In a Handful of Dust

Fletcher laughed and put both his hands up in surrender. “All right then, little lady. I learned a long time ago not to get in the way of a woman wearing that expression.”

“A long time ago? How old are you?” Lucy blurted out.

The surprise that crossed his face caused her to immediately apologize. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess that’s not something you’re supposed to ask people, huh?”

“No, it’s all right,” he said quickly. “Too many things go unanswered these days. I’d guess I’m a little over forty.”

“You’d guess?” Lynn asked, sauntering over in the dying light. “You don’t know?”

“Certain things slip away from you, when you’re on the road as long as I have been,” Fletcher said. “You harbor any doubts as to your own age?”

“I’m twenty-seven,” Lynn said without hesitation, but Lucy was pretty sure she was actually twenty-six.

“I’m sixteen,” Lucy volunteered. “At least… I think?” She looked to Lynn, whose brow creased slightly.

“I thought you were seventeen?”

“Either way, your calculations disprove my assumption that you’re mother and daughter,” Fletcher said, glancing between them.

“Not by blood,” Lynn said. “But we are family.”

“Family is made all kinds of ways, especially now,” Fletcher said.

“What about your own?” Lucy asked. “You said you’re looking for your wife?”

“That story is best told setting down,” Fletcher said. “If Lynn here can take a leap of faith and trust me.”

Lucy held her tongue for once and looked to Lynn. The older woman was watching Fletcher intently, her eyes boring into his own as if she’d be able to discern his motives by staring him down.

“You come in here and doctor our horse when you could’ve taken a healthy mount. You hang around all day sneaking our names out of us, and where we’re from, though what good that is to you, I don’t know. Now you want to stay and tell us a bedtime story. Why?”

A flicker of a smile chased across his mouth, but Lucy saw Fletcher make an effort to squelch it. “’Cause I like you,” he said, which made Lynn flinch. “Both of you,” he added, including Lucy with a nod of his head, though he kept his eyes on Lynn. “And it’s not so much where you came from I’m interested in as your destination. No gentleman would allow two girls from Ohio to cross the mountains alone.”

Lynn folded her arms in front of her. “Who says we’re going over the mountains?”

“Uh…” Lucy almost felt intrusive breaking into the adults’ conversation; the tie between their eyes was so strong it was nearly palpable. “I think I might’ve let that one slip.” Lynn shot her a glare, and Lucy shrugged. “Sorry.”

“The little one could use some lessons on obfuscation,” Fletcher said.

“Be that as it may,” Lynn said so slowly Lucy realized she didn’t know what obfuscation meant either, “you expect me to believe you’re not looking for anything in return?”

All traces of humor slipped away when Fletcher answered. “I understand you’ve been on a hard road, and I don’t doubt my wife has seen the same trials. I’ll help you—one stranger to another—in the hopes that somewhere, someone is doing the same for her. If I can’t find her, the best I can do is believe in karma.”

Lucy and Lynn exchanged a glance, Lynn’s cold blue eyes flashing off Lucy’s brown ones and reading her answer in a moment. “All right,” she relented. “You can stay, but know that we’ll both be sleeping with our guns.”

“Wouldn’t expect any different,” Fletcher said smoothly.

“And keep the karma talk to yourself,” Lynn added.

Fletcher raised an eyebrow at Lucy, but she only shrugged and moved to help Lynn unpack their bedrolls from the horses. Brown Horse was favoring her tender hoof as she stood. The vinegarsoaked wrapping had turned the dust underneath her to a pungent mud. Lucy leaned against her, running her hand along the mare’s neck. Spatter took offense and jostled against her, vying for Lucy’s affection.

“Don’t mean anything by it,” she assured him, taking another yucca shoot from her pocket. She scratched Spatter’s nose absently while he crunched on it, her gaze drawn over his back to where Fletcher and Lynn were making camp. They moved in circles around each other, his slow and sure as he went about making food, hers erratic and nervous while she attempted to set their beds up while simultaneously keeping an eye on him.

Lucy smiled to herself and rested her head against Spatter, the warmth of his coat soaking into her skin. She knew Lynn didn’t want to believe in Fletcher’s talk of karma. While he might be doing good for strangers in the hope fate would be kind to his lost wife, Lynn’s own past was littered with bodies. And she was always on the lookout for whoever was coming to collect the debt.

“I wasn’t much older than Lucy here when the Shortage came about,” Fletcher said, the moonlight bouncing off the whiteness of his teeth as he spoke. “I was set up nice in Montana with my brothers and our parents until cholera wiped them out. I couldn’t trust our water source anymore, so I moved on, got it in my head that going south was the answer. No winters, right?”