One Door From Heaven

glances up at the boy and mewls entreatingly.
        Trusting the wisdom of his brother-becoming, the boy drops to his knees, braces one hand against the trailer, and squints into the pooled darkness. He can see nothing in the murk between the parallel sets of tires.
        Then movement catches his eye, not immediately under the rig but along the side of it, in the lamplit passageway between this vehicle and the next. A pair of cowboy boots, blue jeans tucked in the tops: Someone is walking beside the trailer, approaching the back where the boy kneels.
        Most likely this is an ordinary driver, unaware of the boyhunt that is being conducted discreetly but with great resources and urgency across the West. He's probably returning from a late dinner, with a thermos full of fresh coffee, ready to hit the road again.
        Another pair of boots follows the first. Two men, not just one. Neither talks, both move purposefully.
        Maybe ordinary drivers, maybe not.
        The young fugitive drops flat to the pavement and slips under the trailer, and the dog crawls beside him into hiding. They huddle together, turning their heads to watch the passing boots, and the boy is oddly excited because this is a situation encountered in all the adventure stories that he loves.
        Admittedly, the character of his excitement is different from what he feels when he experiences such exploits vicariously, through the pages of books. Young heroes of adventure stories, from Treasure bland to The Amber Spyglass, are never eviscerated, decapitated, torn limb from limb, and immolated-which is a possible fate that he envisions for himself too clearly to embrace fully the traditional boys'-book spirit of derring-do. His excitement has a nervous edge sharper than anything Huckleberry Finn was required to feel, a darker quality. He's a boy nonetheless, and he's virtually programmed by nature to be thrilled by events that test his pluck, his fortitude, and his wits.
        The two men reach the back of the trailer, where they pause, evidently surveying the parking lot, perhaps not quite able to recall where they left their rig. They remain silent, us though listening for the telltale sounds that only born hunters can perceive and properly interpret.
        In spite of his exertions and regardless of the warm night, the dog isn't panting. He lies motionless against his master's side.
        Good pup.
        Instrument of nostalgia, scented with desert fragrances that remind the boy of home, the breeze is also a broom to the blacktop, sweeping along puffs of dust, spidery twists of dry desert grass, and scraps of litter. With a soft rustle, a loosely crumpled wad of paper twirls lazily across the pavement and comes to rest against the toe of one of the boots. The parking-lot light is bright enough that from a distance of a few feet, the boy can see this is debris with value: a five-dollar bill.
        If the stranger bends to pick up the money, he might glance under the truck…
        No. Even if the man drops to one knee, instead of simply bending down, his head will be well above the bottom of the trailer. He won't inadvertently get a glimpse of a boy-shape-dog-shape cowering in the shadows cast by the rig.
        After trembling against the boot toe, the five-dollar bill blows free… and twirls under the truck.
        In the gloom, the boy loses track of the money. He's focused intently on the cowboy boots.
        Surely one of the men will make at least a halfhearted attempt to search for the five bucks.
        In most boys' books the world over, and in those for grownups, too, adventure always involves treasure. This globe rotates on a spindle of gold. A peglegged, parrot-petting pirate said exactly that, in one tale or another.
        Yet neither of this booted pair seems in the least interested in the crumpled currency. Still without speaking a word to each other, they move on, away from the truck.
        The possibility that neither of them noticed the money is slim. By I heir disinterest in the five dollars, they have revealed their true nature. They are engaged in an urgent search for something more important than treasure, and they won't be distracted.
        The two men walk westward from the back of the semi-in the general direction of the automobile transport.
        The boy and his companion crawl forward, farther under the trailer, toward the cab, and then they slip out of shelter,