When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none.

With the first gray light he rose and left the boy sleeping and walked out to the road and squatted and studied the country to the south. Barren, silent, godless.

Rich looks down at himself, at his dust-covered filthy clothes and at the revolver in his belt, and gives a flat look to the sky.

"Why are you so committed to having me be Viggo Mortensen today?"

Twice now. Twice.

Rich sighs, coughs slightly because of the odd hitch in his lung, and goes back to the tarp, kneeling next to Sam and gently shaking his shoulder with a grungy hand.

"Hey, Sam," he says gently. "Wake up, kiddo."

When Sam wakes, the first thing he'll see a bearded, gaunt, grubby hobo hovering over him.