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She awoke in twilight. Lying motionless, she blinked the dream away, then rose on her elbows to see Soldier standing at the edge of the shelter. He angled one dark eye at her.
“All right already. I’m coming.”
Kerrville was four days away.
* * *
37
Kate and the girls had been with them a little more than a month. At the start, Caleb hadn’t minded. It was good for Pim to have family around, and the girls adored Theo. But as the weeks passed, Kate’s mood only seemed to darken. It filled the house like a gas. She did few chores and spent long hours sleeping, or else sitting on the front steps, staring into space.
How long is she going to mope around like that?
Pim was cleaning up the breakfast dishes. She dried her hands on a towel and looked at him squarely. She’s my sister. She just lost her husband.
She’s better off, Caleb thought, but didn’t say so; he didn’t have to.
Give her time, Caleb.
Caleb left the house. In the dooryard, Elle and Bug were playing with Theo, who had learned to crawl. The boy was capable of astonishing speed; Caleb reminded the girls to keep an eye on their cousin and not wander far from the house.
He was hitching the horses to the plow when he heard a cry of shock and pain. He dashed back to the yard as Kate and Pim came running from the house.
“Get them off! Get them off!”
Elle’s bare legs were swarming with ants—hundreds of them. Caleb scooped her up and ran to the trough, the little girl writhing and shrieking in his arms. He plunged her into the water and began frantically stripping the ants from her legs, running his hands up and down her skin. The ants were on him too; he felt the electrical sting of their teeth boring into his arms, his hands, inside the collar of his shirt.
At last Elle quieted, her screams yielding to hiccupy sobs. A dark scrim of ant corpses had floated to the surface of the trough. Caleb lifted her out and handed her to Kate, who wrapped her in a towel. Her legs were covered with welts.
There’s ointment inside, Pim signed.
Kate carried Elle away. Caleb drew his shirt over his head and shook it out, sending ants scattering. He had plenty of bites too, but nothing like his niece.
Where are Theo and Bug? he asked.
In the house.
It had been a hard spring for ants. People were saying it was the weather—the wet winter, the dry spring, the early summer, shockingly warm. The woods were bursting with their mounds, some reaching gigantic proportions.
Pim gave him a look of concern. Is there anything we can do?
This can’t last forever. We should keep the kids inside until it passes.
But it didn’t pass. The next morning, the ground around the house was swarming. Caleb decided to burn the mounds. From the shed he retrieved a can of fuel and carried it to the edge of the woods. He chose the largest pile, a yard wide and half as high, splashed it with kerosene, tossed a match, and stepped back to watch.
As black smoke roiled upward, ants exploded from the mound in a massive horde. Simultaneously, the hardened earth of the mound’s surface began to bulge volcanically, then split open like a piece of rotten fruit. Soil cascaded down the sides. Caleb lurched back. What the hell was down there? It must have been a gigantic colony, millions of the little bastards, driven to mad panic by the smoke and flames.
The mound collapsed.
Caleb stepped gingerly forward. The last of the flames were sputtering out. All that remained was a shallow indentation in the earth.
Pim came up beside him. What happened?
Not sure.
From where he stood, he counted five other mounds.
I’m taking the wagon. Stay inside.
Where are you going? Pim signed.
I need to get more gas.
* * *
38
The Possum Man was missing.
The Possum Man, but also dogs—lots of dogs. The city was usually crawling with them, especially in the flatland. You couldn’t walk ten paces down there without seeing one of the damn things, all skinny legs and matted fur and gooey eyes, snuffling through a garbage pile or crouched to take a wormy shit in the mud.
But suddenly, no dogs.
The Possum Man lived on the river near the old perimeter. He looked like what he did: pale and pointy-nosed, with dark, slightly bulging eyes and ears that stuck out from the sides of his face. He kept a woman half his age, though not the sort that anyone would want. According to her, they’d heard noise in the yard late at night. They figured it might be foxes, which had gotten into the hutches before. The Possum Man had grabbed his rifle and gone out to look. One shot, then nothing.
Eustace was kneeling by what was left of the hutches, which looked like they’d been hit by a tornado. If there were tracks, Eustace couldn’t find any; the earth in the yard was packed too hard. Possum corpses were strewn around, torn to bloody chunks, although a few yards away a pair of them fidgeted in the dirt, staring at him woefully, like traumatized witnesses. They were actually kind of cute. As the closest one loped toward him, Eustace extended his hand.
