The morning came and went. There were no cops, was no sirens, no men in the bushes yelling at us to come out with our hands up, their guns drawn, the trigger-happy quick to mow us down in a rain of bullets. It appeared that our dog days were over, though I knew better than to jump to unlikely conclusions.
Disgruntled from a night of sleeping on the hard dirt ground, I rolled over in an attempt to adjust my posture and rammed my elbow into the exposed root of a tree.
“Ow,” I said.
“You okay?” Guy asked.
“Just the usual. Rough morning on this side of the law, you know?”
Guy lifted his head from his place near the high ground and frowned. The lines etched throughout his eyes told of a night spent with misery, a battle fought well but not valiant enough to avoid the discoloration that swamped his upper cheeks. My immediate response was to ask if he was okay, but he merely turned his head to survey the west before I could.
“Road’s been clear all morning,” Guy said, as if knowing I would listen even though we were off to a rough stop. “No cops at all.”
“Were there any helicopters?”
“Some passed over us last night. Thank God their spotlights were trained on another direction, otherwise we’d be screwed.”
My mouth parted in question. Guy lifted his hand and extended a finger to the far side of the canopy—where, no more than a few feet from where we’d slept, appeared a break in the trees, undetectable by the shadow of night.
“Shit,” I said. “We could’ve been fucked.”
“Which is why I think it’s important that we move as fast as possible.” Guy jumped down from his perch and crouched, offering a hand. “You ready to move on in a few minutes?”
“You sure it’s safe to walk along the roads?”
“At this point, I think anything is safer than dealing with farmers and their homicidal cows.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I mumbled.
Guy pulled a bag of potato chips out and tossed them at my chest. “Hey Jason,” he said. “How do you like your beef?”
“Ha ha,” I replied. “Very funny.”