Manuel Espinosa's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Manuel slept a few hours against the leaning wall and left the ruins at first light. The road bent east through low scrub, and by mid-morning he saw the smoke. It rose in a thin gray line above the horizon, steady enough to be a made fire, small enough to be one camp. He stopped in the road and felt his hand go to the empty sheath at his hip. Pushing on blind meant walking into whoever kept that fire. He needed to see them before they saw him. A church stood off the road ahead, its stone still square under a green spire. A balcony ran across the third floor, high above the scrub. Manuel worked the front doors open and climbed the stairwell slowly, testing each board. He came out on the balcony and lay flat against the stone rail. The smoke rose from a hollow maybe half a mile on. Through the brush he made out a wide cloth canopy stretched on four poles, warm yellow, sagging a little at the center. Under it, three sleeping bags lay around a fire pit lined with stones. The bags were rolled out, not packed. Cook pots hung on a tripod. They had been there days, maybe a week. Three people, settled in, comfortable enough to advertise. He watched a long time. Two figures moved under the canopy, then a third came in from the brush with an armful of sticks. A dog stood up beside the fire, ears forward, and turned its head toward the church. A German shepherd, tall, clean-coated, a collar around its neck. It did not bark. It only looked. Manuel eased back from the rail. A dog that well kept had people who fed it and trained it. A dog that quiet had been taught not to give warning until it mattered. He did not know if these were people who shared a fire or people who took what a traveler carried. He had one knife left, no gun, and a waterskin that made him worth robbing. He was not going to learn the answer by walking in. He climbed down and cut north off the road, into the scrub, keeping the smoke on his right. He walked bent low for an hour, then another, until the gray line was well behind him. When he found the road again it was empty in both directions. He drank a mouthful and kept moving east. He had lost half a day and put more miles between himself and water. He had also kept his skin and his last knife. Somewhere ahead the green hills were still only a rumor, and he was still walking toward them.