Lone Women by Victor LaValle — Read

Two boys, fleeing on horseback, in the deep night, their mother bled out before them and their brothers dead in the dark. Joab and Delmus Mudge, riding fast but hardly sure of where their horse headed. Neither Joab nor Delmus had been the one to lead them to Adelaide's cabin. Their mother had been their navigator, in every way. And now she lay dead. Murdered. By a demon. They rode in frenzy, confusion, and chaos, a speck on the endless plains. They had never been so truly lost in all their lives.

Delmus, the older of the two, held the reins, but in all ways Joab was the driver. They rode without speaking for what seemed like an hour, an eon. Their mother, their brothers, were dead. The chill penetrated as deeply as their grief, turning both boys cold from the inside out. They were lost in the night and panicked.