Mindy McGinnis: In a Handful of Dust

“Lynn says she’s got a right to live up here, if that’s what she wants.”

“And what do you say?”

Lucy tripped on a branch and muttered a curse. “I say she can’t expect help to come running if we can’t hear her yelling for it.” Her breath hitched in her chest, and she slid to the ground. “Sorry, I gotta stop.” Days of tending the ill had stripped her of strength.

Carter rested next to her, their backs against a huge oak. “I’m not in a hurry to get up there, anyway. You and I aren’t exactly her favorite people.”

One of Lucy’s more ill-advised pranks had involved swapping out Abigail’s prized newborn calf with a stuffed animal of a cow. The punishment had been steep—Lynn had made her haul water from the pond for a month—but the fun had been worth it.

Lucy rolled her eyes. “I think being one of Abigail’s favorite people requires blood relation. So I’ll pass. Besides, there was no harm done.”

“You’re still a rabble-rouser.” Carter knocked his knee against hers.

“And you’re trouble.” She knocked it back.

“Remember you and me and Maddy slept up in her haymow so we could see her face when she came down to the barn in the morning?” Carter went on, laughing. “And Maddy didn’t know there was a bunch of kittens up there, ’til one of them jumped on her? Turned out that herbal soap your grandma gave Maddy for her birthday had catnip in it.”

“I swear I didn’t know that.” Lucy giggled.

“Maybe not, but you knew full well it was just a kitten in her hair, and you started screaming about bats anyway, and she went through the roof. You and me was trying to shush her up, but she woke up baby Adam all the way in the house.”

“Yeah.” Lucy’s smile faded. “Yeah, I remember.”

And now Maddy was dead, and the baby whose cries they’d wished away that night was a crippled little boy whose father might not live through the day.

Carter quieted as well, his own thoughts turning toward the present. He rose to his feet, holding out a hand for her. “C’mon then,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Abigail didn’t answer Carter’s knock. He tried again, but they heard no movement in the house. He pulled his fist back to try another time, then froze mid motion. “You don’t suppose she caught it and died up here, do you?”

Lucy backed off the porch, glancing around the overgrown yard to the outbuildings. “Doubt it. The garden’s recently watered and the cows aren’t kicking up a fuss, wanting to be milked. She’s in there. She just doesn’t want to talk to us.”

“Better make my point then,” Carter said, and redoubled his efforts, pounding on the door.

Lucy stepped farther out into the yard and glanced up into the second story of the old farmhouse. A curtain hastily slipped back into place. “She’s up there,” she said to Carter. Then, more loudly, “Abigail, it’s Lucy from down by the pond. I need you to come out here and talk to us.”

Carter joined Lucy in the yard and called up at the window. “Abigail—it’s about your son. Get down here or we’ll walk off and you won’t know what’s happened.”

A thin voice crept through the open window. “If he’s dead, I don’t want to know.”

Carter sighed. “He ain’t dead. Now come down.”

They heard shuffling as she walked away from the open window, then nothing for several minutes until the front door creaked open. A small woman with ratted blond hair peered around the corner.

Lucy tried her best smile, one that could melt even Lynn at times. “We need to talk to you about Devon.”

“Thought you said this was about Adam?”

“Him too,” Carter said, stepping toward the porch.

“You stay back there,” Abigail said sharply, her thin voice suddenly strong. “I can hear you fine from the yard.”

“All right then.” He slowly backpedaled to stand next to Lucy. “I think she’s got a gun,” he said to her softly.

“Who doesn’t?” Lucy sighed, then raised her voice toward Abigail. “We came to tell you what’s going on with your man and boy. You can put the rifle down.”

Abigail stepped out onto the porch, rifle pointed at the ground. “Tell me what you like, makes no difference what I’m holding at the time.”

“It’s slightly rude,” Lucy said. Carter shot her a dark look, and she clamped her mouth shut.

“Rude ain’t nothing that I’ve done. Rude is breaking into people’s barns and pulling tricks on them.”

“Lots of people are sick, Abigail,” Carter said quickly. “Devon’s one of ’em.”

A line appeared between Abigail’s eyes as she studied the two teens. “Adam’s the one who’s sick. Devon took him down to your healer to make him well.”

“And she tried, Abigail, she did,” Lucy said, emotion making her voice thick. “But this sickness—it’s not like a normal fever. It’s polio, and Adam… he’s okay, but… he’s…”

“He’s crippled,” Carter said. “No way around it.”

Abigail’s mouth tightened. “What about Devon? What’s wrong with him?”

“Same thing,” Carter answered. “It’s not good, Abigail. You should come down, be with your husband.”

“You think, do you?” Abigail said, her mouth twisting. “So everyone can get a good look at the woman who won’t come down off the hill?”

Lucy glanced at Carter. He grasped her wrist, urging silence.

“You come up here, to tell me my man—who don’t get sick—is sick, and my boy—who was fine yesterday—is a cripple today. I wouldn’t believe either one of you if you told me it was raining and my head was wet with the drops.” She cocked the gun and strode toward them to the edge of the porch.

Carter stepped in front of Lucy. “We came up here to deliver a message,” he said, “and we’ve done it. We’ll be leaving now.”

“You came up here to make a fool of me,” Abigail hissed at them. “Devon ain’t sick with nothing but lust, looking at that woman who calls herself your mother, little girl. You wanna make a laughingstock of me, drag me down the hill so I see what’s really keeping him down there?”

Carter stepped backward, pushing Lucy behind him. “Nobody’s laughing down there, Abigail. I promise you that.”

“Go on then.” She jerked the rifle toward them. “Get on back down there and tell my man to come back to me, and bring my son. I know he’s whole, and I know he’s well, and I know you two are full of shit .”

Her voice cracked on the last word and she retreated back into the house, slamming the door behind her. Carter and Lucy stumbled down the decline of the hill as they headed for the woods, Abigail’s rising sobs breaking on their ears.

“Does she really think we’d make up a story to bring her down the hill for kicks?” Lucy asked.

“Hard to say.” Carter held a tree branch for her to pass by before letting it snap back. She smiled to herself; a year ago he would’ve let it hit her in the face. “But don’t let what some crackpot thinks of you ruin your day.”

“It’s more likely the dead bodies’ll do that,” Lucy said.

Carter laughed and grabbed her hand suddenly. “Remind me never to come to you for comfort.”

She opened her mouth to apologize, but he waved her off and they walked on, fingers intertwined. They followed the stream downhill toward Vera’s, neither of them commenting on the fact that they were holding hands, or how very normal it felt.

Lucy dropped his hand as they came into the clearing near Vera’s cabin. She could hear Lynn clearly as they approached. “You’d better be damn sure about this,” she was saying. “Once it’s said, there’s no taking it back.”

“Something’s up,” Carter said.