Mindy McGinnis - In a Handful of Dust

“It was like that, for me,” Lynn continued. “An unnatural growth cropping up somewhere it had no business, in the middle of fields and forest, with straight cement roots no amount of cutting will ever get out of the dirt.” Her eyes lingered unfocused on the flames. When she spoke again, it was with the tone of voice Lucy knew meant she was using words not her own, quoting a poet long dead from a book of her mother’s that lay mildewing miles behind them.

Lucy reached across the fire and plucked the bottle out of Lynn’s hands. “No more wine for you.”

The road was mesmerizing. Lucy put one foot in front of the other, kept her gaze on the horizon, and never stopped moving. The overgrown country roads slashed across the fields in unbending lines. The sky had been gray since morning, echoing back the colors of the road and just as endless. From rim to rim it was filled with clouds that gave no rain, only a teasing promise some might fall. Maybe.

Joss and Lynn were silent. The air was dense with humidity, stilling even the wildlife. For hours the only movement Lucy had seen was the swirl of gnats in front of her own face, drawn by the sweet smell of her sweat. She trudged on, picking a landmark in the distance and passing it, then picking a new one.

Her thoughts slid back to Carter and Lake Wellesley, wondering if he’d been ousted along with the other people squatting around its banks. There were plenty of empty houses nearby. If he could find a water supply and begin stockpiling wood for the winter, there was no reason why he wouldn’t make it. But the hopelessness in his face when he’d last spoken to her hadn’t given her much to hold on to. If he didn’t want to live, he wouldn’t.

The forked ash stick in her pack rubbed between her shoulder blades, reminding Lucy she could have found water for Carter, helped him in a priceless way no one else was capable of. If she’d had the presence of mind to share her secret as they stood saying good-bye in the moonlight, she might have been able to see if his trembling hands were capable of witching. At the least it would’ve bought her a few more hours with Carter, and possibly a source of life for him.

She slapped at the gnats in frustration, angry with herself for not being quick enough to think of sharing her secret in that moment. Water couldn’t cure him of the virus in his blood, but it could keep him safe, and tied to a piece of land where she’d be able to find him again.

And she was going to. Joss’ comments from the night before had planted a seed in Lucy’s brain that sprouted during the night, giving life to a new goal. If people in California didn’t have to dedicate their time to fighting off starvation, maybe someone like Vera had used their spare moments to learn more about the illnesses that cut down people like scythes through wheat. Someone, somewhere, could know how long Carter would be communicable.

And if it wasn’t forever, she was going to find him again. If it was true that there were places where she could do more than gather water and find food every day, then Carter deserved to live that way too. Joss had said it was important to want something, and once Lucy had warmed up to the idea, she refused to make a choice. She could have California and Carter both. She wanted everything.

“There’s a place coming up called Fort Recovery,” Lynn said, using her handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“I could go for some recovery,” Joss said.

“Too bad, ’cause we’ll be going ’round.”

“Why are we avoiding it?”

“It’s big,” Lynn answered. “Too big to not have someone in it somewhere.”

“Do you always think people are a bad thing?” Joss asked.

“Generally.”

They wandered off the paved road Lynn had been following, veering onto one patched with potholes. Lucy’s boots had conformed to her own feet fairly quickly, but the blister hadn’t formed a callus yet, and the pink, raw skin still chafed at the end of every day. Picking over the holes in the road wasn’t doing her any favors.

The grass grew higher than their heads on both sides of the road, arching inward and brushing against their faces as they made their way west. Trees towered overhead, forming a total canopy that cooled the black tar beneath their feet, drying their sweat. The setting sun burned in front of them, sending red rays into their faces.

Lucy fought a prickle of annoyance when Joss stepped on the back of her heel.

“Sorry,” Joss muttered from behind her.

Lucy waved off the apology, too tired to speak. Even so, she couldn’t help but notice that Joss always stayed closer to her if they were in an area that was wooded, or anywhere along the road where cover could hide an attacker.

She voiced this to Lynn when she was sure they were alone by the stream they found that evening, filling their water bottles.

“She’s using you for cover,” Lynn said. “Probably figures if anybody pops off a shot at one of us, they’re going to aim for me first, as I’m the leader. You’re smaller, less likely to be a target. And she knows it.”

“Nice.” Lucy capped her bottle tightly. “And here I kinda liked her.”

Lynn shrugged. “She’s doing what she’s done her whole life to survive, that’s all. And it could be she just would rather walk with you than me, has you figured for the kind one.”

“Right. You’re the brawn, I’m brain.” She splashed some water over her face and looked down with distaste at her wet shirtfront. “I was holding out hope, but I think I may have to admit that you’re the boobs of this outfit too.”

Lynn laughed for the first time since the road. “For all the good it does.”

Their sounds brought Joss down the creek, water bottles in hand. “What’s so funny?”

Lucy glanced back down at her chest. “Oh, I wouldn’t exactly call it funny,” she said. Lynn laughed again, the sound bouncing back off the water and into the cold, clear night.

“I got some news for you,” Lynn said to Lucy halfway through the next day.

“What’s that?”

“We’re out of Ohio. Have been since we passed Fort Recovery.”

“Huh,” Lucy said, surveying the land around her. “So we’re in what, Indiana?”

“Yep,” Lynn said as she readjusted her pack on her shoulders.

“Indiana is awful flat. So what’s our route?” Lucy asked.

“Not much in our way. We head due west, and we’ll get to Illinois.”

“Is it flat?”

“Not sure.”

“How’s your water?”

Lynn reached over her shoulder and into her pack without breaking stride, pulling a half-empty bottle from it. Lucy was down to her last one as well, the water warm from being carried next to her body. She didn’t know how much Joss had left, and their companion wasn’t offering up the information.

“Will we stop soon?”

“Soon enough,” Lynn said, shooting Lucy a look that told her not to worry.

Abandoned fields that had once been farmed for corn and beans were returning to prairie all around them. The greenness of the new grass matched Joss’ eyes and was almost painful to look at as the sun beat down from the cloudless sky. The road was the only mark of past civilization, a streak of black that sliced its way forward, Lucy’s feet doggedly eating up the miles it created.

Hours later, Lynn broke to the north, tapping Lucy soundlessly on the shoulder and striding off the black and into the green without a word. Lucy followed, and she felt rather than heard Joss move through the tall grass behind her. On the horizon, a streak of darker green broke the skyline.