Not a Drop to Drink

  “Yeah?” Lynn waited for him to continue, irritated that Neva had come up in conversation yet again.

  “She tried to make some kind of doll out of dried grass and sticks, but when I picked it up, it fell apart. Neva went to bed and cried. She said she has nothing to offer her little girl.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maybe, but I kinda know how she feels. I almost didn’t come over here today for the same reasons. I didn’t . . . I wasn’t supposed to be the one in charge when we left the city, you know. Bradley was the strong one, the smart one, the one who knew what to do. We got out here and I could barely keep them alive. I’m learning but I still don’t have much to offer, especially to you.”

  Lynn nestled her head underneath his chin. “You survived. You kept them both alive. You’re doing something right.”

  “And I found you,” he added. “That’s pretty right, I think.”

  “I think so too,” she said quietly, the sound of his heartbeat loud in her ear.

  And they slept.

  Lynn woke to the sound of Eli loading wood in the stove, the soft morning light rendering the basement the same gray as his eyes.

  “I can do that,” she said. “I know you can,” Eli answered, but kept loading it anyway.

  She moved to the edge of the bed, where the pillow still smelled like him, and decided to lie there a few more minutes. He’d already dressed in his heavier clothes and was rubbing his hands against the chill of the basement. She burrowed farther under the covers, indulging herself in an unaccustomed lack of responsibility.

  “Gets cold down here quick, once the fire goes low,” Eli said.

  “Yeah, mornings can be chilly. Does your place hold heat okay?”

  “I’ve got no complaints.” He shut the door to the stove and Lynn watched him for a moment, glad that she no longer had to hide her interest. He returned her gaze and smiled. “Do you ever wonder what it’s like somewhere else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like somewhere without subzero winters?”

  “Mother would talk about going south sometimes,” Lynn said. “But I never wanted to.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause then we’d be like any other wanderers, carrying the only water you have and hoping you find more before long.”

  “You’d rather have your pond and tough out the winters?”

  “Much rather.”

  Eli nodded. “When we left the city I was terrified, and we had a destination in mind. I can’t imagine walking without a goal.”

  “How long were you out there, before you found the stream?”

  “Weeks. Maybe even a month. I tried to keep track of the days but pretty soon I was measuring time more by how big Nev’s belly was getting, not in sunrises.”

  “See many people out there?”

  “Mostly it was just gunshots, some of them aimed at our feet. Although one whizzed right by my ear. No shout, nothing. Just a bullet coming for my head. I didn’t even know we were close to somebody’s water.”

  Lynn could see it. Eli slogging through the last of the falling leaves at an incredibly slow pace so that Neva could keep up. Lucy probably trailing behind because of her swollen feet, maybe looking for grasshoppers as she went. And then a gunshot . . . Lynn recoiled as if she’d pulled the trigger herself. “Most people will at least give you a warning shot, like the ones you had—the ones aimed at your feet.”

  “But not everybody.”

  “No, not everybody.” Lynn got out of bed, put on her warmer clothes, and started a pot of coffee.

  “That’s tempting,” Eli said, watching her. “But I should probably go. Neva will be worried if she wakes up and I’m not back.”

  “Right,” Lynn said, focusing on the pot of water. “Do you ever . . . hold her like that? Like with me last night?”

  “No,” Eli said immediately. “It’s not like that between us. I’m boy enough to know she’s beautiful, and man enough to know she’ll always be my brother’s wife.”

  Lynn smiled at his honesty. “I had to ask.”

  Eli opened his mouth to answer her but there was a pounding on the door. Lynn grabbed her handgun and went up the stairs. Seconds later, Lucy came bouncing down. “Hey, Uncle Eli!”

  Lynn followed more slowly with Stebbs on her tail. “Hey, Uncle Eli indeed,” he said wryly, looking between the two younger people. “Would it be naïve of me to assume that you left late last night and came back early this morning?”

  Lynn blushed and began making up the cot, then realized she was bringing attention to the fact that there was only one cot to be made. “Don’t start,” she said tightly to Stebbs.

  “As much as I’d love to spend the morning teasing you, I’ve got a serious question for you both.”

  Lynn stopped making the bed. “What is it?”

  “How long has it been since either one of you saw smoke to the south?”

  “Weeks, easy,” Lynn answered quickly, having checked every morning.

  Eli glanced at her, thinking. “I don’t remember any recently, but to be honest I don’t always look.”

  “I’m with you,” Stebbs said to Lynn. “It’s been a while, and nothing’s surviving without heat in this weather.”

  “You think they’re gone?”

  “Gone or dead.”

  Eli leaned back in his chair. “I feel like shit for saying so, but that’s a relief.”

  “It’s a relief, period,” Lynn said as she tried to place the unfamiliar feeling of warmth that had spread through her chest at the sight of the people she cared about gathered safely under her roof.

  Sixteen

  Lynn couldn’t remember a winter that had been so content. The plentiful snowfall meant that there was no need to break the ice on the pond to gather water. When they were thirsty, Lynn and Lucy gathered snow in buckets and warmed it on the stove, or ate it in frozen mouthfuls, after pelting each other with it first.

  With the threat from the south removed, Lynn joined Lucy on the ground and showed her the different tracks in the snow. Deer and raccoon, the occasional flying leaps of a squirrel that left a sporadic, clumsy trail. The padded track of the coyotes that had been making appearances again. Lucy learned fast and wanted to know more. Lynn taught her how to distinguish the different birdcalls of the hardier birds that stayed for the winter, and how to make a grunt call with her cupped hands to attract bucks.

  Lucy was thriving, her thin arms and legs now stocky with muscle from fighting her way through the snowdrifts in search of her next adventure. Lynn followed her, plowing after the little footprints and warning her off the icy pond on the warmer days. They made the occasional trip to Stebbs’, though it made Lynn anxious to go. Lucy told her no one wanted a pond that was frozen solid, and they agreed to only be gone a little while. Lynn found her worries melting away once in Stebbs’ comforting presence, and they usually stayed long past her time limit.

  Eli visited often, making the arduous trek from the stream even on the coldest of days. Lucy would shower him with attention for a while after he showed up, then be distracted by something new, leaving them to talk privately and hold each other’s gloved hands. Eli’s visits were short by necessity. Neva liked some moments alone, but her fear of the wilderness didn’t allow those moments to stretch into hours.

  “There’s a fine line between enjoying some alone time and just being downright lonely,” Eli said as they trailed in Lucy’s wake one snowy afternoon.

  “Do you think she needs Lucy back?” Lynn asked, even though she wasn’t ready to make the offer. “I don’t want Neva to hate me, but I want what’s best for Lucy.”

  “Right now—and I hate to say this—being with Neva is not it,” Eli answered. “She’s not entirely stable. She carries that gun that you gave her inside her bra.”

  “That hardly makes her unstable,” Lynn said, letting go of his hand to pat the sidearm she had tucked into her coverall’s pocket. “It’s common sense.”


  “Maybe for a girl like you it is, but Neva hadn’t even seen a gun until we got here. Now she sleeps with one?”

  Lynn shrugged off his concerns, and they walked quietly hand in hand for a while. “Do you think she’d come over here? Maybe she’d leave the stream now that the men from the south are gone.”

  “It’s possible. I can ask.”

  “Stebbs says there’s a warm spell coming. Maybe then?”

  “Maybe.” Eli squeezed Lynn’s hand and stopped her in her tracks. He held her face in his hands for a moment, tucking stray strands of hair back under her cap. “Can we stop talking about Neva for just a minute?”

  Lynn agreed with a smile and leaned forward for her kiss.

  A small voice taunted them in the distance. “Lynn and Eli sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

  Eli turned to her, his voice rolling over the snowdrifts. “Do you even know what that spells, brain wave?”

  “Uh . . . I think it spells that you’re in love.”

  “Hmm . . .” Eli turned back to Lynn, his hands still on her face. “She might be onto something.”

  Lucy popped up beside them. “Can I have hot chocolate?”

  “Race ya!” Eli challenged Lucy and they started for the house at a dead run that turned into a rolling ball of clothing when Lucy took him out at the knees. Lynn followed more slowly, noting the muted edges of the drifts. The snow was melting, imperceptibly at first, but it was going. Soon the spring would bring warm temperatures, mud everywhere, and a high water mark in the pond due to runoff.

  For the moment, life was good.

  Though she knew spring was close, the nights were still long and Lynn’s dreams were not as pleasant as her days. Sleep came easily but didn’t last. After one nightmare, Lynn woke with Mother on her mind. Lucy’s even breathing filled the room, and she envied the little girl her deep sleep and innocent dreams. She unwrapped her legs from the sheets, pulled her boots and coat on, and silently slipped up the basement stairs and out the back door.

  There was no moon. The utter blackness of the outdoors descended upon her and swallowed all her thoughts, leaving her aware only of her surroundings and what could hide in it. She unshouldered her rifle and sat on the stone step, grateful for the familiar worries of something she could control. Lucy’s sleeping form, curled and content, slipped through her mind and she tightened her grip on the rifle, eyes roaming the black expanse of the night.

  Her gaze drifted to the south from habit, where a pale glow made the tree line of Stebbs’ woods visible. “What the hell?” Lynn was so taken aback that she spoke aloud, her words trickling away into the night.

  She thought for a second that she had worried away the entire night, but the sun wouldn’t be rising in the south, and the glow she saw there wasn’t the natural pink streaks of the morning. It was a sickly yellow, its pale aura reaching only past the stark black of Stebbs’ treetops, and shedding light no farther.

  Lynn studied it with a grim face, her mouth tight. She clicked the rifle safety off, all traces of fatigue stolen from her in a breath. This light was unfamiliar and strange.

  Which meant it was dangerous.

  Stebbs appeared on the horizon a few days later, his limping trail snaking behind him. Lucy had learned quickly how to spot his track, the telltale drag of his injured foot left an easily distinguishable pattern in the snow. For weeks in the dead of winter, he had created crisscross paths, making a game for her to find the right one that ended with him, and a bear hug. She ran toward him the second she spotted him, abandoning Lynn to the task of scraping ice off the doorstep alone.

  “Melt giving you much trouble?” Stebbs asked when he made it to the house, Lucy tucked safely in the crook of his arm.

  “Not bad. I’m tired of the refreezing in the night, though. Lucy fell walking out the door this morning. I can’t have her breaking a leg.”

  “No, ’cause then someone would have to carry her around everywhere they went,” Stebbs said to the little girl, who leaned her head against his shoulder and giggled. “What a chore.”

  He sat her down and Lucy tugged on his hand. “Come inside and eat with us and see what I made. Lynn’s teaching me to knit.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Trying,” Lynn said, swatting the little girl’s backside as she ran past her down the stairs. “This one’s got the patience of a gnat.”

  “And Eli’s teaching me to play guitar,” Lucy added.

  “Again, trying,” Lynn said to Stebbs, as she tossed wood onto the stove and opened a jar of vegetables. Once they were settled and eating, Stebbs brought up his reason for visiting.

  “There’s another pack of coyotes in the area.”

  “I know,” Lynn said between bites. “We heard them last night.” The frantic yelping of the pack had brought Lucy into Lynn’s cot, her small body quivering in fear.

  Lucy took a bite of her corn and looked from Stebbs to Lynn. “I thought you killed them all,” she said.

  “Can’t get all of ’em, little one. You’d best play closer to the house for a while,” Stebbs said. Lucy made a face but Lynn knew she would listen. The wild dogs scared the little city girl in a way that other, less obvious dangers didn’t.

  “The big one, you know . . .” Stebbs trailed off, watching to see if Lynn caught his meaning. “He’s still out there.”

  “You see him?”

  “No, but I’ve seen his track.”

  Lynn didn’t want to speak about what had happened to Mother in front of Lucy. “Why don’t you run off and see if you can’t find that toad in the pantry?”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “You think he’s still there?”

  “I thought I saw him when I went in for the vegetables. Take the flashlight, see if you can catch him.”

  Lucy jumped at the chance to use the coveted flashlight and disappeared behind the woolen blanket separating the two rooms. Lynn offered what was left on her plate to Stebbs, having lost her appetite. “You think he’d come up to the house again?”

  “Not to be crass, but he’s found food here before. And Lucy would be an easy kill for a pack like the one I heard the other night.”

  “I’ll keep her close by,” Lynn assured him. “I hate keeping her inside though. There’s so little daylight as it is and this basement doesn’t let much in.”

  “That’s the next bit I wanted to talk to you about,” Stebbs said. “The harsh part of winter is over, and Eli is much more capable than he used to be.”

  “I know it,” Lynn said. “And I know what you’re driving at. We talked it over the other day, and he thinks maybe Neva will come here to see Lucy. We thought maybe they could readjust to each other kinda, before she moves over there.”

  “Sounds like a good idea. When?”

  “We thought next week maybe, once the weather breaks. You said it would be warmer soon?”

  “I’m counting on a total melt, then it’ll freeze up again and maybe one or two good snows before winter’s done with us.”

  Lynn ignored the dropping of her heart at the thought of Lucy leaving her. “After the melt then.” She glanced toward the blanket dividing the two rooms, where Lucy’s voice could be heard calling out for the toad she was looking for. “I saw something to the south, a few nights ago.”

  “What was that?”

  “There was a glow up in the sky. Kinda like the sun was trying to come up in the wrong place.”

  Stebbs’ mouth drew tight and his eyebrows came together. “What color was it?”

  “Yellow, I guess. It didn’t look right though, like the yellow of a dandelion or anything like that.”

  “More sickly?”

  Lynn nodded slowly. “Yeah . . . that’s a good word for it.”

  “And you saw it when?”

  “Just the other night, when there was no moon. Not since then.”

  “You probably wouldn’t, if there was any kind of moon in the sky, it would drown it out.”

  “Drown out what?”

 
“The glow of electricity from a small town or even a group of houses. On a black night it wouldn’t take much to light up the sky.”

  Lynn was quiet as Stebbs’ words drilled down inside of her to a place that was even darker than that moonless night had been. “They’re still alive then? The men from the south?”

  Stebbs nodded grimly. “If they’ve got generators to make electricity, then they’ve got heat, too. No need for fires.”

  Lynn closed her eyes against the thought. “Generators, huh? Assholes.”

  Lynn found herself bestowing small luxuries on Lucy. A new black button nose for Red Dog, the last cup of hot chocolate, a new pair of striped socks that she had knitted for her on the sly. The night before Neva’s arrival, Lucy stumbled for Lynn’s cot in the dark. Small, cold fingers found her face.

  “Can I sleep with you?”

  Lynn sighed and pretended to be irritated, but allowed Lucy to climb in beside her. Curled together in the dark, Lynn found the courage to broach the topic she’d been avoiding since Stebbs’ visit.

  “So tomorrow’s going to be a big day,” she said.

  Lucy’s voice, drowsy and content, hummed against her neck. “Wuzzat?”

  “Your mother is coming to see you.”

  “Okay.”

  “That all you got to say?”

  The small shoulders shrugged, and a light snoring soon followed. Lynn wrapped her arms protectively around the small frame. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “I promise.”

  Lynn slept in much later than usual, as reluctant to face the day ahead of them as Lucy was. Lucy resisted all attempts to wake her. Lynn had expected resentment, possibly even outright anger toward the mother who had been absent for so long. But the blanket-covered form in the cot was ignoring Lynn completely, presenting her with her back and pretending not to hear when she told her it was time to get up.

  “All right, little girl,” Lynn said as she pulled on her knitted cap. “I’m going outside. I might hunt a bit but I’ll stay within sight of the house. Once you get up keep an eye out for Stebbs. He’s coming too, you know.”