“You find yourself very funny, don’t you?” I asked, turning so he wouldn’t see the sudden flush in my cheeks.
He tugged on the reins, directing the horse past the bridge and off toward the setting sun. As the sun went down it turned the sky the purplish-blue of bruises. Gray clouds were rolling in, accompanied by the distant boom of thunder.
“Well, you’d better be taking me back to where you found me now. My . . . very large man friend is waiting for me there. He’s very scary and . . . kill-happy,” I added, repeating the phrase I’d heard the gang use.
The boy kept chuckling to himself. “I am taking you back.”
“Yes, I knew you were,” I said, looking around. I wasn’t quite sure where we were. We hadn’t yet reached the WAL MA T. The road was nowhere in sight. Two yellowed poles shot up from the ground on our left, marking an old football field that was now thick with cornstalks.
“Is there anything you don’t know?” the boy said, his face giving way to another smile. I turned away, pretending not to notice the dimple that formed in his right cheek, or the way his eyes shone brightly, like he was lit from within. The Illusion of Connection, Teacher Agnes had called it once. Was that what this was?
We were both silent for some time, listening to the grumbling sky, until we turned into the neighborhood where I’d last seen Arden. I recognized a beaten tire swing, the rubber cracked in places. A wild cat roamed the street, its belly hanging low.
The boy scanned an overgrown front yard and pointed to a tiny figure, hidden behind some leaves. “I assume that is your ‘very large man friend’?”
Arden slowly emerged from hiding. The knees of her pants were wet and muddy, like she’d been crawling on the ground.
I jumped off the horse’s back, expecting her to question me, but she was too busy studying the boy to even acknowledge my presence. We were all silent for a moment, with only the horse’s loud breathing filling the air. She kept one hand on her knife.
The boy shook his head. “You’re paranoid too? Let me guess, you two are fresh out of School?” He dismounted in one swift motion. The sky rumbled again and he stroked the horse’s neck, trying to comfort it. “Shhhh, Lila,” he whispered.
“What do you know about School?” Arden asked.
“More than you’d think. I’m Caleb,” he said, reaching out his hand for Arden to shake. She paused, staring at the mud caked under his nails and in the creases of his knuckles. Then, slowly, she relaxed her shoulders and let her grip slip from her knife. My eyes darted between them.
He was getting to her.
“Arden,” I whispered, wishing she wasn’t touching him. Her gaze settled on a tattoo on the front of his shoulder: a circle with The New American crest inside it. “Come on, let’s go cook dinner.” I knew this sudden male presence was as surprising to her as it was to me, but we couldn’t stand there anymore, inches from him. Exposed. I started down the road, gesturing for Arden to follow. But she didn’t move.
“I couldn’t catch anything,” she said, finally stepping away from Caleb. She looked at the three rabbits that hung from his horse’s neck. Then she opened the sack that hung at her waist, showing me its empty insides.
The storm clouds were coming closer. A peal of thunder shook the air. I kicked a stone across the road, wishing I’d thought to take those rusty cans from the baby bear. Tonight would be another frigid, rainy night with nothing to eat.
Caleb climbed back onto his horse. “There’s plenty of food at my camp if you two want to join.”
I laughed at the suggestion, but Arden looked from me back to Caleb, then at the rabbits.
“No . . .” I muttered under my breath. I grabbed her arm, tugging her back and away. Her feet were planted firmly in the dirt.
“What kind of food?” she asked.
“Everything. Boar, rabbit, wild berries. I killed a deer a few days ago.” He gestured out at the gray horizon, his fingers stretching toward some unseen place. “It’s less than an hour’s ride.”
I kept moving backward, step after step. But Arden’s head was cocked, her fingers working at a knot in her short black hair. She strained against my grasp. “How do we know we can trust you?” she asked.
Caleb shrugged. “You don’t. But you have no horse, nothing to eat, and a storm’s coming. It might be worth a chance.” Arden looked up at the gray sky, then back to the empty sack at her side.
After a moment she shook free from my grip. She circled the back of the horse and climbed on behind Caleb. “I’ll take you up on that offer,” she said, adjusting herself.