The boy woke in a dried-out runoff ditch beside a desolate road. Mosquitoes buzzed and whirred in a cloud around his head. He slapped at them as he struggled to his feet.

It was early evening, hot and hazy, the sun a blurred red smudge on the horizon. Unsure who or where he was, he followed the road west. For what seemed like a long time, the only sounds were his footsteps and the intermittent rasp of summer cicadas.

A rumble rose up behind him. The boy paused and watched a worn blue rattletrap pickup roll past and pull to a stop. A white-haired old man leaned out the window and squinted at him through a pair of grimy round glasses. “Where you headed, son?”