In a Handful of Dust

“There was, back when the Shortage first happened. Plenty, to hear Nora tell it. But people were panicking here, same as back home. Mother said when things first went down it was chaos. In a city this size, with the hotels filled with those who didn’t belong, it turned downright nasty. Those that lived here claimed their water for themselves.”

“So what happened?”

“Those who didn’t belong were tossed into the desert, but they didn’t go easy. Nora said there was so much blood the sand was like mud, and people sinking into it up to their ankles while they begged to stay.”

Lucy reached for the bottle she had beside her bed, though she hadn’t adjusted to the taste of the water yet. The burning heat of the desert was a fresh memory, and the image of desperate people driven to madness made her clutch the bottle all the more tightly. “They all die?”

“Seems someone among the outcasts was no idiot, and they made their way over to a place called Lake Mead. Lost a lot on the walk. Nora said there were buzzards in a straight line in the sky. People must’ve been dropping every few feet.”

Lucy had seen enough buzzards in her time, their black wings and long, slow descents marking the final resting place of someone unlucky. “That’s horrible.”

“They weren’t the only ones who headed to the lake. There were plenty of people those days that didn’t like everything this city stood for, and the things that went on in it. So when the people who lived in the City of Sin made judgment calls about who got to survive after the Shortage, it didn’t set well with those who had took up at the lake. When the exiles straggled in, there was no sympathy for the city dwellers among either group, and a common enemy makes for fast friends.

“They came back at night and went after those who had killed their loved ones. Nora said if she had thought the sand was mud before, then the streets were rivers that night.

“The people from the lake scoured the city, took every gun they found, adding to their own strength and ensuring any revenge the people of Las Vegas tried to take would be of the unarmed kind. Nora says still if anyone from the city tries to take the pass to Lake Mead, they get a warning shot. But only sometimes.”

“So all the water they’ve got access to is what’s in the hotel tanks, the stored pool water and such. If they run out…”

“If they run out, they’re dead, and I’ve got no idea how much is left. But the fact they’ll let a stranger like me clear areas where there’s old water stored says a lot.”

Threads of thought spun webs in Lucy’s brain, and when she spoke again it was with a hesitant voice. “Ben says there was a bad wave of cholera back when he was born. For all they know the water in those hotels they’ve been cut off from is infected with Lord knows what all.”

“There’d only be one way to find out.”‘

“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”

“Well, cheer up. They won’t risk losing us—we’ve got wombs,” Lynn said darkly.

“You really think Lander would have one of his own men drink water that could kill them?”

“I think Lander would pour poison down his mother’s throat if it served his purposes.”

The thin bank of clouds moved on and the moon shone into their room, shining brightly on the two women so far from their home. Lucy swallowed hard, fighting back tears.

“Ben says I spoke up too early, that I shouldn’t have told I can witch. He says the men on the road would’ve helped us anyway, on account of us being women, and I was stupid to give away my secret so soon.”

The words tumbled out into the darkness, hot and sticky in her mouth, leaving as much of an aftertaste as the Las Vegas water. “If I hadn’t told, they might not try so hard to keep us here. They’ll never let us go now. Not when I could be the only thing that keeps them from dying.”

“Well, Ben’s a short idiot. Letting us go is one thing and us leaving is another.”

The giggles started in Lucy’s midsection and worked their way upward, erupting only when she pictured the look on Ben’s face if he knew Lynn had called him a short idiot. Lynn glanced over.

“Not a lot to laugh about.”

“No,” Lucy admitted, wiping the last tears from her face. “There’s not. Shit, Lynn, what’re we gonna do?”

“We’re gonna get out of here before I’m pregnant and you’re failing to thrive.”

Lucy did not sleep well. Dreams filled with bloodied sand and dark drops on black pavement kept bringing her back to consciousness to take deep breaths of the fetid hotel air.

“I’m getting up,” she said to Lynn, moments before the sun began to streak the sky pink. Lynn muttered something from the other bed but didn’t stir. She was not the type to sleep in, and her fatigue was a measure of how drained her body still was.