.closer [to god]

“We’re to burn it, break down the pieces, and sweep away the ashes.”

“Pardon?”

I gathered the tools from the truck, and glanced over my shoulder “Something you didn’t understand?”

“Wellsir, I understood that there was a dead horse were ‘sposed to be burying?”

Off in the distance were the cries of a hawk. A recording played over at the church every couple hours to keep the crows from swarming in. “We’re to the dispose of it. Most efficient way is to burn it.”

“The stable too?”

I set down the tools, gave the kid a quick once-over. “I don’t recognize you. Not from around here?”

“Nosir. The deputy hailed me up from the next town over, said he had work for a lad like me.”

“Didn’t strike you as suspicious that he had to get someone from a town over?”

“Work is work, is all. My family could use the money”

I didn’t say anything to the kid on the way to the stable. As we approached I took out my bandanna a fashioned a face mask from it. I poured the gas. The stench from the gas and the corpse was nauseating even through the mask.