But Tesoro is his brother. The dead are strangers.

A night comes when the rumble of Tesoro’s truck takes away the dream. Saul wakes, creeps down the hallway, and listens at his parents’ door. Nothing. Another sound, a door clicking shut in the unfinished basement. Tesoro’s room is down there. Saul checks the locks on the door and glances out the window. The rusty Ford is in the lawn next to the drive.

His mouth goes dry. Tesoro is his brother. His flesh and blood. When he pulls the gun from under his pillow it is heavy and cold. A shudder crosses his body.

Saul starts on the steps, and a little creaking noise calls out with each. Halfway down, he stops breathing and waits for a moment. A light glows from under Tesoro’s door. Like a moth, Saul is drawn to it, likely to burn up in the flame. His hand rests on the knob, the other clutches the pistol grip. The smell of stale blood is back, worse now. Amplified.

“Saul?” Tesoro asks through the door, his voice cold like a block of granite.

Inside, Saul finds what is left of Tesoro on his bed. His shirt is off, bunched in a pile on the floor. Both hands rest on his knees. When Tesoro looks up, his face is streaked with blood. His teeth are dark and discolored, his mouth blotted. Tesoro’s face wears neither a smile nor frown — a blank expression with black eyes.

“You brought a gun?”

Saul looks at the pistol, his hand shaking. “Papa’s.”

Tesoro’s lips curl slightly at the corners and one hand stretches toward his brother, palm open. “They will come for me, sooner or later. They will need more than guns.” The other hand touches the lump of lead dangling from his neck.

For a moment, neither speaks.

In that moment, Saul understands; in that moment, he kneels to the old magic in his brother’s eyes. What crawls Saul’s spine is damp and black and dead. His eyes close and fingers uncurl. The gun drops into Tesoro’s open hand.