In a Handful of Dust (3 page)

“It’s an old doctor’s habit, and good to know I’ve still got the knack.”

“Knack or not, you’re going to bed, Doc,” Stebbs said sternly, and Lynn motioned to Lucy to follow her outside.

“She might be immune to polio, but that don’t mean this epidemic won’t kill her,” Lynn said as they walked down to the stream. “Vera says polio thrives when it gets hot. This outbreak is just a taste of what could be coming, if we don’t figure out the source. She won’t sleep sound ’til that happens.”

Lucy found a spot in the tall grass that was well beaten down and took a seat. Heat lightning flickered across dark thunderheads that had formed on the evening horizon. “Not a good sign,” she said, gesturing toward the pink bolts.

Lynn glanced up. “Nope. No rain, no cool air.” A moan rose up from the rows of the sick, out of sight beyond the tall grass, but not out of hearing range.

“You doing okay?”

“Mostly,” Lucy said. “It’s just all the harder because I thought it was through.” The sight of Adam, one leg dangling limp and useless at his father’s side as he was carried away, had been bittersweet. He had lived, but what kind of life he would have in their world was yet to be seen.

“I thought it was done too. I even thought about putting out the fires.”

“That was downright hopeful of you.”

Lynn grunted, as she always did when Lucy teased her, but the hard lines of her mouth softened. “Stupid too.”

“You sleeping here again tonight?”

Lynn glanced at the chimney of their shared home, barely visible in the distance in the dying light. She sighed. “We’re needed here.” She stomped down her own area of grass and lay down. “Get some sleep,” she said brusquely, and rolled over, her braid dark with grime.

Lucy tossed a clod of dirt at her back. “You need a bath.”

“You need to go the hell to sleep,” Lynn shot back, but even in the dark, Lucy could hear the smile.

Adam’s father never got up the hill to their home. A rider found Devon, collapsed and weakened, when he heard Adam yelling for help, his voice hoarse from calling. Adam rode back to Vera’s in front of the stranger, his father crumpled against the man’s back. Stebbs pulled Devon off the horse, as Lucy helped Adam from the saddle on the other side.

“What happened?”

Adam’s lower lip quivered, but he kept the tears from falling. “Daddy got real tired, carrying me up the hill—said he needed to stop and rest a bit. I got sleepy, and when I woke up he was sitting all funny, and he couldn’t get himself up. I yelled and yelled, but no one came.”

“I found ’em,” the stranger in the saddle said. “Heard the boy calling. Sounded more like an injured animal than anything else. I was awful surprised when I came upon the two of them.”

“We thank you for it,” Stebbs said. “There’s plenty that woulda left ’em.”

“Left ’em or done worse,” the rider admitted.

“Can we give you something for your trouble? A drink?”

Lucy stiffened at the words. Water was like gold, and never offered freely to strangers. The man looked from Stebbs to Devon. “Don’t believe I’ll be drinking any of your water, no offense.”

“None taken.” Stebbs nodded curtly, and the stranger rode off, anxious to put miles between himself and them.

“Can you put him somewhere?” Stebbs nodded to Adam, who was still in Lucy’s arms. “I’ll take Devon.”

“What do you think, mister?” Lucy said to Adam, forcing fake cheer into her voice. “Want to camp out tonight?”

“Can I go to the healer lady’s house?”

“My grandma, you mean?” Lucy headed for the cabin, Adam’s body light in her arms. “Why you wanna go there for?”

“She fixed me before. I thought maybe she could finish it up now and make my leg better.”

Lucy swallowed hard before speaking. “Sweetie, didn’t anybody tell you that you won’t ever be using that leg again? It’s ruined.”

Adam shrugged. “Dad says it never hurts to ask. Worst anybody can say is no.”

Vera glanced up when Lucy walked through the door with her burden.

“Devon fell ill taking him home,” Lucy said as she laid Adam on the bed.

“Where’s Devon?” Vera had been at the table, poring over her notes again. A fresh patient meant new information, and she was on her feet in a second.

“Stebbs has him down with the sick.”

“How’d he get back here on foot with Adam?”

Lucy began tucking pillows under Adam’s shoulders to prop him up. “A man on a horse found them, brought them back here.”

“And where is this man?”

“Took off when he saw what we were dealing with.”

“Stebbs let him
leave
?”

The shock in her grandma’s voice got Lucy’s attention. She looked up to see that Vera had gone white, her fists clenched.

“Yeah, why?”

“If he picked it up from Devon, he’ll infect everyone he meets. Or die alone in the wilderness.”

Lucy glanced back at the little boy in the bed, his frightened eyes bouncing between the two women. “Let’s hope he didn’t catch it then.”

“Quick as this is moving, it’s a better bet to hope he dies alone.”

It fell to Carter and Lucy to deliver the news to Devon’s wife. The family lived on a remote hill, because Abigail’s mistrust of people ran deep, even more so than Lynn’s. She preferred to take her chances on the hillside, somewhere her family had a good view of everything around them, their own well, and no other houses in sight.

Lucy trudged up the incline, her calf muscles burning. “I don’t know how Devon could’ve made this climb carrying Adam even if he were healthy,” she said.

Carter wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I know she’s got her reasons, but damn, this is inconvenient for the rest of us.”

“Lynn says she’s got a right to live up here, if that’s what she wants.”

“And what do you say?”

Lucy tripped on a branch and muttered a curse. “I say she can’t expect help to come running if we can’t hear her yelling for it.” Her breath hitched in her chest, and she slid to the ground. “Sorry, I gotta stop.” Days of tending the ill had stripped her of strength.

Carter rested next to her, their backs against a huge oak. “I’m not in a hurry to get up there, anyway. You and I aren’t exactly her favorite people.”

One of Lucy’s more ill-advised pranks had involved swapping out Abigail’s prized newborn calf with a stuffed animal of a cow. The punishment had been steep—Lynn had made her haul water from the pond for a month—but the fun had been worth it.

Lucy rolled her eyes. “I think being one of Abigail’s favorite people requires blood relation. So I’ll pass. Besides, there was no harm done.”

“You’re still a rabble-rouser.” Carter knocked his knee against hers.

“And you’re trouble.” She knocked it back.

“Remember you and me and Maddy slept up in her haymow so we could see her face when she came down to the barn in the morning?” Carter went on, laughing. “And Maddy didn’t know there was a bunch of kittens up there, ’til one of them jumped on her? Turned out that herbal soap your grandma gave Maddy for her birthday had catnip in it.”

“I swear I didn’t know that,” Lucy giggled.

“Maybe not, but you knew full well it was just a kitten in her hair, and you started screaming about bats anyway, and she went through the roof. You and me was trying to shush her up, but she woke up baby Adam all the way in the house.”

“Yeah.” Lucy’s smile faded. “Yeah, I remember.”

And now Maddy was dead, and the baby whose cries they’d wished away that night was a crippled little boy whose father might not live through the day.

Carter quieted as well, his own thoughts turning toward the present. He rose to his feet, holding out a hand for her. “C’mon then,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Abigail didn’t answer Carter’s knock. He tried again, but they heard no movement in the house. He pulled his fist back to try again, then froze mid motion. “You don’t suppose she caught it and died up here, do you?”

Lucy backed off the porch, glancing around the overgrown yard to the outbuildings. “Doubt it. The garden’s recently watered and the cows aren’t kicking up a fuss, wanting to be milked. She’s in there. She just doesn’t want to talk to us.”

“Better make my point then,” Carter said, and redoubled his efforts, pounding on the door.

Lucy stepped farther out into the yard and glanced up into the second story of the old farmhouse. A curtain hastily slipped back into place. “She’s up there,” she said to Carter. Then, more loudly, “Abigail, it’s Lucy from down by the pond. I need you to come out here and talk to us.”

Carter joined Lucy in the yard and called up at the window. “Abigail—it’s about your son. Get down here or we’ll walk off and you won’t know what’s happened.”

A thin voice crept through the open window. “If he’s dead, I don’t want to know.”

Carter sighed. “He ain’t dead. Now come down.”

They heard shuffling as she walked away from the open window, then nothing for several minutes until the front door creaked open. A small woman with ratted blond hair peered around the corner.

Lucy tried her best smile, one that could melt even Lynn at times. “We need to talk to you about Devon.”

“Thought you said this was about Adam?”

“Him too,” Carter said, stepping toward the porch.

“You stay back there,” Abigail said sharply, her thin voice suddenly strong. “I can hear you fine from the yard.”

“All right then.” He slowly backpedaled to stand next to Lucy. “I think she’s got a gun,” he said to her softly.

“Who doesn’t?” Lucy sighed, then raised her voice toward Abigail. “We came to tell you what’s going on with your man and boy. You can put the rifle down.”

Abigail stepped out onto the porch, rifle pointed at the ground. “Tell me what you like, makes no difference what I’m holding at the time.”

“It’s slightly rude,” Lucy said. Carter shot her a dark look, and she clamped her mouth shut.

“Rude ain’t nothing that I’ve done. Rude is breaking into people’s barns and pulling tricks on them.”

“Lots of people are sick, Abigail,” Carter said quickly. “Devon’s one of ’em.”

A line appeared between Abigail’s eyes as she studied the two teens. “Adam’s the one who’s sick. Devon took him down to your healer to make him well.”

“And she tried, Abigail, she did,” Lucy said, emotion making her voice thick. “But this sickness—it’s not like a normal fever. It’s polio, and Adam . . . he’s okay, but . . . he’s . . .”

“He’s crippled,” Carter said. “No way around it.”

Abigail’s mouth tightened. “What about Devon? What’s wrong with him?”

“Same thing,” Carter answered. “It’s not good, Abigail. You should come down, be with your husband.”

“You think, do you?” Abigail said, her mouth twisting. “So everyone can get a good look at the woman who won’t come down off the hill?”

Lucy glanced at Carter. He grasped her wrist, urging silence.

“You come up here, to tell me my man—who don’t get sick—is sick, and my boy—who was fine yesterday—is a cripple today. I wouldn’t believe either one of you if you told me it was raining and my head was wet with the drops.” She cocked the gun and strode toward them to the edge of the porch.

Carter stepped in front of Lucy. “We came up here to deliver a message,” he said, “and we’ve done it. We’ll be leaving now.”

“You came up here to make a fool of me,” Abigail hissed at them. “Devon ain’t sick with nothing but lust, looking at that woman who calls herself your mother, little girl. You wanna make a laughingstock of me, drag me down the hill so I see what’s
really
keeping him down there?”

Carter stepped backward, pushing Lucy behind him. “Nobody’s laughing down there, Abigail. I promise you that.”

“Go on then.” She jerked the rifle toward them. “Get on back down there and tell my man to come back to me, and bring my son. I know he’s whole, and I know he’s well, and I know you two are full of
shit
.”

Her voice cracked on the last word and she retreated back into the house, slamming the door behind her. Carter and Lucy stumbled down the decline of the hill as they headed for the woods, Abigail’s rising sobs breaking on their ears.

“Does she really think we’d make up a story to bring her down the hill for kicks?” Lucy asked.

“Hard to say.” Carter held a tree branch back for her to pass by before letting it snap back. She smiled to herself; a year ago he would’ve let it hit her in the face. “But don’t let what some crackpot thinks of you ruin your day.”

“It’s more likely the dead bodies’ll do that,” Lucy said.

Carter laughed and grabbed her hand suddenly. “Remind me never to come to you for comfort.”

She opened her mouth to apologize, but he waved her off and they walked on, fingers intertwined. They followed the stream downhill toward Vera’s, neither of them commenting on the fact that they were holding hands, or how very normal it felt.

Lucy dropped his hand as they came into the clearing near Vera’s cabin. She could hear Lynn clearly as they approached. “You’d better be damn sure about this,” she was saying. “Once it’s said, there’s no taking it back.”

“Something’s up,” Carter said.

The door was propped open, and through it Lucy could see Vera bent over her notes, exhaustion dimming the usual brightness of her eyes. “I’m sure,” Vera said quietly.

Lucy knocked hesitantly on the open door. “Uh . . . are we interrupting?”

Stebbs shook his head. “No. You need to come in here. Both of you. And shut the door behind you.”

Lucy’s trembling hand struggled with the simple hook-and-eye lock. Stebbs was only serious with her when things were dire.

The three adults looked at one another for a moment, the weight of their silence resting on Lucy’s heart more heavily than any words. “What? What is it?”

“Who’s gonna tell him?” Lynn asked, looking to Vera and Stebbs.

“Tell me what?” Carter asked, his hand finding Lucy’s despite the adults seeing.

Vera cleared her throat. “I’ve been looking at my notes, trying to figure out the source of the outbreak. You remember there was a lull, and then we got slammed by more sick than we had in the first wave.”

“Like the brothers and sisters of people that were first sick,” Lucy said slowly. “They were passing it to each other.”