Mindy McGinnis - In a Handful of Dust

The current had her, but its fingers lacked the cruel grip that had ripped her from Spatter’s saddle, and she allowed herself to relax until her foot was caught up by something beneath the surface and she was pulled under. The water closed over her head before she was able to take a lifesaving breath.

Darkness came again, calling with a comforting numbness she knew had little to do with the cold water. It was the same futility she’d seen in her mother’s eyes, in the few memories Lucy still had of her life in the city. Dark days with curtains drawn and Neva lying in her bed though the sun was high in the sky outside. Even as the current forced her lips open and the cold water slid into the crevices of her lungs Lucy thought of Neva, and the living death that had been in her eyes years before she put a pistol to her head.

And she thought of Lynn, who had forced herself to survive even with Mother’s blood on her hands and no meat stored for the winter. Lynn, whose faith in her own strength kept her going beyond all limits of endurance in order to provide for herself, and later for Lucy. Giving up now meant betraying Lynn’s effort, the years of her life she’d given over to raise a child not her own. Lynn, who might be looking for her at that very moment.

Lucy screamed underwater, bringing more water into her body as if challenging it to drown her. She broke the laces of her boot with willpower rather than strength and, kicked for the surface, buoyed by thoughts of how disappointed Lynn would be with her for losing a boot. She broke through to warmth and a dark shadow riding the current alongside her, a scruffy tree that had been torn out by its roots, still clinging to the dirt it had depended on.

She made a lunge for it, twining herself around the pale, waterlogged roots. They encircled her like a thousand arms, grasping her waist and tangling in her legs. Water warmed by her own body gurgled from her lips, and the next breath of air felt like daggers pulling her apart from inside. She gasped and choked, sending more water through her nose and bringing on a coughing fit that crushed her chest and stole the last ounce of energy she had. Lucy fell forward against the tree trunk, her bare foot trailing her body in the dark current like a tiny ghost.

A day later the river water was a pleasant memory, longed after like the wet days of spring in the middle of summer’s drought. The sun was merciless as Lucy dragged herself across the desert, the toes of her bootless foot curled under to keep the burning dust from her sensitive sole. She’d tried switching her remaining boot from foot to foot, but a blister had formed and burst only minutes after she’d forced the left boot onto her right foot.

The raw spot on her toe had quickly filled with dirt, and it throbbed as she forced herself ever onward, eyes scouring the vast nothing for any sign of Lynn or Mister. Spatter she’d found the day before, caught up in a bend in the river where debris had piled. Even though the current had carried her past him mercifully quick, the bulging of his blank eyes and the image of his long, lifeless tongue dangling in the water for a perpetual drink had brought a fresh grief that spilled new tears from her swollen eyes even as she was pulled away from him.

Weariness had taken hold again, not relenting until the canyon fell away and the log she’d lashed herself to with its roots came to rest on a sandbar. The peacefulness of the undulations tugging at her feet had urged her to free herself and continue on with the river, to a place where pain and grief would bother her no more. She’d pulled her legs up onto the tree and slept through the cool night, taking what rest she could before facing the desert.

Leaving the river went against all her instincts, but if Lynn were alive, she would head north to return to the highway, and expect Lucy to do the same. The rising sun had felt good as it baked the chill from her bones, and Lucy had a flicker of hope as she rested on the sandbar before leaving. The idea of Lynn dying at all was so foreign to Lucy that she rejected it wholly. Lynn would live if the canyon itself were to collapse on her, the tenacity of the life inside of her finding a way to survive against all odds.

But the odds felt longer as the day wore on and the last few mouthfuls of water she’d taken from the river had long since been spent by her body. The heat shimmer began to play games with her head, showing shadows in the form of horses and people who urged her to stray from her northward path with promises beyond her reach. Lucy pushed on in as straight a path as she could, though she feared the dragging pain from her injured foot was pulling her to the left.

She sat down at midday, unable to ignore the pounding in her head any longer. The wound on her temple had reopened, and she licked at her own blood as it streamed into the corner of her lips, but her tongue came back coppery and salt covered. Lucy touched the wound and studied the blood on her fingers, reveling in the beauty of the red rivulets against the underside of her hand.

“Lynn,” she said weakly, though she knew there was no one to hear. “I understand that poem now. It’s what I’ve been saying all along about being scared of the bigness, and me being so small. Only it says it better. All I’m going to be here soon, after the sun and the animals have their way, is just a handful of dust. I’ll be even smaller than I am now. I’ll be nothing, and no one will ever know what became of me. Lynn, I think… I think I’m dying.”

But there was no one to tell her this was not the case, no strong hands to pull her to her feet and force her to go on, no gentle touch to bring a cool cup to her lips and bring her back from the brink. There was nothing, and there was no one.

Stebbs was not there to tell her any water she witched would be too deep to reach. She’d seen him witch without a stick before, and she called to mind his steady pace and calm demeanor as he would walk with his arms outstretched. She reached out for water with her entire being, eyes closed tightly against the baking sun. Her heart leapt along with her pulse a few paces later, and she fell to her knees.

She dug with her hands, the hot sand packing the tiny cracks in her knuckles, first only irritating the skin but finally breaking through and dotting the ground with black drops of her own blood. She kept on, digging through the pain. Her fingernails peeled back from her dry nail beds and still no water bubbled up, no earthy smell of water filled her nose. There was only the dull, endless wafting of arid air.

Soon she collapsed beside a hole barely two feet deep, her body so dry she could hardly blink her eyes.

And still, she smelled no water.

She had lived rough her whole life, but hunger had never been a true enemy. Lynn’s gun and Vera’s garden had kept food on the table, and the slight gnaw on her stomach she’d always called “hunger” seemed almost pleasant compared to what she was suffering from now. In the overwhelming burn of a desert day, she understood the difference between hunger and starvation. It felt as if the rough rock under her back had bitten through her spine and was making a meal of her stomach lining. The pain curled her body into the fetal position, and Lucy cried tears that never gained the weight to fall.

Night brought a wicked chill, the desert playing its cruel trick of burning her to death during the day and leaving her to freeze at night, along with a moon so bright it made the hills of sand seem like snowdrifts. Images of her long-lost uncle Eli floated by, teasing her with snowballs and a smile that made the brightness of the moon seem insignificant. The sharp pain of a grief remembered brought her back to full consciousness, and in the white light of the cool desert she could see what the mirages of the baking day had hidden from her. The road. The dark spine of the desert stretched before her east to west, and what had once held nothing but fear for her was now welcome.