that tiny bit of light, you can see the ground quite clearly. The faint shadows contrast against the background and your eyes seem to have adjusted themselves to the lack of light.

It’s warmer down here than it was last night, but the air still has that certain crispness to it. You haven’t been able to see the mountain peak for hours, but are confident that you haven’t strayed too much from your intended goal. You just keep pushing yourself. You are going to make it. You have no other choice.

You continue on. You’ve been walking for hours and you feel like your legs are about to fall off. If you don’t just collapse, that is. But, you must keep going. There will be time to rest tomorrow—when it is too hot.

The stars and the moon flow gently to the west, but you don’t even notice. You are too focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

Suddenly, you see a straight black double line running perpendicular to your path. It looks like it might be the edge of a cliff so you approach it ever so slowly. When you’re nearly upon it, you discover that it is higher than the rest of the ground around it.

It’s the tracks! You’ve found them! You really found them! They weren’t nearly as far away as they looked. You feel great! You are KING!

You turn toward the west—nearly skipping—and continue on your journey. Now all you have to do is find some water and some food, then you’ll be all set.

You watch as the sliver of moon finally disappears behind the black horizon and the stars start to twinkle just a tiny bit brighter. You can barely make out the rails on either side of you, but there’s still more than enough light to guide you.

You trudge on and on in the darkness. It feels somehow comforting to you now. Like you might be the only person in the whole world. The cloak of night is your friend, your companion.

As the sky starts to gray, you can see farther and farther with each passing minute. There are no yard lights. No houses. No distant towns. No nothing. You feel completely alone now. It gives you a lump in your throat.

The sun is on your back now and you can feel its rays trickling warmth into your rigid skin. You can’t turn around to look at it. You have to save every last bit of your strength. You can barely lift your legs and the toes of your shoes scrub furrows in the dust. Still, you plod on.

When you’ve nearly caught up with your shadow, you scan the area for some cool shade. You see a pile of old lumber out all by its lonesome. It may have been some kind of mining shack at one time, but it’s impossible to tell. It’s the only thing within sight and the two vertical boards won’t offer any shade for hours yet, but you can’t go on. You have to get off your feet so that means you have work to do.

You stumble over and start dragging and prying boards from the ground as best you can. It takes some doing since half of them are buried in sand. You are just pulling up the last one when you see something shiny under it. You drop the board as you jump back thinking at first that it might be a snake. It couldn’t be, though, it didn’t even resemble anything that could even be alive.

Sticking another board under the one you dropped so you don’t have to stick your bare hand in there, you pry it up. It takes a moment for the sun’s glare to clear from your eyes and then you see a magical treasure. It is a half-crushed tin cup that is about a third full of old water. It is dark and has a funny smell to it, but it’s wet. You aren’t sure that you should drink it, but you might die if you don’t get water soon.
> You drink it
This is life or death. You have no choice but to risk drinking it. You hold your nose against the foul stench and gulp it down. It isn’t really that bad and sure beats dying.

You go back to work and before long, you have something that resembles something that someone might accidentally mistake for a shack. It’s more of a lean-to than anything, but at least there’s shade.

You get down on all fours and crawl through a narrow opening at the bottom. The ground is still hot and could possibly blister if you dally. Once inside, you scoop handful after handful off the top and shove it against the sides at the bottom. It’ll help hold them up as well as give you a faintly cooler spot to lay down.

Slumping over, something bites your little finger. It stings a little, but nothing serious. You push yourself back up and see a tiny scorpion right where your hand was so you slam your fist down on it and crush it before it can strike again. You don’t see any others, so you lay down and look at the white sky through the cracks for a while to make yourself sleepy.

You awake with a shiver and barely have the strength to raise yourself up. The sun is still high and your hand is throbbing something awful, but you barely notice that pain compared to the vise that has seized your stomach. Your belly writhes and tumbles in searing agony and besides that, you need water desperately and your tongue feels like sandpaper in your mouth.

Pushing yourself back against the far wall so you can catch what little light filters through the cracks, you watch as the sun makes its ever so slow descent. You wrap your sweaty arms around your knees and hug them close to you in an attempt to ward off the shivers.

Your hair is slicked against your temples and you’re having trouble focusing. This just isn’t going to be your day. You close your eyes and try to take in deep breaths, but hot air you suck in with each one just makes you feel that much worse.

After a while, you open your eyes and between the vertical planks you can see the light fading from the sky. There are reds and oranges and pinks. Even through the slits, it is breathtaking. You only wish you could walk out to see the whole thing.

You can barely move your head and it’s impossible to move the rest of you. You can’t take this anymore, but what choice do you have? You can only sit here to wait for the inevitable. Too bad you don’t have a blanket, because it is getting so, so cold. Your teeth would chatter if you only had the energy to do so.

The sky deepens and you can see the first twinkle of a star. You should make a wish. But, it’s much too late for that. You know it as sure as you know anything at all. All you have left waiting for you is the inevitable.

Maybe if you made the right wish, it might come true. You can’t close your eyes to make the wish or you may never get them open again. You take a long, hard swallow and feel the sides of your throat scratch together.

You focus hard on the star until you can feel it pulling back at you. You try to mouth the words, but you don’t have the strength. Willing with everything you have—everything you are—you send your wish soaring toward that tiny pinprick of a speck—faster than the speed of light.

Jane steps from the corner of your little makeshift shelter. She looks so beautiful, yet so sad. She kneels down beside you and stares deep into your eyes while you lose yourself in hers. You drown in those bright green eyes.

She may not have gotten her wish, but you were granted yours.

— The End


It would probably be best not to walk along the highway where a cop might see you. You’ve come a long way and you don’t want to be taken home when you’re so close you can almost taste it.

You head back around the building and plunge into the darkness. The sky overhead is crowded with stars, but since there is no moon out tonight they offer very little light to see your way by. You’ll have to take it slow and easy so you don’t step into a hole or trip over something in the dark.

You take small steps. With each one the ground seems to get steeper and steeper until you finally have to crawl on your hands and knees to keep from sliding back down the hill. It would probably be much easier in the daytime, but it would be a lot hotter and you would need water.

The ground becomes rocky and some of the stones are so big that you have to go around them. You keep working your way toward higher and higher ground until you run into a cliff that you can’t climb, then you follow along its base. Every now and then, your foot dislodges a rock and you listen as it gets fainter and fainter until it finally tumbles out of earshot.

At long last, the cliff starts to fall away and the ground begins to slope around it. You keep going until you find a crevasse that leads right up through the middle of it. It’s probably the only way through so you heft yourself into it and it’s just like climbing stairs in the dark. You keep going up and up and up until you reach the top and the stars seem to hover right straight in front of you.

You can’t see the ground on the other side and you sure don’t want to plummet off a cliff so you make yourself as comfortable as you can and wedge yourself in for the night. You pull your knees up and fold your arms against the cold. You close your eyes to try to sleep your way to morning. Maybe then you will be able to see whether you can climb down the other side or if you’ll just have to turn around and find some other way.

The sky starts to brighten a dingy dishwater gray. You couldn’t sleep at all last night thanks to the cold. That’s fine, though, you can find a nice shady spot and sleep through the sun. First things first, though, you have to get off this mountain.

You stretch your stiff legs out from under you and pull yourself up with the wooden clubs that are your arms. Through the gap in the rocks, you can see a narrow, winding rock shelf snaking its way around the far side of the rocks. You can’t see where it ends, but it beats going back down and all the way around.

Out across the valley, you can see a gray line at the base of the far away cliffs. It must be the tracks. It’s a long ways away. The sun will be up before too long and you’ll have to find a place to sleep in a few hours so you’d better get moving.

You wriggle your way over the top of the rocks and stretch out your toes until you can feel the ledge beneath them. It’s a little wider than your shoes are long so it shouldn’t be all that hard to stay on.

Taking small steps and crowding the rock face as best you can, you slowly make your way down and down. It’s actually easier than it looked from the top.

The sun spills its rays over the far horizon and they blanket you in their warmth. Your stiff muscles melt away. You can see farther now and the rocky ledge spreads out onto a slope several dozen yards away. You’re going to make it just fine.

You look down to see just how much farther you have to go and it grabs you. Everything looks so tiny down there. The world sways—first one way and then the other—and your legs no longer want to move. You clutch the rock face with all your strength and take tiny breaths so you don’t accidentally push yourself backward off the ledge. You’re legs start shaking and your palms get all sweaty.

You close your eyes and feel the blood racing in your veins. You know you have to keep going, but how? If you fall off, it would take a long, long time to reach the bottom. You might not even pass out and feel the whole thing when you splat!

Don’t be such a fraidy cat.

She’s right. You can do this. You snap your eyes open and start the tiny sideways steps again. It doesn’t take long for you to reach the rocky slope. From there, you memorize the mountain peak you need to walk toward to get to that gray line and then set out to make it as far as you can before the sun gets too high.

You’ve covered quite a bit of ground when you find several big boulders in a roughly circular formation and sit beneath the largest one for its shade. You manage to nap quite nicely until the sun gets far enough to the west that you have to move to a different shady spot.

When the sun has dipped more than halfway behind the horizon, you set out to make as many miles as you can before it gets too dark to see. You feel weak from hunger and from lack of water, but your will pushes you on.

About halfway through the night, you look up to see a tiny sliver of moon directly overhead. It’s no wonder that you’ve been able to keep going this long. Even with that tiny bit of light, you can see the ground quite clearly. The faint shadows contrast against the background and your eyes seem to have adjusted themselves to the lack of light.

It’s warmer down here than it was last night, but the air still has that certain crispness to it. You haven’t been able to see the mountain peak for hours, but are confident that you haven’t strayed too much from your intended goal. You just keep pushing yourself. You are going to make it. You have no other choice.

You continue on. You’ve been walking for hours and you feel like your legs are about to fall off. If you don’t just collapse, that is. But, you must keep going. There will be time to rest tomorrow—when it is too hot.

The stars and the moon flow gently to the west, but you don’t even notice. You are too focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

Suddenly, you see a straight black double line running perpendicular to your path. It looks like it might be the edge of a cliff so you approach it ever so slowly. When you’re nearly upon it, you discover that it is higher than the rest of the ground around it.

It’s the tracks! You’ve found them! You really found them! They weren’t nearly as far away as they looked. You feel great! You are KING!

You turn toward the west—nearly skipping—and continue on your journey. Now all you have to do is find some water and some food, then you’ll be all set.

You watch as the sliver of moon finally disappears behind the black horizon and the stars start to twinkle just a tiny bit brighter. You can barely make out the rails on either side of you, but there’s still more than enough light to guide you.

You trudge on and on in the darkness. It feels somehow comforting to you now. Like you might be the only person in the whole world. The cloak of night is your friend, your companion.

As the sky starts to gray, you can see farther and farther with each passing minute. There are no yard lights. No houses. No distant towns. No nothing. You feel completely alone now. It gives you a lump in your throat.

The sun is on your back now and you can feel its rays trickling warmth into your rigid skin. You can’t turn around to look at it. You have to save every last bit of your strength. You can barely lift your legs and the toes of your shoes scrub furrows in the dust. Still, you plod on.

When you’ve nearly caught up with your shadow, you scan the area for some cool shade. You see a pile of old lumber out all by its lonesome. It may have been some kind of mining shack at one time, but it’s impossible to tell. It’s the only thing within sight and the two vertical boards won’t offer any shade for hours yet, but you can’t go on. You have to get off your feet so that means you have work to do.

You stumble over and start dragging and prying boards from the ground as best you can. It takes some doing since half of them are buried in sand. You are just pulling up the last one when you see something shiny under it. You drop the board as you jump back thinking at first that it might be a snake. It couldn’t be, though, it didn’t even resemble anything that could even be alive.

Sticking another board under the one you dropped so you don’t have to stick your bare hand in there, you pry it up. It takes a moment for the sun’s glare to clear from your eyes and then you see a magical treasure. It is a half-crushed tin cup that is about a third full of old water. It is dark and has a funny smell to it, but it’s wet. You aren’t sure that you should drink it, but you might die if you don’t get water soon.
> You don't drink it
It’s probably better not to risk drinking it, but you sure don’t intend to waste such a gift. You pull your shirt off and wet it carefully from the cup—being extremely careful not to let even a single drop roll off onto the ground. You wipe your back and chest off with the cool rag as best you can before wrapping it around your head like that man did in that movie you saw a long time ago on TV.

You go back to work and before long, you have something that resembles something that someone might accidentally mistake for a shack. It’s more of a lean-to than anything, but at least there’s shade.

You get down on all fours and crawl through a narrow opening at the bottom. The ground is still hot and could possibly blister if you dally. Once inside, you scoop handful after handful off the top and shove it against the sides at the bottom. It’ll help hold them up as well as give you a faintly cooler spot to lay down.

Slumping over, something bites your little finger. It stings a little, but nothing serious. You push yourself back up and see a tiny scorpion right where your hand was so you slam your fist down on it and crush it before it can reset itself to strike again. You don’t see any others, so you lay down and look at the white sky through the cracks for a while to make yourself sleepy.

When you wake up, the sun is still high and your hand is throbbing something awful. You need water desperately and your tongue feels like sandpaper in your mouth.

Pushing yourself back against the far wall you try to get your mind off of your hand by watching what little light filters through the cracks. While you watch as the sun makes its ever so slow descent, you wipe yourself off every now and then with the cool rag—truly a gift from heaven.

You don’t know when the throbbing in your hand went away or when your head sagged, but you open your eyes and between the vertical planks you can see the light fading from the sky. There are reds and oranges and pinks. Even through the slits, it is breathtaking.

You scurry back through the hole in the boards and see the tapestry of the western sky in all its glory. The sun has already set, but has left an explosion of color in its wake. You stand there a moment in awe before setting off down the tracks once more.

You walk through the night taking frequent rest breaks to rub away the burning cramps in your legs and once, you have to move away from the tracks and go prone when a freight roars through. You don’t think you’ll be able to make it much farther if you don’t find drinkable water soon.

When the sun starts to peek its head, you scan the barren landscape looking for both water and another daytime shelter. It’s already getting too hot for comfort. Up ahead a couple of miles, you see a string of hoppers sitting off on a siding near the foot of a small mountain. They won’t offer much, but at least it’s shade. You quicken your pace despite your toes attempting to curl themselves in under your feet.

There’s plenty of shade under the hoppers when you reach them, but already they are giving off more heat than would be comfortable. You do spot a dusty brown prickly pear patch off toward the mountain so it’s a good thing you decided to stop early in the day. It seems like so long ago when Harvey first showed you that you could eat it. You’ll just have to be really careful when you pick and skin it since you lost your knife.

You rush over and fall to your knees and start to carefully pluck one of the leafy pads. The tiny spines prick at your fingers so you take extra time to be even more careful. When you have it in your hands, you dig the skin off of it with your thumbnail. The moisture runs down and drips off your hand. You greedily lap up the sweet juice as you continue digging away the skin and spines. When you have enough exposed you take a bite and the sweet flavor explodes in your mouth. It doesn’t taste bland at all. Maybe it’s because it’s later in the year and maybe more ripe or maybe it’s just because you haven’t eaten or had anything to drink in days.

After three pads, you can’t hold any more but you continue chewing up bite after bite to get at the juice. While you’re gorging yourself, you see a deep shadow at the base of the mountain that looks like it has a door in it. Weird. Who would put a door in a mountain?

You push yourself to your feet and stumble over to the shadow and see that it’s not really a door, but a boarded up hole. A cool draft hits you right square in the face. You have to get in there! At the bottom and under a faded sign that has slipped it’s nail, there’s a gap just big enough for you wriggle your way through if you swing the sign aside. It reminds you of the night you and Jane went into that spooky old house.

C’mon, I know the way in.

W-wait. What if something’s in there? What if someone catches us?

Don’t worry. No one ever comes here. This place is ‘bandoned.

It seems so long ago and in a place you can barely remember and to a boy who no longer exists. Maybe even in another life, perhaps.

You squat down and hold the sign up with one hand as you work your way inside. Sand sifts down on you as you pass through the opening—but only a little. From somewhere deep in the bowels of the cave, you can hear water dripping into a pool. Too bad it isn’t outside. It’s been so long since you’ve been swimming. It’d be a nice way to cool off.

Sitting just far enough inside that you’re out of the direct sunlight, you lean back to soak up the cool, damp air. Your stomach rumbles and cramps up, but you barely notice as you fall fast asleep.

You wake up shivering and crawl back into the blast furnace through the little gap. You have a vague recollection of an eerie yawning groan having disturbed your sleep, but it quickly fades into the ether along with the dream that inspired it. You head back over to the prickly pear patch and perform your routine again. It’ll take some time before you are back to one-hundred percent. Right now, you aren’t even considering leaving this wonderful place.

Once you’ve had your fill again, you crawl back into your hidey-hole. You have to crawl in a little deeper since the sun is at a lower angle and its rays stretch in nearly twice as far. It’s not that you mind sleeping in the daytime so much, you just don’t want those burning fingers on your skin.

You see a lump over against the far wall and have to investigate what it might be. You carefully creep over in case it might be an animal—even though by its shape, it couldn’t possibly be. You reach out with the toe of your shoe and give it a light nudge. It teeters to one side and comes back to rest in the same place with a tinny sound that reverberates off the walls. You immediately know what this object is. It’s a bucket!

If you can find the source of that dripping sound, you could have all the water you’d need for a couple days and surely you’d run into more by the time it is empty.
> You try to find the source
Crawling slowly through the dark on your knees and feeling ahead of you with one hand while dragging the pail with the other, you make your way deep into the cave. The sound gets gradually louder the deeper you go until you feel spatter hit your face. It’s coming from the wall from drips overhead, but the sound of the pool is still far away so you continue on.

The ground is damp for quite a ways before it starts getting dry again. It doesn’t appear that the sound is getting any closer. If you don’t find it soon, you might as well turn back. You don’t want to get lost in this cave. You might not be able to find your way back.

The floor keeps rising steadily and turns from sand to rock. It slopes up steeply and you have trouble holding on enough while climbing with only one free hand. You’ve come just about as far as you dare. You try to determine how much farther the sound of the pool is and in what direction, but the echo off the rocks makes it sound like it’s coming from everywhere.

It’s no use. You shimmy back down the rock and start making your way back. You can feel eyes on you from the darkness, but can’t tell from which direction. One way is as black as another. The only thing you can see is tiny white flashes at the edge of your vision.

You reach the damp sand again and have just started across it when the ground under you starts shifting forward. You twist around and try to scramble back, but it’s moving too swift and you’re losing more ground than you gain. Then suddenly, you are in open air and tumbling head over feet. The fall seems to take forever. It’s only seconds, but time has slowed down for you.

“AAAAHH!”

“AaaAaaAaaahh!” your echo screams back at you.

You hit the water head first. You frantically paddle for the surface. There is absolutely no light so can’t tell which way is up. Your lungs are empty and you fight to not let the water in.

Finally, you break the surface and tread water as best as you can, but you don’t have the strength to last long. It dawns on you that you still have the bucket so you flip it upside-down—letting the water spill out and catch some air—to use as a float.

When you’ve finally caught your breath, you kick and paddle over to a slimy and slick wall. There are no handholds so you slowly move along looking for something to grab onto.

You come to a ledge that is right at water level and slowly work your way up onto it. When you’re finally seated, you place the bucket beside you and take slow even breaths to slow your racing heart. That was way too close. You stand up and search the slimy wall and find nothing as far up as you can reach. You move from one end to the other and find nothing but the same.

When you’ve regained your strength, you slip back into the water and—holding onto the bucket—start feeling around some more as you make your way around the pool. You make it back to the same ledge before long.

You don’t know how long you’ve been sitting here. Hours? Days? Weeks? It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t long before you couldn’t feel your legs. Then your arms wouldn’t work anymore. You can’t even tell if your eyes are open or closed at this point.

Out in the middle of the blackness, you see a shimmering speck of light that grows and grows until it finally takes shape. It’s that dark haired girl with that mischievous grin. Her toes barely skim the water as she glides softly over to you. She reaches down and cups her hand over yours as she looks deeply into your eyes with those bright green eyes.

You manage to mouth a word, but does it really escape your lips?

“Jane” your echo whispers back.

— The End


It’s probably better not to risk drinking it, but you sure don’t intend to waste such a gift. You pull your shirt off and wet it carefully from the cup—being extremely careful not to let even a single drop roll off onto the ground. You wipe your back and chest off with the cool rag as best you can before wrapping it around your head like that man did in that movie you saw a long time ago on TV.

You go back to work and before long, you have something that resembles something that someone might accidentally mistake for a shack. It’s more of a lean-to than anything, but at least there’s shade.

You get down on all fours and crawl through a narrow opening at the bottom. The ground is still hot and could possibly blister if you dally. Once inside, you scoop handful after handful off the top and shove it against the sides at the bottom. It’ll help hold them up as well as give you a faintly cooler spot to lay down.

Slumping over, something bites your little finger. It stings a little, but nothing serious. You push yourself back up and see a tiny scorpion right where your hand was so you slam your fist down on it and crush it before it can reset itself to strike again. You don’t see any others, so you lay down and look at the white sky through the cracks for a while to make yourself sleepy.

When you wake up, the sun is still high and your hand is throbbing something awful. You need water desperately and your tongue feels like sandpaper in your mouth.

Pushing yourself back against the far wall you try to get your mind off of your hand by watching what little light filters through the cracks. While you watch as the sun makes its ever so slow descent, you wipe yourself off every now and then with the cool rag—truly a gift from heaven.

You don’t know when the throbbing in your hand went away or when your head sagged, but you open your eyes and between the vertical planks you can see the light fading from the sky. There are reds and oranges and pinks. Even through the slits, it is breathtaking.

You scurry back through the hole in the boards and see the tapestry of the western sky in all its glory. The sun has already set, but has left an explosion of color in its wake. You stand there a moment in awe before setting off down the tracks once more.

You walk through the night taking frequent rest breaks to rub away the burning cramps in your legs and once, you have to move away from the tracks and go prone when a freight roars through. You don’t think you’ll be able to make it much farther if you don’t find drinkable water soon.

When the sun starts to peek its head, you scan the barren landscape looking for both water and another daytime shelter. It’s already getting too hot for comfort. Up ahead a couple of miles, you see a string of hoppers sitting off on a siding near the foot of a small mountain. They won’t offer much, but at least it’s shade. You quicken your pace despite your toes attempting to curl themselves in under your feet.

There’s plenty of shade under the hoppers when you reach them, but already they are giving off more heat than would be comfortable. You do spot a dusty brown prickly pear patch off toward the mountain so it’s a good thing you decided to stop early in the day. It seems like so long ago when Harvey first showed you that you could eat it. You’ll just have to be really careful when you pick and skin it since you lost your knife.

You rush over and fall to your knees and start to carefully pluck one of the leafy pads. The tiny spines prick at your fingers so you take extra time to be even more careful. When you have it in your hands, you dig the skin off of it with your thumbnail. The moisture runs down and drips off your hand. You greedily lap up the sweet juice as you continue digging away the skin and spines. When you have enough exposed you take a bite and the sweet flavor explodes in your mouth. It doesn’t taste bland at all. Maybe it’s because it’s later in the year and maybe more ripe or maybe it’s just because you haven’t eaten or had anything to drink in days.

After three pads, you can’t hold any more but you continue chewing up bite after bite to get at the juice. While you’re gorging yourself, you see a deep shadow at the base of the mountain that looks like it has a door in it. Weird. Who would put a door in a mountain?

You push yourself to your feet and stumble over to the shadow and see that it’s not really a door, but a boarded up hole. A cool draft hits you right square in the face. You have to get in there! At the bottom and under a faded sign that has slipped it’s nail, there’s a gap just big enough for you wriggle your way through if you swing the sign aside. It reminds you of the night you and Jane went into that spooky old house.

C’mon, I know the way in.

W-wait. What if something’s in there? What if someone catches us?

Don’t worry. No one ever comes here. This place is ‘bandoned.

It seems so long ago and in a place you can barely remember and to a boy who no longer exists. Maybe even in another life, perhaps.

You squat down and hold the sign up with one hand as you work your way inside. Sand sifts down on you as you pass through the opening—but only a little. From somewhere deep in the bowels of the cave, you can hear water dripping into a pool. Too bad it isn’t outside. It’s been so long since you’ve been swimming. It’d be a nice way to cool off.

Sitting just far enough inside that you’re out of the direct sunlight, you lean back to soak up the cool, damp air. Your stomach rumbles and cramps up, but you barely notice as you fall fast asleep.

You wake up shivering and crawl back into the blast furnace through the little gap. You have a vague recollection of an eerie yawning groan having disturbed your sleep, but it quickly fades into the ether along with the dream that inspired it. You head back over to the prickly pear patch and perform your routine again. It’ll take some time before you are back to one-hundred percent. Right now, you aren’t even considering leaving this wonderful place.

Once you’ve had your fill again, you crawl back into your hidey-hole. You have to crawl in a little deeper since the sun is at a lower angle and its rays stretch in nearly twice as far. It’s not that you mind sleeping in the daytime so much, you just don’t want those burning fingers on your skin.

You see a lump over against the far wall and have to investigate what it might be. You carefully creep over in case it might be an animal—even though by its shape, it couldn’t possibly be. You reach out with the toe of your shoe and give it a light nudge. It teeters to one side and comes back to rest in the same place with a tinny sound that reverberates off the walls. You immediately know what this object is. It’s a bucket!

If you can find the source of that dripping sound, you could have all the water you’d need for a couple days and surely you’d run into more by the time it is empty.
> You continue on your way
You carry the bucket back with you into the light and examine it for holes. There aren’t any that you can see so you set it near the entrance and crawl back out of the light, lay down and sleep for the rest of the day.

When you wake up, there is barely enough light to see your way out by and you have trouble even making your way back. You manage to squeeze your way back outside and a warm, stiff breeze ripples its fingers over your skin and through your hair. It feels rather pleasant after being in the cool for so long.

With bucket in hand, you stroll over to the prickly pears and begin carefully filling it with the pads that you don’t immediately eat. There’s not much left of the patch when you get done with it.

You look over your shoulder to see that the moon is more than a sliver and just a might above the horizon behind you. You decide that you might as well continue on since there’s no point in staying in one place for too long.

You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and set off down the tracks again. There are faint shadows outlining each railroad tie and you can see the wispy shapes of gravel off to the sides. There is a bluish tint to the desert where it fades into nothingness only a stones throw to each side.

You don’t have to stop to rest nearly as often and when you do, you carefully peel bits of prickly pear and suck out the juice. You’ve got enough to last you for days as long as you don’t get too piggish with it. And now that you’ve found out how magical it is, you’ll keep an eye out for patches so you can keep your bucket as full of it as you can.

Once in the night, you have to get away from the tracks and go prone when an East-bound freight rumbles through. It must be miles and miles long with six roaring engines straining to keep it moving. It’s too dark to make out the cargo, but it has to be really something special. You long to be on it heading back to familiar territory, but what magical things it must have seen before reaching this point. Even after it passes out of sight and then hearing, you can still feel its vibrations in the tracks.

The moon drifts by overhead—dragging the stars in its wake. You take the ties two at a time until the bottoms of your feet are so puffy that you have to slow to every one. The dark silhouettes of the mountains to your right take form as they rip free of the night sky and go from black to red to gold before you turn around and see the sun spilling over the horizon to your rear. It is a most awe inspiring sight of reds and oranges and golds fading into lavender at its fringes.

You scan the barren landscape around you and spot a tiny twinkle far up ahead. Maybe it’s something and maybe it’s not, but the tracks will come close enough to it that you’re going to find out. The landscape is sparsely dotted with bluish-green lumps and by their shape you can tell that they are prickly pear patches. They are everywhere! There’s so much that you’ll never go hungry or thirsty again! You’ll just grab what you need from the patches when they come close to the tracks to keep your bucket full.

There is a sudden explosion all around you and your heart skips a couple of beats when a dozen or so tiny pigs shoot out in all directions from their dusty wallows surprised by your sudden appearance. Even the grown ones are no bigger than a dog. It takes you a moment for your blood to settle enough that you can keep walking.

After you go a little farther, you are close enough to see what the thing is that is twinkling. It’s a windmill out all by itself. The shiny fan blades are high enough off the ground that they catch a ripple every now and then, but the tail fin is broken and bent sideways so it can no longer face into the wind. Did there used to be a farmhouse near it and now it’s gone? Maybe there’s still some stuff laying around it. You pick up your pace in the hopes of finding something salvageable.

From somewhere not too far off toward the mountains, you hear a sound like someone screaming with rage. Your hair stands on end and you freeze in your steps. You carefully scan the area and see nothing but a barren, sand-colored landscape dotted with the occasional boulder, cactus or prickly pear patch. Everything is eerily still.

You take a tentative step down the tracks while keeping a wary eye on the desert. Something is out there, but you don’t have a clue what it might be. A ghost, maybe? Or some madman? You are poised to run at the first sign of movement.

Before long, you are adjacent to the windmill and—after taking a last, long look around—head down the gravel embankment toward it. You see a long galvanized water trough—a little bigger than the bathtub you had in your old house before your mom and dad got a divorce—a short distance from its base connected to a rusty tank via a short, bent pipe. Maybe there will be enough water to soak in and cool off before the sun creeps high enough to scorch the day.

When you get up to the tank, you see about an inch of water in the bottom. You could still use it to cool off in and rinse away several layers of dirt and dust that you’ve picked up since the last time you bathed so you strip down to your altogethers and dip your toe in. The water is a bit warm now even though it’s still early in the day, but not so much that you can’t stand it and when you climb back out the gentle breeze should take care of the rest.

You sit down and start dipping water with your hands and pouring it over your head. It feels so good on your bare skin as you rub away the grit and dust. You haven’t had a bath in a long, long time so you make the most if it.

You lean back and bask in the sun for a few minutes soaking everything up and notice a metal latter going up the side of the windmill. There’s no telling what you’d be able to see from up there. As soon as you’ve dried off, you want to climb it and have a good look around. There’s nothing on the ground here for as far as you can see. Why would anyone put a windmill out in the middle of nowhere? There’s not even a fence to keep in animals if that’s what it’s for.

You stand up and are reaching over the side for your clothes when you hear that scream again from much closer this time. Your blood runs cold. You whip your head around toward the tracks and the direction it came from. There on the ridge, you see a big tan cat just like the one you saw when you were with Sam only this one isn’t quite as big even though it is twice as scary.

Before it heads down the slope toward you you are already climbing up the tower. When you reach the top, you look back over your shoulder to see it circling below and looking up at you. You look over and see an old paint can full of bolts and heavy, rusty adjustable wrench which you can use as a nice weapon. As long as it can’t figure out how to use the ladder, you are safe since there’s no way it could climb the metal legs. You pick up the wrench and slap it against your palm. If it does manage to climb the ladder, you’re ready to smash its head and paws as soon as it gets within arm’s reach.

Its eyes are fixed on yours and its ears are laid back when it makes a tremendous leap. You stagger backward and manage to grab onto one of the center posts that angle to the ground at the very last second while you are teetering and flailing your arms. The cat can jump much higher than you expected, but still only came a little over halfway to the top. After a couple more attempts with no more success than it had the first time, it stalks around and swats your bucket through the air—sending its contents spraying out in a wide arc.

“Go away! Leave me alone!”

You grab a hand full of bolts and start pelting the ground around him with the tiny missiles. Only one manages to hit its mark and the cat only flicks its shoulder muscle in response.

The cat pays no mind to your words and only continues pacing around the tower while staring up at you. There’s really nothing you can do but wait it out and hope it gets interested in something else or bored enough that it forgets all about you and leaves. You sit down with your back against the center post and keep a watchful eye on the cat below in case it figures out how to use the ladder.

After a few minutes, the big cat moves over to opposite side of the storage tank from the trough and lays down in the sliver of shade it provides. It’s only going to get hotter up here as the sun gets higher and higher. You have no choice but to suffer through it. There is a decent breeze up here that the cat doesn’t have. Maybe it’ll be enough.

You lean your head back against the post and close your eyes, but only to slits because you don’t want that thing to get out of your sight. It yawns and does the same, but doesn’t lay its head down. From here on in it’s just going to be a waiting game.
> You life happens
Hours have passed when you hear a low rumble coming from behind you. You look down at your nemesis to see that it has its head down on its paws and doesn’t seem to hear it. You look over your shoulder to see bright red pickup kicking up a cloud of dust and heading straight for you.

You get to your feet just as the pickup skids to a stop and the door flies open.

“What the hell are you doing up there!?” yells a beefy man with a scraggly beard. “Get down from there!”

You look down to see the cat jerk its head around and point toward it.

“I can’t.”

He looks over to where you’re pointing and immediately dives back into his truck at the same time the cat makes a dash toward the tracks. When he comes back out, he has a rifle in his hands and lays it against the open door.

Crack!

You see a wisp of dust explode on the far side of the cat and the cat veers away from it. Before the man can lever in another shell, it has gone over the tracks and down the other side. You watch as it fades into the background as it’s bounding toward the mountains.

“She won’t be back anytime soon so you can get down off of there now!”

You lay the wrench aside and step off onto the ladder. You don’t know what you would’ve done if he hadn’t come along when he did. Your mouth is already full of cotton. When you reach the bottom, you head straight for the closest prickly pear and begin skinning it with your thumbnails.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m thirsty. I need water.”

“Come over here. I’ve got some ice water in the truck.”

He opens the passenger door and rummages around in the pile in the floorboard until he comes back with an only slightly wrinkled paper cup. He slides a big cooler over the edge of the seat and pushes the button on the bottom to fill it before handing it to you. “Here.”

“Thank you.” You guzzle it down without taking a breath.

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

You look down at yourself and say “I was rinsing off from that trough to get cool when that big cat came.”

“Well, go put ‘em back on. You can’t be running around naked as a jaybird.”

You turn to go when he grabs your arm and says “What the hell happened to you, boy?”

You follow his gaze and look under your arm at your back. “Oh, that’s from my mom.”

“Why’d she do that?”

You shrug. “She was mad ‘cause I ran away, but I didn’t. It was an accident.”

He stands there scratching above his ear for a moment before shaking his head and turning toward the windmill.

You rush over and jerk on your clothes while he climbs it. Then you start putting the all the prickly pears you can find back in your bucket and look up to see him fixing the tail. You can’t help but stand there until he’s finished just to see if it works. He releases a catch and the blades start turning immediately.

“Where are you from?” he asks, stepping off the bottom rung. “There aren’t any houses for miles around except for mine.”

You look down at your feet. “A long, long ways from here.”

He takes you back to his house despite your objections and finally gets the whole story out of you. He threatens to turn you over to the sheriff, but can’t come to terms with what might happen to you if you were sent back. One thing leads to another and days turn into weeks. When school time rolls around, he enrolls you under his name and after talking to a judge friend of his and telling him your story, it’s all made nice and legal. It isn’t long before you feel like you belong at this ranch.

One day when you’re fourteen and he can barely get around even with the aid of his cane, you and he are out setting the windmill where you first met. He turns to you and says “I never had a son of my own. It’s lucky for me that you dropped into my lap like you did. You’re a damn fine worker and a fine young man. Someday I’ll be gone and all this will belong to you.”

You smile at him and give him a firm squeeze on the shoulder. Isn’t it funny how life turns out sometimes, you think. Looking him square in the eye, you say “I’m the lucky one.”

— The End


You stagger up to the edge of the road and raise your hands. The car slows down for a moment as the rear passenger window rolls down. As it gets nearly even with you, a bottle flies out and hits the pavement halfway to your feet. You don’t have the strength or energy to jump to the side so you can only stand there and watch as it bounces off the asphalt and hits you dead center in the chest before you can react.

The pain is so sudden and intense that the wind is knocked completely out of you. Your face feels like it swells to nearly twice its size and burns all the way to your ears. You slump and fall to your knees.

The car screeches to a stop and the driver’s door opens. “Why in the hell would you do that to a kid?! I oughtta kick your ass. You could’ve killed him, you know that?”

You gasp for breath and can’t take in any air. You want to cry due to the immense pain, but your eyes are so dry that they can no longer produce tears. Your vision starts to waver and you fall forward. Just before you eat the blacktop, you feel hands grab you and swing you back into a seated position.

“It’s okay. I’m here to help. He was just being a dumbass and didn’t know that he might actually hit you.”

You wheeze and can feel your lungs slowly start to fill with air. Your vision is still fuzzing in and out, but it’s slowly beginning to clear.

“What’s your name?” asks the teenage boy with closely cropped hair.

You rock back and forth trying to help force more air into your lungs, and only wheeze louder in answer to his question. You look around to see several more teenagers standing around you.

“Take it easy, man. Don’t try to rush it. I’m not going anywhere.”

You’re not sure you want to tell them your real name. After all, one of them just tried to kill you. Maybe it was an accident and maybe it wasn’t. You try to think of a name—any name—and a sudden image of little Timmy that lived down the street from you before your parents got a divorce pops into your head. You remember how he used to say his name and before you can correct it, out comes “Tim-O-tee.” You take a deep breath and try hard not to laugh or even smile. “Timothy. My name is Timothy.”

“What are you doing out here all by yourself, Timothy?”

“I’m lost. I don’t know where this is.”

“Where do you live? We’ll take you home,” says a slightly gruffer voice off to the side.

You shrug as you try to come up with something to tell them. You look around, trying to come up with a story they might believe and your eyes settle on a far-off vertical rock piercing up through desert floor. “A long, long ways from here. I was s’posed to stay by the camper, but I wanted to look at the rocks.”

One of the boys sucks air in through his teeth.

“That wasn’t very smart. Kids get lost out here all the time and die,” says the one crouched down by you. “Where were you going? Maybe we can find your parents or get you to someone who can.”

If they take you to the cops, you’ll never make it to the Grand Canyon. You have to change the subject. “I’m so thirsty. I need water.”

The boy reaches up and snatches a bottle from one of the others and says “Here, drink this. We’ll get you some water.”

You tip the over half full bottle and guzzle the orange soda down without stopping. It burns like fire and doesn’t help even a little, but it’s wet and wet is better than nothing.

“We’ve gotta get back. We can’t take him with us,” says another boy under his breath.

“We’re not leaving him out here, alone,” snaps the one you’ve been talking to, “Not here!”

“There’s a gas station right there! It’s not like he’s lost out in the middle of the desert.”

“We can’t go driving all over the country looking for his folks,” says another.

“You shoulda thought of that before you chucked that bottle him!” he hisses up at the boy with slicked back hair—who just pivots around on his heels and stalks back to the car. Turning back to you, he says “C’mon. We’ll go find a phone or something,” picking you to your feet and helping you to the car.

You hang back as the boys head into the gas station. If they call the police, they’ll take you home and you’ll never get to the Grand Canyon for Jane.

As soon as the door swings shut, you dash to the end of the building and swing around the corner toward the back. There is a stack of oil drums at the base of the hill out back and you run in behind them. You hope this will be enough because there is no other cover close by that you can see.

You squeeze into a hole between two of the drums that are resting on the ground and wait. It isn’t long before you hear them talking from not too far away from your hiding spot.

“Where could he have got to?” asks the boy that’s been trying to help you.

“I dunno. He just ran off, I guess. Maybe we just imagined the whole thing.”

“Maybe he’s a spook and just went invisible,” laughs a third.

“Don’t be a moron,” says the first, “He’s just scared.”

“We can’t go traipsing all over the desert looking for him. When he gets tired, he’ll come back. We’re already gonna be late as it is.”

“I guess. I just wanted to help the kid out, is all.”

“Let’s just go before we get into trouble, ourselves.”

You hear the car engine start and gravel raining down in their wake before you poke your head out. You can’t risk going inside because they probably already told whoever is in there about you and the police might still show up.

You spot a coiled hose on the ground by the corner of the building that you must’ve run right by without even seeing. It’s just what you need. You trot over and reach for the faucet, but the handle has been removed. You study it a minute before picking up the hose a little at a time—working the contents out to the end—and manage to get a good mouthful of scalding hot water. You fight the pain and as soon as it’s cooled enough, you choke it down.

You can’t go any further in this heat so you look for any kind of shade to get out of this blistering sun. You spot a low-lying rock a little ways up the hillside behind the building and judging by its angle it might offer some shelter from the sun. You drag yourself over to it.

It looks like it would be the perfect place for a den of snakes, but peering under the shelf you see no sign of anything. You wedge yourself underneath where you’ll wait for nightfall before heading off again.

You open your eyes to find that you are shivering. The temperature has dropped considerably. If you don’t end up freezing, it’ll at least be a welcome relief compared to that awful sun.

After pulling yourself out, you stand and slink down the hill. Your feet are like bricks, but you have no other choice other than to go on.

The gas station parking lot is deserted except for a run-down old pickup truck loaded down with all kinds of junk and covered with a tarp. It’s parked in the shade of the pump lights around the corner of the building and you have to walk around it to get to the highway.

As you pass by it, its yellow license plate catches your eye. It says Arizona in green letters across the top and Grand Canyon State on the bottom.

You peek around the corner of the building and see an old hunched over Indian man with a pony tail halfway down his back stepping up to the cash register.

This could be your lucky break. You could try asking him for a ride, but what if he says no? Maybe hiding under the junk in the back and hope for the best would be smarter way to go. It won’t be long before he’s heading this way so you’d better hurry and make up you mind.
> You hide in the back of the truck
You climb in the back of the truck and find a hole under the tarp that you can squeeze yourself into. You hunker down and get as comfortable as you can, but you can’t see out from where you are. It isn’t long before you feel the truck rocking and hear the door slam. The engine revs to life and you are jostled this way and that before the ride eventually smooths out.

All you can do is hope for the best as you settle back and try to get some much needed sleep.

You wake up with the old Indian man staring down at you. He has a mixture of concern and annoyance on his face.

“Where did you come from? Why are you in my truck?”

You rub the sleep from your eyes while you try to think of an answer. Your stiff back decides to contort all on its own and you are helpless to stop it. When you’re able to do so you look back up at him. Not knowing the best way to respond, you say “I was hiding and fell asleep.”

He looks you over and finally says “Come on out of there.” He turns and walks toward the front of his truck as you sit up. He doesn’t stop at the front and continues on to a short, shiny trailer with a tattered awning drooping from its side and props the door open with a beat up lawn chair. All around you as far as the eye can see is only desolation broken up by the occasional rock jutting up through the earth.

You climb over the side and aren’t sure whether to follow him inside or to go somewhere else entirely. You don’t know where you are and can only guess that the rough and rutted path behind the truck leads back to some road.

At the very least, you need water. It couldn’t hurt to go to the door and ask for some before heading out. You also haven’t a clue as to where you are so maybe he’ll tell you that, too.

You walk over to the trailer and lean in. “Can I have some water?”

It’s really dark in there and before you can make out any movement, a heavy black pot spattered with light blue specks and a long shiny handle sticking out of the top drops onto the corner of the built-in table into the slender patch of sunlight that makes it through the door. A hand reaches out of the blackness and grabs the handle, drawing a ladle dripping with water from inside the pot. “Here.”

You lunge inside, snatch the ladle with both hands and gulp down the liquid in huge swallows. It’s warm and you can taste the metal in it. It doesn’t matter. You’ve gone without for so long that the only thing that registers is that it’s wet. Even through you are choking for air you keep chugging.

Finally, you’ve had all you can hold. After dropping the ladle into the pot, you stagger backward and fall against the aluminum door facing. Your eyes have started to adjust and you can see the old man seated at the far end of the table and staring vacantly at the far wall.

“You want to tell me where you’re from?”

You shift from one foot to the other trying to remember some of the towns from your map, but you draw a blank. Not sure if you should tell him the truth or make something up, you end up saying “A long way from here.”

He lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t turn toward you.

“I have to get somewhere. It’s real important.” The instant those words pass through your lips you flash back on a conversation from a long, long time ago, but it slips away before you get the chance to latch on to it.

He only sits there patiently and stares straight ahead without saying a word. It makes you feel all jittery inside. You have to tell him something.

“Jane died and I have to go to the Grand Canyon for her ‘cause she never got to see it,” you blurt out.

He sucks in his breath and stiffens as the words spill out with you powerless to stop them.

“Her mom hated her and she killed her and all she wanted was someone to love her and to take care of her! She was my friend! She was my bestist FRIEND!”

You fall to the floor in a heap. All of your strength has dissipated. Your body heaves and shutters and your eyes burn, but they are so dry that they can no longer make tears. A large, gentle hand comes to rest on your shoulder and you don’t even bother raising your head. It has all been too much. Just way too much.

“Wake up. We’re here.”

You shove yourself up in the seat and peer through the dusty windshield. A red granite sign with dark inset lettering atop a light tan sandstone base stands off to the right in front of the pickup. You can see the words clearly over the hood. “Grand Canyon National Park”. You can hardly believe your eyes.

After a long, slow grind, the engine whirs to life. Silas jams the truck into gear and it lurches forward. It isn’t long before you come to a large parking area and he whips around into one of the paint-striped spaces, killing the old truck in gear causing it to shudder to a stop.

You look up at him. He’s staring out through the windshield with that vacant stare he does. You can’t help yourself. You shimmy over in the seat, reach up and give him a big hug around the neck.

“Thank you for bringing me here.”

He doesn’t move or even look around. He finally says “Go now.”
> You go now!
You look out over the vast canyon before you—the cool pastel painted walls, the shadowy crevasses and overhangs. You walk down a narrow trail cut into the wall. A flimsy railing is all that separates you from a terrifying fall to your death. You lean against it and peer over the side. You can't make out the bottom, it seems to just flow into the horizon.

You turn around and look at the cliff face behind you. The tool marks are still there—as they have undoubtedly been for decades—still unweathered in this arid environment. They will most likely remain long, long after your own death.

You carefully choose your hand and footholds and—after looking around to make sure no one is in sight—make the short climb. At the top, you sit admiring the view. Taking a deep breath, you pull out the folded up sheet of paper. You open it and stare at it one last time, trying to memorize every single line (though you don't need to because you have studied it many times before). You give it a soft kiss, remembering those few magical days, refold it and touch it to your forehead. Then you gingerly slip it into a crack in the wall that faces out over the great canyon.

You sit there as the sun sets and the light dwindles. The walls of the canyon gradually darken into deeper oranges and violets. You can feel her sitting beside you and know that if you just turn your head, you'd see that raven haired beauty with those bright, shining green eyes. After all this time, her dream has finally come true...

— The End


It wasn’t worth the risk to you so you head around the yard and make your way toward where the tracks resume. By the time a train leaves the yard, you find that it is moving much too fast for you to board it so you set off once again down the tracks on foot.

Every couple of hours you have to ditch the tracks and hide behind a boulder or in a shallow ravine until a train passes. This is the busiest set of tracks that you’ve been on and if anyone spotted someone your age out here alone they would certainly report it.

You have to take a break so you find a nice clear spot away from the tracks to kick back in and lean back on the bag. You have a sudden urge to pull out the card Jane made for you and look at the old postcards while you rest. You trace each line drawn in crayon on the page with your finger and think back to those few magical days. It seems like so long ago now. A lot has happened and every day that has passed seems to have steadily grown worse than the last. After you do this one thing, you should find someone nice to live with like Jane dreamed of. Surely there’s someone out there that would love and take care of you, someone you can depend on. You carefully refold the letter and slip it into your pocket and put everything else back into the treasure chest before giving your eyes a rest.

You don’t even notice when you start to drift off, but you are rudely awakened by a brutal gust and find that a strong wind has kicked up. The dust and sand scour your face and you can barely breathe even with your shirt pulled up over your face. You stagger around trying to find some kind of shelter behind a rock or something, but there doesn’t seem to be anything nearby and you probably wouldn’t be able to see one anyway unless you were right on top of it.

Your foot suddenly finds nothing but open air and you tumble headlong down a steep embankment. Your bag disappears as it goes one way and you go another. And then the world slips away into blackness.

You wake to find your arm twisted under you—your shoulder screaming out in agony. You have scrapes and tiny cuts from the side of your face all the way down your legs. It takes a couple attempts before you’re able to roll over and sit up.

You push yourself to your feet and look up at the steep incline that you fell down and don’t think you’d be able to climb back up there even if your arm wasn’t throbbing like it is. You can see the coat caught on a rock protruding from the ground near the top. One of the plastic jugs tied to the sleeves is crushed and the other one looks like it just exploded when it slammed into the ground. You don’t see your bag anywhere.

You pace back and forth along the base of the cliff looking for any trace of your stuff and finally have no choice but to give up. You head down the wash and hope that it doesn’t dead end.

The feeling finally comes back in your arm. You can move it, but not without pain and there’s a huge black and green bruise that goes from your shoulder to half way across your chest.

The wash spills you out on the edge of a two-lane highway and there isn’t a car or a sign or anything at all except brushy desert and rocks for as far as you can see. The train tracks must be somewhere beyond the ridge behind you, but you’d never be able to get back to them that way. You look up at the sun and figure that you might as well keep following it since it has already led you this far.

You close your eyes, take a deep breath and then set off down the road.

You’ve been walking for hours when a car pulls out onto the blacktop from a gas station up ahead that you didn’t even know was there. The hot blazing sun reflecting off the pavement has made you half blind and has given you such a raging thirst that it feels like no amount of water could ever hope to quench. You don’t know if you’ll even be able to make it as far as the gas station.

You’re torn between whether or not to flag the car down when it gets close or to find somewhere to hide until it passes by.
> You hide
You take cover and lie flat in some wispy brush. It’s the only choice you have at the moment. It doesn’t conceal you very well, but well enough since the car speeds by without slowing down.

You get back to your feet and stumble on.

The sandy, vacant lot is such a relief after walking down the sweltering blacktop for so long. The building is long and narrow and runs parallel to the highway. Along its front drapes a green and white awning and below that there are dark windows partially covered with plywood. There are two antique gas pumps with glass bowls on top for measuring out fuel standing a little more than a car’s width from a glass door plastered with all manner of fliers.

You struggle to pull open the glass door. You hear a television blaring from within as you stumble inside.

“Can I have some water?” you hoarsely ask the beefy guy behind the counter.

“It’s back by the soda fountain,” he answers without looking up from his game-show. “Cups are five cents.”

You blink. All your money is in your bag lost somewhere back in that canyon.

“C’mon! Who ever heard of shaving cream costing ten bucks?! You stupid moron!”

You turn around and fall against the door, forcing it open with your shoulder and stagger back out into the blast furnace.

Walking around the end of the building, you spot a coiled hose on the ground by the back corner. It’s just what you need. You trot over and reach for the faucet, but the handle has been removed. You study it a minute before picking up the hose a little at a time—working the contents out to the end—and manage to get a good mouthful of scalding hot water. You fight the pain and as soon as it’s cooled enough, you choke it down.

You can’t go any further in this heat so you look for any kind of shade to get out of this blistering sun. You spot a low-lying rock a little ways up the hillside behind the building and judging by its angle it might offer some shelter from the sun. You drag yourself over to it.

It looks like it would be the perfect place for a den of snakes, but peering under the shelf you see no sign of anything. You wedge yourself underneath where you’ll wait for nightfall before heading off again.

You open your eyes to find that you are shivering. The temperature has dropped considerably. If you don’t end up freezing, it’ll at least be a welcome relief compared to that awful sun.

After pulling yourself out, you stand and slink down the hill. Your feet are like bricks, but you have no choice other than to go on.

The gas station parking lot is deserted except for a run-down old pickup truck loaded down with all kinds of junk and covered with a tarp. It’s parked in the shade of the pump lights around the corner of the building and you have to walk around it to get to the highway.

As you pass by it, its yellow license plate catches your eye. It says Arizona in green letters across the top and Grand Canyon State on the bottom.

You peek around the corner of the building and see an old hunched over Indian man with a pony tail halfway down his back stepping up to the cash register.

This could be your lucky break. You could try asking him for a ride, but what if he says no? Maybe hiding under the junk in the back and hope for the best would be smarter way to go. It won’t be long before he’s heading this way so you’d better hurry and make up you mind.