Not a Drop to Drink

Eleven

A killing frost had fallen, turning the morning dew into a deadly covering of ice that stilled the insect voices. The sharp morning air ripped into Lynn’s lungs as she zipped her coveralls up to her neck. Beside her, an unrecognizable Lucy trotted loyally along, an oversized hat pulled down to her eyebrows, a scarf wrapped up to her nostrils.

“What’re we doing today?” Her voice was muffled by the layers of fabric Lynn had covered her with before trusting her frail skin to the outdoors.

“Gotta get wood inside. You sit if your feet start hurting you.”

Lucy had proven less a hindrance and more a help as the days went by. Her endless energy and curiosity could be put to good use, Lynn had soon realized. Small jobs, like gathering little bits of kindling and checking the supply of sanitized water, had soon bored her, and Lynn began trusting her with more work. Her feet were still healing from cutting out the overgrown toenails, something that had been less of struggle than Lynn had anticipated.

She’d asked Stebbs to assist, expecting crying, pleading, and a general struggle from Lucy. Her request that he hold the child down while she did the cutting had been met with a raised eyebrow and the suggestion that they try a less violent route first. After his patient, carefully worded explanation to Lucy, she had submitted gracefully to his touch, wincing and burying her head in Lynn’s lap for the worst moments. There had been tears, but no wailing. The throb after the surgery Lynn had dulled with some aspirin, after struggling with the cap. It hadn’t been removed in years.

Lynn had debated allowing Lucy to help her haul wood in. One dropped log could send the child into a world of pain. But Lucy insisted that boredom was worse than a bloody toe, finally consenting to wearing three pairs of socks inside of an old pair of Lynn’s boots. She plodded along beside Lynn as they made their way to the pole barn, curious and comfortable.

“All right,” Lynn said as she shoved the rolling door open. “I’ve got a wagon in here you can drag around the yard, gather all the little sticks, things we can use for kindling if our coals go out downstairs.”

Lucy’s brows knitted and she stopped in her tracks. “That’s not a new job. You said you had a new job for me.”

“You get to use the wagon now.” The flash of inspiration had struck Lynn on her water-gathering chores the evening before when she’d spotted her old red wagon, rusting in the dark corner.

“That’s an old job, just with a new wagon. I wanna help you with the wood.”

“You are helping with the wood,” Lynn insisted as she tugged on the handle to dislodge the wagon from its ancient resting place. “Kindling is wood.”

Lucy muttered something under her breath, but it was lost inside the scarf covering her mouth. She took the handle of the wagon and trudged glumly out the door with the wagon wheels squeaking their protest. Lynn followed, warned Lucy to stay in the yard, then made her way to the wood cords on the east side of the house.

They would make it through the winter. The basement retained heat well, especially once she dropped the woolen blanket that covered the entrance to the pantry room. There wouldn’t be much excess firewood to rely on for the next fall, which made cutting in the summer a must. How she would manage to leave the house to cut was a question she didn’t have a good answer to. The pond could not be left unguarded. She’d probably have to trade labor with Stebbs again, and even though she didn’t like the idea of needing him, the feeling of shame that usually erupted at having to ask for help had subsided a bit.

Self-reliance had been Mother’s mantra. Nothing was more important than themselves and their belongings. Allowing Lucy into their home had gone against everything she’d learned, but leaving the little girl to die beside the stream went against something that was simply known and had never been taught. She’d shared the thought with Stebbs after they worked on Lucy’s feet. He told her it was her conscience, guiding her to the right decision.

Having a conscience was a new experience, and one Lynn was starting to question as she regarded the sullen child tossing twigs into the rusty red wagon. Lucy would have to go back. Eli and Neva had shelter now; a few days ago, Lucy had come running down to the pond, the armload of sticks threatening to take an eye out if she fell.

“Lynn—there’s a truck coming down the road!”

Such a nonsensical comment had brought Lynn to her feet, sidearm in hand. They’d rushed to the roof together, Lynn impatiently smacking the little girl’s backside when she’d balked twenty feet up. The sound of an engine had been noticeable on the cold morning air, and Lynn chided herself for not hearing it sooner. She’d been distracted by the looming handle of the water bucket that should be ebbing and flowing peacefully far beneath the surface of the pond, not mere inches from it.

The hum of the engine grew louder and Lynn saw that Lucy was right. There was a truck coming, Stebbs behind the wheel. As he passed, she saw that the bed held a chain saw and raw lumber. He waved happily, throwing his arms up in mock surrender when he saw Lynn’s gun. Lucy jumped up and down, waving back ecstatically.

“What’s he doin’?” Lucy asked.

“Looks like he’s going to build your mama a house.”

Lucy stood on her tiptoes to watch as Stebbs disappeared down the road. “He’s kinda like magic, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Lynn had smiled a little in spite of herself. “Kinda.”

No amount of coercing would convince Lynn to visit the new home by the stream. “I’m sure it’s great,” she assured Stebbs as he regarded her over a shared supper in the basement. He’d brought beans with him and offered to help Lynn cut down the cured venison from the trees. It seemed rude to let him walk off into the cold evening without a warm supper. The venison had been frozen, but a few chunks cooked up nicely on the stove with the beans. Lucy sat on her cot, running her finger along the inside of the bean can to get the last bits of sauce.

Stebbs watched her for a second before continuing. “It’s better than great. Tiny, on account of we tossed it up so fast, but Eli had a good idea. There’s a loft where they can sleep so they don’t have to roll up their bedding every morning. Wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to build, but there was some sense in it, ’cause there’s not much floor space.”

Lynn stared moodily down at her supper. The idea of Neva and Eli snuggled together in the loft made her stomach feel funny in a way that wasn’t related to hunger.

“That Eli, he’s a worker. Give him some food and it gets turned into pure muscle. I’m telling you, Lynn, you wouldn’t recognize the boy from the first time you saw him.”

She grunted and studied her food.

“Then I got lucky and found an old woodstove over to the junkyard. Nothing pretty, but it’s not too big.” He took a bite of venison, and Lynn welcomed the moment of silence while he chewed.

Stebbs swallowed. “Cut a hole in the roof and run some piping up there and they were home, neat as pins. Doesn’t have a door though. The stove, not the house. I told them they’ll have to watch for sparks flying out of there ’til I can fix it.”

“Until you can fix it?”

“Sure, why not?” He took another bite of meat and spoke with his mouth full. “I got nothing else to do. You’re not exactly begging for help.”

“I don’t need any.”

“I see that.” He motioned toward the well-stocked pantry and the full clean water tank beyond that. “You’ll be setting even better once the little missy is off your hands.”

“Off my hands?”

“Sure.” Stebbs wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Now that there’s a real home over there, with her mother in it.”

“Right, her mother. Who hasn’t asked about her once.” The swelling anger in her belly took her by surprise, and she fought hard to keep her mouth tight, her tone even.

“Now, how would you know that? You’re not exactly the visiting type. For all you know, Neva is over there crying her eyes out over her little girl.”

Lynn gave him a cold stare over their empty plates. “But I bet she’s not.”

Stebbs shot a glance over at Lucy, who was busy hitting the bean can with a stick. “No, she’s not crying. But I can tell you she’s not doing so well either. Women don’t always show their emotions clearly, and that one is hurting. She lost her home, husband, and brand-new baby all at once. If she deals with it by sticking by the stream and sitting quiet, that’s her business.”

Lynn’s eyes narrowed. “You like her.”

“She’s pretty,” he said defensively.

“Pretty useless.”

They glared at each other in silence long enough for Lucy to notice the change. She kicked the can over to where they were sitting cross-legged on the floor. “What’s wrong?”

“Just this young lady here and I having a difference of opinion, is all,” Stebbs said, rising awkwardly to his feet. “Time for me to be going, I suppose. Thanks for supper.”

“You brought it,” Lynn said grudgingly. Happy with him or not, she wouldn’t have him thanking her for his own food.

Stebbs sighed and winked at Lucy. “Thanks anyway. And if you get it in your head to go over that direction, there’s at least one person by the stream that I think wouldn’t mind seeing you.”

“I can’t leave the pond.” Lynn ignored the reference to Eli, although a flush crept up her cheeks that she hoped wasn’t obvious in the dimly lit basement.

“That the problem, is it?”

“I was lucky the one time. Can’t count on luck.” Even days after their trip to the stream to deliver Neva’s baby, Lynn was haunted by what could have happened in her absence. “I won’t do it again.”

Stebbs considered that for a moment. “All right then, what if I got them to come over here? Kind of like a homecoming party for the little one, when it’s time?”

“Yeah sure, when it’s time.”

Time passed slowly. The days were shorter now, the sun making its arc from one horizon to the other so quickly that Lynn was hard pressed to accomplish her outdoor work in the daylight hours. Lucy was a welcome helper, and their pile of kindling near the basement window was sufficient enough for two winters, but Lynn didn’t tell her to stop. Boredom would be the new enemy, she was well aware. The freezing air would drive them permanently indoors soon, where long hours would stretch.

She stopped gathering water. Every bucketful she removed from the pond brought the handle closer to the surface. Lynn managed to convince herself that if it remained submerged, they would be fine. They were safe for the moment; the clean tank in the basement was full, as were the huge tanks in the pole barn, safe from freezing by their sheer volume. It was the future Lynn stored up against; the possibility of a snowless winter followed by a dry spring. No snowmelt meant no runoff. Since their pond wasn’t ground fed, it relied on rain and runoff for refilling. There had been no rain for weeks.

Lynn shut the barn door behind her, drinking in the smells for the last time in a long time. The basement tank held a thousand gallons. With her daily routine at an end, she might not be back to the barn for refresher fills on the basement tank for a month. Lynn snapped the double padlocks onto the pole barn door, typically Mother’s last act before giving in to the relentless push of the winter. A spasm of grief twisted her gut and she missed Mother desperately. It was so much easier when someone was there to tell her what to do, how to survive. Now she was on her own, with responsibilities she hadn’t asked for.

Lucy responded well to the cold weather, bundling up in layers of Lynn’s old clothes and running for hours through the tall grass, enjoying the sound of the brittle stalks breaking under her feet. Soon she had a meandering maze of a trail pounded down through the unkempt yard, which Lynn could see clearly from the roof. She played for hours with Red Dog, building him little houses out of sticks and destroying them with imaginary natural disasters. She wanted to simulate a flood but Lynn wouldn’t loan her the water. She settled for tornadoes and blew herself red in the face.

She was destroying his third home of the week when a flash of movement to the east caught Lynn’s eye.

“Lucy! To the house!” The little girl jumped to her feet and ran for cover without question.

Lynn peered through her scope, but saw nothing. Wildlife had begun to return to the field where she had slaughtered the coyotes, but she hadn’t seen any more of the wild dogs lately. She followed the path of the road with her scope, willing the tall grass to part and give her a clear view. A breeze snuck through the weeds and spread them far enough for her to see an unnatural shade of blue moving toward the house.

Lynn’s heart skipped a beat; her rifle barrel jumped. Strangers who walked the open road were dangerous. Mother had taught her that those who didn’t hide themselves believed they were the ones to be feared and were best dropped at a distance. Her finger clutched the trigger impulsively, but she let out a slow breath. The man had moved out of her sight behind the overgrowth of the ditch, but the breeze brought an alien sound to her ears.

Whistling.

“Can I come out now?” Lucy’s hesitant voice rose up from under the eaves. Lynn started and lost her grip on the rifle. The sweaty barrel struck the shingles and she reflexively covered her ears, but it did not go off.

“Lucy,” she hissed, “go in the house.” Lynn wiped her hands on her coat and repositioned the rifle. She didn’t hear the back door opening. “Lucy,” she growled, a little louder. “Inside. Now.”

Silence met her demand and a dark dread billowed in her stomach. “Lucy?”

“Who is making a song?” The little voice sounded curious, yet cowed. “You don’t do that.”

Lynn was off her elbows and down the antennae in a moment, rifle clutched in the crook of her arm. Keeping the man in her sights and her aim steady was impossible with Lucy standing in the open, every step bringing the stranger closer to spotting her. She grabbed the little girl by the elbow and yanked her inside, Red Dog trailing from her other hand. When she turned right at the landing instead of heading down the stairs, Lucy quit protesting and clutched Lynn in return, the strangeness of going into the upper levels of the house quieting her.

Lynn headed for the living room, where the two front windows looked out onto the road only ten feet away. She silently raised the window enough to slide her rifle barrel under. Lucy crouched beside her, eyes wide.

The whistling was much louder now. He came into view slowly, hobbling on bare feet over the patchy gravel road, hands jammed into his pockets against the slight chill of the breeze. Lynn could see the stark outlines of his meager muscles under the thin covering of his goose-bumped skin. Still he whistled, each shuffling step falling in time with the tune he forced between his teeth though it seemed it was a struggle even to breathe.

Lynn took her own breath, exhaled partway and stilled her chest, eye to the scope. Suddenly she was very conscious of Lucy’s hand on her arm, the warmth of each tiny finger seeping into her skin.

“He looks lonely,” the little girl said, and Lynn let out the rest of her breath in a rush, pulling away from the scope.

“Of course he’s lonely,” she snapped. “He’s alone. Now I need you to be quiet and not touch me for a minute.”

Lucy’s grip on Lynn’s arm tightened. “You’re not gonna shoot him, are you?”

“I . . .” Lynn looked down at Lucy, her blue eyes wide and questioning, Red Dog tucked protectively under her elbow. “This is what I do, Lucy,” she said softly. “This is how I keep us safe.”

“But he didn’t hurt us,” Lucy said, bewilderment bringing her fine eyebrows together over her tiny nose. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“We don’t know that.”

Lucy’s lower lip stuck out in an expression Lynn knew all too well. “Then ask him.”

“What?”

“I’m not letting you shoot him ’til you know he’s a bad man.”

“You’re kidding.”

Lucy crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow imperiously at Lynn, the strongest echo of Neva she’d seen in the child yet.

The whistling had stopped. Lynn glanced out the window and saw that the stranger was standing directly in front of the house, his gaze riveted on the freshly cut woodpile. “Looks like he knows we’re in here already,” she said. “You stay inside.” Lynn tapped her finger on the end of Lucy’s nose with every syllable for emphasis.

The front door hadn’t been opened in years, and the hinges groaned as she pulled it inward, heart in her throat. The porch was covered with piles of rotting leaves, years of debris left to decay. Lynn stepped around them, her attention hooked on the stranger’s face. He had jumped at the sound of the door but now stood hunched against the chill, eyes wary and trained on her rifle.

Her stomach clenched in apprehension before she spoke, every muscle in her body straining to stop her tongue from breaking Mother’s rules. “Where you headed?”

He looked away from the gun and up to her face, then jerked his head to the west. “That way, I suppose,” he said.

Lynn licked her lips to hide her irritation. “Why that way, is what I’m asking, and I think you know it.”

A small smile played with the man’s lips and she noticed that though his face had fine lines on it like Stebbs, his hair was solid brown with no traces of gray. “I’m headed that way because it’s the opposite of the direction I come from,” he said. “And I’m in a hurry to get away from there.”

Lynn checked her grip on the rifle and took a step closer. “Where are your shoes?”

“They took ’em,” he said briefly, and Lynn saw his eyes dart over her shoulder, drawn to the window by some movement of Lucy’s. “You alone here, girl?”

“No,” she said. “My father lives here with me.”

“But he sends you out to investigate strange men?”

“I’m the better shot.”

The man’s eyes went to her hands on the gun, sure and confident. “I believe ya.” They watched each other warily for a moment and the wind gusted, making him jam his hands farther into his pockets and turn away from the breeze.

“Who was it took your shoes? Another wanderer?”

“I’m no wanderer; least, I wasn’t ’til a few days ago. I was set up nice, just like you.”

Lynn’s eyes cut to the bloody gashes on his feet, the dirt packed in between his toes. “So what happened?”

“It was taken from me, in the night.” He looked back to the east as he spoke, as if the words could conjure those who had harmed him. “A truckload of men come up on me, took my gun, coat, shoes, anything in the house they thought they could use and some stuff there’s not been a need for since I don’t know when. They loaded it all up and left me smelling their exhaust.”

“You couldn’t stay and make a go of it?”

He shook his head and looked at the ground. “All’s I had left was the roof over my head, and there’s plenty of those still standing. Thought I’d find something else, maybe a house with some wood already cut and left behind, a few tin cans hanging around in the cupboards.”

“Don’t be thinking because I asked your story I’m interested in being a part of it,” Lynn said coldly.

The man put his hands in the air. “Didn’t mean nothing by it. You can see I’m in no shape to be taking anything from anybody.”

“All right then,” Lynn said, backing away from him with her gun slightly raised. “I’m gonna walk back inside the house here, and I want you to sit tight—”

“Stand tight, you mean?” She saw another flicker of a smile and she fought down the urge to smile back at her own mistake.

“Whichever,” she said, no trace of her stifled humor showing in her voice. “I’ll be back shortly.” Lynn ducked inside the house and shoved the door closed. “Lucy,” she whispered, “run down to the basement and get my mother’s boots and coat.”

“The ones by my cot?”

“Yeah, go grab ’em. Hurry now, while I keep an eye on him.”

Lucy scrambled off, evidently believing that Lynn’s good humor could evaporate at any moment. She returned slightly breathless and buried underneath the quilted dark blue coat that Mother had always worn, the boots dangling from one hand. Lynn took them from her without a word, ignoring the quick puff of air that still smelled of Mother. When she pulled the door open, the stranger was cowering against the chill, the veins in his arms flat blue lines. Lynn walked to the edge of the porch and tossed Mother’s boots and coat into the wind, the right boot pinwheeling over the left and landing at his feet. “My mother wasn’t a large woman, but you’re not that big of a guy. It might be a fit,” she said, her mouth clamped tightly against the emotions that welled in her throat, threatening to break through and send her running after the coat, an object that was so entwined with the thought of Mother she could hardly picture her without seeing it.

The man bent down cautiously, watching Lynn as if waiting for some trick to be played. She remained still, gun pointed downward, and he grunted appreciatively when a pair of balled-up socks rolled out of one of the boots. The coat was snug through the shoulders, but the sleeves were the right length. He sat down to lace up the boots, and Lynn felt a pang of protectiveness shoot through her at the sight of an adult going through Lucy’s morning ritual, although his hands were numb from the cold and somewhat less sure than her nimble fingers.

Lynn cleared her throat when he stood up experimentally. “They fit?”

“They do, and I thank you,” he said, clear eyes connecting with hers and holding her gaze for the first time. “You probably saved my life.”

“I owe a few.”

He nodded once as if he understood and looked back to the east. “Whether you’re alone or not, you be careful now, girl, you hear? Those men took everything from me, and they’ll take that and a bit more from you, understand?”

“I can take care of myself,” Lynn said. “You best be on your way now.”

“Good luck to you then,” he said, gave her a two-fingered wave and went west, his boots making a scuffing noise against the gravel as he adjusted to walking in shoes again.

Lynn went inside and crouched by the window with Lucy, who wordlessly tucked herself into the curve of Lynn’s body. Lynn wrapped her arms around the little girl, allowed her warmth to flow up her arms and into her chest, where her heart still ached for the loss of Mother. Lucy tilted her head against the window to watch the stranger go, her breath making a fog against the cold glass, until they could see him no more.

“Good luck, mister,” she said, her words filled with the hope of a child.