“We could take one,” Grayson said. “Slaughter it. Use the meat.”

“Don’t hurt the cows,” Jamey shrieked from the back seat.

“Just let them go,” I said. “They’re starving.”

We watched the animals in the fading light. What compelled them, what announced to them that it was time to go, other than their own desperation? Where were they going to? Except onward. On through the freezing night. Their breath made clouds around them, white scrim the stragglers walked through.

“Do you think they escaped from a farm?” Grayson said.

“Maybe someone just released them,” I said. “Couldn’t feed them. Couldn’t bear to watch them starve.”

“Horses!” Starla said, clapping her hand against the window.

“Close,” Jamey said.

I made Dance switch places with me and I drove. After the cows had disappeared, I followed the footfalls they had left, and eased the truck back onto the road. I felt relief to drive on the road again, the certainty of pavement. Paved roads meant a town ahead, somewhere. Paved roads meant people, maybe gas or food, though this pavement was holey and slick, black with ice. We moved as swiftly as we could. The house bumped along behind.

We passed a car crashed into a ditch. The car had been there awhile, long enough to get covered in snow. I felt the emptiness of it. Only blackness beneath the snowy windows: everyone had gone. Later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a church van, abandoned off to the side of the road. I felt like I could drive for a long time, and I did. The others slept, even Dance, his chin jerking back, mouth open. Grayson was right: he did snore.

What did I know about Dance? What did I know about any of them? We were all orphans, in a way. Adult orphans. Dance’s daddy was drunk, and his mama: gone. Grayson’s folks were off with The Church. Jamey’s family...where was her family?

Where was mine?

We had had a lonely, ordinary life in town. My mama had made money—not enough—cleaning offices. There was a bus stop where I waited for a big yellow bus. I cried myself to sleep most nights in a bedroom with thin walls, a roof, a white bed. Glow in the dark stars my daddy had stuck on the ceiling stared down at me. I didn’t remember him doing that, caring about me like that, or being in my room. The stars’ glow didn’t last. Through the walls, I heard my mama weep.