One Door From Heaven

among its contents that even the low rhythmic wheeze of the idling engine provides sufficient screening sound.
        The boy follows his spry companion into this tented blackness. Pulling the tailgate up from the inside is an awkward job, but with determination, he succeeds. He slides one bolt into its hasp, then engages the other, as outside the two men break into laughter.
        Behind the truck, the highway remains deserted. The parallel median lines, yellow in daylight, appear white under the influence of the frost-pale moon, and the boy can't help but think of them as twin fuses along which terror will come, hissing and smoking, to a sudden detonation.
        Hurry, he urges the men, as if by willpower alone he can move them. Hurry.
        Groping blindly, he discovers that the truck is loaded in part with a great many blankets, some rolled and strapped singly, others bundled in bales and tied with sisal twine. His right hand finds smooth leather, the distinctive curve of a cantle, the slope of a seat, pommel, fork, and horn: a saddle.
        The driver and his partner return to the cab of the truck. One door slams, then the other.
        More saddles are braced among the blankets, some as smooth as the first, but others enhanced with ornate hand-tooled designs that, to the boy's questioning fingertips, speak of parades, horse shows, and rodeos. Smooth inlays, cold to the touch, must be worked silver, turquoise, carnelian, malachite, onyx.
        The driver pops the hand brake. As the vehicle angles off the shoulder and onto the pavement, the tires cast loose stones that rattle like dice into the darkness.
        The truck rolls southwest into the night, with the twin fuses on the blacktop raveling longer in its wake, and utility poles, carrying electric and telephone wires, seem to march like soldiers toward a battleground beyond the horizon.
        Among mounds of blankets and saddlery, swathed in the cozy odors of felt and sheepskin and fine leather and saddle soap-and not least of all in the curiously comforting, secondhand scent of horses- the motherless boy and the ragtag dog huddle together. They are bonded by grievous loss and by a sharp instinct for survival, traveling into an unknown land, toward an unknowable future.

Chapter 5
        
        WEDNESDAY, after a fruitless day of job-seeking, Micky Bell-song returned to the trailer park, where much of the meager landscaping drooped wearily under the scorching sun and the rest appeared to be withered beyond recovery. The raging tornadoes that routinely sought vulnerable trailer parks across the plains states were unknown here in southern California, but summer heat made these blighted streets miserable enough until the next earthquake could do a tornado's work.
        Aunt Geneva's aged house trailer looked like a giant oven built for the roasting of whole cows, in multiples. Perhaps a malevolent sun god lived in the metal walls, for the air immediately around the place shimmered as if with the spirits of attending demons.
        Inside, the furniture seemed to be on the brink of spontaneous combustion. The sliding windows were open to admit a draft, but the August day declined the invitation to provide a breeze.
        In her tiny bedroom, Micky kicked off her toe-pinching high heels. She stripped out of her cheap cotton suit and pantyhose.
        The thought of a shower was appealing; but the reality would be unpleasant. The cramped bathroom had only a small window, and in this heat, the roiling steam wouldn't properly vent.
        She slipped into white shorts and a sleeveless Chinese-red blouse. In the mirror on the back of the bedroom door, she looked better than she felt.
        At one time, she'd been proud of her beauty. Now she wondered why she had taken so much pride in something that required no effort, no slightest sacrifice.
        Over the past year, with as much mulish resistance as the most obstinate creature ever to pull a plow, Micky had drawn herself to the unpleasant conclusion that her life to date had been wasted and that she was solely to blame for what she had become. The anger that she'd once directed at others had been turned upon herself.
        Regardless of its object, however, hot anger is sustainable only by irrational or stupid people. Micky was neither. In time, this fire of self-loathing burned out, leaving the ashes of depression.
        Depression passed, too. Lately she had