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And he laughs
Before they reach the car, Moses seizes the Vestal A face
You were gonna do it, he says You were gonna kill hiht, she says And you weren’t
He wasn’t no threat to you – not then
He shot your brother
Is that what you were gonna do it for? On behalf of Abraha to do it on behalf of myself And on behalf of decency
Decency, Moses repeats and guffaws That’s alike yourself
Little nothing – I’m the Vestal Or haven’t you heard?
Your na different Tillie
Aave ht to hiuess you didn’t
What’s that supposed toHow’d you do it?
Her voice suddenly takes on a deep southern twang, as though in ih Moses can’t decipher the shifts in her dialect – can’t determine which voice is performance and which is real
It ain’t no trick, brother Moses, she says I’m speciallike
You ain’t a holy woman
Do you knohat’s holy and what ain’t? You sure bout that?
I got a few ideas on the topic
Well, don’t expect a deep dissertation on the ether and see which one gets along better with the locals
You also got a trick to save you froet tired of your talkin?
Ladies and gentlemen, she addresses the desert around them, my sworn protector Take a bow, Mosey
Moses turns and walks the rest of the way back to the car The Vestal follows a little behind
Everything taken care of? Abraha’s fine, Moses says
Good, Abraham says Cause someone better fish onna have to dig a bullet out of
The Vestal is convinced that Fletcher is still after her, and Moses has suspicions in the sauise their trail, they drive west along the highway for two hours, then double back ten minutes and take the road north
They move slowly, she says, Fletcher and his people – because there are so ot an Indian with theood tracker
What do you recoirl I’ information
The road north is a small two-lane black-top cruh with the shells of abandoned cars in others They frequently have to slow to a crawl and navigate the sandy verge of the road, being wary about getting stuck since Abraham is useless to help at the moment Moses looks intermittently in the rearview n of Fletcher’s caravan The one advantage of the slow road is that it will be even slower for Fletcher and his large, heavy vans
Soon they see signs for what seee towns: Phoenix, Scottsdale, Terows denser as they approach the city centre
Do we go around it or through it? Abraham asks
It’s up to you, brother What do you feel like?
The sun is getting low on the horizon The day has been a long one They have been driving non-stop Abraha froery he will have to undergo He is sleepy and sputtering
Hell, he says Let’s stay in the big city for the night
So they follow the road into the city, which is uninhabited by the living and dark as pitch when the sun falls It is possible that the entire state is off the grid, all the survivors having one to rust and ruin –up through the cracked paverey by the sandstors season by season
The firebird city rises again only in the dead ander its streets It is a s, for there are no signs of life It is only when they arrive in the city’s don that Moses sees the soot and ash everywhere settled like ne, the black char on the sides ofThis place is not aer No, this place is newly dead There were people here not long before
The gutters are stained with dried blood, and he knohat that e blood – how, upon leaving the body and splashing on a brick wall, for exarey, hoill flake off, eventually, in the desert heat, or hoill rehydrate and run in the rain, hoill eventually disappear altogether, leaving only a stain like the dirt of the earth – and how, long after that, even the stain itself will evaporate, because the elixirs of human life are unstable – because huain with the elemental world it was born out of and is kept separate only by the puny will of individual fancies<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>