In a Handful of Dust

She almost missed the humid heat of Illinois and the long, flat stretches of land. There she’d looked into the distance and seen heat rising up off the road in liquid waves. In Colorado the heat mirages couldn’t hide the fact that the mountains lay ahead of them. The sun disappeared behind their black peaks long before the rays were truly dead, and Lucy would covet the moments of sun the impassive mountains stole from her. At night she felt their presence as keenly as if she could see them. Although she knew it was only her imagination, it seemed every noise bounced back off those far walls and reverberated in her ears. The night noises of insects and the far-off calls of coyotes filled the dark hours.

The first night they heard the high-pitched yips of the wild dogs, Lynn bolted from her blankets, gun in hand. Fletcher was upright in a second, producing a knife Lucy had never even known he carriedfrom his bedroll.

“What?” He searched Lynn’s face, but she shushed him viciously. Lucy huddled under her blankets, the tiny corner of sleep she’d managed to find shattered.

The calls came again, the leader barking loud and long, the rest of the pack joining in a continuous howl as they ripped apart an animal out in the darkness. Fletcher slid his knife back into his bedroll.

“Coyotes don’t interfere with people,” he said. “Don’t let them steal your sleep.”

Lucy didn’t know how Fletcher could possibly believe Lynn was getting any sleep in the first place. Dark hollows were sculpted under her eyes, and her brows had been scrunched together for the past two days, something Lucy knew was a sure sign she had a headache.

Lynn moved over next to Lucy and laid her gun between them without speaking to Fletcher. He shrugged and curled back into a ball, dropping off to sleep in a moment. Lucy reached out and touched Lynn’s dark hair, offering comfort as well as searching for some. “He has no way of knowing how you lost your mom,” she said softly. “Don’t hold it against him for thinking coyotes don’t hurt people.”

“What I hold against him is how fast that knife came out, and one I didn’t know he had on him.”

Lucy rubbed some of Lynn’s hair between her fingers, letting its inky darkness entangle her hand. She didn’t want to think of Fletcher as anything other than friendly; his easy smile had won her over miles ago, and she wasn’t blind to the way he looked at Lynn, even if she was.

“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” she said.

“And he doesn’t think coyotes are anything to worry about,” Lynn shot back. “Here’s hoping you’re both right, ’cause I’m tired as hell.”

“Get some sleep,” Lucy said. “I’m awake.”

There was a long silence in which Lucy thought Lynn might have done exactly that. “I know you’re awake,” Lynn finally said, her voice low and heavy. “I almost believe you have been ever since we crossed into Colorado. Thought you trusted him?”

Lucy let Lynn’s hair fall from her fingers. “It’s not Fletcher keeping me up.”

“The mountains then?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, drawing out the single word as if she could pour all her anxiety into it and find escape.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to Fletcher coming along with us if I didn’t think there was some use for it,” Lynn said. “He’ll get us through those mountains better than I could have on my own, trust him or no.”

Lucy smiled a little to herself in the dark. “I think he would’ve followed us whether you said he could come or not.”

“Whatever the case is, he’s with us now. You don’t think on those mountains anymore.”

Lucy surprised herself by laughing aloud. “Yeah, right. I won’t think about the mountains. How about you start trusting Fletcher?”

The second she said it she wished the words back into her mouth, and the tight silence enveloping their little camp made her think Fletcher was awake too, and listening for the answer. But instead of getting angry she felt Lynn’s light touch on her cheek, and soft words came out of the darkness.

“I don’t understand when you started being so scared of everything, little one.”

It was a question Lucy didn’t have an answer for, even though the road gave her plenty of time to ponder it. She remembered days from long ago, when her legs seemed too short to take her all the places she wanted to go, and Lynn had fought to keep her within a safe distance of their house. The ripples of fish in the pond would send her leaping into the water before she could swim, the call of a hawk drew her to the fields to see what it was hunting.

Then she lost Eli, her uncle, whose face was clearer in her memory than her own mother’s. He had left one evening from Grandma Vera’s cabin by the stream with a light kiss on her forehead. And then he was gone, with a pile of stones in the clearing to replace him, resting forever beside the infant brother she had never known.