In a Handful of Dust

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.”