John Birmingham: After America

"You must eat. We all have to eat," Miss Jessup said quietly as she pulled the seared rump steaks off the griddle built into the top of the stove.

They smelled fine, but Miguel felt awful when his stomach growled and spit flooded into his mouth. It seemed unworthy and wrong.

But she was right, of course. They were still on the trail and could not indulge themselves in the luxury of not eating because they did not feel like it. Tomorrow might well bring even more severe tests than they had faced today, and only the lucky and the strong would survive.

He nodded to Trudi, who passed over a piece of rump steak on a long, thin metal skewer. Miguel had no idea where she had found it, but all their camp utensils had been lost, so he took the crude implement gratefully. Adam followed him, taking an extra piece, which he handed to Marsha. Miguel had determined that it would probably be best if he stopped thinking of her as a whore. In her pathetic, bedraggled state she could not have been less alluring. Miss Jessup passed a chunk of meat to Sofia, who took it without comment. Another piece went to the dog, who scarfed it up without ceremony, her tail beating a fast tattoo on Sofia's thigh. Miguel was relieved to see that even Maive shared in the meal, although she did so mechanically, consuming the food as fuel and nothing else. Certainly not as a comfort.

The remnants of the storm still lashed at them, but the shed had been well placed in the lee of the hill, probably for that reason. Weather tended to come from a particular direction in Miguel's experience, and the ranch owners had obviously prepared well for it with this humble shack. With the tarp hung over the entrance, trapping more of the warm air inside and blocking the occasional gusts of wind and rain that curled around to seek them out, they might even have been cozy. But Miguel could not help seeing the remains of the dead, now hastily buried a mile away. It felt as though he had abandoned them out there, and he imagined that Adam and Maive felt the same way, only much more intensely. Adam, indeed, nearly had to be restrained at the end of the day, when he'd insisted on continuing the search for Miss Gray.

It was only the discovery of one of her boots still containing a foot, and a bloodstained shred of her dress that had convinced him she was gone and there would be no finding her.

Even so, Miguel resolved to venture out later while the others slept and see if he might locate her body or some sign of her.

Without torches or lamps it would be hazardous going, but there was nothing for it. He would not be able to sleep while she remained lost, even though he knew in his heart that she, too, was gone.

"Have to round up the cattle in the morning."

The flat, emotionless voice surprised him. He had not thought Maive would speak at all tonight, certainly not that she would discuss such banalities. But then, he thought, people often did that in moments of great shock and sadness.

Miss Jessup laid a worried look on Aronson's wife and went immediately to her side, sitting down and putting an arm around her shoulder. The simple human contact seemed to collapse some final, fragile defense, and Maive let loose a terrible howl, a searing, animalistic wail of impacted grief and loss and rage. It turned to long racking sobs and then weeping as the two women embraced, bathed in the flickering golden light of the camp stove. Sofia's face crumpled, too, and she pushed the dog from her lap to hurry over and comfort the woman who had been of such comfort and support to her these past weeks.

"All gone. All gone," Maive whimpered. "All gone."

"I know, honey. I know," Trudi Jessup said as she rocked and stroked the woman like a child. "I know."

Sofia placed her arms around the Mormon lady and hugged her fiercely, repeating over and over again, "I'm sorry."

Miguel thought for a second that he might lose his humble dinner, but the wave of nausea and self-loathing that washed over him passed with surprising speed.

He could not bring this woman's husband and friends back.

But he could do what he had promised to do in the first place.

Get them safely to their destination and his. To Kansas City.

"In the morning," he said softly, "we shall start again." Acknowledgments Halfway through writing After America I broke my arm. My writin' arm. That's why you're holding this weighty tome about twelve months after I expected to get it to you. The busted wing threw a lot of schedules and deadlines out of alignment. Mega thanks are due to all my editing and publishing friends who helped out as I slowly got back to work. Cate Paterson and Joel Naoum in Sydney; Betsy Mitchell in New York; and a whole heap of magazine and newspaper eds along with them. And in the realm of a thousand thank-yous, I dips me propeller beanie to my faithful researcher and occasional co-conspirator S. F. Murphy, of the great state of Missouri.

As I was punching through the deadlines on After America, I received invaluable help from an unexpected source. The Cloud. Specifically from my followers on Twitter who were an amazing fount of obscure factoids and information such as the color of the carpet in the Plaza Hotel in 2003. Hundreds of them contributed in one way or another to this book; thousands of them if you count the people who stood on the electronic sidelines each day cheering me on. Extra special mention must go to my regulars and lurkers over at cheeseburgergothic.com, my personal blog. They know who they are and what they contribute. Nuff said.

And as always, my poor, poor family. Goddamn they put up with some shit.