To Thee Is This World Given by Khel Milam Read Free Book Online Page B

looked into each other’s eyes. “He belonged to the store clerk there. The guy had loaded up his car with so much water and propane he didn’t have any room left for his dog. He said he lived nearby and that he’d be right back, like in ten minutes or so. He made me lock the door behind him and told me not to let anyone in until he got back. He begged me to stay with his dog. He was almost crying.” She paused for another long moment. “I waited for almost three hours but the guy never came back.”
    He drew a spiral in the sand with his finger. “Yeah, a lot of people never came back.”
    “The clerk was the one who told me about fire-starters.”
    Suddenly, the cat sprang from her lap, sprinting up the tree. The dogs jumped to attention and stared into the woods, their hackles raised.
    She stood up quickly reaching out for the lowest branch of the tree.
    He cursed under his breath, fumbling for the crossbow with his bandaged hands. And favoring his ankle, he struggled to his feet and fought to maintain his balance as he bent over pulling on the bowstring, gasping as it cut into his hand. The crossbow fell to the ground.
    They stood absolutely still peering into the woods past the circle of moonlight, holding their breath and straining with the animals towards a heavy-footed shuffling, growing louder as it drew nearer.
    In one fluid motion, she pulled herself onto the lowest limb of the oak, turning back in the direction of the noise almost as soon as she was in the tree.
    Unsteady on his feet, he glared up at her balanced on the branch, her hand resting at the ready on the one above her. His gaze shifted back to the darkness beyond the bank, grasping towards the sound ahead. The shuffling came to a stop not far from them. Then moving off, it lumbered away.
    The tension evaporated from the dogs, and now at ease, they sunk back down onto the warm sand between the trees.
    He was still staring at where the sound had been. “What do you think? A haint?”
    “Maybe, but there should have been more than one. They don’t like being alone.”
    “You think there’s somebody out there?”
    “It was probably just a bear, or even a cougar maybe.”
    “There aren’t any around here.”
    “They’re coming back.”
    He eased himself to the ground shoving the crossbow out of the way. “It’s going to take a lot longer than this for’em to figure out we’re gone.”
    “How long does it take a prisoner to realize his cell is open?” She climbed up to where the hammock was strung between the oaks some six feet above the bank and crawled onto it, squeezing past the cat lying anchored in the middle of it.
    He swiped his hand over the sand. “Whatever it was, would’ve been nice if you’d had your bow out.”
    “I wouldn’t have been able to see whatever it was until it was very close. Too close for me to aim fast enough to hit anything without luck.”
    “Would’ve been better than nothing.”
    “Unless I missed and lost my only chance to get away.”
    “What about my chance to get away?”
    She turned her face to the sky littered with so many stars their whiteness was almost as prevalent as the blackness between them.
    And with his arms under his head, he too lie back and stared up at the ocean of stars. “Not everybody had a tree to run up.”
    They stayed like that for awhile, gazing up at the sky and not speaking, surrounded by the sounds of the cicadas and the stream and the rustling leaves, and that silent stillness that only exists in the space between two people.
    He yawned loudly. “You act like you don’t miss anything, but I don’t buy it.”
    “There was a lot back then not worth missing.”
    “You just say shit like that to make yourself feel better.”
    “I miss air-conditioning. And fruit. I really miss fruit.” She was silent a moment. “What was so great back then that you can’t live without it?”
    “Everything.”
    “Then, you must have been independently wealthy.”
    “Yeah, I