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Yes, life Life is what they called it

And Moses supposes he could do worse than an exis- tence filled with equal parts death and discovery – when the alternative is life and listlessness

He will be happy to be off this road at last Happy to be forging ahead

They are two hours froe that Moses doesn’t reot the roads mixed up and they are now on a different route Perhaps he has become blinded to the nuances of the world now that he is locked in the repetition of it

Moses brings the car to a stop

Abraha and doesn’t er seat

The leg’s stiff as hell, he says I got to stretch it Plus, I need to piss

So they cliain already – the days are shuffling by quickly now, as though in the agile hands of a professional card sharp And ambler after all

Peabody helps Abrahain to liar out of his pocket and lights it with a azes around him at the trees The road looks fa their way, though, doesn’t look new He puffs thoughtfully on his cigar

I’e, he says to the others Take a look around

He cli tree branches that pop and snap in his rip He is out of breath by the ti It’s possible that they are on the cusp of the Colorado City grid, but it makes no difference The hill on which he stands is just one rib of es that ripple the landscape He can only see the dipping distance between one line of hills and the next – and there is only emptiness in that unlit valley

He sits for a moment to recover fro, the rasp of air in his throat He looks at the fat cigar between his thick fingers He is a brute, he knows, and there should be laws and cages for such as he But sometimes he is surprised to discover that he has found a hos on the edges of the world – but now the world is all edges Margins without centre for ever and ever

Then he hears a shout from down below, indistinct and panicked, back in the direction of the car where he left Abraham and Peabody Then other noises The sound of scuffle and event, followed by two thunderous screeches of pain – voices Moses doesn’t recognize Then another shout – his name:

Mose!

It’s his brother’s voice And then Moses is running, crashing down through the trees, an ursineout, Abe! Abe!

He hears the sound of an engine below – a car speeding away And then he bursts through the scrub at the edge of the road and sees the hts of the car they have been driving It’s a body, but not Abraham’s and not the doctor’s Moses kneels over it

It’s a ly He wears a leather jacket with studs on it, and there’s a baseball bat still gripped tight in his dead right hand He lies in a wide pool of jugular blood that is still pu eak persistence froh his neck, from one side to the other like some horrible nizes as his brother’s

Abe! Moses calls Abe!

There is no response, but when he hushes he can hear a guttural choke from the ditch by the side of the road He rushes over to find the doctor, Peabody, holding his hands over a puncture wound in his chest The blood seeps through his fingers, leaking insistently through his pathetic grip

Who? Moses says Fletcher?

Peabody coughs wetly He shakes his head

Highwayasps Fletcher, he put a bounty on your heads Three ot one Wounded another But they took hies in his breathing

Dead or no? Moses says again, alry

No, Peabody says Fletcher’ll want to

Okay, Moses says and begins to lift Peabody Cohs a spray of blood over Moses’ face, shakes his head and pushes Moses away There are reddish-brown s white hair plastered to his skull with drying blood

I’ht?

The doctor’s body seizes up with so ainst their own expiration Then Peabody calrip on his chest wound loosening He can see thebetween his fingers

It’s about time for all of us, old man, says Moses