Churkk scowled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like night, Churkk.\u00a0 Dun like day.\u00a0 Dun like heat or light or pantin\u2019 or th\u2019 way groud puffs up dust atcha when ya run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Churkk\u2019s scowl deepened. He liked the night as well, but it irritated him to agree with the creature skulking alongside him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNight is cool.\u00a0 Night is good.\u00a0 Wraps us up and lets us come out of the cracks and up to see things.\u00a0 What I think is the best is –\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJek.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeh?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShut it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jek did, looking suitably cowed.\u00a0 He still walked alongside, however, and Churkk swore even the runt’s feet slapped on the ground different than anyone else.\u00a0 Everything about Jek was annoying.<\/p>\n
The light from a house poked through the trees at them, but rather than turning to go around it, Churkk took them in closer without explaining.\u00a0 Slowly, they crept up to the corner of the building, then along a wall to the lit window.<\/p>\n
Jek started to whisper a question, but stopped short when Churkk smacked him in the middle of his forehead without even glancing back to aim.<\/p>\n
Inside, Churkk could see a people-room with things to sit on.\u00a0 The woman sat on one, but didn\u2019t see his long, mud-caked face at the window or the light glinting off his beady eyes, because she was crying — great, shaking sobs that shook her bent shoulders and moved her whole chair.<\/p>\n
Churkk watched this for some time.\u00a0 It made him smile.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
I lie to myself when I say nothing ever changes back at home — nothing ever seems<\/em> to change in a place you lived for twenty years — but\u00a0there were always fewer houses. Farming was a dying profession; every time I drove into familiar territory, the wide open plains seemed wider, flatter — less and less to do with people.<\/p>\n The road was mostly straight, rolling over gradual hills in what could often be an infuriating exchange of Passing and No Passing zones. It would start to wind soon. I knew this area; could still recite the mileage between every major and minor landmark for a hundred miles in any given direction, even landmarks that didn\u2019t exist anymore, such as the old country school house that had apparently been torn down since my last visit and whose absence nearly made me miss my turn onto Vayland Road.<\/p>\n After a few miles, the curves began.<\/p>\n The farmland my family owned was on the high side of the county, raised above the lower, eastern half by a ridge of hills that Vayland Road crept along, curling around cuts in the earth that were somewhere between narrow valleys and broad ravines, filled with thickets and brush that by local wisdom wouldn\u2019t even let a breeze through without a couple of good scratches. Gullys. That was the word.<\/p>\n I\u2019d grown up riding in cars along this stretch of highway, then driving it myself, then driving away. The blacktop lead right past the farm\u2019s driveway.<\/p>\n Mom was out on the front step before I got out of the car.<\/p>\n No one else was there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ~ The Road ~ Churkk scowled. \u201cI like night, Churkk.\u00a0 Dun like day.\u00a0 Dun like heat or light or pantin\u2019 or th\u2019 way groud puffs up dust atcha when ya run.\u201d Churkk\u2019s scowl deepened. He liked the night as well, but it irritated him to agree with the creature skulking alongside him. \u201cNight is cool.\u00a0 … <\/p>\n