In a Handful of Dust (10 page)

She slapped at the gnats in frustration, angry with herself for not being quick enough to think of sharing her secret in that moment. Water couldn’t cure him of the virus in his blood, but it could keep him safe, and tied to a piece of land where she’d be able to find him again.

And she was going to. Joss’ comments from the night before had planted a seed in Lucy’s brain that sprouted during the night, giving life to a new goal. If people in California didn’t have to dedicate their time to fighting off starvation, maybe someone like Vera had used their spare moments to learn more about the illnesses that cut down people like scythes through wheat. Someone, somewhere, could know how long Carter would be communicable.

And if it wasn’t forever, she was going to find him again. If it was true that there were places where she could do more than gather water and find food every day, then Carter deserved to live that way too. Joss had said it was important to want something, and once Lucy had warmed up to the idea, she refused to make a choice. She could have California and Carter both. She wanted everything.

“There’s a place coming up called Fort Recovery,” Lynn said, using her handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“I could go for some recovery,” Joss said.

“Too bad, cause we’ll be going ’round.”

“Why are we avoiding it?”

“It’s big,” Lynn answered. “Too big to not have someone in it somewhere.”

“Do you always think people are a bad thing?” Joss asked.

“Generally.”

They wandered off the paved road Lynn had been following, veering onto one patched with potholes. Lucy’s boots had conformed to her own feet fairly quickly, but the blister hadn’t formed a callus yet, and the pink, raw skin still chafed at the end of every day. Picking over the holes in the road wasn’t doing her any favors.

The grass grew higher than their heads on both sides of the road, arching inward and brushing against their faces as they made their way west. Trees towered overhead, forming a total canopy that cooled the black tar beneath their feet, drying their sweat. The setting sun burned in front of them, sending red rays into their faces.

Lucy fought a prickle of annoyance when Joss stepped on the back of her heel.

“Sorry,” Joss muttered from behind her. Lucy waved off the apology, too tired to speak. Even so she couldn’t help but notice that Joss always stayed closer to her if they were in an area that was wooded, or anywhere along the road where cover could hide an attacker.

She voiced this to Lynn when she was sure they were alone by the stream they found that evening, filling their water bottles.

“She’s using you for cover,” Lynn said. “Probably figures if anybody pops off a shot at one of us, they’re going to aim for me first, as I’m the leader. You might be smaller, but you’re less likely to be a target. And she knows it.”

“Nice.” Lucy capped her bottle tightly. “And here I kinda liked her.”

Lynn shrugged. “She’s doing what’s she’s done her whole life to survive, that’s all. And it could be she just would rather walk with you than me, has you figured for the kind one.”

“Right. You’re the brawn, I’m brain.” She splashed some water over her face and looked down with distaste at her wet shirtfront. “I was holding out hope, but I think I may have to admit that you’re the boobs of this outfit too.”

Lynn laughed for the first time since the road. “For all the good it does.”

Their sounds brought Joss down the creek, water bottles in hand. “What’s so funny?”

Lucy glanced back down at her chest. “Oh, I wouldn’t exactly call it funny,” she said. Lynn laughed again, the sound bouncing back off the water and into the cold, clear night.

“I got some news for you,” Lynn said to Lucy halfway through the next day.

“What’s that?”

“We’re out of Ohio. Have been since we passed Fort Recovery.”

“Huh,” Lucy said, surveying the land around her. “So we’re in what, Indiana?”

“Yep,” Lynn said as she readjusted her pack on her shoulders.

“Indiana is awful flat. So what’s our route?” Lucy asked.

“Not much in our way. We head due west, and we’ll get to Illinois.”

“Is it flat?”

“Not sure.”

“How’s your water?”

Lynn reached over her shoulder and into her pack without breaking stride, pulling a half-empty bottle from it. Lucy was down to her last one as well, the water warm from being carried next to her body. She didn’t know how much Joss had left, and their companion wasn’t offering up the information.

“Will we stop soon?”

“Soon enough,” Lynn said, shooting Lucy a look that told her not to worry.

Abandoned fields that had once been farmed for corn and beans were returning to prairie all around them. The greenness of the new grass matched Joss’ eyes and was almost painful to look at as the sun beat down from the cloudless sky. The road was the only mark of past civilization, a streak of black that sliced its way forward, Lucy’s feet doggedly eating up the miles it created.

Hours later, Lynn broke to the north, tapping Lucy soundlessly on the shoulder and striding off the black and into the green without a word. Lucy followed, and she felt rather than heard Joss move through the tall grass behind her. On the horizon, a streak of darker green broke the skyline.

“There’s another stream up ahead,” Lynn said. “Be pretty hard to guard every inch of moving water, and I haven’t seen a house for miles.”

“Can we stop for the night?” Lucy asked, even though the sun was hours away from the horizon. She’d told herself supper from the night before was the last meal she could spare to set some aside for Carter. Her knees threatened to buckle underneath her, and her legs felt like lead. Being on the road was sapping her strength in ways she had never imagined. Life at the pond hadn’t been easy, but there was always energy left over to spend as she pleased, running through overgrown fields with Maddy or chasing after Carter to see who dove into the pond first. Now only stubbornness put one foot in front of the other, and Carter was the one left behind.

“May as well, but we’ll camp away from the banks, and make no fire.”

They beat a path to the trees following the meandering route of the little stream, whose water was cold, clear, and unclaimed. The three of them sat in silence on the pebbly bank, Lucy soaking her aching feet.

“Might want to drink upstream from my feet,” Lucy advised, when Joss cupped a handful of water. She pinched her nose to illustrate her point. “Just saying.”

Joss smiled and moved upstream. Lynn ignored her as she passed, her eyes once again devouring the map spread across her knees. Lucy wiggled a rock with her toe, and a crawdad shot out from underneath, and then out of sight. The stream curved to the south, where she could see a flash of red clinging precariously to the rocky east bank.

“Wild strawberries, Lynn,” Lucy said, her mouth watering around the word itself. “Can I go get them?”

Lynn glanced behind her, to where Joss was lying on her back in the shade, arms crossed behind her head, apparently sleeping. “Take this,” she said, pulling the handgun from her belt. “And keep your head on.”

“Always,” Lucy said.

The pressure of Joss’ constant shadow lifted as she put space between them. Lucy felt almost cheerful as she climbed the bank and dropped her pack off to the side, in the tall grass. She tied the corners of her handkerchief together, but the little pouch it made wouldn’t hold even a third of the berries.

“Guess I’ll have to eat some,” Lucy said, resigned to her fate. She sat in the tall grass and plucked berries one by one, popping them into her mouth and enjoying the warm gush of juice between her teeth.

Lucy didn’t hear the footsteps behind her, but the distinct sound of her pack being unzipped sent her whirling around to see Joss bent over it, forked ash stick in her hand.

Joss looked at her, eyes wide. “You’re a dowser.”

“Nope,” Lucy said, crunching down on a berry and trying to appear casual despite the fear that bloomed in her belly. “I just really like that stick.”

“Don’t be smart with me,” Joss said, eyes roving up and down the stick. “Teach me how.”

“It’s not something that can be taught,” Lucy said, not moving to get up. “The man who explained it to me, Stebbs, he was around before the Shortage. He used to tell people where to dig their well in exchange for a case of beer.”

“And how’d he explain it?”

“He says it’s not so much about the stick as the person holding it. When the water’s moving underground it makes energy, and if you’re the kind of person that can feel that, the stick responds to it.”

Despite her words, Joss was still holding the forked ash as if she could wield it herself. “I don’t get it,” she said.

Lucy shrugged. There was no way to explain the feeling when she came across a vein of water. If it was near the surface, she sometimes didn’t even need her stick to feel the energy coursing through her body, her teeth ringing. “I guess it’s not for you to get then. Why you going through my stuff, anyway?”

“I was going to fill your bottles for you.”

“Funny you tossed them over there then, and kept digging in my stuff,” Lucy said, pointing to the empties lying in the grass.

Joss ignored her, still transfixed on the witching stick. “No wonder she keeps you so close,” she said.

Lucy felt her jaw tighten. “Lynn keeps me close ’cause she loves me.”

Joss glanced up at her, through the fork of the ash. “You keep telling yourself that, honey.”

Lucy snatched her stick from Joss’ hands and gathered her pack. She walked hastily back to camp with the older woman’s footsteps close behind. Clouds had slipped over the sky, bringing a scent of rain with them. Lynn had set up camp in a copse of maples that had seeded themselves so closely that their trunks had each woven into another, twisting their bodies together as they reached for the sun. The branches hung low, providing decent cover, and the locked trunks broke the wind that blew the misting rain.

Lucy’s instincts screamed for her to tell Lynn that Joss knew she could dowse, but the other woman stayed by her side as they settled in together, all three of them huddled closely for warmth against the cold. Lucy tried to relax as the night wore on, her body drawing heat from both Lynn and Joss on either side of her. She bit her tongue in frustration against the weight of another decision to be made that couldn’t be taken lightly.

Because once she told Lynn, Joss was dead.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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T
he bodies swayed in the breeze, the tattered remnants of their clothes slapping against their skin. Their faces weren’t covered, and Lucy couldn’t look away from the nooses. The heavy hanks of rope were buried so deeply in their necks that swollen skin enveloped them.

“Jesus.” Joss had a handkerchief up to her nose, eyes watering.

“They do something wrong, you think?” Lucy asked.

“Doubt it,” Lynn said, eyes running over the three for clues. “Whoever did for them took their shoes. Must’ve wanted them pretty bad.”

“They didn’t have shoes.” Joss’ voice was muffled.

“What’s that?”

“They didn’t have shoes,” she said, pulling the handkerchief away for the briefest instant before cramming it back against her face. “Those were my people.”

“Them?” Lucy peered into what was left of the faces. “You were traveling with three men?”

Joss eyed her over the wadded fabric. “You do what you have to do.”

“Don’t know what happened here then,” Lynn said. “But it didn’t happen too terribly long ago. We need to be moving on.”

“We’re not going to cut them down? Bury them?” Lucy asked.

Lynn glanced at her. “Not today, little one.”

They left the road they had been traveling for another that ran parallel to it, Lynn’s rifle unstrapped from her back and resting lightly in the crook of her elbow. Lucy followed behind, resisting the urge to touch the butt of the pistol jammed in her waistline. Shaggy woods, dense with undergrowth, shadowed them to the left. The right side of the road was unbroken grass, waving in the breeze. The wind rustled through the trees, and Lucy noticed Joss shift positions to put Lucy between her and the changing shadows playing inside them.

It was at least ten degrees cooler in the shade of the forest, and Lucy felt goose bumps popping out on her arms. The days had been long and each hotter than the next, as they walked in their unending line. Even so, the coolness of the woods had her looking forward to the bright streak of sun she could see ahead where the trees ended.

Lynn broke into the sunlight first and immediately stopped, the stiffness in her back making Lucy reach for the pistol. Joss slipped behind her.

“What? What is it?”

“It’s . . .” Lynn trailed off, disbelief closing her throat. “It’s corn.”

Lucy relaxed and Joss let out an audible sigh. “Didn’t know you were scared of corn,” Lucy said.

“Come see for yourself what I’m scared of.”

Lucy felt Joss’ hand on her elbow and resisted the urge to shake it off. She walked to the break in the trees.

A vibrant green fanned out from the road in symmetrical lines, marching into the distance as far as Lucy could see. The breeze blowing through the knee-high stalks made more rustling than the woods.

“Shit,” she said, all cleverness wrung from her. “How many people does it take to plant that much corn?”

“And how many more to eat it all?” Lynn asked, already backtracking into the shadow of the woods. “We’re turning around. Right now.”

“To go where?” Joss asked. “To do what?”

“Away from here,” Lynn said simply, breaking into a trot and leaving the road for the cover of the woods. Lucy followed, holding back branches so they wouldn’t whip Joss in the face. They cut into the middle of the woods, where Lucy scrambled up a tree for a better look.

To the south, the road where they had found the hanged men was wide, and she could easily see it from her perch. No houses were in sight, no community capable of sowing the immaculate field of corn.