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I would say so

They walk, and they examine the cars abandoned on the road It is ht to find an operational vehicle The tyres are blown out froines rusted still The weather in this area is harsh It is easier in the south, where he is from

They walk all day and find no vehicle They stay on the road that follows the reservoir’s north bank, and in a few hours they are beyond its tip where the barren dirt plains give way to patches of pasture and fars – but the sun is lowering on the horizon

It’s a town, he says Gunnison We’ve been seein the signs We can probably find a car there, but it ain’t advisable to approach a strange town after dark You like to have your eyes open for whatever’s comin your way

So they find an abandoned farather wood and start a fire in the fireplace, and there are some cans of chili left behind in the cupboards, so they heat those and put them into ceramic bowls and eat with spoons They sit next to each other on the couch and watch the fire and wait for their eyes to become heavy with sleep

This is nice, says the Vestal A Like we’re a need prairie couple or sorunts non-committally

They are quiet They wait Then the Vestal speaks again

You worried about your brother?

He’ll last it, Moses says He’s hard like a tree root

He is at that You two are very different He ain’t the uess you know that But you protect hi in this world – but one thing I aood or poor

For a while Moses says nothing else, and it seeh the conversation will end there Then he breathes in deep, still gazing into the fire, and speaks again

He could of turned out different given different circu about before Before the slugs even

You row up, says the Vestal

I did and I didn’t

You got a lot of years between you

We sure enough do, Moses confirh his entire history were contained in the flaot different mothers My father, I didn’t know hiot raised up by h, my pa You heard about him all around the county There wasn’t any honour or nobility to hienerate He never had irl died givin birth to a baby boy she claiirl Her boy was Abraha is said There is a pop in the fireplace, and an ember leaps out and colows, the little burning punk, and then smokes itself out

Your father raised him? the Vestal asks

Naw, Moses says He never admitted Abraham was his Wouldn’t submit to a test Abraham had it hard He was raised by the state Foster ho I could do – I was just a teenager But I listened around about him I always knehere he was He had it hard, Abe did Just a little scraig of a boy, and nobody on his side

He pauses again and looks out theinto the distant dark, and he wonders if maybe the boy is still out there so went sour, he goes on, e by then, wanderin here and there I wasn’t there to protect her By the tione There weren’tthemselves to death in the hospital I found Abe there, took him with me No one stopped me No one was stoppin anybody at that time

Moses breathes deep

Anyhow, he says, whatever took hiot him in its teeth, he was already took when I collected hiain and fizzes It is guttering do, glowing red like a beating heart that refuses to stop