After waiting for an eternity for the dog to do something, he finally does. He turns, walks stiff-legged over to the back porch and groans softly as he plops down. He looks so old to you now that your fear has turned to pity.

Keeping a wary eye on him, you start packing the vegetables into your bag. You hold out a turnip to eat on the way because you are half starving after all that hard work.

You don't want to overstay your welcome so as soon as you drop the last one in, you turn tail and head back the way you came toward the tracks.



You've walked nearly a mile when you hear a strange sounding cough behind you. You whirl around only to find the hound several paces away. He stops and stares up at you.

"Go home," you command, but he only looks at you. "Get!"

You take a couple of steps backward and he takes a couple forward. You think about picking up a rock and chucking it at him, but he's as big as you are. If you made him mad, you wouldn't stand a chance. The best thing to do would be to ignore him and he'll head back home on his own when he's darn good and ready.

Over the course of the day, you grow more and more comfortable around your new companion and when you stop for a rest you discover that embroidered in his faded collar are the words "Ol' Sam".

"It's nice to meet ya, Sam. I'm Billy. I bet you're hungry."

You pull out a handful of chips for Sam and a turnip for yourself to munch on. He greedily wolfs them down. You're tempted to give him more, but you can't afford to since they're the only thing you have that will keep the longest and he'll probably leave soon anyway.

When night comes and it gets too dark to see, you find a decent place to bed down and give Sam another handful of chips while you wash down an onion with lots and lots of water. You give Sam a drink in an old tin can that you found on the tracks earlier so he doesn't get too thirsty either.

Sam lays down alongside you and his body warmth is somehow comforting. You drift off to sleep more easily than you ever remember doing and don't stir even once in the night.



The sun is already peeking above the mountains when you wake. Even though you have kinks all over from sleeping on the ground, you feel absolutely wonderful. It's the first good nights sleep you've had in a long, long time.

After both of you have eaten lightly, you set off once again down the tracks. Sam isn't hanging back like he did yesterday. He walks right beside you—matching you step for step. You try to take it easy on the old guy and stop for regular rest breaks, but you cover a lot more ground than usual. The day just seems to fly by and by the time night comes, you are completely worn out.

You start looking for a good spot to sleep when Sam suddenly stops and lets out a hair raising growl. You flinch instinctively and look down at him—frozen in your tracks—and see the hackles standing up from the top of his head to nearly the length of his back. He isn't looking at you so you follow his gaze and see something really big and tan colored crossing the tracks up ahead. It is long and has a tail that looks as long as its body. It takes you a moment to realize that it's a cat. A big cat.

It pauses and stares at you for a few moments while Sam's growls steadily grow in volume and pitch. Something about that thing clamps you down deep in the core and you can't move a single muscle. Your skin tingles and your muscles burn. Then all at once the cat shoots off like a rifle shot across the field toward the mountains in tremendous leaps until it finally fades into the background.

Your legs let go and you crumple right where you stand. All your strength has evaporated and you feel cold chills running all through your body. It's a good thing Sam was here with you or that thing might've decided you were dinner. You throw your arms around his neck and squeeze with what little you have left in you. He just stands there looking in the direction the great cat ran and doesn't move.

When you find a spot and settle in for the night, you give Sam a double helping of tortilla chips. He finally eats the last one, but doesn't seem quite as interested in them as he did last night. You wish that you had something else you could give him, but he wouldn't like the raw vegetables nearly as much. The next time you see a gas station or store, you're going to buy him something with meat in it.

You lie down like you did last night and he stretches out against you just as he did before. You feel warm and safe and once again you sleep right straight on through.



Morning comes early and as you lie there stretching the kinks out, you notice that Sam isn't there. You sit up and call "Sam?" and don't hear anything.

You jump up and look all around as far as you can see and still there is nothing. "Sam!" Your ears prickle as you start to think the worst. You quickly shove those thoughts aside and jump to your feet.

You run up on the higher ground of the tracks and look all around. You finally spot him way back up the tracks walking back the way you came. "Sam!" He pauses for a moment without turning around and then continues on his way. You want to run after him, but that would only make it worse. He's been gone from his home too long already and just needs to go back. You watch him until he's little more than a speck before returning to collect your gear.

You're more wary as you go now. Your senses seem heightened and for the first time on this trip you feel more like a wild animal than a person. Your eyes are in a perpetual squint and are constantly sweeping over the terrain from one side to the other. Every far off movement of a bird or hare doesn't escape your notice and you feel more alive and in tune with the world around you than ever before. With the long nights returns the restlessness and you resume the catnaps during midday.

Where the track you've been following veers alongside another, you peer down the slope at the great train yard you'd left days ago. You've finally made it back and can continue on with your journey into the west.



You find a garden hose curled up on the side of the first house you come upon and there's no one in sight. You refill your water jugs and take off before someone spots you. You're well stocked up again for a while at least.



The train yard looks so different in the light of day. There are so many things going on and machinery loading and unloading the cars that you are a bit afraid to try to make your way through. You'll either have to bite the bullet or else skirt around it and hopefully find another opportunity somewhere down the line.

You go around

It wasn't worth the risk to you so you head around the yard and make your way toward where the tracks resume. By the time a train leaves the yard, you find that it is moving much too fast for you to board it so you set off once again down the tracks on foot.

Every couple of hours you have to ditch the tracks and hide behind a boulder or in a shallow ravine until a train passes. This is the busiest set of tracks that you've been on and if anyone spotted someone your age out here alone they would certainly report it.

You have to take a break so you find a nice clear spot away from the tracks to kick back in and lean back on the bag. You have a sudden urge to pull out the card Jane made for you and look at the old postcards while you rest. You trace each line drawn in crayon on the page with your finger and think back to those few magical days. It seems like so long ago now. A lot has happened and every day that has passed seems to have steadily grown worse than the last. After you do this one thing, you should find someone nice to live with like Jane dreamed of. Surely there's someone out there that would love and take care of you, someone you can depend on. You carefully refold the letter and slip it into your pocket and put everything else back into the treasure chest before giving your eyes a rest.

You don't even notice when you start to drift off, but you are rudely awakened by a brutal gust and find that a strong wind has kicked up. The dust and sand scour your face and you can barely breathe even with your shirt pulled up over your face. You stagger around trying to find some kind of shelter behind a rock or something, but there doesn't seem to be anything nearby and you probably wouldn't be able to see one anyway unless you were right on top of it.

Your foot suddenly finds nothing but open air and you tumble headlong down a steep embankment. Your bag disappears as it goes one way and you go another. And then the world slips away into blackness.



You wake to find your arm twisted under you—your shoulder screaming out in agony. You have scrapes and tiny cuts from the side of your face all the way down your legs. It takes a couple attempts before you're able to roll over and sit up.

You push yourself to your feet and look up at the steep incline that you fell down and don't think you'd be able to climb back up there even if your arm wasn't throbbing like it is. You can see the coat caught on a rock protruding from the ground near the top. One of the plastic jugs tied to the sleeves is crushed and the other one looks like it just exploded when it slammed into the ground. You don't see your bag anywhere.

You pace back and forth along the base of the cliff looking for any trace of your stuff and finally have no choice but to give up. You head down the wash and hope that it doesn't dead end.

The feeling finally comes back in your arm. You can move it, but not without pain and there's a huge black and green bruise that goes from your shoulder to half way across your chest.

The wash spills you out on the edge of a two-lane highway and there isn't a car or a sign or anything at all except brushy desert and rocks for as far as you can see. The train tracks must be somewhere beyond the ridge behind you, but you'd never be able to get back to them that way. You look up at the sun and figure that you might as well keep following it since it has already led you this far.

You close your eyes, take a deep breath and then set off down the road.



You've been walking for hours when a car pulls out onto the blacktop from a gas station up ahead that you didn't even know was there. The hot blazing sun reflecting off the pavement has made you half blind and has given you such a raging thirst that it feels like no amount of water could ever hope to quench. You don't know if you'll even be able to make it as far as the gas station.

You're torn between whether or not to flag the car down when it gets close or to find somewhere to hide until it passes by.

You flag down the car

You stagger up to the edge of the road and raise your hands. The car slows down for a moment as the rear passenger window rolls down. As it gets nearly even with you, a bottle flies out and hits the pavement halfway to your feet. You don't have the strength or energy to jump to the side so you can only stand there and watch as it bounces off the asphalt and hits you dead center in the chest before you can react.

The pain is so sudden and intense that the wind is knocked completely out of you. Your face feels like it swells to nearly twice its size and burns all the way to your ears. You slump and fall to your knees.

The car screeches to a stop and the driver's door opens. "Why in the hell would you do that to a kid?! I oughtta kick your ass. You could've killed him, you know that?"

You gasp for breath and can't take in any air. You want to cry due to the immense pain, but your eyes are so dry that they can no longer produce tears. Your vision starts to waver and you fall forward. Just before you eat the blacktop, you feel hands grab you and swing you back into a seated position.

"It's okay. I'm here to help. He was just being a dumbass and didn't know that he might actually hit you."

You wheeze and can feel your lungs slowly start to fill with air. Your vision is still fuzzing in and out, but it's slowly beginning to clear.

"What's your name?" asks the teenage boy with closely cropped hair.

You rock back and forth trying to help force more air into your lungs, and only wheeze louder in answer to his question. You look around to see several more teenagers standing around you.

"Take it easy, man. Don't try to rush it. I'm not going anywhere."

You're not sure you want to tell them your real name. After all, one of them just tried to kill you. Maybe it was an accident and maybe it wasn't. You try to think of a name—any name—and a sudden image of little Timmy that lived down the street from you before your parents got a divorce pops into your head. You remember how he used to say his name and before you can correct it, out comes "Tim-O-tee." You take a deep breath and try hard not to laugh or even smile. "Timothy. My name is Timothy."

"What are you doing out here all by yourself, Timothy?"

"I'm lost. I don't know where this is."

"Where do you live? We'll take you home," says a slightly gruffer voice off to the side.

You shrug as you try to come up with something to tell them. You look around, trying to come up with a story they might believe and your eyes settle on a far-off vertical rock piercing up through desert floor. "A long, long ways from here. I was s'posed to stay by the camper, but I wanted to look at the rocks."

One of the boys sucks air in through his teeth.

"That wasn't very smart. Kids get lost out here all the time and die," says the one crouched down by you. "Where were you going? Maybe we can find your parents or get you to someone who can."

If they take you to the cops, you'll never make it to the Grand Canyon. You have to change the subject. "I'm so thirsty. I need water."

The boy reaches up and snatches a bottle from one of the others and says "Here, drink this. We'll get you some water."

You tip the over half full bottle and guzzle the orange soda down without stopping. It burns like fire and doesn't help even a little, but it's wet and wet is better than nothing.

"We've gotta get back. We can't take him with us," says another boy under his breath.

"We're not leaving him out here, alone," snaps the one you've been talking to, "Not here!"

"There's a gas station right there! It's not like he's lost out in the middle of the desert."

"We can't go driving all over the country looking for his folks," says another.

"You shoulda thought of that before you chucked that bottle him!" he hisses up at the boy with slicked back hair—who just pivots around on his heels and stalks back to the car. Turning back to you, he says "C'mon. We'll go find a phone or something," picking you to your feet and helping you to the car.



You hang back as the boys head into the gas station. If they call the police, they'll take you home and you'll never get to the Grand Canyon for Jane.

As soon as the door swings shut, you dash to the end of the building and swing around the corner toward the back. There is a stack of oil drums at the base of the hill out back and you run in behind them. You hope this will be enough because there is no other cover close by that you can see.

You squeeze into a hole between two of the drums that are resting on the ground and wait. It isn't long before you hear them talking from not too far away from your hiding spot.

"Where could he have got to?" asks the boy that's been trying to help you.

"I dunno. He just ran off, I guess. Maybe we just imagined the whole thing."

"Maybe he's a spook and just went invisible," laughs a third.

"Don't be a moron," says the first, "He's just scared."

"We can't go traipsing all over the desert looking for him. When he gets tired, he'll come back. We're already gonna be late as it is."

"I guess. I just wanted to help the kid out, is all."

"Let's just go before we get into trouble, ourselves."

You hear the car engine start and gravel raining down in their wake before you poke your head out. You can't risk going inside because they probably already told whoever is in there about you and the police might still show up.

You spot a coiled hose on the ground by the corner of the building that you must've run right by without even seeing. It's just what you need. You trot over and reach for the faucet, but the handle has been removed. You study it a minute before picking up the hose a little at a time—working the contents out to the end—and manage to get a good mouthful of scalding hot water. You fight the pain and as soon as it's cooled enough, you choke it down.

You can't go any further in this heat so you look for any kind of shade to get out of this blistering sun. You spot a low-lying rock a little ways up the hillside behind the building and judging by its angle it might offer some shelter from the sun. You drag yourself over to it.

It looks like it would be the perfect place for a den of snakes, but peering under the shelf you see no sign of anything. You wedge yourself underneath where you'll wait for nightfall before heading off again.



You open your eyes to find that you are shivering. The temperature has dropped considerably. If you don't end up freezing, it'll at least be a welcome relief compared to that awful sun.

After pulling yourself out, you stand and slink down the hill. Your feet are like bricks, but you have no other choice other than to go on.

The gas station parking lot is deserted except for a run-down old pickup truck loaded down with all kinds of junk and covered with a tarp. It's parked in the shade of the pump lights around the corner of the building and you have to walk around it to get to the highway.

As you pass by it, its yellow license plate catches your eye. It says Arizona in green letters across the top and Grand Canyon State on the bottom.

You peek around the corner of the building and see an old hunched over Indian man with a pony tail halfway down his back stepping up to the cash register.

This could be your lucky break. You could try asking him for a ride, but what if he says no? Maybe hiding under the junk in the back and hope for the best would be smarter way to go. It won't be long before he's heading this way so you'd better hurry and make up you mind.

You ask for a ride

You lean against the corner of the building to wait for the old man to step out and when he finally does, you rush over to meet him just as he reaches the corner. Even though he's walking crooked, he's still manages to jump back like a cat about to be stepped on.

"Can you take me to Arizona?"

He cuts his eyes around the dark parking lot. "No." He starts walking toward his truck.

"Please? I need to go to the Grand Canyon."

"No."

"Can you take me to the railroad tracks? I can walk the rest of the way."

"No." He opens the door and climbs in.

"Can you take me to the next town, then? I gotta find a new map 'cause I lost my all my stuff."

"No."

"Do you have any water?"

He pulls the door shut, starts his truck and pulls it in gear.

You watch as he backs up and then drives off into the night. By the pump lights, you can see the trail of dust he left in his wake. Maybe you scared him or maybe that's just the way he is. It doesn't matter now.

You look around at the door to the gas station. There's no way you can go in there. You'll have to think of something else.

Maybe you can climb up the ridge behind the station and from there you might be able to see the tracks. It's dark enough that you wouldn't be able to see them until morning—which means that you'll have to find a place to sleep for the night. You could keep going down the highway and maybe figure something out along the way. You don't have any water so you'll have to walk only at night and find cool places to sleep during the day. Whichever way you go, perhaps you'll run into another farmhouse along the way to get more stuff.

You take the road

You can probably make more miles on the highway than you could climbing the mountains and crossing the desert. Surely you'll run into railroad tracks sooner or later. There are probably more houses along the road, too.

You head around behind the gas station to stay out of the light and then make your way to the blacktop. There are no yard lights within sight, but you'll probably see one before too long. You just have to make as many miles as you can while it's still dark.

You can still feel the heat of the day leeching out of the asphalt and the occasional slight breeze feels good against your clammy skin. Your mouth is dry, but you can probably manage to make it through the night since it isn't really all that bad right now. You should make it just fine.

You watch a shooting star that traverses nearly the whole western sky before burning itself out far to the south. Your wish is the same as you've had from the very beginning—to make Jane's dream come true. It isn't until a little while later that you start kicking yourself for not tacking a little water onto that wish. Oh, well. Surely you'll find some before long.

Even though there are no landmarks to go by, you somehow know that you've covered many a mile. There's a blacker circle in the sky that looks like it might be a moon in a day or two. Until then, you'll just have to make your way as best you can in the dark.

The night has somehow become a comforting friend instead of the dreaded enemy you once feared. You don't even know how it happened. It just—all of a sudden—did.

Mile after mile and you don't see much more than a vague dark shape every now and then out some distance from the side of the road. They would've been monsters lurking and ready to pounce only a few short weeks ago. Now, they're just big rocks.

You migration

In the lights of an oncoming car, the highway looks like it has little rippling waves on it. They're flowing from one side of the blacktop to the other. This must be some kind of dream, but you don't remember falling asleep.

As the car gets closer, you can see that they aren't waves at all. They're snakes! Dozens of snakes. They move weird, though, throwing a loop and dragging themselves up to it before doing the whole process all over again.

Snakes don't move like that. They slide along on their bellies as they slither along. This has to be a dream. Still, you wouldn't want to be bitten by a dream snake any more than you would a real one so you try not to let them get too close.

You look up and the headlights flash in your eyes. You can't see anything. You don't know whether to get off the road or just keep going. It is a car, though. You'd better at least get off the road so you take a step sideways.

Zzzht-zzzht-zzzht!

You know that sound! And it's much too close! You leap backward, but—whap!—it's too late. Your leg is on fire!

"Aaaah!" You fall sideways and—whap!—another hits your arm. Whap! Whap! Whap! You're being struck from all sides now. Your arms, your legs, your face. Even the top of your head.

The headlights are on you now and you hear the brakes squeal to a slow stop. Your whole body feels like you've fallen into a campfire and you can't pull yourself out. Your body starts to quake and you're helpless to stop it.

"Oh my God in heaven!" shrieks a woman getting out of the car. "It's a kid and he's been snake bit!"

Your tongue grows two sizes and wedges tight in your throat. You can't breathe and you feel like you might pop from the building pressure. Even counting the beating you got from Mom, you've never felt such intense pain. It crashes through your body like a tidal wave.

The headlights waver and grow steadily brighter and brighter until they fill your entire field of view. In the intense light, you can see Jane standing there looking down at you. She's shaking her head. She reaches down and takes your hand—cupping it in hers. The only thing you can see now is her face against the blinding white light.

The burning sensation swallows you whole.



— The End