In a Handful of Dust

The simple act of walking had never been more impossible, and Lucy missed Spatter with her heart and her feet as they struggled westward. Mister had fared better than his companion, and Lynn had done what Lucy could not, letting him go once they had reached safety. She’d left his bridle and saddle piled next to the canyon, a useless mound of leather with no mount.

With Lynn at her side and what little provisions had remained in her pack, hope had bloomed in Lucy like the desert flowers around them, subsisting on nothing more than heat and dust. But the flowers had hidden wells of moisture Lucy did not, and days later her energy was flagging to the extent that she no longer lifted her injured foot at all, allowing it to drag.

Lynn had given her a sock and replaced her boot over her own naked foot without complaint, even though Lucy saw the glistening smear of burst blisters when she slipped it off later that evening. The river had swept Lynn from Mister’s back, but she’d managed to hold on to his reins and her pack. What little food was left tasted like the rain that had nearly drowned them both.

They traveled at night and sought shade in the day, waking and moving with the patchy shade the power lines offered as the sun made its arc. Lynn spoke little and Lucy kept her own mouth shut as well, pooling the energy inside of her for the next step, and then the one after. The road stretched forever, marching toward a goal that seemed unreachable. But Lucy’s newfound will to live and Lynn’s refusal to die kept them both moving. The red rim of the sun greeted them and brought an end to the night’s travels, and the women curled beneath an electrical tower, this one no different from the day before except for the fact that it was farther west.

Lucy woke to the familiar pain of hunger and cracked lips.

Lynn did not wake at all.

Lucy was screaming, but it did no good. Lynn would not answer. Her throat burned as she screamed Lynn’s name over and over, sweat sprouting across her brow with the effort. She yanked Lynn into a sitting position and her head tipped backward, the deep circles underneath Lynn’s eyes no lighter for being under the sun’s glare. But she did blink, the tiny fraction of movement sending Lucy into a relief so great it felt as if her heart had fallen into her remaining boot.

She held the other woman’s face in her hands. “Lynn, come on now. Don’t do this.”

“‘Here is no water but only rock,’” Lynn choked out. “‘Rock and no water and the sandy road.’”

“Lynn!” Lucy shrieked into her face. “You’re not making any sense.”

Lynn’s eyelids fluttered, and the tiniest of smiles snuck into her words. “T. S. Eliot often doesn’t,” she muttered, and then fell still. Her mouth was open, and her swollen tongue remained out, the cracked lips refusing to close back over it.

Lucy let go of her, and Lynn’s head slumped to the side again. Frantic, Lucy ripped at the pack and pulled out the bottle of water they’d pooled together from what remained. Only two inches were left. The rays of the midday sun bounced off it sending tiny gorgeous rainbows across Lynn’s gray face.

She dropped to her knees beside Lynn, jamming her fingers deep into the hair at her temples and jerking her head backward so fiercely they both went over into the dirt.

“Open your eyes,” she screamed at her. “Look at me when you’re telling me you’re leaving me alone.” Lucy peeled Lynn’s eyelids open and her pupils dilated in the sun.

“Can’t close ’em again…,” Lynn said. “Too dry.”

Lucy realized there was no reflection on Lynn’s eyes of the tower above, no answering glint from the burning sun. Tears poured from her own eyes as she realized how far gone Lynn was, and she tore the cap from the bottle, pried Lynn’s teeth apart, and dumped water down her throat.

Lynn gagged and convulsed against the force, but Lucy jammed her jaws together and pinched her nose, not pulling her hand away until she saw Lynn swallow. She curled the other woman’s hand around the bottle.

“You’re not dying without me dying too,” Lucy said sternly. “This is one decision you don’t get to make alone.”

The barest suggestion of a smile stretched Lynn’s flaccid lips. “It is what it is,” she said.

And the sun moved across the sky.

• • •

Lucy dismissed the flash of light on the horizon as nothing more than a spasm of her dying brain. All her senses felt sharpened as she struggled on, distinctly feeling each contour of the road beneath her, the sound of her frayed and bloodied jean leg dragging against it. Taste alone was elusive, her own tongue now swollen to the point that the idea of fitting food into the increasingly small area of her mouth was ludicrous. Her saliva was gone, her eyes felt like apples left to wither on the tree.