Beginning by Michael Farris Smith Page B

going.”
    â€œWe’re going to Louisiana,” the girl said, throwing her hair back off her face with a toss of her head.
    â€œYou got a good long ways to go,” Cohen said. He pointed out toward the water covering the road ahead and the land on either side of the road for as far as they could see. “That right there is good as a swamp.”
    â€œWe know it,” the boy said.
    Cohen leaned over and spit on the ground. Then he sat back up and said, “You got something in Louisiana?”
    â€œThey got power over there, we heard,” the boy said. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and his shoulders were narrow even in the bulky letterman jacket.
    â€œSo,” Cohen said.
    â€œSo what do you care?” the girl snapped and she stood up straight.
    â€œHush,” the boy told her.
    â€œYou hush.”
    â€œY’all both hush. What’s wrong with her?”
    â€œWhat you mean?” the boy asked.
    â€œWhy you dragging her along?”
    â€œShe got snakebit on her leg.”
    Cohen rubbed at his rough beard. Watched their faces for any kind of strange look or movement. “Too cold for snakes. Has been for a while,” he said.
    â€œIt’s been a while. Back before it got cold. Look,” the boy said and he bent down and pushed the overcoat away from her leg and raised her pant leg. She was wearing tennis shoes with no socks and the area around her ankle looked like it had been poked with the tip of a knife.
    â€œThat ain’t a snakebite,” Cohen said.
    â€œHell it ain’t,” she answered and she pushed her pant leg back down. “It swelled up and won’t quit.”
    â€œIt ain’t swelled. And if it was, walking don’t help it,” Cohen said.
    â€œDon’t nothing help it,” said the boy. “Nothing but a doctor. You seen one?”
    Cohen shook his head. The three of them stared at each other. Cohen looked behind him to the east and those deep clouds were beginning to creep across the late-afternoon sky. Lightning flashed beneath them, a crooked sharp line that touched the horizon. There was maybe an hour of daylight left and it was getting colder.
    Let them be, he thought.
    Then the boy said, “I don’t guess you’d take us over the water.”
    â€œIf I take you over the water, I’ll have to keep on taking you.”
    â€œNo you won’t. Swear it.”
    â€œDon’t beg him,” the girl said.
    â€œI ain’t begging. I’m asking. What the hell.”
    Cohen raised the sawed-off shotgun and showed it to them. “You see this?”
    They nodded.
    â€œYou understand?”
    â€œYes sir,” the boy said. The girl didn’t answer.
    â€œWhat about you, snakebite?” Cohen asked. “You understand?”
    â€œI get it.”
    â€œAcross the water,” he said. “Across the water and then you get out.”
    â€œThat’s fine,” said the boy. “That’s all I’m asking. We just got to get to Louisiana.”
    â€œStop saying that,” Cohen said. “Don’t know who you been talking to. That water over there you’re wanting to get across is about half as deep as the same water all of Louisiana is under. Now wait right there.”
    He climbed down out of the Jeep and rearranged the gas cans and plastic bags and cases of water so that one of them could sit in back. He then took the boxes of shells and the chain-saw blades out of the bag and slid them way up under the driver’s seat. When he was done, he waved them over and the girl limped alongside the boy without his help. Cohen pointed at the boy and told him to sit up front and put her in the backseat. The boy helped her up over the side of the Jeep and she shifted around in the seat to unwind the coat and then he got in the passenger seat. When Cohen was happy with the way they were sitting, he climbed behind the wheel. He now had to shift gears with