Torches
"Heyes, you remember fireflies?"
"Fireflies?" Heyes grunted distractedly as he grabbed hold of a protruding tree root and pulled himself a few feet further up the steep slope, stones skittering down, disappearing into the deepening gloom of the sweltering summer night.
"Lightening bugs, fireflies, you know… there used to be hundreds of them hovering over the meadows and fields. They'd start blinking just as it started to get dark. Remember, we'd, all of us kids, would catch them in our hands and put them in mason jars. I can remember making lanterns out of tin cans our dads would punch little tiny holes in and settin' them on the porch railings. Then before goin' in for the night, lettin' them all go at once. It looked like twinklin' stars shooting up to the sky," Kid quietly reminisced as he scrambled wearily after his partner, booted feet struggling for purchase.
Heyes quickly glanced over his shoulder, squinting in the dark, to stare for moment into Kid's shadowed blue eyes before turning once more to the arduous trek up and over the ridge.
"I think we'll be okay once we get over this ridge, the forest is pretty thick on the other side and there are a couple of streams we can wade down or up. With hardly any moonlight, no one will be able to see the muddied water." Heyes bent over and rested his hands on his trembling thighs as he paused to catch his breath. He straightened up abruptly, shifted his saddlebags on his left shoulder and with more than a hint of annoyance, answered what he considered inappropriate conversation from his partner.
"Yeah, I remember fireflies. I wish I had a mason jar full of them now. A little light would come in handy."
Heyes heard the draw of metal from leather right beside him. He slid his eyes sideways and took in the sight of Kid rapidly but methodically checking his gun. "Why'd you ask?"
Curry looked up into a face known as well as his own, eyes met and held for a long moment, not needing light to convey a futile wish to go back in time and innocence. He silently pointed down into the valley as both men stood still as tree trunks and stared.
Kid whispered, "Torches, not fireflies."
This partly came from a conversation my husband and I had while sitting outside one night. We were lamenting the dwindling number of lightening bugs (fireflies) in recent years and remembering the fun of "collecting" them we both had as children as well as our own children did.