In a Handful of Dust (18 page)

Lynn and Lucy nodded their heads in unison. “We thought the same,” Lucy said, as she picked stray bits of jerky from her teeth. “Getting away from the snows meant not having to cut wood.”

“But leaving somewhere familiar means walking blind for water,” Fletcher finished. “And water is the coin of the realm.”

“How’d you do it?” Lynn asked. “Did you even have a gun?”

“Started out with one. I’ve had a lot of things on this journey of mine that are lost now. A gun, some maps. My wife.”

“You were married when you were my age?”

“No, that came later. The gun and the maps were with me at the beginning though. Lost the first to a bunch of ruffians, and the second shortly thereafter. I was left for dead and the rains turned my maps into pulp before I came around. My coat grew some mold after that too.” He added the second fact as if it had just occurred to him.

“What’d you do?” Lucy asked.

“Found a new coat.”

Lynn snorted, and Lucy tossed a handful of dirt in her direction, before continuing. “I mean after that, Fletcher.”

“My options were to lie there and die, or keep going.” He locked eyes with Lucy, all traces of humor gone. “I kept going.”

“And ended up where?” Lynn asked.

“I never
ended
anywhere. I have yet to stop.”

“You mean you’ve been on the road since then?”

“Roads, fields, mountains. You name it, I’ve traveled it.”

Lucy bounced a rock from hand to hand while she spoke. “So you’re saying in all that time you never found a place to settle?”

Fletcher said, “There have been plenty with access to water and decent shelter. I even discovered a cellar stocked with canned food, but I took what I needed for a few days’ journey and left it behind.”

“Why would you do that?” Lucy asked.

“Because I’ve learned a lesson, and more than once. If you have something, someone will take it from you, and with the loss comes suffering. It’s best to be beholden to nothing.”

“What about your wife?” Lynn asked, her voice seeming to slice through the air after Fletcher’s slow, rolling tone.

Another smile from Fletcher, this one so sad Lucy felt tears prickling her eyes. “She was the exception.”

“You’ve been looking for her all this time?” The question bubbled up on a wave of emotion, and Lucy’s voice trembled to stay under control.

“My best estimate is fifteen years,” Fletcher said evenly.

“That is so wonderful,” she said. The tears brimmed on Lucy’s eyelashes, and she hoped if they fell Lynn wouldn’t notice.

“And stupid,” Lynn countered, though her voice didn’t carry the same bite as the words. “It’s a long shot, walking around hoping to cross paths with her.”

Fletcher gave a lazy shrug. “I have nothing better to do.”

Lynn looked up to the stars and rolled her eyes, but Lucy thought she detected the faintest hint of tears reflected there.

“So that’s why you live on your feet? So you don’t get used to having anything?” Lucy asked.

“I find enough to eat for the day, I stay near water when I see it, and I walk. And I rather like my hat,” he added. “It’s useful.”

“We had a place in Ohio, a pond, a house. . . .” Lucy’s voice trailed off as she remembered her bedspread, Red Dog lying alone in the middle of it the night she’d left.

“Why’d you leave?” Fletcher encouraged her.

“Polio,” she said simply, he throat closing entirely over the word and summoning images of Maddy’s contorted body, the haunted look in Carter’s eyes.

“Escaping a sickness, that’s a common story. You leave any behind?”

“Her grandmother and an older man,” Lynn answered. “They had been on vacation from it.”

Lucy’s felt a laugh chasing the tears, and she quickly explained to Fletcher. “Vaccination, she means. Vera and Stebbs were vaccinated against polio.”

Fletcher nodded. “Well, that’s very similar to being on vacation from it, I suppose,” he said, and Lucy giggled, which forced a tear to drop.

Lynn’s eyebrows came together. “What’d I say?”

Fletcher skipped her question to ask another of his own. “Why did you come so far? You’re a long way from home.”

Lynn nodded to Lucy. Whether her reservations about Fletcher were disappearing or she assumed he would finagle the truth out of them eventually, she didn’t know. “We decided to head for California,” she said, the word tripping off her tongue as if the speaking of it could bring it closer.

“California’s a big place. Can you be any more specific?”

“We heard it’s normal there, the kind of normal from before.”

Fletcher shook his head. “Sorry, ladies, but there’s nothing normal about California.”

Panic flared through Lucy’s system and she looked to Lynn, who had fixed Fletcher with a cold stare. “We heard there were some places where they had desalinization plants.” She pronounced the word carefully. “Seems you can get the salt out of seawater if you got the right tools.”

“How determined are you to find such a place?” Fletcher’s tone was suddenly as careful as Lynn’s.

“Very,” Lynn said.

“Enough to leave behind a good site in Nebraska,” Lucy added. “Enough to come this far.”

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.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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T
hey 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.

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.