“Put it on,” Ginny said as she wound up rope, made neat loops over her arm. Ella stuffed her arms into Saul’s coat.

Ginny studied the map in the headlamp for a long time.

“Get up,” she said.

“I’m cold,” Ella said.

“Get up.”

They dragged Saul and Dan to the tree. They didn’t pray. Bowman was making noise by the creek. They got walking.

Ella led the mules and horses. Ginny walked behind. The red dog trotted beside her.

They spoke very little, and then only about the girl and the bear. Think of it like landscape, Ella said, the anthropological tradition in her clan yes showing type of people separation of the sexes duties of the womenfolk also character berry picking tearing her apart the only soothing being the outreaches of the—

“Stop,” Ginny said.

“The bear, he’s sad. He sees the world all new and we’re crushed with him.”

“Enough.”

They slept on both sides of burning trees. They burned a tree every night. There were plenty of trees and sacks full of matches.

When they reached the road, it was nearly dark again. It was a small road with local traffic, no cars for some time. The sisters walked north on the road, Ginny trailing behind with the little cavvy—horses, mules, and dog—trailing her. When a vehicle came it was a pickup driving south. It slowed, passed them, accelerated then slowed before a bend. Ginny cut Ella free, shoved her into the road when she didn’t move. She clicked her tongue at the animals, turned them swiftly north again, steered into a ditch, the steam of bodies swirling as they disappeared back into trees.

Ella was not fast. She limped and listed. In the pickup’s flashers she turned ruby red. A door handle. She climbed in.

The inside of the truck was green light beaming on the steering wheel, fingers gripped around it, and some music playing. There was a rearview mirror, a dial for heat, an arch from blue to orange to red to explain it all to idiots. The mirror, like all such mirrors, had a swivel neck. She twisted it, avoiding her face, looking out through to the road behind, all last year’s leaves turned red and tumbling across the red pavement.

The driver nodded and sipped a Coke.

“Let’s go back,” she said, and as always, the vehicle did exactly what she said.

Some kind of four-point turn. Pointing north at a standstill, the driver opened the glove box for tissues. She peered up the road from where she’d just come.

“Is someone out there?” said the driver.

Her explanation was truncated due to the lateness of the hour, the dryness of her mouth, her shaking hands. “Yes.”