In a Handful of Dust

Fletcher was silent a long while. Lucy was very aware of the horses nickering to one another, the sound of the water tripping over the rocks. When he raised his eyes, he looked to Lynn. “Do you trust me?”

“Not yet.”

“And if I said I knew of someplace for you to go, a safe location with water and good people, what would you say?”

“I’d say I need to sleep on it.”

Hope chased the panic through her body, making Lucy dizzy. “What do you mean?”

Fletcher looked at both of them before answering, studying their faces. “There’s a place similar to what you mentioned—desal plants, safety, a variation of normal.”

“This place, it in California?” Lynn asked.

Fletcher leaned in closer to the two of them and dropped his voice. “It’s called Sand City. They had a desal plant way before the Shortage and a small enough population to take care of themselves. You have to understand the majority of people didn’t think the water situation would prove to be as dire as the predictions, but those with foresight moved to places like Sand City. Out here in the west, water isn’t as easy to come across as it might’ve been for you in Ohio. The few decent people that are left tend to band together for protection.”

“You come across these groups of nice people often?” Lynn sounded skeptical.

“Less and less. But last time I was in Sand City, they were doing fine.”

“You’ve been there?” Lucy was filled with the urge to leap up and touch Fletcher just to be nearer to the idea of California.

“A few times,” Fletcher said. “If you use my name to vouch for you, it’ll gain you a spot there. I’d lead you right up to the gate myself if I could, but I’m headed north after we cross the mountains.”

“We?” Lynn said, though Lucy thought she sounded more amused at Fletcher’s assumptions than annoyed.

“Indeed,” he said. “We’re headed in the same direction. And even though I may not be the most imposing figure, even one man in your group will make the two of you a less desirable target.”

“And you gain what exactly?”

“A good deed done,” he said. “And the full benefit of your whimsical conversation, of course.”

Lynn ignored the joke and looked at Lucy. “What do you think?”

“I like having a name to put to it, a place to go,” Lucy said. “It feels more real, like we’re actually heading for something.”

“And him?”

Lucy looked at Fletcher in the white light of the moon, the easy way he’d propped himself against the saddle on the ground, the innocent look of the pale curls his hat had hidden. But his hands were big, and there was no question he was stronger than both of them together. The road had sculpted him into hard muscle, the lines easily seen beneath the worn fabric of his shirt. Placing their trust in him would be a gamble, and she knew it went against Lynn’s better judgment.

But Lucy had grown up safe and sheltered, and she believed people were good. “I trust him,” she said, holding his gaze.

What she didn’t add was that she’d hold the devil’s hand if he offered to help her over the mountains.

Twenty

They hadn’t been in Colorado long before the mountains asserted their presence, and their low line on the horizon could no longer be explained away as an ever-present storm front. The fact that their goal now had a name—Sand City—had buoyed Lucy through their first few days of traveling with Fletcher. But as the slim line of the mountains made itself evident, the weight in her stomach settled again, and she could not sleep.

Lynn was less worried about the mountains and more concerned with keeping one eye on Fletcher at all times, which had interfered with her rest. Hours after they had made camp Lucy would awake to find Lynn lying facing their companion, both eyes open and alert. Lucy knew Lynn’s mistrust was rooted in a lifetime of self-preservation and had only been reinforced by their unfortunate friendship with Joss. So far Fletcher had been everything he’d promised: a guide and a gentleman. But for all his effortless attempts at conversation, Lynn had remained aloof and disinterested.

Lucy would’ve been amused at Fletcher’s vain attempts to corner Lynn’s attention, but there was no room in her mind for anything other than the mountains. Whenever Lynn produced her well-worn map with their new route traced in faded pencil, Lucy’s heart never knew whether to be elated at their progress or dismayed as the continuous battle between what if and I can’t raged.