The marines used short verbal commands to instruct the beasts and somehow arranged them in a rough square. “Climb in,” Joe ordered. Callie went first, sliding carefully between the hairy beasts and then hopping down into the shallow pit the men had dug. The others followed, no one saying a word. The approaching storm had leached the light from the sky and turned it a deep gray with touches of purple. Sound carried strangely as if they stood at the bottom of a cavern too deep even for an echo. “Momma!” Glory cried. “It’s all right.” But Grace sounded doubtful. Joe and Vin began pulling the tent fabric over the hole. Joe hadn’t spoken to Callie all day. He’d lifted Acacia, and Riba with Sally on the back of his boark and taken the lead. He glanced at her now. “We have to hold the boarks down or they’ll run before the storm. Their weight will help keep the tarp in place.” “Maybe some of us should help.” “No.” Joe signaled Vin and they finished tugging the tarp in place.
