Not a Drop to Drink

Twenty-one

It was bitterly cold when they emerged in the dead of night to meet Stebbs. They huddled together for warmth, not even bothering to tease the older man when he came from the direction of the stream, rather than his own house. When he handed a backpack to Eli, the fumes of gasoline rolled off him in waves.

“Careful with that, that’s the last of the gasoline I had stored up in my basement,” Stebbs warned as Eli shouldered it. “Here’s a lighter. Didn’t want to take the chance of a breeze with matches.”

“How long’ve you had a lighter?” Lynn asked.

He shrugged. “Since forever.”

“Asshole.”

They headed south and walked in silence, except for the clinking of the bottles in Eli’s backpack. When they reached the ridge, Stebbs gave her a foot up into her tree and Lynn settled onto a thick bough. They moved off toward the east, where Stebbs had found a suitable place to take his own shots, nearer town. Eli would wait with him. Eli’s good-bye was quick and silent, the flash of a white hand through the darkness as he waved. Lynn unstrapped her rifle and tucked her handgun into the back of her waistband. A light snow began to fall as she waited for the sun to rise.

When it did, it came fast, the gray predawn haze burning off quickly as the sun peeked over the horizon. Lynn could see men moving inside the houses, their dark forms anonymous behind the curtains. The sentry had not come out yet. She shifted position and dried her palms on her jeans. The hall guard emerged, pissed in his yard, and made his way to his post. Roger led the cow out to pasture. Her father appeared on his porch, coffee in hand. Her gaze skittered off him, nervously.

They had agreed that though he was the leader, it was important to take the sentry and hall guard out first. Her father had won third place in that lottery. Lynn’s first shot was for the sentry, Stebbs’ the hall guard. After that they would fire at will, each picking their own target. Lynn had not argued, though she hoped it would be her bullet that downed her father.

She watched him through her scope, wondering what Mother would feel to know that the smoke from the south was caused by a fire from her past. Father was a conversation that never happened, a ghost that had never lived. Lynn had always believed he was dead, and perhaps Mother had as well. But he was alive and had never come for them. He’d abandoned them, and the only thing she’d ever give him would be delivered through the talents Mother had wanted her to master. There was comfort for her in the idea that the shot she’d fired too late for the coyote might be redeemed yet. His face in the crosshairs made her finger curl around the trigger, anxious for the only comfort Mother could offer from the grave.

Father spat out his first mouthful of coffee and crossed the road to where the hall guard sat, rifle across his knees. They exchanged words. Her father shook his head and walked over to the yellow house where the women were kept and pounded on the door until Blue Coat answered. He went inside, and the tower sentry emerged moments later, shrugging his coat over his shoulders.

Lynn tracked him to the tower, waiting for him to settle onto his perch before clicking the safety off her gun. She could only assume that Stebbs was watching as well, that Eli was prepared for her shot. She flattened her torso and inhaled, holding the breath.

She fired. From that distance the features of the sentry’s face were unclear, but the bullet’s exit was easy to see. A spray of blood rained down from the tower, followed quickly by his rifle, then his corpse. They reacted to the shot before his body hit the ground. Men erupted from the houses like bees from a disturbed hive; pale faces pressed against the windows in the upper floor of the yellow house.

Lynn spotted Eli speeding up the near bank of the stream as the hall guard rose from his chair, head cocked in a question. The guard shouldered his rifle, shouting at the other men as he crossed the parking lot for a good look at the tower. Her father ran, shouting directions, through the men. Lynn drew a bead on him just as Eli came into their view, the lit Molotov dangling from his hand. He threw it in a graceful arc, all eyes trailing it as it exploded in a river of fire onto the shingles.

Her father’s reaction was immediate. He yelled at the hall guard, who spun on his heel. Stebbs and Lynn fired at the same time, her crosshairs trained on Father. He fell, clutching a shattered shoulder. His hand dangled lifeless from the dead arm, his gun useless on the ground. The hall guard dropped to his knees and fired at Eli before Stebbs’ bullet could reach him. The guard’s brain exploded through the back of his head, but not before his bullet hit Eli’s backpack.

Eli became a living ball of fire.

Lynn screamed from her perch, watching helplessly as the arms that had held her only hours ago pinwheeled in agony. Drops of liquid fire flew from his fingertips and sputtered out on the road. She knew exactly how many bullets she had and could afford to waste none. One shot could deliver him from his own gasoline-soaked skin.

The bullet seemed to fly slowly, protracting every second of his agony. Lynn kept her eye to the scope, unable to look away from the path of the only bullet she had ever fired with love in her heart.

Lynn dropped to the ground and rushed downhill toward town. The smell of smoke was strong in the air. Black plumes rose above the hall roof. Stebbs was firing, but she had no view and didn’t know if his shots were finding their targets. She flew downhill, arms spread wide to keep her balance as she ran.

Roger was running uphill to meet her, rage contorting his face. She ran directly at him, her own fury disregarding the gun he held as she launched herself directly at him. Their bodies collided, and the stale reek of male sweat folded over her as they rolled downhill together, hands grabbing for purchase on each other’s bodies. She gained her feet first, but he took her knees out from behind with his rifle stock. Lynn landed on her belly, the breath knocked out of her. He straddled her back and her lungs flattened farther as he pulled her head back by her hair.

“What’cha think you’re doing, girl? Playing war games?”

He drove her face downward into the dirt and she struggled against him. She tried to breathe, but inhaled only dirt. He pulled her face back up, taunting her.

“Men got two guns, you know. One for now,” he tapped the barrel of his gun against her nose. “And one for later.” When his free hand went to his zipper, she twisted underneath him, bringing her knee into his groin and pulling her knife from her boot.

“Mother taught me to carry a knife for always.”

She left him holding his intestines in disbelief as she disappeared down the hill, his gun tucked securely in her waistband.

She slid to a stop in a clearing and dropped onto her belly to scan the village. Blue Coat disappeared inside the yellow house, emerging at a downstairs window with his rifle. He was pulled down in a flurry of white hands and kitchen knives. Green Hat was the only man attempting to stop the fire, but he was armed with a single bucket and losing the fight. Black Beard was running to the east, whether to escape or find Stebbs she didn’t know. One bullet dropped him; her second shot finished the job. Her father had staggered into a blue house in the middle of town. Lynn saw a bloody hand draw curtains on the first floor, but it was the only flicker of movement. Green Hat had given up, his bucket sat at his feet while he watched the hall go up in flames.

Lynn scanned the trees, spotted Stebbs awkwardly making his way down from his post to the east. She fired a warning shot at Green Hat’s bucket, sending it ten feet in the air. He backed away, his hands up. Lynn emerged from the brush at the foot of the hill, her rifle trained on him.

“I got no issue with you,” he said, voice shaking. “Though I know you got reason to have one with me.”

Lynn wandered onto the road, uneasily scanning the houses on either side of her. She spat some dirt from her mouth, ignoring the trickle of blood running down her neck from a gash that Roger had given her as they fell. Green Hat eyed her uneasily, raised hands shaking.

“You armed?” Lynn asked.

“No.” He spread his jacket to show her. “Never much liked the feel of a gun.”

She relaxed her grip on the rifle as Stebbs came into town from behind the church, his own gun trained on Green Hat. “He all right?”

“Don’t think he’ll be a problem,” she answered, and Stebbs lowered his gun.

“Jasper’s in the little house there,” Green Hat said, gesturing toward the blue house Father had gone into. “You winged him good, but he was moving okay last I saw. He lost his gun when you shot him, but that don’t mean he’s not dangerous as hell. There’s still a truck out, too,” he went on. “Four men, though I doubt they’re the type to come back if there’s trouble.”

“We know,” Lynn said stiffly, handing her rifle to Stebbs. “There’s a man up the ridge that might call a bullet a favor.”

Stebbs glanced at her bloody face. “I s’pose I don’t feel much like granting favors today.”

Lynn nodded and backed away from him, forcing herself not to look at the smoldering black heap that had been Eli. The door of the yellow house opened and the youngest girl stepped out, the edges of a blanket clutched in her bloody hands.

“Emma!” Green Hat yelled, Stebbs and Lynn having vanished from his mind as he ran toward her. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head and leaned against him. The other two women appeared in the doorway, glancing warily at Stebbs and Lynn.

“What are you going to do?” Stebbs asked Lynn.

She checked her handgun before answering, handing Stebbs the extra she had taken from Roger. “I’m going to go have a talk with my father.”

“Careful.”

“I will be.”

“I’m sorry as hell about Eli,” Stebbs said, not meeting her eyes. “I got that shot off as soon as I could.”

“It is what it is. I got other worries right now,” she said as she walked away from him, her hammering heart screaming at the lie in her words.

“Careful there, lady,” one of the women yelled at her. “He’s a mean bastard, that one is. And tricksy.” She touched a darkening bruise on her face as she spoke.

Lynn tightened her grip on the gun as she opened the front door.

Bloody footprints led her to the kitchen where her father sat at the table, slumped and pale. His right hand cupped the remains of his left shoulder; bone fragments jutted out between his fingers. He summoned the energy to look up at her as she walked in, but his head dropped back to his chest immediately. A slow smile spread across his face.

“The boys told me you was a pretty girl,” he said with his eyes closed.

She approached the table cautiously, her finger curled around the trigger and ready to fire. “You know who I am?”

His eyes cracked open and he gave her a long, assessing stare before they closed again. “Have to be blind not to. You look just like her. Don’t think there’s a bit of me in you.”

Even bleeding and maimed, he was an imposing man. The bulk of his body spoke of capability, the shine of his eyes held unvented malice. “There may be a bit yet,” Lynn said as she circled around behind him, checking for weapons.

“I don’t have a gun,” he said. “Funny thing about your shoulder exploding, it makes you drop whatever you’re holding. You ever been shot?”

“Not yet.”

“You may as well have a seat and relax,” he said calmly, closing his eyes again. “Not like I’m gonna harm my own flesh and blood.”

“’Cause you can’t or ’cause you wouldn’t?” Lynn asked, lowering herself into the seat opposite him, her gun still trained on his chest.

“It really matter? Either way, you can rest a spell.”

“If that’s your answer, I believe I’ll stay out of your reach for now and keep my gun out, if it’s all the same to you.”

One of his eyes opened to a slit and he regarded her warily for a moment. His answer came in a shrug from his uninjured shoulder. “You do as you please, girl.” He licked his lips, and she saw the sheen of blood coating his tongue.

“My bullet still in you?”

“Went down through a lung, I’d say. Maybe little Emma over the street could patch it up, if you’re inclined to let her.”

Lynn didn’t answer. He cleared his throat. “S’pose you’re wondering why I left?”

“What I’m curious about is why you came back.”

“Don’t it make sense for a father to return to his only child?”

Lynn’s mouth twitched, she flexed her finger on the trigger. “Maybe. But you didn’t.”

“I’m here, ain’t I?”

“I think you came back to where there’s water. Somewhere you could control the flow and knew the country.”

A small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “It is a good place, isn’t it?”

“It’s our place.”

“Who’s that? You and your mother? What all she tell you about me?”

“Nothing too nice.”

He grunted and spat a wad of blood-tinged phlegm on the floor. “She tell you I bought you that puppy, when you was still in her belly, so’s the two of you would have some protection? She tell you that? Full-blooded German shepherd he was, woulda been brown with black ears. I trained him up to keep you safe, gave him to your momma before I left.”

“Yeah.” Lynn shifted her gun with his movements, her sweaty palm sliding along the stock of gun. “We had to put him down, ’cause of the rabies. Living thing goes mean like that, nothing for it but a bullet.”

Both his eyes opened and he watched her carefully before speaking again, gaze trained on her unwavering gun.

“I came myself, you should know, once or twice. The boys thought your momma was gone, but I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t want to wander too close and find myself in her crosshairs, with no love for me in her heart. Couple nights I stood out by the pond, wondering whether you were inside, hurting or grieving, whether you’d take any comfort from my hand if I came to you.”

“That it?” Lynn asked, her eyes cool behind the barrel. “That’s what you were thinking out there by my pond? Or were you waiting to smell me rotting before you came any closer?”

He ignored her question. “I kept the boys from you too. Roger woulda liked to done more than fire a warning shot at you over that downed tree.”

“Roger’s got bigger worries now.”

“You kill him?”

“Partway.”

His eyes slid shut again, and he stifled a laugh that brought a froth of blood to his lips. “Damn, you’re a cold bitch. Nothin’ but contempt for your own flesh and blood, but you’ll overnight a cripple and snot-nosed kid in the house I made safe for you.”

“It’s mine. Make no mistake.”

“Nothing’s nobody’s out here, little girl. Those that can, take. And there ain’t no justice or higher power to appeal to.”

“’Til now,” she said softly.

His eyes opened, what blood there was left in his body burning in their heat. His lips twisted when he spoke next, the words slurred with angry memories. “And your momma, she set up a lemonade stand after I left, huh? That what she did? Offer comfort and a drink to every poor soul that wandered your way?”

“No, but we never did any taking, either, or hurting for the fun of it.”

One eyebrow twitched in response, but he had nothing to say to that. He rested his eyes for a moment. Fresh blood seeped out between his fingers, dripping from his elbow to the floor, where a small pool had begun to form between his feet.

“You’ve done some low deeds, Father.”

“All’s fair in love and war, my girl. What I had with your mother amounted to about the same thing. Guess it’s down to you and me now, so which is it gonna be?”

“You hoarded water when people were dying of thirst, stole things you didn’t need when you were surrounded by want.”

A slow laugh rumbled through his chest and he opened his eyes to stare her down across the table. “I don’t know that your momma would approve of your soft ways.”

“Maybe not,” Lynn admitted, “but she’d like this next part just fine.”

She shot him neatly in the forehead, leaving behind a black hole that was still smoking when she shut the door behind her.

The frozen ground at the little cemetery beside the stream was stubborn, but Lynn had adrenaline on her side as she hacked out a grave beside Neva. She worked relentlessly, ignoring the steady climb and descent of the sun, focused only on the task at hand. Blisters formed and burst on her hands, pus, followed by blood, flowed down her fingers. She ignored the pain, intent on her digging.

Stebbs had wrapped Eli in a blanket while she was inside with her father, sparing her the sight of his cracked, blackened skin. She lifted the body from the bed of the truck, disgusted by how light it was. She laid him tenderly into the hole in the ground and returned to work, throwing shovelfuls of frozen dirt on top of his body, though she could not get the charred smell out of her nostrils long after he was covered. She toppled the stones she’d stolen from the dam site out of the truck and rolled them over the grave, resting her hand lightly on the last one.

“I’m sorry to be doing this last one alone,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s yours.”

Lynn collapsed onto Neva’s log, staring at the little cemetery while the billowing smoke rose to the south, the ashes of material things and men mixing with a light powdering of snow that dusted her shoulders as she wept.