Not a Drop to Drink (11 page)

Stebbs seemed to understand her mood and held his tongue. Early morning dew had fallen on the long grass, soaking their pants as they walked and chilling them to the bone. Lynn clicked off the flashlight to save batteries once a strip of gray appeared on the horizon. They were halfway to her house when Stebbs took a misstep that turned his good ankle and brought him to the ground with a crash.

Lynn helped him to his feet and he tested his good leg. He winced when he put weight on it. “You go on without me if you want,” he said. “I know you’re in a hurry to get back to—”

“Lucy,” Lynn said, snaking an arm under his. “Yeah, I am.”

Stebbs leaned against her for support. “I was going to say ‘the pond.’”

“Yeah, that too.” She ignored the curious look he shot her as she stepped back to give him some room. “Can you manage?”

“I just need to walk it off.”

Lynn was already backpedaling toward her house. “I’ll check on you,” she called over her shoulder and dove through the grass, suddenly anxious.

She’d been seven when Mother had gone on an overnight hunt, too young to help carry the large chunks of meat Mother would be bringing home. Mother had promised she would be back the next day, and she had appeared by mid evening, dragging a travois loaded with meat behind her. Lynn had put on a brave face and claimed everything had gone well, not wanting to admit to her rock of a mother that the nighttime hours had taught her the meaning of fear.

The basement was the only home she’d ever known, but waking in the middle of the night without hearing Mother’s rhythmic breathing had taken away her feeling of safety. Every dark corner held an unfamiliar noise, each soft rustling an unidentified threat. How would Lucy, a stranger to the darkness of their underground shelter react if she woke and found Lynn gone?

Lynn cracked the basement door and held her breath for a moment in order to make out the softer sounds of Lucy’s rhythmic breathing rising up from below. She was safe and sleeping. Lynn snatched her rifle and climbed to the roof to check on Stebbs.

A pang of guilt struck her when she saw him fumbling across the fields, a walking stick in hand. She should have helped him back to his shelter. She lowered the rifle once Stebbs made it to the rock, rested a moment, and continued toward home, picking his way through the field of coyotes that had been reduced to skeletons and drying sinews.

There was time for a few hours of sleep, at least. Lynn crept to her cot silently so as not to disturb Lucy and rolled to face the wall. Nightmares were nothing new to Lynn; her waking life was full of enough disturbing images, she didn’t think it was fair that some could snake into her dreams as well. Mother’s death plagued her every night, replayed in such detail that she could count Big Bastard’s teeth as they sunk into Mother’s neck.

Lynn closed her eyes, fully expecting to see blood spilling onto grass, or even the lonely little mound of mud she’d left behind her at the stream. Instead it was Eli’s face, flickering in the light of his badly made fire. She studied him as she drifted off to sleep, in a way that she never would have allowed herself in daylight.

She could see what Mother had meant about the dead boy whose boots she’d taken. Even starving, Eli had a sparkle of youth about him, though he lacked the paunchy cheeks of the boy she’d shot. Lynn balanced the two faces in her mind, trying to tack down what exactly made them so different. In the end, she decided Eli was just easier to look at.

For the first time since her death, Lynn dreamt of a face other than Mother’s.

Responsibility brought Lynn out of the light nap, and she went about her morning chores. Lack of sleep combined with unfamiliar emotions had her mind at a rolling boil, occupying every corner of thought. Which was a good way to get killed. Her empty buckets banged against her knees as she trudged to the pond, determined to nail down the slippery feelings so that she could concentrate on reality.

Guilt she’d known before, when she’d failed Mother in a simple task or taken an extra sip from the purified water. The crushing weight of her own role in Mother’s death was constant, a dark cloud that followed her waking thoughts that she knew would billow into a storm of a nightmare if she slept.

Smaller shards of guilt were starting to prick away at her. The image of Stebbs resting at the boulder in the field floated across her vision and she shook it off. His square trade of curing her venison in exchange for her scoping out the Streamers’ camp had turned into a mess that landed her with more work than she’d had before. She ended up on the sharp end of that stick, so why did she feel bad about him struggling home?

And she should be angry with him for volunteering both of them to help Eli and Neva, Lynn thought bitterly as she plunged her first bucket into the frigid morning water. Stebbs seemed to think that the Streamers had become their responsibility and she wasn’t sure she disagreed. Their complete inability to care for themselves would leave them dead before winter. She and Stebbs had the chance to prevent that.

Lynn’s stomach clenched as the first flickers of doubt swept through her. The dark, sacred confines of the barn calmed her, and she breathed it in deeply; must and moisture, spilled oil and the ghost of gasoline. Above it all, she could smell the water, straight through the plastic tanks her nose found the scent of survival. She knew what Mother would have done. Nothing. And there would be two large graves next to the small one under the ash trees.

Lynn quickly dumped her second bucket into the tank to chase that picture away. She stood motionless above the tank for so long that the ripples settled, and she regarded her own reflection in the water.

Lucy woke to find her new protector sitting in the other cot with her arms crossed defensively, her gaze unfocused. The little girl stretched luxuriously, reveling in the smell of her clean hair and the feel of the warm blankets on her back. The trapped warmth from her body lulled her back down into sleep, but not before her hands brushed against something unfamiliar. A stuffed red dog, worn from years of love, had been tucked under the blankets with her.

“What’s this?”

“Just something I got for you out of the attic,” Lynn said. “It’s no big deal.”

Lucy ran her fingers over the soft, red fur, the hard nubs of plastic that formed his little black nose and eyes. “Was he yours? What’s his name?”

“I just called him Dog.”

“Dog,” Lucy repeated, pinning back his floppy ears and releasing them to fall down into her face. “You’re not good at naming things.”

“I had a real dog once,” Lynn said. “He answered to ‘Dog’ just fine, and didn’t seem to mind it.”

Lucy tossed the stuffed animal into the air. “What happened to him?”

“That,” Lynn said, snapping her hand out neatly to snatch the dog before he landed, “is not a good story.”

Lucy stretched her thin arms out, fingers wiggling for her gift. “Can I call him Red Dog?”

“Call him what you want,” Lynn said, letting him fall to the little girl’s chest, where she grabbed him in a bear hug. “He’s yours now.”

Lucy snuggled back under the covers, taking the newly rechristened Red Dog with her. Two fingers pinched onto one ear and rubbed in an ever-slowing circle as she drifted back down into sleep.

“Can I ask you something?”

Lucy jerked awake. “Mmph?”

“Am I good-looking?”

The child nodded, her gold curls bobbing up and down on the pillow. “Verry purty,” she mumbled.

Minutes of silence filled the basement, broken only by the sound of Lucy’s even breathing. “Huh,” Lynn finally said to herself. “Who’d’ve guessed?”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Eleven

A
killing frost had fallen, turning the morning dew into a deadly covering of ice that stilled the insect voices. The sharp morning air ripped into Lynn’s lungs as she zipped her coveralls up to her neck. Beside her, an unrecognizable Lucy trotted loyally along, an oversized hat pulled down to her eyebrows, a scarf wrapped up to her nostrils.

“What’re we doing today?” Her voice was muffled by the layers of fabric Lynn had covered her with before trusting her frail skin to the outdoors.

“Gotta get wood inside. You sit if your feet start hurting you.”

Lucy had proven less a hindrance and more a help as the days went by. Her endless energy and curiosity could be put to good use, Lynn had soon realized. Small jobs, like gathering little bits of kindling and checking the supply of sanitized water, had soon bored her, and Lynn began trusting her with more work. Her feet were still healing from cutting out the overgrown toenails, something that had been less of struggle than Lynn had anticipated.

She’d asked Stebbs to assist, expecting crying, pleading, and a general struggle from Lucy. Her request that he hold the child down while she did the cutting had been met with a raised eyebrow and the suggestion that they try a less violent route first. After his patient, carefully worded explanation to Lucy, she had submitted gracefully to his touch, wincing and burying her head in Lynn’s lap for the worst moments. There had been tears, but no wailing. The throb after the surgery Lynn had dulled with some aspirin, after struggling with the cap. It hadn’t been removed in years.

Lynn had debated allowing Lucy to help her haul wood in. One dropped log could send the child into a world of pain. But Lucy insisted that boredom was worse than a bloody toe, finally consenting to wearing three pairs of socks inside of an old pair of Lynn’s boots. She plodded along beside Lynn as they made their way to the pole barn, curious and comfortable.

“All right,” Lynn said as she shoved the rolling door open. “I’ve got a wagon in here you can drag around the yard, gather all the little sticks, things we can use for kindling if our coals go out downstairs.”

Lucy’s brows knitted and she stopped in her tracks. “That’s not a new job. You said you had a new job for me.”

“You get to use the wagon now.” The flash of inspiration had struck Lynn on her water-gathering chores the evening before when she’d spotted her old red wagon, rusting in the dark corner.

“That’s an old job, just with a new wagon. I wanna help you with the wood.”

“You
are
helping with the wood,” Lynn insisted as she tugged on the handle to dislodge the wagon from its ancient resting place. “Kindling is wood.”

Lucy muttered something under her breath, but it was lost inside the scarf covering her mouth. She took the handle of the wagon and trudged glumly out the door with the wagon wheels squeaking their protest. Lynn followed, warned Lucy to stay in the yard, then made her way to the wood cords on the east side of the house.

They would make it through the winter. The basement retained heat well, especially once she dropped the woolen blanket that covered the entrance to the pantry room. There wouldn’t be much excess firewood to rely on for the next fall, which made cutting in the summer a must. How she would manage to leave the house to cut was a question she didn’t have a good answer to. The pond could not be left unguarded. She’d probably have to trade labor with Stebbs again, and even though she didn’t like the idea of needing him, the feeling of shame that usually erupted at having to ask for help had subsided a bit.

Self-reliance had been Mother’s mantra. Nothing was more important than themselves and their belongings. Allowing Lucy into their home had gone against everything she’d learned, but leaving the little girl to die beside the stream went against something that was simply known and had never been taught. She’d shared the thought with Stebbs after they worked on Lucy’s feet. He told her it was her conscience, guiding her to the right decision.

Having a conscience was a new experience, and one Lynn was starting to question as she regarded the sullen child tossing twigs into the rusty red wagon. Lucy would have to go back. Eli and Neva had shelter now; a few days ago, Lucy had come running down to the pond, the armload of sticks threatening to take an eye out if she fell.

“Lynn—there’s a truck coming down the road!”

Such a nonsensical comment had brought Lynn to her feet, sidearm in hand. They’d rushed to the roof together, Lynn impatiently smacking the little girl’s backside when she’d balked twenty feet up. The sound of an engine had been noticeable on the cold morning air, and Lynn chided herself for not hearing it sooner. She’d been distracted by the looming handle of the water bucket that should be ebbing and flowing peacefully far beneath the surface of the pond, not mere inches from it.

The hum of the engine grew louder and Lynn saw that Lucy was right. There was a truck coming, Stebbs behind the wheel. As he passed, she saw that the bed held a chain saw and raw lumber. He waved happily, throwing his arms up in mock surrender when he saw Lynn’s gun. Lucy jumped up and down, waving back ecstatically.

“What’s he doin’?” Lucy asked.

“Looks like he’s going to build your mama a house.”

Lucy stood on her tiptoes to watch as Stebbs disappeared down the road. “He’s kinda like magic, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Lynn had smiled a little in spite of herself. “Kinda.”

No amount of coercing would convince Lynn to visit the new home by the stream. “I’m sure it’s great,” she assured Stebbs as he regarded her over a shared supper in the basement. He’d brought beans with him and offered to help Lynn cut down the cured venison from the trees. It seemed rude to let him walk off into the cold evening without a warm supper. The venison had been frozen, but a few chunks cooked up nicely on the stove with the beans. Lucy sat on her cot, running her finger along the inside of the bean can to get the last bits of sauce.

Stebbs watched her for a second before continuing. “It’s better than great. Tiny, on account of we tossed it up so fast, but Eli had a good idea. There’s a loft where they can sleep so they don’t have to roll up their bedding every morning. Wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to build, but there was some sense in it, ’cause there’s not much floor space.”