“Son of a bitch!”

Dropping their boards, Anne and Trot run to the window. They slip out behind the others. Everyone on the patio has jumped to the ground. Down below, Cinnamon, Canary, and the twins wait. Trot goes first. Then comes gunfire. Anne jumps. Hitting the ground, knees and thighs buckle. Ignoring it. Running hard. Blocking the gunshots from their minds. Anne pats her body. Feels wet all over. It’s only perspiration. Off to the right, police cruisers sit, their lights strobing in the night.

Anne and the others don’t stop. They keep running, harder than they’ve ever run before, through high grass wet with dew. No one has any idea what time it is, only that it is night. Thick line of darkness in the distance, drawing closer. It’s the tree line. They dig deeper into the burn until they meet the sheltering shadows, where they duck and turn for a split second’s glance. Hearts pounding, they watch the flashlight beams bouncing and circling the mansion, searching for them.

“Let’s get out of here before they figure out where we are,” Cinnamon says to all. There is no disagreement.

Miles away, lying in a pasture, sleep comes until the heat and a couple of horseflies wake them. Unlike at the encampment, here they have no protection from the elements. They duck under barbed wire. Wasted and weary eyed, the little troupe of vagabonds trudges along the roadside. Cinnamon leads the way over a terrain of weeds, Big Gulp cups, soda bottles, wadded corn chip bags. Candy wrappers. Beer cans. Cigarette butts.

Coming up behind them, they hear tires on asphalt. Without looking back, Cinnamon says, “Let’s try to hitch.”

“Where to?” Canary asks.

“Nearest train crossing or tracks. Then we can wait and catch out.”

An old black Ford pickup brakes as it passes, pulls off on the side of the road. Honks the horn. The passenger’s side window comes down, and an older lady—possum-colored locks pulled back, wiry strands running in odd directions, a face etched by years working in the sun—is leaning over to peer out at them. “Where y’all headed this time of morning?”

“Nearest train tracks?”

Smiling, the woman tells Cinnamon, “I can do that. Hop in the back.”

Everyone loads up in the bed of the truck and sits on bark chunks and loose dirt. When everyone is situated, the woman shifts gears, steers back onto the pavement. As the wind picks up with the vehicle’s speed, they all look at one another. Tired eyes with crusted corners, hundreds of miles from where they started. Anne sits taking it all in. Glances at the faces of her family members. A smile slowly takes over her face. Hand rests on Cinnamon’s leg. Anne is filled with new feelings of comfort and hope.

HUNTER

HUNTER