“This must be the hill,” Walter said.
“Was that a mile?”
“I got no idea. I could use some coffee,” he admitted.
On the other side, only dark fields.
Two more such ridges, and then they saw it: twin silos, strange and quiet, nearly invisible below their galvanized caps. A farmhouse two stories high, unlit, paintless, or left unpainted so long that its paint had darkened to match the wood. On the far side, a barn. They rattled their way past the farmhouse and descended to a large bald spot beaten flat by tires, not by treads or hooves. The barn was large, corrugated aluminum. One large low window suggested a light somewhere behind it. A little grass fared poorly.
Walter eased the van in, peering up at the alien silos.
Ty drew his breath loudly. “And here come the wolves,” he announced.
East caught his door again. Two dogs came galloping—the footsteps sounded through Walter’s window, and he rolled it up at once—loosed from somewhere, dull teeth flashing as they rounded and reared in the headlights, snarling. They knifed in and spurred back. Vicious and giddy, gang animals doing simple math, two of them, one truck, therefore with an edge. Was something wrong with them? East wondered. They reared and howled at the van, throats open, but made no sound—nothing but the scuffling of their paws on the beaten ground. East cracked his window: not a thing. Dogs without voices. Like in a movie.
“Bet y’all don’t need no coffee now,” cawed Ty from the back.
Then a whistle came from somewhere back in the shadow of the barn, and the dogs pointed and stopped. Their noses came down, ears spread out. Automatically. Someone hailed them again, and away they went.
“Jesus,” Walter said. “That wigged me out.”
“I hate dogs,” Ty said.
“You do?” said East.
“Yes,” Ty said. “Always making noise, drooling. Trying to be your friend.”
East sat stunned and leery. He did not like dogs either. A dog changed the situation, always.
The bit of light their van threw had not given him any sense of the space around them. And nobody was coming out.
“Everything was right,” Walter said. “Black truck. Short drive. Pickup at a farm. All this I got told by ol’ Abe. All checks out.”
“Let’s wait then.”
“You supposed to get out and go,” Ty said.
For a flash of a moment, East felt everything he’d ever felt for his brother: righteousness and rage, exhaustion at the impudence.
“Take a look,” Ty said. “That window. It’s like a drive-through window off a bank.”
East turned. The window was indeed the right shape, low and wide. A single metal drawer perched along the metal sill, a loudspeaker mounted there.
“I’ll be damned,” said Walter. “I never saw anything like that.”
“They stole a drive-through window?”
“Likely bought it. At some auction for five dollars,” Walter said. “Business ain’t so good out here, if you hadn’t noticed.”
East said, “Maybe you can drive up?”
“They don’t want you to,” said Ty. “Ground isn’t flat. Tip the van over.”
“Shit.” Walter clicked his belt open and unwrapped it.
East looked around again. “Ty? What you think?”
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Ty said. “You two go out the front. Unlock the back gate for me, but don’t open it. I’m a stay in here and watch.”
“Oh?” said East. “You ain’t gonna come?”
“I think that makes sense,” Walter said. “Come out hard if we need you?”
“Right. Keep me a surprise.”
East sighed. “All right,” he said. “Stay in the van if you like.”
“I like,” Ty said.
East opened his door. The cold startled him—his breath became visible and lit in the stray light from the van. East headed around the back and unlatched the gate without opening it. Walter joined him in the exhaust and frosty red light.
“How cold is it, you think?” East asked.
“Not so bad,” Walter said. “It’s the wind that makes it feel cold.”
“Not so bad?” said East. “It’s cold as hell, son.”
“You skinny boys,” said Walter ruefully. “Well. Here goes nothin’.”
They approached the window—loose scraps of concrete and chunks of sod made a pile at its foot, as if they did indeed mean to keep cars away. East looked for a way to step up to the little call button colored an unlikely red. A two-way speaker. It crackled now.
“You the boys?” said a voice from inside. “From out west?”
“That’s us.” East glanced at Walter.
The voice came high but quaky, an old man’s voice. “First off, you boys is covered,” it said. “So let’s do like we said.”
East wondered whether to believe this. Another gun sighted on him—how many was that? He kept himself from looking around.
“Where’s the other two?”
“Other two what?”
The voice said, “The other two boys you got?”
“Oh,” said Walter, taking over. “In the van.”