Not a Drop to Drink (5 page)

“I’ll bring in some unpurified water,” Lynn suggested. “We can use the tub.”

Using the upstairs of the house was typically off limits. When it was warm, they rinsed themselves in the pond, and during cold months there was a claw-foot tub in the basement that could be used for bathing. But that would mean dragging it out from the backroom, and neither of the women had the strength. Mother nodded in agreement, and Lynn began gathering buckets.

“You go ahead,” Mother said when Lynn came back with water. “I’ll keep a watch.”

“You sure?”

Mother nodded. Rivulets of sweat ran down her face, cutting salty tracks in the deer blood. “I could use a break. I’ll be up on the roof.”

Lynn went inside, turning right on the landing instead of going straight to the basement. Five steps led up to a door that opened onto the kitchen, a door she’d walked through only a handful of times in her life.

She’d been taught to call out upon entering any house, something that had saved her skin once or twice when scavenging for food. “Hello? Anyone here?”

Nothing answered. Her voice echoed off the empty wooden cupboards. Even so, she felt a strange sort of comfort as she walked through the kitchen into dining room. It was still her house, even if she lived underneath it. In a different life, she would’ve known the creak of these wooden floors as intimately as she did the hatchet marks in the wooden beams that held them up.

Lynn made her way to the bathroom, leaving footprints in the dust behind her as she went. The bathroom was a minor miracle in her eyes, to think that water had once come out of the faucet at the turn of a knob. Mother had even said that it was hot or cold depending on how you turned the knob, not on what season it was outside.

She twisted her finger around the faucet, imagining how amazing it would be to turn it and hear the splash of water into the porcelain tub. Mother had seen such things, had lived in a time when taking a hot bath was a relaxing thing, not a job that required hauling and heating water. Mother had used this room when she was Lynn’s age, soaking in the heat and not worrying whether someone would kill her that night.

Lynn wondered what that would feel like as she stepped into her chilly bath and the blood slid from her skin, turning the water pink.

Four days after butchering Mother said it was time to smoke the meat, and they spent most of the morning hanging the large chunks of venison from the rafters with hooks. Cold salt water dripped onto Lynn’s shoulders and back as she dumped the last bucket of pinkish brine down the drain. Lynn was pouring fresh water over the bloodstains when Mother began unhooking chunks of venison from the ceiling.

“I’m carrying a load out to the smokehouse,” she said. “I don’t see anyone nearby, but come out and cover me with the rifle when I get ready to start the fire.” Lynn nodded, ducking under a dripping hunk of shoulder meat. She hurried to finish cleaning the floor as Mother’s feet disappeared up the steps.

Lynn shivered once she made it outside and the cold air struck her wet shirt. The days had ceased to be pleasantly cool and were now downright cold, with a breeze that made Lynn wish she’d thought to grab a coat before rushing outside. She climbed the antennae before Mother made it out for her second trip, giving her the all-clear signal. An hour later, Lynn had set her rifle down and was lifting her shirt away from her skin.

Mother signaled that she was on her last trip, and Lynn waved back that she understood. Lynn flexed her fingers against the chill. Mother would be starting the smoke fire soon, which could attract attention. She was reaching for the rifle when she saw the tall grass swaying in a pattern that could not be caused by the wind. Three straight lines took shape, moving fast and headed toward Mother.

“MOTHER!” Lynn screamed. She was on her feet in an instant, the rifle aimed at the largest of the coyotes as he broke through the grass. She fired as she screamed, and Mother spun toward the sound.

The bullet caught Mother in the thigh, and the spurting blood drove the coyotes into a frenzy. They leapt at Mother, knocking her on her back and sending venison to the ground all around them. The salted meat was ignored—they were onto something fresh.

Lynn sprinted across the roof and flew down the antennae, skipping the last four rungs. She fell to the ground, her left foot folding underneath her. The cracking sound from her ankle drowned out her cry and she propped herself upright with the rifle. The triumphant high-pitched hunting song of the coyotes rang in her ears as she pulled herself to her feet and lurched around the corner of the house.

Big Bastard had Mother by the throat, while the other two tore at the wound that Lynn’s bullet had opened. She fired again, from the hip, catching one of the smaller ones in the shoulder. The force of the shot threw the smaller coyote off Mother, and its partner backed away, head close to the ground and eyes glued on Lynn. Blood was no longer spraying from Mother’s wound in an arc, but gushing as her heart slowed.

Lynn fell forward, her injured ankle refusing to support her. She landed on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her lungs and losing her grip on the rifle. Big Bastard still had a firm grip on Mother’s neck. His ears flattened as his eyes met Lynn’s, and he growled deep in his throat, claiming his prey.

“Bastard,” she screamed, her throat clenched tight with tears.

The injured coyote struggled to her left, its leg dangling uselessly from the ruined shoulder. Its partner circled Lynn, sensing her weakness. She lunged for the rifle and it bolted away, dragging a piece of venison behind it. She swung the barrel and fired, but the Big Bastard was gone, leaving deep footprints in the ground that were steadily filling with Mother’s blood.

Lynn dragged herself on her elbows to Mother’s side. “Mother? I’m sorry,” Lynn sputtered. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see them, I wasn’t fast enough—”

“Shhhh,” Mother muttered weakly, causing blood to bubble from the tooth marks in her neck. “Shh . . .”

Lynn leaned over her, plugging the holes with her fingers. When Mother spoke she could feel the air pulsing underneath them.

“When they . . . do that. Best thing in a . . . dog fight—” Mother inhaled sharply. “Try to . . . shove your arm . . . down its throat. Can’t bite then.”

Lynn nodded, tears dropping down onto Mother’s upturned face. “Okay, Mother. I’ll remember that.”

“Didn’t know if I . . . had told you that . . . should work . . . but my hands . . . were full.” Her last words faded away, and Lynn hunched closer, desperate for more.

But all she heard was the death rattle.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Six

T
wilight had fallen by the time Lynn had made a binding for her ankle out of Mother’s shirt. She felt like a vulture as she stripped Mother’s body of anything useful—knife, matches, even the hair tie she’d been using. Nothing should be wasted. Scavenging from bodies was nothing new to Lynn, but taking Mother’s shirt from her as a cold sleet began brought her to her knees. She cried in long, gasping breaths that ripped through her body. Her knees slipped in the blood-soaked mud, and she fell face forward into the muck, where she saw her rifle.

She crawled toward it, wiping it as clean as she could on her shirt. The wind was gusting now, spitting freezing rain into her face and forming her hair into dark icicles around her face. She braced herself against the barrel of the gun and rose to her feet. Agony shot up her leg the second she tried to put any weight on her ankle. Bulging, swollen flesh puffed out from between the strips that she’d used to bind it.

Lynn heard muffled sounds in the grass between the gusts of the wind, and she looked at the pieces of venison still strewn around them. They were drawing predators. She grabbed Mother by the armpits and dragged her away from the circle of blood and meat. Her legs were useless; she settled for crawling, dragging Mother’s corpse behind her. It took an hour for her to get to the driveway. The gravel bit into her flesh as she struggled to pull her own weight and Mother’s.

She pulled Mother’s body under the shelter of a pine tree and rested. The pine offered a little cover from the sleet, and she hoped that the smell might help mask their human scent. She was covered in blood and to an animal nose, Mother would already smell like death. They came and went through the night, fighting over the pieces of salted venison. At one point she heard two raccoons screaming at each other and then the shattering of glass. The smokehouse door had been open. She cracked her head against the trunk of the tree in frustration. All their meat was gone.

Shock had its way with her once the adrenaline was gone and Lynn dozed. When something tried to drag Mother away by her foot Lynn snapped awake and fired blindly. She stared futilely into the black night, launching pinecones and curses at any noises she heard once she’d run out of bullets. When pink stained the sky, she saw that Mother’s eyes were frozen open.

It was two days before she admitted that she would not be able to dig the grave. Her hobbled efforts had yielded a hole a barely a foot deep in the frozen ground. She’d never be able to get Mother deep enough to keep the coyotes from digging her up. The skin around her ankle was green with bruising, the hollow pounding of it echoed in her ears as she dragged herself around on her elbows hour after hour, checking on Mother’s body and attempting to claw away at the ground.

Leaving Mother to the coyotes was unthinkable, burying her impossible. After a long debate, Lynn pulled Mother into what was left of the smokehouse. The left window was broken, the door hung open. Clumps of dried mud formed a path where animals had tromped through the soaked yard to get their share. The few hooks left hanging from the beams had errant strips of meat clinging to them, peppered with teeth marks. Some were large and clearly canine. Tiny mice teeth had nibbled the pieces near the rafters.

Lynn laid Mother on the floor, looking upward through the hole she’d been cutting in the ceiling the day before. Thanks to Mother, Lynn knew what poetic justice was, and a sad smile tugged at her mouth as she used a match taken from the body of a man Mother had shot. The old wood of the outbuilding caught without hesitation, and the plume of smoke that reached into the sky would be visible to the south, Lynn knew. She sat in the tall grass with her injured ankle folded beneath her, and the rifle across her knees, almost hoping that someone would come.

The fire burned hot and fast, bringing down the building in a shower of sparks and leaving behind a pile of coals with no hint of bone among them. Once the last red ember had winked out, Lynn lurched down the stairs and to her cot in misery. She curled into the fetal position and faced the wall, her throbbing ankle resting on top of her healthy foot. The puffy flesh that rose from the top of her makeshift bandage pulsed against the fabric, fighting for the freedom to swell further. She would find no peace in sleep while it throbbed, but she pulled her pillow over her face to muffle her sobs.

She did not gather water for ten days.

Fear drove her from the tomb of the basement. A nightmare, rampant with images of men filing out of the fields and dipping their buckets into her pond had brought her up from her well of grief and pain. Her ankle was not broken; she could put more weight on it. She fashioned a splint for herself by snapping a wooden yardstick in half and binding the two strips to either side of her foot. It wasn’t a cure, but she could hobble well enough to take care of herself.

She needed to get wood downstairs, the tiny pile next to the stove that had kept her alive while she mourned was gone, the level of water in the purified basement tank lower than what she cared for. The mental list of chores assembled in her head made Lynn feel better. The weight of purpose and responsibility helped to erase the feel of Mother’s frozen hand glancing against her hair as Lynn pulled her into the smokehouse.

“‘
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live
.’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” Lynn said to herself as she tightened her bootlaces around the homemade splint.

The sight of trampled ground around the perimeter of the pond brought her rifle to the ready, safety off. Large coyote prints crisscrossed freely, brave and confident. Smaller tracks littered the shallower bank, where raccoons had been. Among them all, standing out sharply, was a pair of boot prints. Lynn stared at them, fear rising in her throat. By the depth of the print, he’d stood there a while.

Anger joined the fear as she imagined him surveying the property, dragging his eyes over her house while she lay injured and grieving in the basement. She heard something behind her and whirled, frightening a rabbit that had come to drink. The wildlife had become bold with no one to defend the pond, no shots ringing out over its placid surface.

Lynn made the trek to the barn and retrieved her buckets. Pain shot through her foot at the extra weight of ten gallons of water but she struggled up the bank in spite of it, teeth gritted. There was no one to cover her, so she strapped her rifle to her back and hoped that she could be quick if the man returned.

Water seen to, she went back to the basement, unhooked the hinged window, and tossed wood through the hole until her arms couldn’t take it anymore. With two people, the job had never felt hard. But Lynn was alone and injured.

She gathered blankets, extra ammunition, and a pillow. While the weather was warm, she would stay on the roof. Keeping a continuous watch would be impossible, but she could at least make her presence known. The man had been alone, of that she was sure. Whether he was only a traveler come to fill his bucket, or a scout sent by the party that had tried to overwhelm her and Mother, she did not know. Whoever he was, she would be ready if he returned.

Instead of men she saw dogs, and she blew the head off the first coyote that came to the pond for a drink. Boredom had taken a toll as she waited for the return of the mysterious man, but the still-kicking corpse of the coyote filled her with satisfaction. The second coyote came to investigate hours later, and she took him in the rear leg. He made it nearly a mile from the house before collapsing, which brought others out to him. She made short work of two and picked off the slowest ones as the pack bolted away.