Rode out at dusk with the bell in the bag, same bell on the gate my whole life. Strike it now and it comes out flat. Same iron. Same clapper. Not the note. Past the split rail there's a wheel track in the mud, the left side cut deeper, running west. I'm not saying I know. I'm saying I can follow. Ride while the ruts are fresh. Ride while the smoke still hangs. What breaks in the open gets paid. One must answer. One must answer. By the second milestone, the dusk road filled behind me. A torch line runs farther than I can see. Boot, girth, iron, leather, and every man brought something broken. The track crosses the ford and climbs out the same. Then a gate off its hinges. A strap cut clean through. I don't say the track anymore. I say his track. Spur in, rein short, and the line keeps growing. Ride while the ruts are fresh. Ride while the smoke still hangs. What breaks in the open gets paid. One must answer. One must answer. The horse dropped a shoulder in a rut. The bag came down hard. One note came out of it. Flat. Wrong. Nobody asked what it proved. They rode faster. All my life on this road, I never turned. Turn back now and I am the one who let it through. So I ride. The rein never moves. A hundred of us. One of him. Ride while the ruts are fresh. Ride while the smoke still hangs. What breaks in the open gets paid. One must answer. One must answer. Third door past the mill. No light behind it. A hundred torches in the yard. We stop. Nobody has said his name yet.
