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  The old pump creaks up and down as my stepfather draws water. This old farmhouse has its own windmill and well, which remarkably still produces fresh drinking water. It is why we can live out in this wasteland and not in town.

  The Sheriff drinks and sighs in satisfaction. His heavy voice drifts through the cracks. “That’s fresh. Didn’t think clean wells still pumped ’round these parts. You sure got lucky.” His voice is resonant, like a roll of thunder. Beside me, Ethan squeezes my arm until it goes numb.

  “Yep. Yep. Lucky.” My stepfather’s worn voice catches in his throat. Let him hold it together a few more minutes. Please.

  “So, just yer lonesome on the homestead?”

  I hold my breath. Ethan shifts nervously beside me.

  “Yes, sir. The boy I took in died a few years ago. Rancher’s flu. Had a renter, but he cleared out some months back. Don’t mind the quiet.”

  The men pause for an eternity. I glance down at Ethan. Even in this dim light, I can see his face twisted with terror. If we get out of this, I’ll give him the caramel I’ve been saving since Christmas to lift that look off his face.

  “Awful big house for a stiff such as yerself. Mind if we give ’er a look? Couple criminals we hoping to strap in irons.”

  Liar! They’re looking for girls. Everyone’s looking for girls.

  Arn blows out his breath. “Rather you boys be on your way. Got more milking to do.”

  The Sheriff clucks his tongue. “Uh—uh. Milking’s a morning chore. Hiding something, are ya? We’ll just take a peek.”

  Sheriff Tate pushes a shrill whistle through his teeth. Boots thunk to the hard-packed dirt.

  “Now hold on!” Arn yells.

  I scramble up the ladder and press my shoulder to the cellar door. I steady my trembling hands. Ethan, the dull shadow beneath me, begins to cry. I flick my eyes away and swallow hard. I don’t care what happens to me, but nothing can happen to him. I couldn’t stand it.

  My front door bangs open, and angry tomcat yowling cuts across the yard. I hop down a peg and fix my eye back to the peephole.

  Auntie Bell bursts out of the house, screaming, her hair wiping around her like a great gray storm. Her arms flail as she barrels toward the Sheriff.

  “You stinking, rotten pig eater!” She lurches, her hands hooked like talons. My stepfather grabs her dress. The cotton shift pulls tight around her wrinkled body as she strains to attack.

  She claws at the Sheriff’s face. “You loathsome, dirty hair pie! I spit in your mother’s grave!” Auntie kicks out wildly. One of her clogs flies off and smacks into the Sheriff’s thigh. He stumbles back and drops his hand to his knife. He will kill Auntie and Arn, but I’ll shoot him before that happens. I tuck my head to my chest and feel the adrenaline buzz inside me. The metal feels smooth under my trigger finger. I press my shoulder to the door.

  Laughter explodes through the air. I slam my face back to the peephole so fast a splinter sinks into my cheek.

  A crooked smile lights up the Sheriff’s carved face. He thumps a meaty hand on his knee. “Batty, old witch,” he says, cackling. He points at Auntie. “You got some fire left in them bones.”

  His hand leaves his knife and he waves off his men. “We ain’t interested in a wrinkled ole cooz. We decent folk, not savages. You right to be careful, though. Some banditos would snatch her up, foul mouth and all.” Auntie reaches through Arn’s embrace and claws at the Sheriff. He clucks his tongue and laughs again, loud and nasty.

  The Sheriff jumps off the porch. “Thanks for the drink. Take care now!” He waves real friendly like, hops in the lead truck and pushes a shrill whistle through his teeth. Motors flare to life. The line of vehicles peels out, spewing gravel against our house.

  I can’t believe it. They are leaving.

  My heart pumps erratically as I try to breathe normal. A cold sweat trickles between my shoulder blades. I shiver and suck air.

  Cold fingers wrap around my wrist. I jolt back, my foot slips off a slick rung, and I tumble. My flight through the air is short, the ground hard. The impact sends a snap of pain up my tailbone. I look up and make out my brother’s big brown eyes.

  “Damn it, Ethan. Don’t scare me like that,” I snap. Then I see the terror running over his face. God, I’m dumb. He still thinks his whole family’s about to be murdered and I yelled at him.

  I stand and squeeze him to me with one arm. “Sorry, little man.”

  He pulls away. “Did they leave?”

  “Yeah, munchkin.” I try to muss his hair, but my hand’s not done trembling. “Safe for another day.” I can’t believe it. We got so lucky.

  He sighs and slips his hand into mine. “Don’t call me munchkin.”

  “You got it, munchkin.” I stand aside while he mounts the ladder. Suddenly, I’m dead tired. The gun weighs a hundred pounds.

  When we get in the house, Auntie Bell sits at the kitchen table. Her loose cotton dress sags against her bony shoulders. She’s braiding back her long, gray hair as she mutters something about a dirt pie. My stepfather stands at the window, watching the dust cloud fade. He’s got his hands in the pouch of his overalls, his thinking stance. My mama steps behind him, puts her hands around his waist and her head on his shoulder. Their love is so solid, like the beams that hold this house up. My stomach flip-flops with bittersweet longing. I am sixteen and the only boy I see is my eight-year-old brother. Love for me is like the sunset: beautiful from afar, but I can never touch it. Love is ancient history. I get safety instead.

  When the dust cloud is only an image we’ll see in our nightmares, my mama slips away from Arn and lights a fire in the old stove.

  “Riley, get the bread out of the pantry, please.” She grabs an opener and a dented can of beans.

  “Nobody’s gonna talk about what just happened?” I ask no one in particular.

  My stepfather flicks his eyes at me and then starts tucking his guns in their hiding places. Auntie Bell mutters under her breath. My mama drops the beans on the pan. They sizzle and pop as their bodies dance on the cast iron.

  “Riley, we’re tired and hungry. Please get the bread.” Finality settles on her rutted face.

  I head for the pantry. I may be the most wanted thing in the country, but I still have to listen to my mama.

  Chapter Two

  Today’s the day, I think as I stride through the house. Outside I hear Arn swearing at our Jeep. Yeah, right, says the voice in my head. He’s never going to let you go.

  I push open the screen door and step out on the porch. According to Arn, this land used to be called New Mexico, though there’s nothing new about it. For miles on either side of our yard, the scrubland, tumbleweeds, and acres of dirt cover the landscape. Plant life consists of prickly cactus and squat, mean bushes that snag up my ankles. Animals are brown, wiry and should be avoided unless you’re eating one. And the people, we’re made tough and prickly, too. I tell my mama this whenever she asks why Arn and me can’t get along.

  The sun looms orange and round in the east. At eight a.m., it’s already sweltering. I squint down the road toward civilization. Our closest living neighbor is thirty miles east; the closest town, three hours after that. It’s torturous living out in what Auntie calls “the devil’s arse,” but from what we hear, the roads north and east team with road gangs. My parents won’t chance a townie life, and as my mama says, living where no one else would has its advantages. People leave you alone.

  Out here we survive on what game Arn and I can trap and whatever plants my mama can coax out of her garden. Arn barters in town for the rest. If he is fixing the Jeep, it means he’s going to town for supplies. This time I’m determined to go.

  I jump off the porch, the one we spend hours on, rocking, shucking beans and counting the minutes with our eyes on the road. I sidle over to where Arn’s legs stick out from under the rusted vehicle. My eyes trace over the mud-caked knees of his jeans, down to his boots with the hole in the right toe. A string of curse words float up from un
der the Jeep. I grip the rusty hood, take a breath and nudge his leg.

  “What?!” There’s a clunk. Then more curse words.

  He’s hit his head. Damn. Not a good start. I should turn around and eat breakfast with Auntie. Instead, I dig my toe into the dust and clear my throat.

  “You going into town?” I say to his legs.

  “What?” He wiggles out and pulls himself to a standing position next to the truck. He wipes oil from his hands onto a hankie and squints at me. His blue eyes sparkle on his dirty face like a glass bottle winking in a sand dune. “What’d you say?”

  I run my finger along the top of the dented door. “I said, you going to town?”

  Arn’s salt-and-pepper hair is matted to his forehead in sweaty clumps. The soiled overalls match his sun-browned skin as if he’s made completely of dust. Arn swipes at his face with the same rag he used to clean the oil off his hands. Some of it smears on his cheek. He regards me and then walks to the back of the Jeep. He squats and digs around in his toolbox.

  “You’re not coming,” he says over the clanking of his wrenches and screwdrivers.

  I kick at a loose pebble. It’s fruitless, but something inside me has changed since the encounter with the Sheriff. I walk over and put my hands on my hips. “You’re going to have to let me someday. What if you’re not around to trade?”

  He answers without looking, his eyes examining two wrenches in his calloused fingers. “You better pray Ethan’s old enough.” He drops one wrench back in the tool chest with a clang. He stands to get back under the Jeep. I take a step to block his path. His mouth tightens into a hard line.

  “That’s years down the road. I gotta learn to wheel and deal. I’ll wear goggles and your leather jacket. No one will know.”

  My stepfather sticks a hand in the pouch of his overalls and squints at me. He’s trying to see me like the townies would. My black hair is cropped short like my brother’s. Each morning I bind my breast with bandages until I can barely breathe. I wear boy’s baggy clothing. Still, it’s obvious if someone gets a close look I’m not a boy. My Auntie laments what she calls my dangerous beauty. I’m too girly with curvy hips, slender cheekbones, full lips. The best I can do is pass for a bender, the feminized boys that are born instead of girls after we poisoned the planet. Benders can’t have babies, so they’re lower-class citizens. Passing for a bender does not help my chances in town much.

  Arn puts a hand on my shoulder and moves me aside. Then he lies down next to the Jeep. “Nope. Not going.”

  “But, Arn, I—”

  “Enough, Riley!” he shouts, gripping the side of the truck. His head and torso disappear beneath our jalopy. I’ve had enough fights with Arn to know this conversation is over.

  I slump back to the house, a pain welling beneath my breastbone. I walk in the house but instantly regret it. I want to be alone. The barn. It’s my smelly sanctuary. Then I hear Ethan coughing from our bedroom.

  Whenever the dust gets bad, Ethan coughs until his hankies are bloody. And the dust is almost always bad. I picture his thin frame hunched over, his body quaking with cough. Sucking on the caramel hidden in my nightstand might help him. I take a step to our shared bedroom.

  “Riley Anne,” Auntie bellows. A strange bashing sound echoes from our kitchen. “Your help … oomph … is requested. Hold still, you vermin!”

  I want to ignore Auntie, but what is all that banging and scraping? I run into the kitchen.

  What I find would be comic if it weren’t so dangerous. Auntie Bell stands on a kitchen chair. In the cone of morning light from the open window, her loose cotton dress exposes far too much of her body. Leathery skin droops from her arms and breasts. Her face is lined like a dried lakebed. Her long, gray hair flies wildly behind her. She peers into the dark recesses of a cabinet, a broom in one hand and a butcher knife in the other.

  “I’ve captured a bat.” She whacks the cupboard with the broom. A fuzzy, brown blur flits out toward her face. She yelps and teeters in her chair. As her arms wheel through the air to regain balance, the butcher knife slices wildly close to her thigh.

  “Auntie, Christ!” I run to the chair and steady it. The butcher knife clatters to the floor as she grabs hold of my shoulder. The bat flutters madly inside the cupboard.

  I clutch her arm, feeling the thin ripple of muscle as she steps down. “You’re gonna kill yourself! What’re you doing?” I snag the butcher knife from the floor and tuck it into a drawer.

  “I’ve got the bugger trapped,” she pants. She points to where the bat knocks over my mama’s dishes. “I’ll fry it up for supper.” She licks her thin lips. “It’ll taste like chicken.” Auntie takes another whack at the cupboard. Inside the bat smashes into plates and cups.

  I push her chair back under the table. “The bugger’s got rabies. ‘Sides, Arn’s going to town. We’ll have real chicken maybe.”

  She cocks her head and then sets the broom against the wall. “In that case, you can remove the vermin.”

  Great. What do I do with a bat? I crouch down, extend one arm and open the top cupboard. The bat bashes around inside for a moment. Then he sees his escape, flies out and flits around the kitchen. When he finds the open window and slips through, a tightness grips my heart again. His escape is so easy. I’m still trapped, bashing my body into closed doors.

  A tear breaks through my guard and slides down my face. I pretend to itch my nose and wipe it away, but Auntie’s eyes lock on me. She stops plaiting her hair and taps a weathered finger on the table. “Sit.”

  “I should check on Ethan.” I don’t want to discuss this.

  “Sit,” Auntie growls at me.

  I sit and direct my eyes to the battered tabletop. Someone long ago scratched the initials J.R. on the wood. I wonder if J.R. is the man we found dead, half eaten by coyotes, in the side yard when we moved in.

  Auntie grabs a dry crust of bread from the basket between us and starts gumming it. Then she leans toward me, her lips pressed into a thin, cracked line. “You got a bee in your bonnet and I want to know what it is.”

  I shake my head. “Nope. Fine. Can I go?”

  Auntie narrows her eyes and puts one crooked finger on her chin. “Not fine,” she says, slowly. “Definitely not fine. Heard you coaxing your step-daddy to take you to town. You know why you can’t go.”

  Sure, I know why they say I can’t go. I hear nothing but how they gotta protect me, how dangerous it is for me to leave this house, how I can’t trust strangers. I also know we can’t live this way forever. Someday I’ll have to fend for myself.

  “I know,” I say, my head down.

  “Then, what’s the problem, punkin head?” She lifts the hard crust to her mouth and sucks it. Arn’s Jeep rumbles to life in the driveway.

  I should mutter a response and hightail it to my room, but raw emotion crackles inside me like a storm about to break. The words tumble out before I can stop them. “I’m a prisoner here. This isn’t a life. Nothing ever happens to me.”

  Auntie doesn’t look at me. She sets the crust on the table and lays both gnarled hands on the dented tabletop. Her gnarled fingers curl into the surface until they look like talons. Her voice rolls out of her throat.

  “You don’t know because you’ve never had it happen to you.”

  “Auntie, I—”

  She holds up a hand to stop me. Her eyes are burning embers.

  “You don’t know because no man has laid hands on ya. But I know.” She thumps a finger to her chest. “Your mama knows.”

  I have made a mistake. I want to leave.

  She rolls the sleeve back on her arm. I know what I’ll see, though I’m afraid to look. “Look at it,” she says, brandishing her forearm.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, then I look.

  The brand is there, seared into the skin on her forearm. The dark, puckered shape of a cross with a round head, the ankh, a symbol of fertility. The Breeder’s symbol. My mama has the same brand. I do not.

  “After all we
risked. After all we sacrificed—”

  “Auntie, I’m sor—”

  She holds up a hand. Her pupils have dilated to dark vacant holes. When she speaks, her voice comes from somewhere far off. “When the Breeders come for ya, there ain’t no escape. They strap ya to a bed, and all ya hear is the thud of your heart and the cries of your friends as they wheel ya down to hell. Then the doctors come. You squeeze your eyes shut and pray you can forget. But you never do.”

  I drop my eyes and shake my head, more tears collecting at the crease of my eyes. I don’t want to hear it and yet, a sick, curious part of me wants her to keep going. They never speak of the Breeders, as if it might call them down on us.

  “Bell.” It’s my mama behind me in the doorway.

  Auntie’s eyes flick up to her, and the anger drops from her face. She picks up the crust of bread again. “Don’t let me hear you complain again.” Her gums make a wet sucking sound as she turns from me.

  I scrape out of the chair, past my mama, and run to my room. I choke on the sob that’s climbing up. I have to be alone.

  When I burst through my bedroom door, Ethan sits cross-legged on the bed with a tattered comic book on his lap. His black hair hangs in his eyes. His bony elbows rest on his bony knees. I hate how skinny he is. The most recent growth spurt hasn’t helped. Now he’s two inches taller but no thicker. I’ve forgotten he was in here. There’s no way I can cry in front of Ethan. I turn to go.

  “Riley?” he calls at my back.

  I can’t play happy sister right now. Usually, I can pretend, suck back my unhappiness and invent games of chase the pig or dig up anthills and let him watch in wonder as a colony comes spilling to the top. I can’t do that today. I take another step out of the room.

  The coughing fit hits. Ethan hacks like a frail old man. His bed rocks beneath him as cough after cough rolls through him. I slide my hand down my face, wipe off the mad and sad, and turn around. When he sees me, he smiles behind his cupped hand.

  “Better catch those lung pieces so we can stick ’em back in,” I say as I sit next to him. I look over; my moth-eaten bedspread is pulled tight. He made my bed and his. Of course, he did. He’ll do anything to keep me out of trouble. As the box springs shake with each cough, I try to think of something nice to do for him. For now, being here is all I got.