The kid begins to live by begging and theft riding across the barren premier filled of empty waste and predators, the wind rattling like gnashing teeth as he fell asleep under the sky full of fallen stars while wolves howl. The sun rose in its slumber in the color of steel and the kid was wearing a hat.

     One day the kid sees smoke rising among the hills his horse approaches but only to find a hut where a hermit lives, half mad and filthy the kid requested if he may drink to the well to quench his thirst.

     Both lads entered his gloomy hut, where he points his finger to the bucket of salty contents of water. The kid drinks. He goes out to a nearby well and draws up water in a rawhide bucket for his mule to drink.

     The kid thanks the hermit, but the hermit predicts that a storm is coming and tells the kid reluctantly agreed leaving his leather saddle outside, telling him also to bring something to eat.

     The Kid sets the rawhide bucket down, brushing dirt from his boots. The hermit, still seated on a wooden crate by the hut's entrance, stares across the dead hills where the smoke has long faded.

"Storm's comin'. Not the kind you shelter from with roof and rafter. The kind that rides low in the belly of men."

"Ain't no clouds in sight."

"Storm don't need clouds. Just bones. The wind's already talkin' in a tongue that don't want listenin' to."

"Wind always talks. Never says much."

"It don't speak to you yet. You still got two legs, a name no one remembers, and blood folk might still call warm. That changes out here."

"You think I'll lose somethin'?"

"Not thinkin'. Knowin'. Outlaws don't take what they need. They take what you got."

"Ain't got much."

"That's what they like best. Empty men don't scream as long. Less to carve through."

     Silence. Wind picks up. Dust scuttles. Insects made of shadow. The Kid looks down at his hands, then back at the hills.

"Leave your saddle. You won't need the weight where you're headed. Bring bread if you got it. Or bones if you're feelin' generous."

"Bones?"

"You'll see. Storm don't just strip the skin. It leaves behind what's worth keepin'."

     The Kid tips his hat. No thanks, no goodbye. Just boots crunching back toward the mule. The hermit stays seated, staring toward where the thunder will come-but no one will hear it.

     Night came without warning. No moon. Just the dull red smear of dust caught in starlight.

     The kid had not slept so much under rusting winds. He dreamt or something like it.

     He stood in a salt-flat of cracked glass. The stars above were holes punched through a skin of meat.
A mule with no eyes dragged a corpse on a chain. The corpse was smiling.

     From the horizon came riders-thin men, not lean but hollow, dressed in coats stitched from skin too tight to be their own. They moved like smoke folded into bone.

     At the front rode a figure whose shadow stretched across the ground in the shape of a gallows.

"You're early," said the rider. His voice wrapped in velvet.
"We ain't opened the gate yet."

     He woke with his neck damp from sweat, the sun rising like hammered steel again. His mule kicked at a dead lizard. The leather saddle he left had disappeared. Only hoofprints remained. Not his own.

     The Kid rode into the badlands by instinct. No road. Just memory. The world smelled like rust and bark and old blood.

     Near midday, he crested a shale ridge and saw them.

A camp of wagons like bleached bones.
Men sat around black fires. Not cooking. Just staring.
Their rifles leaned like altars.

One turned.
His face was masked with dried mud and teeth from something human.

"You're late, boy. We were wonderin' when the desert'd cough you up."

"Didn't know I was expected."

"All meat shows up sometime. Just depends who's eatin' it."

     Behind him, someone strummed a broken banjo. Another was skinning a dog.

The air felt wrong.
The same wind as yesterday, but heavier.

      The fire was low. Smoke drifted like gauze in a ruined church. The boy stood, hands still, the wind lifting the hem of his coat. The man who approached had the gait of a remembered sin, his coat dusted with the ruin of old towns. He wore a coat too fine for the land and boots that had outlasted more than one owner. He did not announce himself.

     He was the outlaws leader. Tall. His frame carried no excess, no softness. Lookin like something carved from a tree that had died standing. His coat, once military, bore no insignia-only the long bleached stains of blood washed in dust. One sleeve was torn at the cuff, exposing a wrist like a broken stalk.

     His face was weathered by years. A jaw set. Eyes pale. One brow bore a healed gash that had never been stitched.

     His boots were polished though the leather. His hat was broad, sweat-stained, and creased by long habit. A single black feather was tied to the band with a strip of mulehide-its origin unknown, its purpose unspoken.

     A man who had seen the line between sin and salvation and walked it backwards.

"Ain't no law out here save that which is carved into men's backs with the knives of others.
You ride far enough, you'll find the world circles back in on itself like a noose."

He studied the boy's face like one might study a scar to learn the shape of a wound.

"Strange that you've come this far and still wear your name like it ain't been beaten out of you. Stranger still you ain't been hobbled or hanged. That speaks to providence.
Or oversight."

"You think you're owed something. All wanderers do. They think the land must yield or the wind must listen. But there's no mercy here. The sun'll bleach your bones for want of asking.
And the ground'll take your blood like it takes the blood of beasts."

     He looked off into the dark beyond the firelight, where nothing stirred but the long and patient things.

"There's a storm comin'. Not of wind nor rain but of reckonin'.
And I seen storms like that before. They don't pass. They settle.
And they take a name with them when they go."

[The fire cracked. Somewhere a coyote called. The boy lifted his eyes to the man, but no word passed between them.]

"You can ride. You can run. But the land don't forget.
And when it comes time to answer, it won't be the law askin'.
It'll be the dust. And it'll speak in your voice."

     The wind picked up again. This time it stank-blood and bark and scorched iron.

     They led him down a slope, past wagons with wheels half-buried in sand. Tarp canopies flapped like dying wings. Men sat in the shadows, carving bone, stripping hides, or doing nothing at all.

No laughter. No talk.

Just work. Survival.

     One of them offered the kid a strip of dried meat. He didn't ask what animal. He chewed. It was bitter, stringy, warm from the sun.

"You ever kill a man?" the toothless one asked.

"No."

"You will."

At dawn, the leader gathered them.

"Town not far from here," he said. "Been makin' noise. Talkin' law like it ain't been six months since they lynched their own mayor."

He turned to the boy.

"You ride with us. Or you don't ride at all."

The kid nodded.

     They mounted up. Dust kicked. No banners. No calls.

     Just horses and men. One with a banjo on his back. One with a knife he never cleaned. One with nothing but scars.

The boy rode last.

     Behind them, the fire smoldered low, coughing smoke like a dying man. Ash clung to the bones of last night's camp.

     Above, a vulture turned slow circles-silent, wide-winged, patient. It cast no shadow, but it watched.

     And somewhere, far off, thunder cracked.
But no clouds in sight.