7.

Rubin stared at the holes in the knees of his pants.

Mind absent, his fingers traced the edges of the tear to the shirt's fabric around his elbow.

He knew that with Kerry could get a few more months

wear out of each, but he didn't want to keep wearing them. He might be living like an animal,

but it was the rags that he covered his body with that made him feel like one. It had been two

years since he had ventured down there. It had been hard then and this time would

be harder. Shuffling to the pool for his water and to collect the meat from his snares was bad

enough, especially on those cold wet days. The toe he had set never had healed properly

and it pained him to walk, particularly on uneven ground that seemed to make up everything around there.

To go down there, where there were farmsteads would take two, if not three days of walking, to go and get back.

Each step would be painful and he had to decide if all of it was worth it just to steal

a shirt or two and a pair of breeches.

One day, so long ago now it seemed, the cabin fever had really taken a hold and he just had

to get out and look around.

It had been more than three years since he had begun living in the coal shaft and it was

beginning to feel

as if the walls were closing in on him. Where he wanted to go, Rubin hadn't known. He just wanted

to see something, anything new. He walked with the limp until he spotted the road. He kept to the

top of the ridge so that he was near undetectable

behind all the laurels and hemlocks, but could still see the road. Even after all this time,

he had no idea where the road went, but it went somewhere and that was all that mattered at the moment.

...