He threw the chunk of raw liver. The scrawny dog never hesitated at the hissing fuse, but lunged forward with its one good eye fixed on the first decent food it had seen in days. As it snatched the liver out of the air, the big-bang the boys had slipped into it went off. There was a roar and a flash. The dog’s head disintegrated from the jaws down. For a moment it continued to stand there, dripping, staring at them with its one good eye, and then it collapsed.

“Toadjer!” the first boy jeered. “Toadjer he’d take it! Happy Reap to us, eh?”

“What are you boys doing?” a woman’s voice called sharply. “Get out of there, ye ravens!”

The boys fled, cackling, into the bright afternoon. They did sound like ravens.

7

Cuthbert and Alain sat their horses at the mouth of Eyebolt. Even with the wind blowing the sound of the thinny away from them, it got inside your head and buzzed there, rattling your teeth.

“I hate it,” Cuthbert said through clenched teeth. “Gods, let’s be quick.”

“Aye,” Alain said. They dismounted, bulky in their ranch-coats, and tied their horses to the brush which lay across the front of the canyon. Ordinarily, tethering wouldn’t have been necessary, but both boys could see the horses hated the whining, grinding sound as much as they did. Cuthbert seemed to hear the thinny in his mind, speaking words of invitation in a groaning, horribly persuasive voice.

Come on, Bert. Leave all this foolishness behind: the drums, the pride, the fear of death, the loneliness you laugh at because laughing’s all you can think to do. And the girl, leave her, too. You love her, don’t you? And even if you don’t, you want her. It’s sad that she loves your friend instead of you, but if you come to me, all that will stop bothering you very soon. So come on. What are you waiting for?

“What am I waiting for?” he muttered.

“Huh?”

“I said, what are we waiting for? Let’s get this done and get the holy hell out of here.”

From their saddlebags they each took a small cotton bag. These contained gunpowder extracted from the smaller firecrackers Sheemie had brought them two days before. Alain dropped to his knees, pulled his knife, and began to crawl backward, digging a trench as far under the roll of brush as he could.

“Dig it deep,” Cuthbert said. “We don’t want the wind to blow it away.”

Alain gave him a look which was remarkably hot. “Do you want to do it? Just so you can make sure it’s done right?”

It’s the thinny, Cuthbert thought. It’s working on him, too.

“No, Al,” he said humbly. “You’re doing fine for someone who’s both blind and soft in the head. Go on.”