Not a Drop to Drink

Two

The storm that blew in that afternoon was a mixed blessing. The water Lynn had set out to purify on the tin wouldn’t be getting the full eight hours of sun, but life was falling from the sky. All the containers they had, from plastic measuring cups to five-gallon buckets to old glass bottles, were strewn throughout the yard. Mother and Lynn ran back and forth during the rain, emptying full containers into the barn tanks and dashing back outside to catch every possible drop with the empties.

“It’s a good rain,” Lynn said as they took a breath together in the barn. “The tank we’re on is nearly full. Only one empty left.”

“There’s never enough,” Mother said. “Don’t forget that.”

The animals came out after the storm, like clockwork. The worms and moles came up for air as their tunnel homes flooded. The worms brought the birds, the moles brought the cats, and birds and cats brought the top of the food chain—the coyotes. Mother said back when she was a teenager it was rare to see one, usually only a brief flicker in the headlights in the dead of night. Now they hunted in the light of day, and curiosity brought them right into the shadow of the house in the afternoons.

“There he is,” Mother muttered under her breath as they paced the yard together, gathering the last of their rainwater. “That big bastard,” she said, handing the binoculars over to Lynn. “Look.”

Lynn adjusted them, and raised them to her eyes. “I’d say forty, maybe forty-five pounds, you think?”

“Maybe more.”

Lynn watched him through the binoculars. He was leading a small pack of foragers, two other scraggly creatures who nipped at each other in play as they went. Their leader’s nose was to the ground, his focus intent. A flash on the horizon caught her attention, and Lynn swept her gaze southwest.

“Stebbs has got a bead on him,” she said.

“What?” Mother squinted into the distance.

Lynn adjusted the binoculars again, took a longer look. “He’s got the thirty-thirty out, the one with the scope.”

“Probably just looking then. I doubt he fires on a coyote, no matter how big.”

Lynn looked back at the pack. The leader turned, irritated at his comrades’ lack of commitment, and pinned one to the ground by its neck. He let it up slowly, and both the smaller ones rolled over, exposing their submissive bellies. “Think he should?”

“Normally, I’d say no, don’t waste a bullet on a coyote, especially a thirty-thirty. Meat’s too tough. You burn up more energy chewing it than you get from eating it.” She outstretched one hand for the binoculars, and Lynn gave them over. “Big Bastard though . . . he needs shooting.”

Lynn saw the flash from the sun glinting off Stebbs’ rifle as he put it down.

“Asshole,” Mother muttered. “He fires that gun so little he probably never has to clean it. Which reminds me: bring our cleaning kits up to the roof when you come.”

Lynn dumped the last of the rainwater into the barn tank, shaking every last drop from each bottle, cup, and bowl. The rain still clung to the long grass as she made her way to the antennae, soaking her jeans and driving a chill into her skin that would stay with her all evening.

“I was thinking about hunting,” Mother said as they cleaned their rifles. Her tone was casual, but the remark brought Lynn’s hands to a stop.

“So early? There hasn’t even been a good frost yet. The meat will never keep.”

“I thought we might as well smoke the meat this year instead of freezing. A smokehouse won’t draw any attention we don’t already have. The meat will taste better cured, store better, and it’s something we can do now to worry about less later.”

“But what about firewood? How much will it take to cure the meat?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Mother answered as she rammed the pipe down the barrel of her gun. “You only want green wood for a smokehouse fire, most of what we burn in the basement stove is—”

“Seasoned,” Lynn interrupted. “How much green wood?”

“Four to five days’ worth, depending on how big of a deer I bag.”

Lynn jammed the ramrod down her own rifle barrel unnecessarily hard.

“You’re not happy about it,” Mother observed.

“No, I’m not. It’s stupid to use wood for smoking meat we won’t be alive to eat because we froze to death.”

“Stupid to store up the wood to die warm and starving.”

Lynn finished cleaning her gun in silence, loaded and cocked it, set the safety, and placed it on the roof. “I just don’t understand why we can’t do things the way we’ve always done. Wait for winter, kill a deer, freeze the meat.”

“Because we can’t eat frozen meat if we’re on the run. Smoked meat, we can. Things have changed,” Mother answered, her gaze drawn to the southern horizon. “So we change with them.”

Lynn rested by the sheet of tin, mesmerized by the sun glinting off the hundred plastic bottles. The batch hadn’t had the full eight hours of sun the day before because of the rain, but today the sun was out in force, raising the temperature of the tin enough that Lynn could feel heat rolling off the bottles. Mother’s scope flashed as she moved about on the roof, keeping an eye on everything.

To have an afternoon of rest was rare. Usually Lynn would cut wood while the bottles heated but Mother wasn’t comfortable letting her out of sight with the threat from the south still fresh in her mind. Instead she sat on an upside-down bucket tapping the wire handle against the side to keep herself from sliding into a doze.

She’d lost a bucket once, before she could swim. She hadn’t stood that much taller than the bucket, and the weight of the water flowing into it had pulled her forward. The fear of losing a bucket had forced her to hold on well past her last breath, the wire handle had sliced into her tiny fingers as she kicked for the surface but refused to give up her grip. Red dots had filled her vision before Mother was able to get down from the roof and dive in after her, unfastening her clenched fingers from the handle. They’d sat on the bank, dripping together, Mother so shaken that she didn’t reprimand Lynn about the lost bucket, or the wasted water dripping off their clothes.

Her lost bucket rested on the bottom now, not far from the edge. Lynn used it as a marker, a sign that they hadn’t had enough rain in the dry summers. The year before she’d been able to see the white plastic grip on the top of the handle, floating only a foot below the surface as the level dropped. Each day brought it into clearer focus, driving a spike of fear into her heart and inviting the flood of certainty that this would be the year they didn’t make it. This would be the year they died. She could have grabbed it then, saved from the shame of losing it so many years ago. But getting it back meant a slow death by thirst loomed nearer.

The rustling of grass snapped Lynn into the present, though she didn’t move. A snort exploded nearby, an unmistakably animal noise. Slowly she reached for the rifle at her feet. As she did, the grass across the tin parted and a long, dark snout emerged.

At close quarters, Big Bastard was bigger than she’d expected. Domestic dogs had fallen in with the wild coyotes and their bloodlines had lent their feral cousins a larger stature. They regarded each other carefully for a moment, his eyes flickering toward her hand as it curled around the rifle strap. Another snort and he was gone, bounding back into the tall grass.

Lynn exhaled slowly. Even though he hadn’t threatened her overtly, she had seen the intelligence in his eyes. He’d been watching her as she daydreamed, had even snorted and alerted her to his presence. Only going for the rifle had been enough to scare him off. He knew what guns were and what they could do, she guessed. And he’d also known she was no threat to him without hers.

Lynn raced through the grass as soon as he was gone, not even trying to ignore the primitive urge to run to the antennae. “You see that?” she asked the second her foot hit the shingles. “You see Big Bastard come right up into the yard?”

“I saw him wander through the back acre a while ago,” Mother said. The pruning shears in her hands snapped down onto a maple branch that had come too close to the roof. She waited for the crash from below to finish her thought. “But I figured he was going to go rustle up some of the groundhogs out from the barn.”

Lynn snorted. “What he rustled up was me.”

Mother glanced over her shoulder. “He wasn’t scared of you?”

“Not until I went for my gun, then he backed off.”

Mother turned back to the maple, hands on her hips as she surveyed her work. “We’ve got bigger concerns than coyotes right now.”

“Unless nobody’s coming,” Lynn said, voicing the hope that had surfaced as the days passed uneventfully. “Unless they’re gone and you’re just being—” She stopped abruptly, aware of what she’d been about to say.

Mother glanced away from the trees, eyebrow raised. “Paranoid? You wouldn’t be the first to think it.”

Lynn glanced away, and Mother looked to the south again. “You’d best rest now,” she said. “I’ll wake you up in a bit. We’ll stay on the roof tonight, sleep in shifts.”

“Why tonight?”

“Same buck and his two does have been taking that fencerow path all season, but this afternoon he turned them away from grazing there. They ran off with their tails up screaming ‘danger’ for anyone smart enough to see it. Whoever’s coming for us, they’re in the fencerow, waiting for us to be stupid.”

They took turns dozing until the sun set, and they sat together in a silent companionship, rifles across their knees, listening to the crickets singing.

“Crickets got a lot to say tonight,” Lynn said absently.

Mother grunted in assent. “Always do, before the first hard frost,” she said. “Like they know they better get it out, because soon they won’t be able to sing.”

Dusk fell and a low fog crept in from the fields, obscuring their vision sixty yards out in all directions.

“What do we do if it’s full dark?” Lynn whispered. “When they come?”

“Shoot at what you hear. I trimmed the trees so there’s brush around the house. They can’t possibly be silent. Couple shots might be enough to scare them off.”

“If it’s not?”

“If it’s not, don’t be frightened when I turn my gun on you.”

“What?” The idea of being on the end of a gun Mother held made Lynn’s voice spike in panic.

“There’s things I haven’t told you,” Mother said quietly, eyes averted from Lynn’s face. “Now isn’t the time; I don’t want you distracted. Just know that there’s bad men in the world, and dying fast by your mother is a better way than theirs.”

Lynn swallowed hard, fighting the rise in her throat. “Yes, Mother.”

Darkness fell and they sat together quietly, shoulder to shoulder, facing south.