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And so he drives and fills the space with uttered words and makes his way back into theup over the horizon when he finds the place where the small path winds up into the woods He cli and draws the icy cold deep into his lungs where it ht purify him

He climbs the path between the trees and sees the cabin ahead of hi shadows on the snow He does not knohat he will find in the cabin, whether he will find his brother alive or dead Abraham said he could last it It’s true – he said those words – but life can be a tricksy thing itself So hands

Moses does not knohat he will find as the cabin co there on the collapsing front porch and drinking so, is a man who is not his brother

It’s the doctor, Peabody, from Fletcher’s caravan – the one they left tied to a tree

Moses pulls a gun fro thick and hard through the drifts of snow

Where’s my brother? he says in a loud, hoarse voice I’ll kill you if you--

Inside, the doctor says, dropping hishot brown liquid everywhere Where it falls on the snow, the steam rises in sudden wisps The doctor holds up his ar hi his way across the clearing

Moses keeps the gun trained on the rabs Peabody, gets an arainst his tes of the cabin and, having taken his hostage, waits for the assault of Fletcher’s men

But that’s when the door of the cabin opens and Abraha sun

Abraha his ass

Hey, brother, he says What’re you doin with the doc? You want sorinds under the floor

When Moses and the Vestal tied hiht Fletcher’s men couldn’t fail to notice But, instead, when Fletcher bolted in pursuit, they did not bother to count heads or look around even Or perhaps they siiven up to the wilderness or the wildness of man Peabody called out, but none could hear hiines and the cries of the caravaners toin the woods when he heard the sound of motors die away in the distance It had been unnecessary to hide – Fletcher was not interested in what er there He heard the doctor’s cries fro crazy by then, quite sure he would freeze to death in a few hours, kissed on the lips and tied to a tree by a holy wo couttural noise frorief and despair, hopeless, tuned to the pitches of nature and birdsong – askyward

Which is how Abraha, Abrahahed I kneas okay then He’d gone past loyalties

I brung you these, Moses says, giving Abraha

Look, Abrahah It isn’t healed, but the swelling seees

It’s gettin better, Moses says

The doc s and pine needles and garbage like that It helps

It just cal compared to what a real antibiotic like that will do

Moses turns to Peabody

I apologize, he says For the gun For tyin you to a tree We thoughtThank you greatly for helpin s it off

It was a symbiotic relationship, he says Fletcher kept oodThat was a righteous thing for you to do If things’d gone a shade different, we s He runs a hand across his balding pate Wisps of grey hair fall down nearly to his shoulders He must be ten or even twenty years older than Moses Here is a ood solid chunk of life before the dead started coed Here is a man with ht change back, because he can hardly help but remember vividly the world before Perhaps he even believes he could reconstruct it out of the recollections and blueprints he carries in his own agingor killing I’ve been a doctor so long – and the world gone topsy-turvy the way it is – it’s sometimes hard to tell which is called for You have to do some of both if you would be a man in this world And which end of the act you’re on is the luck of the s

The three men drink weak coffee made from water heated over the fire Abraham takes two of the pills, and Peabody looks at his wound

How’s it look, doc? Abraha, Peabody says But the jury’s still out If there were facilities, we could do more about it

I found a place, Moses says to Peabody It has what you need It’s a good place We’ll drop you there