Mindy McGinnis - Not a Drop to Drink

As Lynn climbed the ladder to the top of a tank, she remembered Mother’s story, how she had run a hose from the tap and left it running into the tanks right up until the water had been turned off. Lynn knew that her first few sips had been from those tanks of tap water, clear as crystal. But she could not remember. The only water she’d ever known was laced with dirt and tasted slightly of fish. And she was grateful for every drop.

She twisted the plastic cap off the top of the tank and dumped both buckets into it, listening to the tone of the falling water change as the level rose. This tank was the unpurified pond water. The other stood half full of water that had already been rotated out to the tin sheets, and would be drawn off through the winter to fill the smaller thousand-gallon tank that was in the basement, where they lived.

Lynn snapped the cap back on the tank and sat astride it for a moment, weary at the sight of all the work waiting for them. She hadn’t slept well last night, staring at the cinder-block walls of the basement but seeing only the twin spires of smoke in the sky. Mother had not slept at all. Lynn could hear her fingers tapping against the barrel of her gun as she’d finally drifted down to sleep. Yet Mother was on the roof before Lynn was even out of her cot, eyeing the horizon and waiting for a target.

Lynn cut through the long grass of the yard to the rusty antennae on the side of the house, ignoring the thistles that snagged her jeans as she went. She was covered in a thin film of sweat by the time she climbed to the roof. She swiped a few drops out of her eyes and slipped to the shingles beside Mother.

“Warm day.”

“Good for purifying,” Mother said idly, her eye still tight to the scope. Lynn slid her rifle strap off her shoulder, bringing the gun around to see what Mother was seeing.

“No smoke this morning,” she said. “Do you think—”

A persistent buzzing sliced through the air. All her muscles tensed, but years of handling guns prevented Lynn from jolting the trigger. “What is that?”

Mother’s thin line of a mouth turned upside down. “It’s Stebbs,” she said. “He’s got a log splitter.”

Lynn turned her scope to the southwest where she could see their only neighbor, his dark silhouette barely discernible from the edge of the forest.

Mother’s voice was hard, matching the shape of her mouth. “Your leg bothering you more as you get older? How far did you have to go to find that?” she asked, and Lynn knew the questions weren’t meant for her.

“A log splitter,” Lynn repeated, finally drawing Mother’s attention away from Stebbs. “What’s it do?”

“Splits logs.”

Lynn switched out her rifle for the binoculars to get a better view of Stebbs and his log splitter, watching as he heaved an enormous tree stump onto it. The splitter reduced it to half, then fourths, in seconds. “Looks handy,” she said.

“I’m sure it is. Also runs on gasoline. Not easy to find.”

“We’ve got the tank.” Lynn gestured toward the metal tank nestled beside the barn, completely obscured by juniper bushes.

“That’s for emergencies.”

“Emergencies.” Lynn reiterated. “What would make you use the gas?”

“The truck.” Mother didn’t look at her as she answered. “To go south.”

“I won’t go,” Lynn said, fists instinctively clenching against an unknown fear of things not seen. “I won’t leave.”

It was an old argument that arrived every year with the autumn: stick by their sure source of water through the frigid months to come, or head south to warmer climates and trust that drinkable water could be found there, unguarded, unclaimed. For Lynn it was never a question. She knew where the wild blackberries grew in the spring, which bank of the pond the fish preferred for their spawning beds. She listened to the frog songs in the evening and felt a fierce pride that she could hear a sound so rare in their world, and that her bullets helped keep the pond safe. Her feet were confident on the slope of the roof in a way they never would be on the flat surface of an unending road.

“Gathering wood is a lot of work, cutting even more,” Mother said. “We go even a few hundred miles to the south and we won’t freeze to death in the winters.”

“A few hundred miles with no water will kill us deader than the snows.”

Mother sighed. “I should’ve gone before you could talk, and I could still carry you out of here. We’ll talk about it again another time. I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

“And I’m not getting any less stubborn,” Lynn shot back.

Mother rose from the shingles, and Lynn followed, aware that the conversation was over. Lynn went down the antenna first and looked up to see Mother pausing at the edge of the roof, her gaze directed south.

“A log splitter,” she muttered. “Asshole.”

The storm that blew in that afternoon was a mixed blessing. The water Lynn had set out to purify on the tin wouldn’t be getting the full eight hours of sun, but life was falling from the sky. All the containers they had, from plastic measuring cups to five-gallon buckets to old glass bottles, were strewn throughout the yard. Mother and Lynn ran back and forth during the rain, emptying full containers into the barn tanks and dashing back outside to catch every possible drop with the empties.

“It’s a good rain,” Lynn said as they took a breath together in the barn. “The tank we’re on is nearly full. Only one empty left.”

“There’s never enough,” Mother said. “Don’t forget that.”

The animals came out after the storm, like clockwork. The worms and moles came up for air as their tunnel homes flooded. The worms brought the birds, the moles brought the cats, and birds and cats brought the top of the food chain—the coyotes. Mother said back when she was a teenager it was rare to see one, usually only a brief flicker in the headlights in the dead of night. Now they hunted in the light of day, and curiosity brought them right into the shadow of the house in the afternoons.

“There he is,” Mother muttered under her breath as they paced the yard together, gathering the last of their rainwater. “That big bastard,” she said, handing the binoculars over to Lynn. “Look.”

Lynn adjusted them, and raised them to her eyes. “I’d say forty, maybe forty-five pounds, you think?”

“Maybe more.”

Lynn watched him through the binoculars. He was leading a small pack of foragers, two other scraggly creatures who nipped at each other in play as they went. Their leader’s nose was to the ground, his focus intent. A flash on the horizon caught her attention, and Lynn swept her gaze southwest.

“Stebbs has got a bead on him,” she said.

“What?” Mother squinted into the distance.

Lynn adjusted the binoculars again, took a longer look. “He’s got the thirty-thirty out, the one with the scope.”

“Probably just looking then. I doubt he fires on a coyote, no matter how big.”

Lynn looked back at the pack. The leader turned, irritated at his comrades’ lack of commitment, and pinned one to the ground by its neck. He let it up slowly, and both the smaller ones rolled over, exposing their submissive bellies. “Think he should?”

“Normally, I’d say no, don’t waste a bullet on a coyote, especially a thirty-thirty. Meat’s too tough. You burn up more energy chewing it than you get from eating it.” She outstretched one hand for the binoculars, and Lynn gave them over. “Big Bastard though . . . he needs shooting.”

Lynn saw the flash from the sun glinting off Stebbs’ rifle as he put it down.

“Asshole,” Mother muttered. “He fires that gun so little he probably never has to clean it. Which reminds me: bring our cleaning kits up to the roof when you come.”