Free Bless the Beasts & Children by Glendon Swarthout

stolen pickup in Prescott, abandoned out here, the locals in Flagstaff who'd identify it and them—and the Bedwetters would be in trouble, legitimate trouble, with the camp and the law and their folks. So that was it. Head for home now and maybe make it in time or go on and sure as hell get caught and was it worth it?
    "So we're gonna vote again," he said. "I told you, I won't be head honcho this time. But before we vote, I want to say something you maybe haven't thought of. Sure, I know what we saw today—I mean yesterday. I know what it did to us. And we think tonight's something we have to do, or we wouldn't be here. But if we think it'll make us heroes or any movie junk like that—it won't. No one else will give a damn but us. In fact, it'll make a lot of people mad enough to shoot us. So what I'm saying is, it doesn't matter to anybody but us. And in three days, don't forget, we break up, camp's over. We'll prob'ly never see each other again."
    He dropped his boot. "Okay, we vote. Everybody's gotta be in favor. All in favor of skipping the whole crazy deal and heading for camp and keeping our noses clean, raise your right hand."
    Instantly he raised his right hand.
    He could not see their faces, but the effect upon them, the shock, was almost palpable. He kept his hand high. No one spoke, no one moved.
    "Cotton, you flake-out!"
    It was Lally 2, on his feet, throwing down his pillow. "I was going alone till you talked me out of it—now you get us here and flake out yourself!"
    "Go find a bed," his brother sneered. "Crawl under the truck."
    "You shut up. Let's take another vote—all in favor of going on like we said no matter what!" Lally 2 raised his right hand.
    The other four were whipsawed. Under the two hands they squatted, contemplating their hangups and the rutted road beneath them.
    Lally 2 lowered his hand. Scornfully he picked up the charred pillow, scornfully dusted it off. "What a bunch of dings," he said. "You can't do anything without Cotton any more. What'll you do when you get home and he's not around?" Tucking pillow under arm, he jerked the cowboy hat firmly over his ears. "Well, I don't need anybody. I started out by my own self and I'm still going and if anybody wants to tag along, they can."
    And away he went, into the dark, down the road as obdurately as he had the road through the piney woods. Cotton's arm was still high, and tiring. He began to sweat. One gone, he thought, and five to go.
    "Wait a sec," Goodenow called after Lally 2.
    "What?"
    "Would you help carry the head?"
    "I might."
    Goodenow moved to the truck bed and came back lugging the buffalo head and horns. "I'm sorry, Cotton," he said, "but he's too little to go by himself."
    Lally 1 spat. "Judas Priest, why'd you have to say that? Now I have to go. Anything happened to him, our folks'd cut me down. You wouldn't believe the way they baby him."
    He joined Goodenow and together they trudged off.
    "Hey, you hear the one about the three storks?" Shecker asked, standing and rubbing his hands preparatory to a monologue. "The mama stork asked the papa stork what he'd done that day and he said, delivered triplets. He asked what she'd done and she said, delivered twins. So the mama and papa stork asked the baby stork what he'd done and he said, not much but he sure scared hell out of a couple of teenagers." He bit a cuticle. "Like the man says, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go." He rocked back and forth on his heels. "Well, see you in the papers. Or jail, heh-heh."
    When he had gone, Cotton lowered his hand. Teft unwound himself, simulated a yawn, faked a stretch, lifted the truck hood, unclipped his hotwire, coiled it into a pocket, dropped the hood, loitered to the cab, eased out the rifle, and lazed back to Cotton.
    "So long, partner," he declaimed in his finest last-reel, into-the-sunset drawl. "We've rode many a mile together, but now I reckon we've opened us two differ'nt cans of peaches." Head bowed, he flicked away an onion tear. "
Auf