“Stand back,” Curtis says as we gather slowly around the tangle of limbs and scraps of clothing. He unholsters his gun and he and Ben level their weapons at the unmoving body. I put my hand on my revolver, but I don’t draw it. I see a tangle of brown matted hair, knotted and patchy in places. From the length, I guess it’s a woman, but she’s facedown on the ground.
Micah moves toward the body and we all jump. Ben grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him back.
“Are you cracked?”
Micah shrugs off Ben’s hand. “She’s not moving, she’s dead.”
“Just cause she ain’t moving don’t mean she’s dead,” Curtis tells him.
“Well, we can’t know for sure until we turn her,” Micah points out.
I use their momentary distraction to inch closer to the body. By the time they see what I’m doing, I’ve seized the body by the shoulder and rolled her over. Ben snatches me around the waist and lifts me away as the rest of the boys hightail it backward. We’re more than a horse length out of reach when everyone realizes the body hasn’t shifted. Curtis slowly lowers his gun and Micah stops fumbling for the rifle on his back.
“I think you can put me down now,” I say to Ben, who still has one arm around me and the other full with his gun. He sets me down, none too gently.
“What the hell are you thinking? You got a death wish?” He’s genuinely mad, and I wish I could tell him the truth. There’s nothing that can hurt me now. In a way, I finally feel free; I have nothing to fear, because the worst has already happened.
“She’s dead,” Sam interrupts, kneeling by the body.
“You sure?” Curtis asks.
“Why do y’all keep asking me that? I may not be the best doctor, but I can tell when someone’s not breathing,” Sam says crossly.
He’s right; now that she’s on her back, we can all see that her chest is still and lifeless. It’s hard to tell how old she was; her body is so thin, almost mummified, the bones jutting out plainly. Her skin is like paper, dried out from the fever that burned up her insides. No breath issues from her cracked lips, and her eyes stare out, blind and milky.
“I don’t see any gunshots,” I say, moving my eyes away from her face.
“Maybe other shakes killed her?” Micah suggests.
“Naw,” Ben answers. “They don’t attack one another like they do us. They’ll eat their dead, but they don’t kill their own. Don’t know why.”
“Something about the way they smell, maybe,” Curtis says.
“Then what killed her?” Micah asks.
Sam struggles to his feet and shrugs. “I don’t see any external wounds, so the disease, I reckon. Fever, sunstroke, seizure when her brain swelled. Nothing to do for it.”
“Poor girl,” I say, shivering despite the heat.
“It’s easy to feel pity when they’re already dead,” Curtis says, quietly. “But alive, she would’ve killed you soon as looked at you, and felt nothing for it.”
“I know,” I tell him. “Believe me, I know. But she was somebody’s daughter once, and she never asked for this.”
She looks sad. Sad, and confused. I’ve always wondered how much they understand. They feel pain, but what else is in their fever-cooked minds? Something drives them, fear or anger or hunger. Do they know what they are, what they’ve become? Are they still in there somewhere, trapped and unable to get out? That would be the cruelest joke of all.
And what if they are aware? What if it isn’t the fever that sends them lunging at the healthy, teeth snapping and fingers tearing? Maybe we have it wrong. Maybe this is what humans are truly like, when you take away reason and control and hope. Maybe the shakes aren’t sick; maybe they’re just honest.
We leave the woman where we found her. It feels disrespectful, but we have no shovels and no time for grave digging. I comfort myself with the thought that whoever she was, that girl died a long time ago. This heap of teeth and finger bones is no more a person than husked-off snakeskin; it’s just meaningless leftovers shriveling in the sun.
We only make it a few steps before we hear the growling.
33.
The coyote stares at us with black eyes, his mottled gray fur bristled and his shoulders hunched forward. His ears lie almost flat along his skull, hackles raised, and I don’t need to see the old blood and spit around his muzzle to know what’s wrong with him.
“Nobody move,” Curtis says in a whisper. His knuckles are white on Nana’s lead, he’s gripping so hard. “Everyone stay very, very still.”
The coyote wrinkles his lips back and growls deep in his throat. The sound raises the fine hairs along my arms. My muscles clench, preparing to fight without my direction.
“Easy, boy,” Ben says, keeping his voice low.
The coyote snarls, loud and sharp, and everything in me screams to turn and flee. My mind knows it would be on top of me in a moment, shredding me with those teeth and those claws, but my body just wants to run, run, run. Does it ever get to be too much, when your body can’t take it anymore and stops reacting? Even now, with poison making its slow way through my veins, my body is fighting to stay alive.
There’s a soft click, and it takes all my focus to not whip my head around. I take a deep breath and turn my head unhurriedly. Curtis is pulling his gun from his belt, so slowly I have to keep watching to make sure he’s moving at all.
The coyote shifts, his shoulders arching. He takes one step forward, and then another, his eyes focused on Curtis.
“Curtis,” Ben says, hissing at his brother. “Shoot it.”
“Quiet,” Curtis hisses back.
“Now, Curtis.”
With a loud curse, Curtis yanks his gun free just as the coyote lunges at him. A shot goes off, I think I scream, and there’s blood on the ground. The coyote drops back, twisting his body, and I see a long streak of red against his ribs. The shot just grazed him, and once my brain catches up with my eyes, I pull out my own gun.
The coyote licks at his wound and bares his teeth, his growl turning into a high-pitched whine. The sound eats at my heart; I make a bad daughter for a trapper, I hate to hear animals in pain.
I aim at the coyote’s head, wanting to put him out of his misery. I pull the trigger and hear echoing shots from Curtis. The coyote yelps and falls to the dirt, his legs scrabbling at nothing. Poor thing; what chance did he have against humans with guns?
The blood slowly stains his fur and pools into the dirt. His eyes start to glaze over as he gives up whatever it is that makes him a coyote.
“I think it’s dead,” Micah says when the animal stops breathing.
“Right. We’re done here,” Ben says. “Nobody touch it,” he adds, glancing in my direction.
“Everyone keep your wits about you,” Curtis says. “Seems to be that kind of morning.”
I don’t touch the coyote, even though I wish I could close his eyes. Even though it couldn’t hurt me. I sigh to myself as we move away; I’m tired of watching things die.
34.
A hot wind starts to pick up in the early afternoon. It’s rare to have any kind of breeze out here in the flatlands, and I’m thankful for it. The wind buffets my cheeks like a warm breath, drying my sweat and spitting bits of dust and gravel into my eyes. Cockleburs skitter across the dirt purposefully, snagging on unwary bits of cotton and hair. I pull a sticker off my sleeve and flick it away, doing my part to spread the weeds.
“Move in,” Ben calls, and the wind snatches up his words and throws them back to me. He points to a marker by the road; Curtis nods, but it means nothing to me. He motions for Micah and Sam and they trot up from the rear.
Ben waits for us to come level to him and Curtis wraps Nana’s lead firmly around his wrist.
“Stay close now,” Curtis tells us. “We’re gonna be passing by Silver.”
Sam’s eyes widen and I suck in my breath. Silver. The name is a warning, a threat parents use to scare unruly children. Be good or I’ll send you to Silver. Count your blessings we�
��re not in Silver. I used to have nightmares about it, what feels like forever ago.
It wasn’t always a ghost story. Before it was a cautionary tale, it was a town. Nicer than Glory, bigger than Best, twice as many folks as Hide Town. They had a dress shop and a bank, a dance hall and a gin mill that was famous for its sour mash whiskey. Of course the sickness hit them first. And that many people, all packed together; there was no stopping it. The shakes spread like wildfire, and the whole town was sick in a handful of days. Afterward, folks figured out pretty quick to set up fences around the towns. As for Silver, it was too late to do anything but keep a distance.
“Stay together and stay sharp,” Curtis says. “We’re gonna give the city a wide berth, but there could be shakes out roaming.”
“How many are still in there?” Micah asks.
“Enough,” Curtis says.
A chill creeps up like a cold finger along my spine. The sickness kills your brain, but there’s something about Silver that calls to the shakes, drawing them in like moths to the memory of a flame. They know the town is theirs now. Who knows how many are in there, feeding off the dead and hiding in the shadows.
“Eyes open and guns close,” Ben says. “Understood?”
He looks at each of us in turn, and I swear he takes longest with me. Does he still not trust me? If fighting side by side won’t convince him I belong out here, I don’t know what will. It shouldn’t sting, but it does.
“Ben, I’ll be point man,” Curtis says.
Ben nods and Curtis moves up to the front of our grimy group. The wind whips thin blades of ocotillo and they lash against my legs. As we get closer, I can make out the crumbling walls still standing in Silver and slight movement in between. There’s a howling in my ears, whether from the wind or from Silver I cannot tell.
“Guns out,” Curtis says, just loud enough for us to hear him, loosing one of his long-nosed revolvers from his belt. I pull my own revolver from its holster and cock it and I immediately feel surer with its weight in my hand. Micah slings his rifle off his back, and Sam produces a small pistol he was hiding somewhere. Ben opts for his smaller gun, too, leaving his rifle in place. We move forward, and I feel invincible with all this hardware glinting in the sun.
We reach the outskirts of the ghost town, and even at a distance my confidence starts to fade. It’s one thing to know a place is abandoned, but it’s another to see the outline of a single boot decaying in the sun and know that a foot used to wear it, used to live in it. The houses are hollowed-out shells now, sand-swept and overgrown with tarbush. This is the future that waits for Glory, if things keep up. Whether we go one by one or all at once, the end result is the same. At least I won’t be around to watch it crumble.
We fan out along on the road, keeping Silver to the left. A high wail comes from somewhere inside and I shudder. I can’t keep my eyes off the skyline of the town, dark walls jutting up into empty air. The sky has turned sour, bruised gray and green. This whole place feels ill, like the sickness sunk into the ground and spit into the sky. It doesn’t take long to pass the town, but it still isn’t quick enough for me. Time must move slower the more alert you are, every second stretching out painfully. When we clear the last sunken building, the minutes snap back into place and my shoulders start to ache as the tension leaves them.
“We’re clear,” Curtis says, smiling over his shoulder. “Not so bad, right?”
A dust devil whips up in the distance, doing its lonesome spinning dance. The dust swirls and separates, evaporating into the air like it was never there at all. But I saw it; that counts for something. I risk a look back at Silver, and from a distance it looks harmless, sad even; all those empty houses suspended in time. I pity the unmade beds still waiting to be slept in, the overturned chairs that will never be righted.
“What’s wrong?” Micah asks me, nudging me with his arm. “You look more grim than usual.”
“Just spooked, is all,” I tell him. “Everything we hear about Silver, and there it is. It’s like seeing a ghost.”
“How hard did you get hit in the head?”
That makes me smile, like he knew it would. “Those stories scared you right enough, if I remember.”
“Not as much as Doc Kincaid’s story about the grass widow who wanted to marry him,” Micah says, nodding to Sam.
“Oh, her,” Sam says, shuddering. “That woman was a terror. I don’t think I ever saw Pa hide from anyone before.”
“How come you’re not hitched, Curtis?” I ask him.
“You offering?” he says with a smile.
“I already got two boys to look after, I don’t need another. But I can find you a nice yellow-haired woman if you’re interested.”
“Thank you kindly, but my heart belongs to another. I’m just waiting for her to come around.”
Ben snorts. “You’ll be waiting a long time, brother.”
“Anyone we know?” Sam asks.
“It’s not for me to say,” Curtis says.
Ben mouths a name at me, and I start to giggle.
“Elsie?” I repeat, and Sam and Micah break out laughing.
“What’s so damn funny?” Curtis asks.
I take a breath and choke back my laughter. “Curtis, Elsie runs the Homestead. Do you know how many men spend all day in there drinking?”
“So?”
“So there’s not a hunter in Glory who hasn’t propositioned her at least once. It’ll take more than time for her to come around.”
Curtis sighs heavily. “Then I’ll just have to prove I’m worthy. Always did like red hair.”
Sam and Micah make kissing noises at him until he swats them away.
“Curtis,” Ben says, his voice strange.
“Just y’all wait until you’re heartsick and see how kind I am.”
“Curtis!” Ben yells, and we all look at him.
“What?”
“That.” Ben points behind us. I whip around, hand on my gun, ready for a fight. There’s nothing there, no shakes, no nothing. But I’m staring at the wrong spot; I lift my eyes higher and see a reddish-brown wall rising into the sickly sky.
There’s no need to say it, but I do anyway. “Dust storm.”
35.
The last dust storm I remember was right before the twins were born. Ma was huge, her belly like a perfectly rounded egg. The storm didn’t hit us directly, but the sky was green and foul for days. Ma made us stay inside and stuffed rags into the cracks in the windows. I remember her squatting by the door, trying to plug the gap in the sill. Even locked inside, the air turned our eyes hot and bloodshot and made us cough up red dirt and spit.
“What do we do?” Sam asks, his voice tight. When no one answers, he looks at Ben insistently. “What do we do?”
“How far to the next box?” I ask, my mind racing. It’s got to be at least five miles since we left the station; it can’t be that much farther.
“Two miles,” Ben answers. I can see the muscles of his jaw working beneath his beard.
“It’ll hit us before we make that,” Micah says, his eyes calculating the edge of the storm.
“Curtis?” Ben asks.
Curtis still has his sight on the dust cloud, a deep wrinkle between his eyes.
“Curtis?” Ben asks again, loudly, and Curtis jerks his head to face his brother.
“Run,” he says, simply. “We run for it.”
Curtis checks his grip on Nana and starts to move.
“No, stop,” I call out. “Stop.”
“What is it?” Micah asks.
“Keep moving,” Curtis orders.
“But Curtis—”
“We can’t stop, Willie,” he says.
“We came this way,” I tell him. “We’re retracing our steps.”
“We have to get to shelter.”
“The hotbox is that way,” and I point in the opposite direction.
“We ain’t gonna make it to the box.”
It takes me a heartbeat to understand.
/> “You can’t be serious,” I say. “We can’t go to Silver,” and I hate how childish my voice sounds.
“It’s moving too fast; we can’t cover two miles. We get caught in that storm we won’t be able to breathe,” Curtis says. “We’ll be blind, and that sand can strip the skin from your bones.”
“But—” I don’t even know where to begin; this is madness. You run away from danger, not toward it.
“Will, he’s right,” Sam puts in. “We’ll suffocate.”
“Come on, Sis,” Micah says, pulling me forward. “We gotta go.”
“But it’s Silver, Micah,” I tell him.
“I know. We still gotta go.”
And so we do; we start to move at a pace somewhere between walking and running, an awkward stride that pains my joints. Every step sets the bones in my knees grating against one another, and I bite the inside of my cheek to stop from groaning. We follow Curtis, who pulls Nana along in a series of sprints and stalls. None of us can keep this up for long, not in this heat. The sun glares down at us balefully and the hot blasts of wind sear my lungs. Sweat pools at my collarbone and the small of my back, soaking my shirt. My breath comes hard and fast, rattling in my chest; I lower my head to stop sucking in the dusty air. I’m staring at the ground, my eyes watering so that everything looks like gray smudges. It’s better this way, that I can’t see the town coming closer. Somehow I’ve found myself in one of my nightmares, and I can’t even pretend I’m dreaming because my side is aching too sharply.
“Faster,” Curtis yells back at us. “We have to reach the town before the storm hits.”
He lets us stop only to drink hurried gulps of water, and each time the edge of the storm looms closer. I start to think it’s not a dust storm, but a mountain, and we’re the ones moving toward it. My body feels close to its breaking point when from the corner of my eye I see Micah stumble, his foot caught on a burroweed branch. He falls, his hands and knees slapping the dirt. I run over and hoist him up easily; he’s distressingly light.
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