One Door From Heaven

hunters who brutally murdered his family, come down through the mountains to the back door of the Hammond house.
        Racing away into the night, trying to outrun the screams and the guilt that they drill into him, the boy gasps for breath, and the cool air is rough in his raw throat. His heart like a horse's hooves kicks, kicks against the stable of his ribs.
        The prisoner moon escapes the dungeon clouds, and the oiled lane under the boy's swift feet glistens with the reflected glow.
        By the time he nears the public road, he can no longer hear the terrible cries, only his explosive breathing. Turning, he sees lights steady in every window of the house, and he knows that the killers are searching for him in attic, closets, cellar.
        More black than white, its coat a perfect camouflage against the moon-dappled oil, the dog sprints out of the night. It takes refuge at the boy’s side, pressing against his legs as it looks back toward the Hammond place.
        The dog's Hanks shudder, striking sympathetic shivers in the boy. Punctuating its panting are pitiful whimpers of fear, but the boy dares not surrender to his desire to sit in the lane beside the dog and cry in chorus with it.
        Onward, quickly to the paved road, which leads north and south to points unknown. Either direction will most likely bring him to the same hard death.
        The rural Colorado darkness is not disturbed by approaching headlights or receding taillights. When he holds his breath, he hears only stillness and the panting dog, not the growl of an approaching engine.
        He tries to shoo away the dog, but it will not be shooed. It has cast its fortune with his.
        Reluctant to be responsible even for this animal, but resigned to- and even somewhat grateful for-its companionship, he turns left, south, because a hill lies to the north. He doesn't think he has the stamina to take that long incline at a run.
        On his right, a meadow bank grows, then looms, as the two-lane blacktop descends, while on his left, tall sentinel pines rise at the verge of the road, saluting the moon with their higher branches. The slap-slap-slap of his sneakers echoes between the bank and the trees, slap-slap-slap, a spoor of sound that sooner or later will draw his pursuers.
        Once more he glances back, but only once, because he sees the pulse of flames in the east, throbbing in the dark, and he knows that the Hammond place has been set ablaze. Reduced to blackened bones and ashes, the bodies of the dead will offer fewer clues to the true identity of the killers.
        A curve in the road and more trees screen him from sight of the fire, and when he entirely rounds the bend, he sees a truck stopped on the shoulder of the highway. Headlights doused in favor of the parking lights, this vehicle stands with engine idling, grumbling softly like some hulking beast that has been ridden hard and is half asleep on its feet.
        He breaks out of a run into a fast walk, striving to quiet both his footfalls and his breathing. Taking its cue from him, the dog slows to a trot, then lowers its head and slinks forward at his side, more like a cat than like a canine.
        The cargo bed of the truck has a canvas roof and walls. It's open at the back except for a low tailgate.
        As he reaches the rear bumper, feeling dangerously exposed in the ruddy glow of the parking lights, the boy hears voices. Men in easy conversation.
        Cautiously he looks forward along the driver's side of the truck, sees no one, and moves to the passenger's side. Two men stand toward the front of the vehicle, their backs to the highway, facing the woods. Lambent moonlight spangles an arc of urine.
        He doesn't want to endanger these people. If he stays here, they might be dead even before they empty their bladders: a longer rest stop than they had planned. Yet he'll never elude his pursuers if he remains on foot.
        The tailgate is hinged at the bottom. Two latch bolts fix it at the top.
        He quietly slips the bolt on the right, holds the gate with one hand as he moves to the left, slips that bolt, too, and lowers the barrier, which is well oiled and rattle-free. He could have stepped onto the bumper and swung over the gate, but his four-legged friend wouldn't have been able to climb after him.
        Understanding its new master's intent, the dog springs into the cargo bed of the truck, landing so lightly