Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set

by Bridget E. Baker

  “I guess so.” I close my eyes and this time, I actually fall asleep.

  11

  A sequence of large bumps jars me awake. I sit up and rub my eyes.

  “Sorry,” Sam says.

  The sun sits low on the horizon. I slept longer than I expected.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “We made good time.”

  “What road are we on now?” I squint at the road sign. “Does that say 165?”

  “I had to get creative in Alexandria. The exit ramp was in bad shape.”

  I sit up. “Creative? What does that mean?”

  Sam grunts.

  Whatever it was, it didn’t wake me up, so I don’t press him about it. We’re headed for Galveston like I wanted, even if Sam’s taking an odd route. We drive in silence until the sun sets. Vines, trees, and weeds have overgrown the abandoned houses and buildings we pass, checked only by abundant animal life. Sam slams on the brakes and swerves several times for deer, and once for a raccoon.

  He pulls off onto a small road just past a big sign for something called a Cracker Barrel. Did people really eat crackers from a barrel? Or maybe they sell barrels? The truck lurches over weeds, branches and twigs. The highways traversing from one settlement to the next aren’t entirely overgrown thanks to Unmarked efforts, but the smaller roads that haven’t been maintained are almost impassible.

  We drive a few dozen yards down the road before he jerks the wheel hard and we fly into the underbrush. He obviously isn’t worried about keeping the truck’s paint job pristine. Sam slams on the brakes and the truck halts abruptly. He hops out, grabs some branches and disappears down the path we drove to get here. He reappears a few minutes later, using the branches to smooth over the tire treads and his own tracks in the dirt, leaving the road behind him far less noticeable. My door is so tightly wedged against the underbrush, I’m not sure it will open at all. I squeeze out of the door he left askew instead, dragging my bags out behind me.

  “What can I do to help?” I ask.

  “Start hunting for branches and bring them to me. I’m going to refill the truck and then hide the gas tanks before I cover it over.”

  “Why?”

  “So no one steals them.”

  “People steal gas?”

  “All the time. Cars are easy to find. Clean gas, not so much.”

  “I was in Energy for a while. I know a little about gas production, but I didn’t realize people steal it.”

  Sam shrugs.

  Before I start gathering fallen limbs, I quickly lay my snares. Dusk’s a great time for rabbits.

  After that, I jog back with the branches in an attempt to make up for lost time. We work quietly. I forage, and Sam arranges branches. He has a real knack for it. I know the truck’s there, but I almost don’t see it until I run right into it with a new armful of sticks.

  I return from my final trip to find Sam stretching his bare hands over a small fire, now that it’s dark enough the smoke isn’t visible. Someone close might see it, but they’d have to be awfully close. Traveling at night’s a difficult prospect these days, so I’m guessing we’re fine. Humans may not have fared well the past few years, but wildlife’s prospering. Wolves howl in the distance and I shiver.

  A little pot rests on the coals.

  “You cook?” It sounds idiotic when I say it out loud. He lives alone. Of course he cooks.

  I can barely make out his grin with his face cast in shadows from the moonlight. “You eat? Dang it. Then I’ve probably miscalculated how much we need.”

  “Funny.”

  “I didn’t cook anyway. It’s stew from a can,” Sam says. “Only marginally better warm than cold. Still gelatinous, but the fatty chunks melt a little.”

  “Great.”

  “Are you mocking me with these short answers?”

  “No.” I suppress a smile.

  “Brat.”

  I sit next to him on the log and reach my hands out toward the fire, hoping to thaw my stiff fingers. Gloves have nothing on mittens for warmth, but mittens aren’t practical. I peel my gloves off so the heat can reach my skin.

  I lean in close to the fire and look into the pot. Sam’s right. It looks disgusting. I reach over and snag my bag. I pull out a few handfuls of herbs and roll them back and forth between my fingers, mashing the dried leaves. I crumble them into the stew. It smells a little better but still looks unappetizing.

  I stand up and click on my flashlight.

  “Where are you going?” Sam asks.

  “I thought I’d check my snares.”

  “Pretty unlikely you caught something in an hour.”

  I shrug. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and animals aren’t used to humans. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  A little brown rabbit struggles in my second snare. “Sam!”

  He reaches me in three seconds flat. He moves wicked fast. “What’s wrong?”

  I shine the light on the wriggly little guy, then swing it back so I can see Sam’s face.

  “Nice work.” He shoots me a baffled look. “Why’d you call me?”

  “I’d rather not kill it. Would you mind?”

  He lifts one eyebrow. “Don’t you kill them at home?”

  “Never. If Rhonda isn’t around to do it, I go for a walk and let them go in the woods. I mostly set snares to keep my garden safe.”

  “What were you going to do alone?”

  “I figured if I got really hungry. . .”

  I can practically hear his eye roll. “I’ll do it.”

  When he pulls a knife from his boot, I walk away as fast as I can without looking like I’m running. Unsurprisingly, Sam’s pretty handy with his knife. I watch him skin the little critter and then roast it on a stick before passing it to me. I pick off the meat and drop it into our pot.

  Finally, Sam pulls out two big metal mugs and pours half the stew into a mug for me. It tastes surprisingly good. The meat’s a little gamey, but not terrible. Our little rabbit must’ve been doing pretty well on the grass and bushes around here.

  “I get half?”

  “Seems fair. I probably eat more, but you need the reserve.”

  I speak without thinking. “You do, too. I bet your body fat percentage is lower than mine.”

  Sam raises his eyebrows. I should not have gone there.

  I can’t help it. The firelight makes all the muscles flexing in his shoulders, back, and arms even more obvious. I remind myself that Wesley’s attractive in a completely different, and less physical way. More impressive in presentation, and less. . . bulky. I definitely like Wesley, not Sam. I figure I should repeat it a few times in case the moonlight and fire are confusing me.

  Wesley Fairchild makes my heart beat faster. Wesley Fairchild makes me laugh. Wesley Fairchild always says the right thing.

  Wesley’s gone, though, and Sam’s right here.

  Thank goodness Sam can’t read my mind. How he would laugh.

  I shovel my stew to distract me from errant thoughts. I usually eat slowly, but I haven’t eaten much in the past few days and as Sam mentioned, my body needs fuel. Plus, eating fast helps me pretend I’m not eating the cute little bunny Sam killed and roasted. I’m halfway done when Sam hands me a hunk of bread and a chunk of cheese.

  “Where’d you get these?” I ask.

  “They were supposed to be my lunch today.”

  I shake my head and hand them back. “That reminds me.” I set my mug down and reach into my bag for my hunk of bread and goat cheese. My hand brushes against something hard, and I remember the water bottles. I pull them out and pass one to Sam. My hand brushes his warm one when I hand it to him and he gasps softly.

  He sets the bottle on the ground, reaches over and takes my hand in his, chafing my icicle fingers between his beefy paws until they regain sensation. He does the same with my other hand, neither of us talking. The warmth spreads beyond my hands, but guilt comes with it. I wonder whether Wesley’s warm, and if he has enough to eat. Has he ma
de new friends? Is he moving on with life, whatever that looks like? I doubt he’s sitting around thinking about me.

  Or maybe he is.

  I turn back toward the fire and use my bread to wipe out the dregs of my stew, gobbling the chunks of bread like a stray dog until it’s all gone. “How can I help clean up?”

  “No need.”

  “Seriously, I want to.” I stand up and brush at my pants.

  “I have a system.” Sam cleans up our meal quickly, and methodically.

  I stand around, shifting from foot to foot, wringing my recently warmed hands. Finally, it occurs to me to bank the fire. I’ve done that for years in our fireplace in Port Gibson.

  “Thanks for dinner,” I say.

  He doesn’t respond.

  “This is where you say, ‘you’re welcome.’”

  “Right,” he says. “You mentioned that earlier.”

  “What would your mother think?” The words fly out before I remember and wince. His mom’s dead, like I thought mine was. Like she probably is by now.

  He’s quiet for a moment and I want to curl up into the ashes of the fire and hide.

  “She’d probably be appalled,” he says. “She was classy, like you.”

  I never knew his mom, but I think about Sam for a moment. I might give him a hard time, but he’s a good guy. “I’m not sure classy fits me, but if she’s like me, I think she’d be proud. You saved my life. You made us dinner, and now you’re cleaning up. You may lack polish, but the essentials are there.”

  “Thanks.”

  He kicks dirt over my carefully banked fire.

  “Hey what’re you doing? Don’t we need that? You know, so we don’t freeze?”

  “We can’t risk someone taking the truck while we sleep. We’ll sleep in the cab.”

  “I thought we were taking shifts? One sleeps, and the other keeps watch?”

  “You’re a good guard, huh?”

  I scowl. “I have eyes, and I thought that’s why I took a nap.”

  “You needed the sleep. You don’t seem to listen to me unless there’s a purpose. I haven’t slept in more than twenty-four hours, and you actually didn’t sleep much in the car. I set some warning wires, and no one knows we’re out here.” He taps a black box on his belt. “They run around the perimeter about a hundred yards out. If they’re tripped, I know we have company. The truck’s the safest spot, though probably not the most comfortable. It’s camouflaged now, and we’ll lock the doors.”

  “Oh.”

  “We should move our supplies inside to be safe. I wouldn’t put it past any scavengers to pick our pockets while we sleep. It’s what I’d do.”

  “Alright.” I reach into the truck bed to pull out a bag. I tug on the handles, and then I tug a little harder. It doesn’t even shift. I alter my hold and pull one more time. Nothing. I move my hands to grab the bag to the right of it, hoping Sam hasn’t noticed my epic fail. I can’t lift that one either, though. I try the third bag and fail again.

  “Geez Sam. What’s in these bags? Rocks?”

  Sam leans over and snags one with each hand, lifting them from the bed and setting them on the floor of the truck cab carefully.

  A stupid show off, that’s what he is.

  He grabs the third one and tosses it in, too. They cover almost the entire floor of the cab. I climb up into the truck and slide over on the seat. My knees are hiked up to my nose because of the bags. There isn’t much room with all the supplies crammed inside. When Sam slides in, his feet barely fit under the steering wheel.

  “How’s this going to work?” I ask.

  “Well, that depends on you.”

  “What does that mean?” I lift one eyebrow.

  “Take off your coat,” he says. “Apparently mine makes a terrible pillow, so we’re using yours.”

  We’re using? I shiver.

  “Cold? Don’t worry. We’ll use mine as a blanket.”

  I pull off my coat and rub my hands up and down my sweater-covered arms. The sweater doesn’t block the wind very well, but it’s not so bad when Sam closes the door. He turns and pulls me against him, my back to his chest.

  “Think you can sleep like this?” His breath rasps against my ear and I shiver. He pulls me tighter.

  Ummm, heck yes, I can sleep like this.

  He takes my silence as consent and shifts, stretching his legs out and pulling my down coat under his head, a big puffy ball. His chest becomes my pillow, and it isn’t nearly as soft as my jacket.

  Of course, I’m not complaining.

  He pulls his heavy, brown leather coat over us both. His breath shifts my hair slightly, warm and constant. His arms tighten around my waist and he stretches again, settling in.

  Keep quiet, I think. Even if you can’t sleep, don’t keep Sam awake. I lie back and try to relax. I’m warm and safe. But, also guilty. This should be Wesley. If I’d left with Wesley like he wanted, we’d have three years, tops. It wasn’t my fault he got Marked and had to leave. But if I get the cure, Wesley might come home. Thoughts roll around in my head like tumbleweed in a barren field.

  Sam shifts.

  “Am I hurting your arm?”

  His only response is a low laugh I both hear and feel against my back.

  “Seriously, am I cutting off your circulation?” I try to turn around.

  He tightens his grip. “You can’t hurt me, sunshine. Shhhh.”

  Sunshine? I try to sleep. I really do, but I have trouble sleeping in normal circumstances and this isn’t even odd. It’s almost otherworldly. This time I shift. Then I shift again. I move my head.

  Sam sighs. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry. I have trouble sleeping. Maybe I should’ve mentioned that.”

  He snorts.

  “I could take a sleeping pill.”

  “No, bad idea.”

  “Okay, well. Maybe you could tell me a story.”

  “Are you serious?” Sam asks.

  “No.”

  “You are. Okay, about what?” His breath blows pleasantly on the back of my neck when he speaks.

  “I don’t know.” I think for a minute. “Something from Before. Do you remember much?”

  He’s so quiet, I wonder if I asked the wrong thing. When he speaks, the words are so quiet that I almost can’t hear them. “I’ll tell you about the last time I saw my mom.”

  I tense, guilty about asking for a story now.

  “You mentioned her earlier.”

  “Never mind.” I sit up and reach for my bag at our feet. “I have sleeping pills right here.” Sam pulls me back against his chest.

  “You don’t want to be groggy if something happens.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s the last thing I remember before Tercera hit. My uncle, my mom’s little brother, was named Chaz. I don’t know what his real name was but that’s what we called him. Uncle Chaz. He wasn’t always the best guy, I guess. Anyway, he was in prison.”

  I shift a little to see Sam’s face while he talks.

  “My mom visited him every month, sometimes twice. When my dad was away on business, she’d take me and my little brother Raphael with her, even though my dad got mad if he found out. We lived in California, near San Francisco. My dad left that morning on a business trip and we were all supposed to go on vacation to Disneyland the very next day. He said he’d be back in time for us to leave. Since we were going for ten days, my mom wanted to see Uncle Chaz before we left. We got all dressed up that morning and I drew Uncle Chaz a picture. It was our family in front of Disneyland, and Uncle Chaz was standing with us.”

  “Mom drove us to the prison. I remember it was on the beach and it was pretty, you know, for a prison. The men all wore grey jumpsuits. They led us to a little cubicle and Uncle Chaz came inside like always. My mom was so happy to see him. I couldn’t really remember a time before he got locked up, but that morning, seeing how much my mom loved him, and how much she missed him, I asked him why he had to be in prison. He said he did som
ething bad, and since I was only eight, I asked what. When he wouldn’t explain, I pushed. Mom got mad and I went to pout in the corner. That’s why I didn’t touch him.”

  A chill runs through me. Why should that detail matter?

  “That day he looked different. Raphael noticed it right away. He asked Uncle Chaz what was wrong with him.” Sam’s arm tightens around me, pulling me back against him. His entire body tenses.

  “What was it?”

  “He had a mark. Little red bumps that almost looked like a backwards number six.”

  I choke.

  “On his forehead.”

  I push up on one arm and turn to face him. “He was Marked?”

  “Yes, before that meant anything. No one had even heard of it then. He unwittingly Marked my mom and Raphael, too.”

  “How were you spared?” I ask. “And what about your dad?”

  “Like I said, I got mad at my mom for scolding me and went to the corner. When we left, she fussed at me even more for acting like a baby. I was so mad, I ran straight up to my room. That happened to be the very day some guy served my dad with divorce papers. She thought he wouldn’t get them until after our trip, but Dad flew home early and got served at his office.”

  “That’s a sad memory.” Sam’s dad, John Roth, is an imposing guy. Large, sure of himself, and decisive. I doubt he took the news well.

  “Dad charged in the door, eyes flashing, fists clenched, jaw muscles popping. He accused Mom of fighting dirty, but she shook her head. He took one look at her face and realized she was serious, I guess. He told Raphael and me to grab our bags and come with him. We both loved Mom way more, but I was mad at her, and I didn’t understand what any of it meant. When my dad promised me ice cream and said we could still go to Disneyland if we followed him, Raphael stayed with Mom.”

  Sam breathes in and out slowly. “I should’ve stayed, and with any other set of circumstances, I would’ve stayed. But that day, I went. After that Dad wouldn’t give me up. Even knowing I’d have been Marked, I’ve regretted leaving with him ever since.”

  Sam would rather be dead than be with his dad? I don’t know his dad that well, but that seems harsh.