Lexicon

are they just sitting there?” A woman had a short black bob. Behind her was a teenage boy. Then an older man with white hair. They were looking at the pickup, their faces washed out by its lights, not moving.
    Light grew within the cabin. Wil turned. The transport vehicle had completed a slow turn and was trundling toward them.
    “You bitch,” Tom said, like he was pointing out the sights. “You murderous, goddamn bitch.”
    “Tom. The truck.” Tom revved the pickup’s engine, but did not shift gear. “The truck, Tom.”
    Tom hauled the wheel. They accelerated alongside the railing, heading back into the pen. They gained speed and passed by the transport’s churning wheels. The straggly-haired man appeared. Tom jerked the wheel but they were going too fast and he bounced off the hood and over the roof. Railing appeared ahead. It looked as if Tom was going to try to crash through it, but Wil knew this couldn’t be the case, because Tom had said that was impossible, and then he realized it was, and closed his eyes.
    The world lifted. He became an object. A thing with no control over its motion. The ground revolved and unexpectedly slapped him and everything went quiet.
    He swallowed. He blinked. These were things he could do. He tried to move his head but the gravity was wrong. It was tugging him sideways. He went to rub his eyes and missed. A lot was wrong with this situation and he wasn’t sure where to start.
    “
Gug
,” said Tom. Tom was leaning over the steering wheel. He must be having some problems with gravity, too, because he was above Wil’s head. Maybe that was why he was hanging on to the wheel.
    Lights moved across the dash. Not good lights, Wil recalled. He fumbled at his seat belt, got it, and fell against his door. The window was painted white. It took him a moment before he identified it as snow. Snow on the ground. The pickup was lying on its side. He tried the handle, just in case, but the ground didn’t move.
    “We have to go.” Tom wasn’t holding on to the steering wheel, he realized. The wheel had come out of the dash and was holding Tom. “Are you okay? What do I do?”
    “
Gug.
”
    He got a foot on the dash and strained past Tom for the driver’s side door. When he did this his shoulder collected Tom’s face and his knee went into Tom’s ribs and Tom groaned. But he got his arms out of the truck and levered his body into the freezing night air. The animal transport was completing a turn, its lights sweeping the ground. “Hey. Tom. I’ll lift you out.”
    Tom shook his head.
    “Come on. You need to get out of there.” Light splashed him. He looked up. Silhouetted before the transport was a shambling figure. The man. His arms hung. One leg dragged. He reached a torn place they had made in the cattle yard’s railing and began to painfully climb through. “That guy is coming.”
    “
Gug.
” Tom’s head bobbed toward the footwell. Wil saw the butt of the shotgun. Not
gug
, he realized.
Gun.
    “I’m not going to shoot people. Let me help you out.”
    “
Gun.
”
    The straggly-haired man negotiated the wrecked railing and began to wade through the snow. That would become a lot easier soon, Wil saw, because in about ten feet there was a nice, cleared path where the pickup had returned to earth and started sliding. The snow there was red, drenched by the pickup’s taillights.
    “Take. It,” said Tom.
    “No!” The straggly-haired man reached the rear of the pickup and began to climb. Wil heard his shoes scraping against the tailpipe. “I’m not going to murder him!”
    Hand slapped against the tailgate. The man’s head appeared.
    “Shit,” Wil said, and pulled the shotgun from the door. He raised it to his shoulder and set it there. “Stop, you asshole!”
    “
Shoo im
,” Tom said.
    The man’s torso flopped onto the side of the pickup’s bed. He swung a leg up and Wil saw the jeans were dark with blood, the denim poking out in odd places. The man strained. His leg slipped off the pickup and he began trying to swing it up again.
    “Stop fucking climbing!”
    “Safe . . . ty,” said Tom. “Button. On. Side.”
    “I’m Australian; I know how to use a shotgun!” He took a hand off the gun, squeezed it into a fist for circulation. “
Stop, you motherfucker!
”
    The man rose on one leg and balanced awkwardly. His face was caked with dirt and blood. He looked intent and focused and not at all concerned about the gun Wil was pointing at him. He began