Free Theft by BK Loren Page A

leads me down the hallway. The light is still on in the bedroom, and Zeb waits at the door. The light in the living room dims and Zeb jolts with fear, which sends my heart like a fist into my throat. He laughs so loud the dog starts barking again.
    â€œShit, Zeb, I said I’m in. Quit teasing me.”
    He puts his hand on the doorknob of the bedroom, turns it slowly so it clicks real soft. He looks at me, raises his eyebrows. He still believes I think Chet and Dolly are in that room. He’s halfway right. He slaps the door open. It bangs against the wall, swings back toward us, and I gasp. He stops the door with his palm. The bed is empty, all made up and tucked in tight at the corners.
    â€œLike I said. They’re at the cabin.”
    It feels like cold water splashing my face on a hot day, that feeling of fear turned to relief, the exhilarating part of stealing. I can’t help laughing with Zeb now. I trust him. I should’ve trusted him all along.
    There’s a smell in the Thatcher’s bedroom, something mustier than in most places we’ve been, even though the place looks clean. I breathe in quick little sniffs, trying to keep the stink out of my nostrils. The room is cramped but orderly, no clothes on the floor,
no laundry. But the furniture is crammed into the place, making it harder for Zeb to move around. He squeezes through the tight space between the bed and chest of drawers and heads straight for the clothes closet. I stand there, still basking in that sweet exhilaration. In a minute, Zeb comes out of the closet with a hanger that holds nothing but belts. The bent part of the hanger twists through the opening in the buckles, and they’re stacked buckle-on-buckle, about half a dozen of them. One by one, he takes the belts from the hook, shoves them in his knapsack. Then he heads back into the closet, finds another hanger with two more belts on it, takes them, too.
    â€œFucker,” he says. “Let his pants fall down off his fat ass. Moon the neighborhood with his fat white butt.”
    I smile, proud to be Zeb’s sister.
    He looks through the closet one more time, carefully. “Looks like I got them all.” He taps my shoulder. “We’re done,” he says. He points with his head toward the door, and I lead the way out, my whole body feeling light and good.
    While I walk out to pet the dog, Zeb takes care to lock up the Thatcher’s house, just as it had been before we came. He wipes the door handle with his T-shirt, even though we know the Vaseline keeps the prints from taking hold. He doesn’t like leaving even a thin sheen of Vaseline behind, so he wipes things clean. When he’s done, he joins me by the fence, reaches through the gate as best he can, and pats the dog. “Yeah, good boy, good boy.” He points to a pile of dry food in the corner and a basin of water big enough for a horse. “They leave him that way for a week. Like food and water’s all he needs. You’d like to be up there in that cabin with them, wouldn’t you. Yeah boy, I know.”

Zeb
    LATE MORNING, AFTER THE men had been searching the backwoods for a day and a half, Zeb made his way down the side of the mountain. He passed a few neighbors’ cabins nestled into the
thick evergreen woods, saw the windows glowing, and felt something like a connection to the folks living there, a bond that had happened without him noticing over time. It wasn’t deep or even intimate, but it was a bond all the same, something he felt tied to.
    He crossed the open field where he’d spent long summer days riding Rosalita. As connected as he felt with the families living in those cabins, it was nothing compared to what he felt with Rosalita. The joy he’d shared with that animal was something he’d never been able to achieve with humans, what with all the talk and double talk humans did. Rosalita was languageless, and his bond with her was all the stronger