In a Handful of Dust

“Mostly,” Lucy said. “It’s just all the harder because I thought it was through.” The sight of Adam, one leg dangling limp and useless at his father’s side as he was carried away, had been bittersweet. He had lived, but what kind of life he would have in their world was yet to be seen.

“I thought it was done too. I even thought about putting out the fires.”

“That was downright hopeful of you.”

Lynn grunted, as she always did when Lucy teased her, but the hard lines of her mouth softened. “Stupid too.”

“You sleeping here again tonight?”

Lynn glanced at the chimney of their shared home, barely visible in the distance in the dying light. She sighed. “We’re needed here.” She stomped down her own area of grass and lay down. “Get some sleep,” she said brusquely, and rolled over, her braid dark with grime.

Lucy tossed a clod of dirt at her back. “You need a bath.”

“You need to go the hell to sleep,” Lynn shot back, but even in the dark, Lucy could hear the smile.

Adam’s father never got up the hill to their home. A rider found Devon, collapsed and weakened, when he heard Adam yelling for help, his voice hoarse from calling. Adam rode back to Vera’s in front of the stranger, his father crumpled against the man’s back. Stebbs pulled Devon off the horse, as Lucy helped Adam from the saddle on the other side.

“What happened?”

Adam’s lower lip quivered, but he kept the tears from falling. “Daddy got real tired, carrying me up the hill—said he needed to stop and rest a bit. I got sleepy, and when I woke up he was sitting all funny, and he couldn’t get himself up. I yelled and yelled, but no one came.”

“I found ’em,” the stranger in the saddle said. “Heard the boy calling. Sounded more like an injured animal than anything else. I was awful surprised when I came upon the two of them.”

“We thank you for it,” Stebbs said. “There’s plenty that woulda left ’em.”

“Left ’em or done worse,” the rider admitted.

“Can we give you something for your trouble? A drink?”

Lucy stiffened at the words. Water was like gold, and never offered freely to strangers. The man looked from Stebbs to Devon. “Don’t believe I’ll be drinking any of your water, no offense.”

“None taken.” Stebbs nodded curtly, and the stranger rode off, anxious to put miles between himself and them.

“Can you put him somewhere?” Stebbs nodded to Adam, who was still in Lucy’s arms. “I’ll take Devon.”

“What do you think, mister?” Lucy said to Adam, forcing fake cheer into her voice. “Want to camp out tonight?”

“Can I go to the healer lady’s house?”

“My grandma, you mean?” Lucy headed for the cabin, Adam’s body light in her arms. “Why you wanna go there for?”

“She fixed me before. I thought maybe she could finish it up now and make my leg better.”

Lucy swallowed hard before speaking. “Sweetie, didn’t anybody tell you that you won’t ever be using that leg again? It’s ruined.”

Adam shrugged. “Dad says it never hurts to ask. Worst anybody can say is no.”

Vera glanced up when Lucy walked through the door with her burden.

“Devon fell ill taking him home,” Lucy said as she laid Adam on the bed.

“Where’s Devon?” Vera had been at the table, poring over her notes again. A fresh patient meant new information, and she was on her feet in a second.

“Stebbs has him down with the sick.”

“How’d he get back here on foot with Adam?”

Lucy began tucking pillows under Adam’s shoulders to prop him up. “A man on a horse found them, brought them back here.”

“And where is this man?”

“Took off when he saw what we were dealing with.”

“Stebbs let him leave?”

The shock in her grandma’s voice got Lucy’s attention. She looked up to see that Vera had gone white, her fists clenched.

“Yeah, why?”

“If he picked it up from Devon, he’ll infect everyone he meets. Or die alone in the wilderness.”

Lucy glanced back at the little boy in the bed, his frightened eyes bouncing between the two women. “Let’s hope he didn’t catch it then.”

“Quick as this is moving, it’s a better bet to hope he dies alone.”

It fell to Carter and Lucy to deliver the news to Devon’s wife. The family lived on a remote hill, because Abigail’s mistrust of people ran deep, even more so than Lynn’s. She preferred to take her chances on the hillside, somewhere her family had a good view of everything around them, their own well, and no other houses in sight.

Lucy trudged up the incline, her calf muscles burning. “I don’t know how Devon could’ve made this climb carrying Adam even if he were healthy,” she said.

Carter wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I know she’s got her reasons, but damn, this is inconvenient for the rest of us.”

“Lynn says she’s got a right to live up here, if that’s what she wants.”

“And what do you say?”

Lucy tripped on a branch and muttered a curse. “I say she can’t expect help to come running if we can’t hear her yelling for it.” Her breath hitched in her chest, and she slid to the ground. “Sorry, I gotta stop.” Days of tending the ill had stripped her of strength.