Exit Kingdom

heard, and silence catches in the branches
of the trees like some vast spider’sweb.
    *
    Moses leaves the other two to wash the gore from their faces with melted snow. He goes a long way around through the trees to where he can see the main road in the distance, the
extended line of parked vehicles that is Fletcher’s caravan. Then he returns to the cabin.
    We’re stuck, Abraham says. Ain’t we? We ain’t trekking through the woods, and we ain’t got a car.

    They’ve got cars, Moses says. There’s one at the back, away from the others. One man at the wheel, sleeping. We go through the woods, come up from behind. Quick, before anyone
knows.
    They’ll see, says Abraham. They’ll give chase.
    Let em, Moses says. They track good, but they’re slow. We’ll outrun them.
    Abraham nods. He massages his stiffening leg with snow.
    But he can’t hardlywalk, the Vestal says and points to Abraham. How’s he going to tromp through the woods and make a dash for a car?
    I ain’t, says Abraham, looking at his brother. I’m stayin here.
    What? says the Vestal. They’ll kill you.
    Naw. They’ll be too busy huntin you two. I’ll go up in the trees a ways and hide out a couple hours till they’re well gone. Moses’ll drop you where you’re going.
Thenhe’ll come back here for me. Ain’t that right, brother?
    Moses says nothing for a moment. His eyes meet Abraham’s, and something passes between them.
    Can you conjure a better plan? he asks Abraham finally.
    I surely can’t, says Abraham, grinning a little.
    It’ll be a few days, Moses says. Can you last it?
    I can last it. You for certain you can find this place again to come getme?
    Moses shrugs.
    If I don’t, he says, there’s someone in the pond out back could use some company.
    Moses smiles and chuckles a little, and Abraham laughs with him.
    You ain’t much of a brother, Abraham says. Are you?
    Ain’t neither of us anything to make a daddy proud.
    Abraham squints up at the sky, as if in remembrance of something profound.
    It don’t matter, he says.Our pap is long gone. Likely he was the first slug that ever was. The one that started this whole thing. Just one stubborn prick refusin to stay dead. Don’t
that have a ring of truth to it?
    Moses smiles and nods down at his feet.
    It does, he says. It surely does.
    For a while again they are quiet, kind of kicking their feet in the snow and looking everywhere in the world except ateach other.
    Hey, Moses says at last. Do me a favour.
    What’s that? says Abraham.
    They won’t come for you. But if they do – if they do come for you, then kill em good, okay?
    You got it, Abraham says, a smile spreading across his face like that of a child who has garnered the approval of a difficult parent. I’ll kill em real good. I’ll make tobacco pipes
out of their bones and besmoking em when you get back.
    *
    The man at the wheel of the small car is still sleeping when Moses returns to it with the Vestal Amata. The caravan sits idle along the road. Towards the front of the line, many
of Fletcher’s people have got out of the vehicles and are tromping playfully through the snow. One woman with a bandana around her head is making a snowman and decoratingit with the eyeballs
and nose and scalp cut from a slug. Fletcher himself is there, too, standing atop the truck at the very front of the line, his wide sombrero perched on his head and a bottle of wine in his hand. He
drinks and laughs at the antics below him and then drinks again. Every now and then he glances up towards the cabin. He wonders, perhaps, why it is taking his three soldiersso long to return. But
he is reluctant, no doubt, to go up there himself after he was taken hostage last time.
    Moses and the Vestal climb down through the trees to the road twenty yards behind the end of the caravan. They creep up behind the small car with the sleeping man. Moses is about to make his
attack when the Vestal stops him.
    Let me do it, she whispers. We don’t want to raisethe alarm just yet, and I’m willin to bet my touch is just a wee bit more delicate than yours.
    Moses nods.
    Try not to kill him, Moses says, if you don’t have to.
    She shakes her head and smiles at him.
    You and your notions, she says. It’s like you’re livin in a different time. And not even the one we lost but a different one altogether.
    He’s sleeping is all I’m sayin.
    Ihear you. Give me your belt.
    He gives it to her, and she tears a strip of fabric from the hem of her