In a Handful of Dust

by McGinnis,Mindy

  Thirty

  “Get that away from me,” Lynn said, when Lucy offered her the zapper in their room that evening.

  “It’s not such a bad idea,” Lucy argued. “Lander keeps your gun locked up when he’s not on the roof with you, and you’re weak like a fish on shore.”

  “Maybe, but that thing’s no good unless somebody is in arm’s reach. My rifle keeps them farther even when it’s not loaded.”

  “Fine.” Lucy put both zappers into her pack. “But I’ll point out again that you don’t have the rifle, period.”

  Lynn threw an arm over her face, and her voice came out muffled by the crook of her elbow. “I’ll get it back. Lander’s not the most charming man in the world, but he’s not stupid either. If it helps them to arm me, he’ll do it.”

  Lucy unlaced her boots carefully, weighing her words before speaking. “I found quite a few veins today.”

  “Viable ones?”

  “Think so. Ben was pretty distracting, so I couldn’t get a feel for how deep they were, but there’s water out there.”

  Lynn grunted, but offered nothing more.

  Lucy stripped off her clothes and slid into her own bed. Darkness had filled the rest of the room, but she could see the outline of Lynn’s arm tented over her face in the moonlight. “Ben said Nora and Bailey were the only women here before we showed up.”

  The eruption of panic she’d been expecting didn’t come. Instead Lynn sighed, the simple exhalation a measure of how trapped she felt. “I know.”

  “How?”

  “Lander can’t always know what I’m looking at through the scope, and I see plenty, but never once a woman. So asking a few of the right questions to Nora today opened her up a bit. She even told me how come there’s no guns around here except mine.” Lucy rolled onto her side to hear Lynn better as her disembodied voice floated through the darkness.

  “I was wondering,” Lucy said. “Seems like a city this size there’d be guns somewhere.”

  “There was, back when the Shortage first happened. Plenty, to hear Nora tell it. But people were panicking here, same as back home. Mother said when things first went down it was chaos. In a city this size, with the hotels filled with those who didn’t belong, it turned downright nasty. Those that lived here claimed their water for themselves.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Those who didn’t belong were tossed into the desert, but they didn’t go easy. Nora said there was so much blood the sand was like mud, and people sinking into it up to their ankles while they begged to stay.”

  Lucy reached for the bottle she had beside her bed, though she hadn’t adjusted to the taste of the water yet. The burning heat of the desert was a fresh memory, and the image of desperate people driven to madness made her clutch the bottle all the more tightly. “They all die?”

  “Seems someone among the outcasts was no idiot, and they made their way over to a place called Lake Mead. Lost a lot on the walk. Nora said there were buzzards in a straight line in the sky. People must’ve been dropping every few feet.”

  Lucy had seen enough buzzards in her time, their black wings and long, slow descents marking the final resting place of someone unlucky. “That’s horrible.”

  “They weren’t the only ones who headed to the lake. There were plenty of people those days that didn’t like everything this city stood for, and the things that went on in it. So when the people who lived in the City of Sin made judgment calls about who got to survive after the Shortage, it didn’t set well with those who had took up at the lake. When the exiles straggled in, there was no sympathy for the city dwellers among either group, and a common enemy makes for fast friends.

  “They came back at night and went after those who had killed their loved ones. Nora said if she had thought the sand was mud before, then the streets were rivers that night.

  “The people from the lake scoured the city, took every gun they found, adding to their own strength and ensuring any revenge the people of Las Vegas tried to take would be of the unarmed kind. Nora says still if anyone from the city tries to take the pass to Lake Mead, they get a warning shot. But only sometimes.”

  “So all the water they’ve got access to is what’s in the hotel tanks, the stored pool water and such. If they run out . . .”

  “If they run out, they’re dead, and I’ve got no idea how much is left. But the fact they’ll let a stranger like me clear areas where there’s old water stored says a lot.”

  Threads of thought spun webs in Lucy’s brain, and when she spoke again it was with a hesitant voice. “Ben says there was a bad wave of cholera back when he was born. For all they know the water in those hotels they’ve been cut off from is infected with Lord knows what all.”

  “There’d only be one way to find out.”‘

  “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”

  “Well, cheer up. They won’t risk losing us—we’ve got wombs,” Lynn said darkly.

  “You really think Lander would have one of his own men drink water that could kill them?”

  “I think Lander would pour poison down his mother’s throat if it served his purposes.”

  The thin bank of clouds moved on and the moon shone into their room, shining brightly on the two women so far from their home. Lucy swallowed hard, fighting back tears.

  “Ben says I spoke up too early, that I shouldn’t have told I can witch. He says the men on the road would’ve helped us anyway, on account of us being women, and I was stupid to give away my secret so soon.”

  The words tumbled out into the darkness, hot and sticky in her mouth, leaving as much of an aftertaste as the Las Vegas water. “If I hadn’t told, they might not try so hard to keep us here. They’ll never let us go now. Not when I could be the only thing that keeps them from dying.”

  “Well, Ben’s a short idiot. Letting us go is one thing and us leaving is another.”

  The giggles started in Lucy’s midsection and worked their way upward, erupting only when she pictured the look on Ben’s face if he knew Lynn had called him a short idiot. Lynn glanced over.

  “Not a lot to laugh about.”

  “No,” Lucy admitted, wiping the last tears from her face. “There’s not. Shit, Lynn, what’re we gonna do?”

  “We’re gonna get out of here before I’m pregnant and you’re failing to thrive.”

  Lucy did not sleep well. Dreams filled with bloodied sand and dark drops on black pavement kept bringing her back to consciousness to take deep breaths of the fetid hotel air.

  “I’m getting up,” she said to Lynn, moments before the sun began to streak the sky pink. Lynn muttered something from the other bed but didn’t stir. She was not the type to sleep in, and her fatigue was a measure of how drained her body still was.

  Lucy dressed in clothes Nora had given her, ones that fit better than Ben’s castoffs from when they first arrived. Lucy’s clothes from the road were so choked with bad memories she couldn’t believe the threadbare fabric could hold up under the weight. She slipped out the door and closed it softly behind her, not wanting to steal whatever moments of sleep Lynn might have left before Lander came calling to take her to the roof.

  The hallway air was even heavier than in the room, where at least a window could be opened. Lucy exhaled sharply, and a door down the hall opened. Nora stepped out and Lucy called to her, glad to see she wasn’t the only one awake.

  “Hey, Nora,” she said as she walked toward her, and the older woman jumped. “Sorry,” Lucy said quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay,” Nora said, but her hands were shaking as she pulled her hair up off her shoulders into a ponytail. “You couldn’t sleep?”

  “Nope.” Lucy glanced into Nora’s room out of curiosity and saw what Ben had promised. Medical books lined the walls on shelves clumsily set at awkward angles, sagging beneath the weight. “You a reader?”

  Nora pulled the door shut but smiled at Lucy, motioning for her to follow. “Those are
n’t the kinds of books you read to pass the time, little one. What’s in those books keeps me sleepless, like you.”

  They walked out of the hotel into the warm morning. A stiff breeze peppered with sand picked at them as they walked toward the indoor gardens. “Not a good day for your mom to be up on the roof,” Nora observed.

  “No,” Lucy said, “but Lander will probably take her anyway. She’s a good enough shot to account for the wind and still hit her target.”

  They picked up the pace as they passed the sand dunes in front of the garden hotel. The breeze was sculpting intricate tops and tossing the extra sand into their faces. Nora held the door open for Lucy and they stood inside for a moment, listening to the sand hitting the glass windows.

  “That’s quite the ability your mom has. I’m surprised she has no problem doling out death, when her own mother was a healer like me.”

  Lucy splayed her hand on the glass window and studied it to buy some time as she made up a lie. “My grandma was trained in the city as a doctor, but when she had to leave, Lynn learned a harder way of life.”

  “And which one do you take after?”

  “I don’t know enough about myself to know,” Lucy said honestly. “I guess I could kill if I had to, but Lynn’s made sure I haven’t had to.”

  Nora spread her own hand on the glass next to Lucy’s, equally small but with wrinkled skin. “I think you’ve got potential as a healer. You have small hands and a quick, gentle touch. Your mom said you were helping your grandmother back home when polio went through.”

  “Yeah.” Lucy pulled her hand away from the warm glass, a sudden vision of familiar faces contorted with pain filling her mind. “My best friend was the first one to go.”

  Nora touched her arm, her hand warm and sure. “I’m sorry.”

  Lucy watched the pattern of her hand fading from the window, the tiny amount of moisture she’d left behind evaporating quickly on the hot glass.

  “Ben said you know a lot about water sicknesses, that you gathered up those books and learned all you could. Is polio something you know a lot about?”

  “I do, yes.” Nora smiled at her. “Is that the first thing you would like to learn about? The illness that drove you from home?”

  “Definitely,” Lucy said, smiling back despite the nervous churning of her stomach. “I was wondering about something particular. I know someone can have polio and not show any symptoms, but still pass it on to other people, right?”

  Nora nodded. “Yes, they’re called carriers.”

  Lucy’s words came out in a rush, the miles of road in between her and Carter insignificant in her mind if she could deliver him from the hell of loneliness. “So will that person always have polio? Can they continue to infect people until they’re dead?”

  “No,” Nora said automatically, and Lucy’s heart leapt in her chest. “The carrier’s body will pass the virus out within a few weeks. They’d definitely need to be quarantined for a while and monitored, but after enough time, the carrier would pose no more danger.”

  Lucy shut her eyes against the pounding heat of the lobby, her heart beating in her chest so loudly she wondered if Nora could hear it.

  “Morning, ladies.” Lander’s voice bounced off the glass in front of them to reverberate back through Lucy’s bones, reminding her there was still a game to be played, and with more consequences now than ever.

  She turned with a smile. “Good morning.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Thirty-One

  Witching with Ben was more tedious than ever, now that Lucy knew she would never benefit from the wells she was marking. Fletcher’s warning about dragging Lynn back over the mountains echoed in her mind, drowning out Ben’s complaints about the blowing sand. With each quiver of the stick Ben drove a flag, and Lucy didn’t stop him even when she was well aware it was the quickness of her own pulse and not the call of water.

  “Can we be done already?” Ben whined. “This sand is getting everywhere, and I mean everywhere.” He pulled the band of his pants away from his stomach to illustrate his point.

  “Don’t forget this stick still wants to hit you,” Lucy teased, her spirits high enough to put up with Ben’s misguided humor.

  He was concocting a smart remark when Lucy spotted a flash of light over his shoulder. “What’s a car doing out there?” Lucy framed her hands around her eyes to keep the sand out and squinted. “The highway’s the other direction.”

  “It’s nothing,” Ben said, jamming the diminishing stack of flags under his arm. “C’mon, I’m done with this.”

  “What if it’s someone lost, like I was?” Lucy argued, still staring into the distance.

  “I said, it’s nothing,” Ben insisted. “But if it’ll get you moving, I’ll tell Dad once we get back and he’ll send a car out.”

  “All right,” Lucy agreed, readjusting her pack. “Don’t forget, though.”

  Ben’s eyebrows shot up. “You can tell him yourself if you don’t trust me.”

  “No. I need to get back and talk to Lynn.”

  “About what?”

  “Just to check on her,” Lucy lied quickly, alarmed at how easy it was becoming. “She wasn’t feeling well this morning.”

  Ben stopped in his tracks and grabbed Lucy’s arm. “Do you mean she was vomiting? Like morning sickness?”

  Lucy jerked out of his grip. “No, moron, just like you know, I-nearly-died-in-the-desert-and-don’t-feel-so-great-yet kind of sick.”

  “Okay, good,” Ben said, as they started walking again. “You’d let me know if she was, right? Pregnant?”

  “Oh, you’ll be the first person I tell,” Lucy said. “Another good indication would be your father’s slit throat.”

  “Lynn?” Lucy burst through their door, the news of her early morning discovery about Carter on the tip of her tongue.

  “What?” Lynn was resting in the chair, her head leaned to one side, eyes ringed in dark circles. Lucy’s words died on her lips.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Lynn said. “Though I could do without Lander watching every move I make. I’ve got a gun and all he’s got is his eyes, and somehow I feel like he’s got the drop on me.”

  “Is there . . . did he . . .” Lucy trailed off, unaccustomed to being the one asking after the other’s safety.

  “He didn’t lay a finger on me,” Lynn answered the unasked question. “Though he’s not very good at hiding the fact he’d like to try.”

  “Well, he probably doesn’t have a lot of practice with flirting.”

  Lynn smiled. “It worries me though. Him and Ben both are used to getting what they want and probably don’t know how to handle it when it doesn’t come easy. We need to get out of here.”

  “I need to talk to you about that,” Lucy said, sitting on the end of the bed.

  “You want to stay?”

  “No,” Lucy said. “I want to go home. For Carter.”

  Lynn sat back in the chair. “What the hell are you saying?”

  “I talked to Nora this morning,” Lucy said. “She knows all about polio. She said a carrier—like Carter—they don’t have it forever. It passes out of their body.”

  Lynn’s eyes slid shut, her body suddenly so still the only movement was the pulse in her throat. “Christ,” she said after a while. “Oh, Christ.”

  “Carter is out in the wild by himself. I owe it to him to go back and let him know. I can’t—” Lucy’s voice cracked as she thought of the few hours after she’d left Lynn behind on the road, her footfalls no longer echoed by someone else’s. “I can’t imagine anything worse.”

  Lynn was silent in the chair, the last red rays of sun hitting her hard and showing lines Lucy had never noticed before, as if she’d aged in the last few minutes. “Lynn?”

  “I can set your mind at ease about that,” Lynn said.
“Carter’s not wandering alone by himself. I killed him.”

  “You . . .” Lucy stared at Lynn blankly, all reason having left her. “You’re kidding.”

  Lynn shook her head slowly, and opened her eyes to fix them on Lucy’s.

  The hope that had gathered in Lucy all day was sucked out of her so forcefully it felt as if her lungs collapsed, leaving the only word she could think of weak and flat as it escaped her. “Why?”

  “He was following us for a ways, and back at Lake Wellesley I went out and found him. He was ready to go, Lucy.”

  A white heat leapt from Lucy’s gut, igniting her muscles and driving her up off the bed before she knew what she intended to do. Her hand cracked against Lynn’s cheek, and the older woman’s head bounced off the side of the chair with the force of Lucy’s blow.

  “No!” she screamed at Lynn, tears erupting from her eyes. “You shut up! Don’t you say it, don’t you tell me it was a mercy!” Lucy beat at Lynn with her bare hands, bruising the soft skin of her palms with every strike. Lynn curled into a ball, letting Lucy’s anger break against her body. But Lucy’s rage was not receding, and soon Lynn’s nose was bloodied while Lucy still screamed.

  “Carter wanted to live, he wanted babies and home, he wanted life. He was like me. And you took it from him because all you know is death!” She struck Lynn over and over, but the outpouring of words and tears did nothing to touch the deep pool of grief that had been opened inside of her.

  She didn’t stop until Nora pulled her off Lynn, her hands and forearms slick with the blood of the woman who had devoted her life to protecting her. “I hate you,” she screamed, her hysterical voice breaking on every word. “I hate you and your fucking gun!”

  The last thing she saw as Nora dragged her from the room was Lynn curled into a bloody ball on the floor, eyes as blank as they had been when Lucy had left her behind in the desert.

  Nora wiped Lynn’s blood from Lucy’s hands while tears and truth flowed from Lucy in an unbridled wave. She talked about Carter and how his smile was one of her first memories, how years of building tree houses together in the woods had evolved into thoughts of something more permanent for both of them. How broken she had been when Maddy died, the pain of leaving home knowing Carter was damned, and that she would never see her grandmother or Stebbs again. She talked about Joss left to die on the road and of the mother who had put a gun to her temple. She told Nora that Lynn was not her mother, and now she was glad of it.