“What?” said Pike. “Take a look? What do you mean?”
“I mean I walk up to them and look at them and if I don’t get shot then I guess things are okay.”
“That sounds like a terrible plan to me,” said Roosevelt.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it. I don’t think it’s cops or outlaws. If it’s cops I’m going to see my sister in town and if it’s robbers I don’t have much to rob, now do I? Just look at me. And it’d be a lot of work to rob me for a whole lot of nothing.”
“He’s got a point,” said Hammond.
“You serious about going?” said Roosevelt.
“Yeah. Suppose so.”
“Well, here,” said Roosevelt, and he took out his gun and held it out to Connelly.
“Jesus!” Connelly said. “Get that goddamn thing away from me!”
“What? Why, what’s wrong with it?”
“It’s a gun, that’s what’s wrong with it. I don’t know nothing about no guns.”
“It’s for protection. Just carry it and flash it so they know what’s up.”
“If they see me walking toward them with a gun in my hand they’re likely to shoot me dead. I like having my head on my shoulders and I like the teeth I got. I’m not waving a gun at anyone.”
“Well, damn,” Roosevelt said.
“If that’s settled,” said Pike, “we’ll stay here and watch you go. You get into any trouble, Mr. Connelly, you holler like you’ve been struck by lightning and we’ll come running.”
“If you say so,” said Connelly, and began down the ravine.
He walked along the remains of the gully a ways before spotting them up ahead. They were squatting along the edge of the ditch where the side had fallen in, brown figures among the dry clay rubble. There were five of them, four men and a woman. He saw one man’s bright bald head gleaming with his considerable backside turned to him. The three other men scrabbled with tinder in the ditch. Two seemed to be twins, with blond-red beards and moth-eaten porkpie hats, and the last was a scraggly, ratty thing who seemed more beard than man. Far to the outskirts sat the woman. She was thin and wore a leather jacket with jeans and boots and she had a handkerchief wrapped around her head, pulling her light brown hair back into a bun. She drew lines in the sand and watched the men with a face torn between irritation and exasperation.
As Connelly came up the large man turned to look, saw him, and said without surprise, “You wouldn’t happen to have any matches, would you, mister? We’ve been trying to figure this out by hand and the only thing we’ve gotten is splinters and swears.”
“Got a few,” said Connelly. He took out a box of matches, shook it, and handed it to him.
“God bless,” said the scraggly one, and took it from the large one. He began striking them in clumsy blows, snapping each one.
“Damn, Roonie,” said the woman, “you didn’t ruin your fingers trying this, did you?”
“Sorry, Lottie,” said the man softly. “Didn’t mean to waste your matches, mister.”
“It’s all right,” he said.
The woman took the matches, then knelt and deftly struck one and held the flame down to the kindling. Soon the wood was crawling with flames. She sheltered it and blew at the base and soon the fire had grown through the wood like bright yellow vines filling a trellis. She took the matches, shook them again, and threw them to Connelly. He caught the box with one hand, and he and the woman looked at each other for a moment before the large man said, “Thanks a bunch. We been sitting here for hours trying to get this started.”
“Never seen a man manage it by hand.”
“I suppose you heard us fighting from off the road.”
“I did. You folks robbers?” asked Connelly.
They looked at each other, confused. “No,” said the fat man.
“Cops?”
“No. Why?”
Connelly leaned back and yelled, “It’s all right. Just folks.”
“What?” said the woman, but then saw Pike and the others come sheepishly crawling out of the roadside. “Oh,” she said. “You boys really thought we was going to jump you?”
“These are strange times, ma’am,” explained Pike.
“Then let’s not make them any stranger,” said the fat man, laughing. “Come down and sit with us a bit. Where you all headed?”
Hammond pointed down the road.
“Where we’re heading, too,” said the woman.
“They said there was a storm coming,” said the scraggly one.
“We heard the same,” Roosevelt said.
“Where in the hell are our manners,” said the fat man. “My name is Monk, that there is Lottie—say hello, Lottie—and these boys are Jake and Ernie and the fella rubbing his knuckles is Roonie.”
“Hello,” said Roosevelt, and tipped his hat. They introduced themselves. Connelly noticed the woman watching him, sizing him up.
“We don’t have much,” said Roonie. “Just some rolls is all. We’d be happy to share them in thanks for the matches. We’d be starved without them.”
“And we’d be happy to share what we have with you, Mr. Roonie,” said Pike, rummaging in his sack.
“How long have y’all been walking?” asked Lottie.
“A ways,” said Hammond. “We took a truck down here, walked about six miles since. I’m hungry as hell and don’t mind saying so.”
They heated old rolls and tinned meat and some of them smoked cigarettes, the new friends eager as they had not had open flame in some time.
“Any idea what’s down the road?” asked Hammond.
“Farmland, or what used to be farmland,” said Lottie. “After that there’s a meager little town that’s not much more than a wide spot in the road.”
“You wouldn’t to have happened to been passed up by anyone, have you?” asked Pike.
They looked at one another, mouths full. “No,” they said.
“No one?”
They shook their heads.
“Why?” asked Monk, suddenly suspicious. “Who you looking for?”
“Nothing. You would have remembered him.”
“Would I?”
“I would expect so, yes.”
“And why would I remember this strange person?”
“He’d be a scarred man. Scarred along the cheeks like—”
He stopped as the other five jumped to their feet and yelled. The woman and the twins tensed and moved away and Monk stared from face to face, bewildered. Everyone was on their feet except Connelly, who stayed seated at the edge of the ditch before the fire. He was unable to say why but he felt no threat, or not yet at least.
“What’s going on?” said Roosevelt.
The other five looked at each other and Monk said, “You all are looking for the shiver-man?”
Everyone was silent for a great while.
“Yeah,” said Connelly.
Lottie said, “So are we.”
No one moved. Then Connelly reached forward and poked at the edge of the fire with his foot. “Well. That’s something.”
“Why you looking for him?” said Roonie. “What do you want with him?”
“Why? What about you?” Hammond said.
“We’re no friends of his, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Pike quickly. “I doubt if such a man has friends of any kind, Mr. Monk.”
Monk mopped sweat from his brow with a soiled piece of fabric and thought. “Good God almighty,” he said,
