Sheep on the Hillside

I was halfway down the well ladder when a man reached for my ankle. His fingers closed around my boot. I kicked hard enough to scrape the ladder rung, and his grip broke. Above me, someone swore. The old well was dry, but its stone shaft still held a pocket of cool air. I dropped the last six feet and landed on my knees in the dust. "Rose!" June shouted from the rim. "Run!" I heard her boots slap the ground. Then the men were shouting, too, and the sound of running feet moved away from the well. I pulled myself through the narrow drainage cut at the bottom, dragging my canvas sack after me. The sack held two cups of water and half a heel of bread. It had to be enough to get us past Mercy Flats before dark. The drainage cut opened behind the abandoned livery. I crawled out and found June crouched beside the wall, one hand over her mouth. She was eight, but hunger had made her look smaller. Her hair stuck to her forehead in damp strings. "Did they get you?" she whispered. "No." "They said they had flour." "They have a wagon." She looked toward the road. A gray freight wagon stood near the town well, its canvas cover tied down with fresh rope. The two men from the well had joined a third. I knew the broad one: Amos Rusk, who sold meal and salt from the feed store. He was talking to a woman with a baby bundled against her chest. A sack of flour lay open at their feet. The woman held out her hand. Rusk pointed at the wagon. I'd seen that exchange before. A promise. A mark on a paper. A child lifted into the wagon so the family could eat. "You said they were taking people to work," June said. "That's what they tell the parents." "What do they really do?" I couldn't answer her. Not then. I'd heard enough from behind the feed store to understand what "long pork" meant, and I'd seen what remained of a boy's boot after the wagon left. But the thought was too large to hand to June while she was already starving. I took her hand and led her toward the creek bed, where we could keep below the road. My father had raised sheep on the slope north of town. He taught me to read tracks, mend a fence, and recognize the faint marks stamped into a brand. The drought killed the grass first, then the flock. Father went east looking for work six months ago. Mother died before the last snow. Since then, June and I had slept in a shed behind the abandoned schoolhouse. We had spent the morning begging for water. When I saw Rusk's wagon, I'd gone to the well to steal a look at the freight markings. I found the letters B.R. scratched beneath the rear axle, and Rusk caught me before I could copy them. Now I knew what they carried. I didn't know where they took it. At the edge of town, June stumbled. I stopped and lifted her onto my back. She weighed almost nothing. Behind us, the wagon creaked over the road. "Don't look," I said. "I'm not." She buried her face against my shoulder, and I carried her toward the hills.