Part 6 (2/2)

”Ethan,” I say, reaching for his bloodied arm, ”are you okay?”

Of course he's not okay. His arm is a torn mess of shredded skin, blood and coyote drool. His face drains of color and his eyes well with tears.

”He ... he bit me,” he stammers. He looks like he's going to faint.

I cradled him and take off running. I keep my eyes on my brother's pale face. He has to be okay.

By the time I reach the house, my lungs feel like deflated balloons and a st.i.tch digs like a knife into my ribs, but none of that matters. I know what an infection means. With no antibiotics it means a horrible agonizing death.

I am stumbling through the yard when the figure blocks my path. A muscular man in clean denim, a faded t-s.h.i.+rt and cowboy hat. My eyes mark the silver revolvers at his hips. Clay.

I skid to a stop. ”Get out of here!” I yell, though it comes out raspy from my aching lungs. I want to dig out my knife, but my hands are full of my brother, who's ... unconscious? Is he breathing? I flick my eyes from Ethan, back to Clay.

Clay sees Ethan's arm and his face darkens. He whistles low. ”That's a nasty bite. Let me lend a hand.”

”No.” My voice is slick with hatred. ”Get off my steps before I make you.” My words sound strong, but my arms feel like limp noodles. If I have to fight Clay now, it'll go poorly. I don't care. I'll die before I'll let him hurt Ethan.

He wrinkles his blue eyes as if weighing his words. ”Really,” he says. ”I can help.”

”Help what?” I'm stalling. My eyes skim our dusty yard for an exit, an answer, something. ”Help capture us?” Ethan moans and more blood runs from his arm onto his s.h.i.+rt. I have to get him inside. Now.

”Listen,” he says, looking at me sheepishly, one thumb hooked in his belt loop, ”I'm not here to take you in. When I locked you in the cellar, I was trying to keep you from getting shot up.”

He offers that smile now, one he's probably given his parents a million times to say, Trust this face. Would I lie? I don't care how charming he is. All I can see is an image of Arn's body drug out for the coyotes.

”My parents and Auntie are dead because of you.” I feel my pocketknife pressing against my thigh, waiting for me.

Clay's forehead furrows and he turns his eyes away. When he looks at me again, his voice is almost too quiet to hear. ”Your ma and auntie aren't dead.”

Suddenly the world feels smaller, heavier. ”What'd you say?”

He blows out a breath. ”They ain't dead. We ... they took 'em into custody. Nothing I could do.”

Not dead. My mother and Auntie Bell aren't dead. But what's happening to them? Were they sold to the Breeders? The thought of them going back there feels like an iron fist around my insides.

Clay takes a few steps sideways. He takes his hat off and tucks it to his chest, a cowboy's act of contrition if I ever saw it. Then he nods down at Ethan's arm. ”He needs disinfectant or that'll fester. Coyot' bites are nasty.”

”I know that,” I say, taking a few steps toward our back door. I walk slowly past him, never taking my eyes away.

He gestures toward the bike sitting in our driveway with his hat. ”Got a first aid kit on the bike. It's not much, but I got antiseptic and bandages.” He brings his hat back to his chest and smiles.

Arn in the dirt, left to die.

”We don't need your help.” I run up the steps and lock the door behind me.

Ethan's arm worsens.

I wash the wound with water, but it's not enough. The four slashes, deep b.l.o.o.d.y valleys with peaks of shredded skin, swell and puss. While Ethan moans and rocks on the bed, I scour the house for soap, disinfectant, anything. I pull apart every cupboard and closet. I come up empty handed.

In the barn I knock over empty gas cans, dig through drawers and fling empty bottles from shelves. I find nothing but fat centipedes and oily rags. My heart won't stop thudding in my chest. What if there's nothing? Desperate tears threaten, but I dig my fingernails into my palms and keep searching. I gotta find something. I gotta.

I save Arn's workbench for last. There's too much pain hovering around his worn table, the notes tacked above in his slanted scrawl, his projects never to be finished. I walk to it slowly, feeling the waves of sadness wash over me as my eyes touch all the things that he never will.

My vision's drawn to something smooth and s.h.i.+ny on a top shelf. My hand closes around the brown gla.s.s dropper. I lift the three-inch bottle up to the light. Brown liquid sloshes inside. Half a bottle of iodine. Jackpot.

I run back to the house. When I barrel into Ethan's room, he's a sweaty moaning mess. I slide up to his bed and push the hair out of his eyes.

”I got it, bud,” I say, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the bottle. ”Hold still.”

He moans, but stops thras.h.i.+ng. I fill the little dropper with iodine and drip it into his wounds. Such a little fix for such a huge problem. I pray it'll be enough.

Ethan calms a little, though his arm still throbs. I find myself rubbing his sweaty back and singing verses of ”You Are My Suns.h.i.+ne” and ”Rock-a-bye Baby,” songs my mother would sing on nights when we were fitful or the thunder rattled the walls. The words feel heavy in my mouth.

He falls into a feverish sleep. Exhausted, I stumble down the hall.

Night has crept up in all the commotion. I stare out the ragged hole that was our front window to the quiet of our yard. The cool twilight air that pulses in feels good on my face. Somewhere an owl gives a mournful hoot and the insects buzz in harmony. I run my hands over my arms and slump on the couch. The familiar smells and sounds help me to breathe.

I've spent most of the day alternating between beating myself up for letting Ethan check a trap alone and picturing Auntie and my mama in chains. Now in the dark, my thoughts fly to them. Are they crouched against a concrete wall in one of the jail cells, waiting for the Breeders to collect their prize? My mind supplies chains on their ankles or collars around their neck. The horror of that thought haunts me. I hug myself and s.h.i.+ver. I gotta free them. But how?

My eyes trace the scattered remains of our life strewn around the living room. There's shards of a ceramic vase, the desert flowers my mother lovingly picked shriveled to husks on the floor. My eyes trace past shreds of our tattered wallpaper. A picture frame, knocked off a sideboard, lies broken on the ground. I pull myself off the couch and pick it up with tender hands.

The cherry wood frame, dented at the corners, holds the treasure I was seeking. The gla.s.s is gone, but the drawing remains. I lift the paper delicately out of the frame. It's a piece of butcher block with a ten-year-old's pencil scrawl. To anyone but my mama, it would've been trash, but she framed it and set it on the sideboard. Looking at it now brings a tightness to my throat I can't swallow down.

The pencil drawing shows five stick figures, each with giant circular heads and grins that cover half their faces. For my mama, I drew a triangle dress and her clutching what looks like a bean with a face-my best effort for baby Ethan. For Arn, I sketched his overalls as uneven rectangles over his stick body. Auntie's figure has a long rope braid down her back. And for myself, the biggest grin of all plastered on my little circle head.

My family as I saw it at age ten. I drew this at the kitchen table of the house we lived in six years ago. A thunderstorm crackled overhead and I tried to clamber on my mama's lap. She kindly pried me off and set the pencil and paper in front of me.

”Draw something happy,” she'd said, caressing my cheek. ”It'll keep your mind off the storm.”

I hold the picture delicately to my chest. What I wouldn't give to go back there, under the flickering sky with my mother's hand at my shoulder and the clack clack of Auntie's rocking chair, the slow steady rhythm that meant all was right with the world. How could I have known then I had everything I ever need? That it would all be taken from me?

What can I do now to keep my mind off the storm?

The sharp knock on our front door wakes me. I bolt upright and dig in my pants for my knife. Nothing. I scan the room, lit with morning light, for a weapon and spy the fire poker in the stand near the hearth. Hefting the metal rod over my shoulder, I tiptoe to the front door.

Through the bullet holes in the wood, I see a figure on the other side.

”Go away!” I yell in my deepest voice. ”We don't want any.”

”Now, I highly doubt that.”

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