Mindy McGinnis - In a Handful of Dust

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to get to Nebraska, find a nice out-of-the-way house that hasn’t been raided of everything useful, and rest for a few days.”

Lucy shot Lynn a sideways glance. “That sounds awfully optimistic of you.”

Lynn allowed a rare smile. “Well, that’s the happy version of what I want.”

“What’s the other one?”

“Get to Nebraska without dying or having to kill anybody.”

The heat refused to break, and the miles passed slowly. Spatter’s head sank lower as they moved westward, his interest piqued only by the smell of water. They filled their bottles at every chance, drank sparingly in between streams, and watched Iowa slip past them as they kicked up dust on unpaved roads. Lucy’s fine hair was coated with dirt, her scalp itching as layers of grime and sweat dried on it. Lynn’s own heavy mane was so thickly filled with dirt she would shake it out at the end of the day, creating her own dust storm.

It was too hot to talk, and the only thing to talk about was how hot they were, so Lucy kept her mouth shut and her hands busy putting tiny braids in Spatter’s mane as he followed Black Horse’s lead. The intricate braids held her attention, a convenient excuse to not look up at the all-encompassing nothing that surrounded them. The Mississippi was behind her, but it had been traded for the vastness of the prairie, a river of grass that seemed to have no end.

Looking at the endless road under the limitless sky drove a spike into Lucy’s heart. She didn’t matter out here. At home she’d been loved by a few, and known by many. Away from there she could easily drown in a river, or lie down to die quietly in the waving grass, and no one would care. She’d be swallowed by the earth as easily as the rain.

Lynn stopped early one evening when they reached a stream. Her legs buckled from underneath her as she slid from the saddle.

“Lynn,” Lucy croaked, her voice dry in her throat. She jumped from Spatter to Lynn’s side, but the older woman was already waving her off.

“I’m fine, just tired and hot’s all.”

“We’re done for today,” Lucy decided.

Too tired to argue, Lynn only nodded. “Too hot,” she said weakly. Her face was pale underneath her tan.

“You need to cool off, right now,” Lucy said, masking her fear.

“I’ll rest here in the shade,” Lynn said. “You get the horses unsaddled.”

Lucy went to work, glad to have jobs that would distract her from the unfocused look of Lynn’s eyes and the pallor of her skin. The horses gathered around her, patiently waiting to be unburdened. She pulled the packs off Brown Horse and glanced at Lynn, whose eyes had slid shut.

She opened Lynn’s pack. It didn’t look like she’d touched her jerky since Indiana. The dried peas and corn were barely depleted, and the granola container was full. They’d been taking most of their meals on horseback, and it would’ve been easy for Lynn to look like she was eating, even if she wasn’t.

Lucy jammed everything back inside the pack and walked over to where Lynn was resting. She kicked Lynn’s foot. “You haven’t been eating.”

“I’m fine,” Lynn growled, without opening her eyes.

“You’re not,” Lucy argued. “You can’t get down off your horse without falling over.”

Lynn opened one eye and looked at Lucy, then closed it again.

“What’s your plan then?” Lucy felt her anger rising, all the heat her skin had absorbed coming back out of her in a rush. “Die of starvation halfway through so I’ve got plenty to eat?”

“The second part, mostly.”

“That’s stupid, Lynn! Plain, flat stupid!” Lucy sputtered, ignoring the tears that rose in her eyes at the thought of Lynn putting empty handfuls to her mouth, pretending to eat so there would be more for Lucy later. “I can’t make it alone, even if I had all the food in the world. I’d lay down and die right now if I were alone. I thought I could do it, for a while, you know? It was like I was going on an adventure, and I could jam all the scared parts down inside me and look forward to the end of the road. But now I’ve seen new things and most of them bad. Horses bleeding out on the road and Joss’ bone sticking into the air when it’s supposed to be under her skin. I can’t unsee it, and I don’t want to see any more.”

Even as she said it, she knew it was true. She wasn’t like Lynn; she didn’t have the courage to face the long, empty roads and the cloudless sky without someone beside her. The loneliness of the country they traveled through had penetrated her, opening up a well of fear she’d managed to keep covered at home. The blank fields, the vast sky, all spoke of nothingness.

“God, Lynn.” She choked on her fear as she admitted it. “There’s nobody out here.”

Lynn lifted one hand and rested it on Lucy’s shaking shoulder. “I know,” she said. “Here you are terrified we haven’t seen anybody, and I’m thrilled to death.”

Lucy pulled her handkerchief free from her neck and wiped her face, leaving dirty tracks behind. “I can’t stand it,” she said. “I can’t stand thinking that if something happened and we died, it wouldn’t matter. No one would ever find us, no one would ever know. And we’d lie out here and rot and maybe no one would ever even find our bones. It’d be like we never were .”

Lynn’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “But we are , little one. And that makes all the difference, whether people know you’re here or not.

Lucy felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “That’s downright cheery, compared to the stuff you usually throw at me.”

Lynn shrugged. “I didn’t write it.”

“Who did?”

“Walt Whitman. You’d know that, and a few things more, if you could’ve been bothered to listen to me when you were little.”

The extent of everything she didn’t know washed over Lucy, as deep as the cold waters of the Mississippi. “I feel so small,” she said, her voice cracking. “At home I mattered, but out here—you and I both—we’re nothing, and we matter to no one.”

Lynn pulled herself up to look at Lucy, gripping her face in her hands. “You matter to me, and even if I were gone, you would still matter to yourself. All that time I spent alone before meeting Stebbs? All I mattered to was myself, and I got by.”

“I’m not like that. I need people.” Lucy took one last swipe at her face with the handkerchief. “So stop thinking you’re doing me a favor by not eating.”

Lynn settled back against the tree. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll promise you that, if you promise me something too. If something should happen, you got to keep going without me. Joss wasn’t a good person, but that didn’t mean all she had to say was wrong. She’s dead-on right when she says you got to want something in your life. Me, all I ever wanted was rain and water, wood to get by, and food for the winter. That way of living is so ingrained in me, it’s hard to see anything else. But you, little one, you’re meant for more and you know it. You want to get to California, but wishing alone won’t do it. It’s going to be hard—everything worth doing is.”

Lucy brushed a tear away but didn’t try to deny the truth of Lynn’s words. “Why couldn’t I want something easy?”

“Because that’s not like you. You’ve always been fond of the difficult.”

“True enough. I like you, after all.”

Lynn gave her a halfhearted kick and they settled against the tree together, sipping water and watching the birds fly overhead.