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lovely sound that reminded Ramon of coyotes and wind chimes. He sighed and spat into the fire.

"Between us, we'll do it," he said. "We're tough bastards."

"Probably couldn't do it, just one of us, though."

"I don't think so."

"Good thing I didn't kill you back there, eh?" the man said. His tone was joking, but Ramon knew it was a joke with teeth. Remember, the man meant, that I had you at knifepoint. You live because I let you. It was the sort of thing he'd have said himself, to remind the constable who owed what to whom. Only now, seeing it from outside, did he understand how alienating and stupid it was.

"Good thing, yeah," he said, and smiled.

Chapter Twenty-One

Morning found Ramon aching and tired. Through the boughs above him, the sky was gray. The breeze smelled heavy with rain. The other man had risen before him and was boiling a handful of honey grass. Ramon yawned mightily, then rubbed his eyes. His elbow itched, so he scratched, feeling the hard knot of scar where the machete had bitten. It was almost its familiar size and hardness. He plucked the sleeve of his robe down to cover it.

"Storm coming on," the other man said. "Gonna be pretty wet by tonight."

"Better get moving, then," Ramon said.

"I was thinking we could hole up. Find someplace dry to wait it out."

"Good idea. How 'bout Fiddler's Jump? Dry enough there."

"We got days before we can even think of seeing people."

"We've got more of them if we screw around like a couple of schoolgirls trying not to get our hair wet," Ramon said. The other man's gaze hardened.

"Fine," the man said. "That's the way you want it, we'll do that."

After they ate breakfast, the honey grass tasting rich and heavy as wheat after the boiling had burst the grains, Ramon and his twin mapped out the path that made the best sense. Unsurprisingly, they shared the same basic idea. The other man objected to a few of Ramon's suggestions, but that was more for the sake of the objection itself.

"We'll have to clear some of the brush. Maybe a sapling or two," Ramon said. "You want to give me the knife, we can share the shit work."

"I can do it," the man said.

"Your choice."

When they reached the raft again, Ramon used the vines with which they'd pulled it from the river to make a simple yoke. When pulled from the side, the floats acted more like runners, and dragging it was easier than lifting the full weight. The man walked ahead, clearing what he could, or went back to the raft itself to lift it over the rocks and bushes with which it became entangled. The sun sloped unseen toward the top of its arc. The Enye ships peeked through the rare break in the cloud cover. The work was backbreaking, but Ramon pushed through the pain. His spine was screaming, his feet felt on the verge of bleeding, his shoulders were rubbing raw where the yoke rested, but it wasn't like he was cauterizing the stump of his own lost finger. If he was capable of that - and, judging by the man, he was - pulling a raft through the woods shouldn't be worth thinking about.

And as the hours passed, he found the burden growing more bearable. The endless ache in his muscles became less a sensation and more an environment. The other man darted back and forth, clearing the path ahead, lifting the raft and pushing it past the tighter spots when he went behind. Ramon didn't speak much, just leaned into his task. He sensed that his twin was coming to respect him. He knew how much that would gall the man, and it put an extra strength in his back. He thought of Christ bearing his cross while the Romans beat him and the crowd jeered. The raft had to be lighter than that, and it wasn't his own death waiting when he reached the water, but instead his salvation. He had no room for complaint.

The third time he stumbled, he barked his shin on a rock. The gash didn't hurt, but blood slicked his skin. He cursed mildly and started to rise to his feet. A hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Take a break, ese," the man said. "You've been busting your hump all day. It's time for lunch."

"I can keep going," Ramon said. "No trouble."

"Yeah, okay, you're a badass. Got it. Put your fucking leg up and I'll go