Not a Drop to Drink

But the harm had already been done. When Lynn picked up her kill by the tail and presented it to the girl, her bottom lip shook.

“Cha-Cha.” Her tiny voice barely escaped her mouth before evaporating in the cold afternoon air. “You killed Cha-Cha.” The resounding wail that followed was much stronger, and Lynn dropped to her knees beside the child as tears started to spill forth.

“Stop!” She spun left and right, nervous that they would draw attention. “Stop, please stop.” Lynn put her hands on the tiny, sharp shoulders, alarmed at how near to the surface her bones were. “I’m sor—”

The blow came from above and to the right, knocking Lynn into the stream, her rifle spinning out of reach. She flailed wildly, gasping for air before she’d cleared the surface. A rush of cold water filled her lungs and she scrambled for the bank, where she retched it back out. She’d lost her hat; cold, wet coils of hair hung in her face and she swiped them away, searching for her attacker.

“Christ,” said a male voice. “It’s a girl.”

He was standing in front of the child, his arms spread wide to shield her, a thick branch in one hand. Lynn clutched her midsection, still queasy from the feeling of water rushing into the dark internal corners of her body. Her gun was lying in between them on the bank, but she made no move for it.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m a girl.” She struggled to her feet, alarmed at the unsteadiness in her legs.

He dropped his makeshift weapon and grabbed the child, pulling her in front of him. “Take her,” he pleaded. “Take her with you.”

“What?” Lynn crossed her arms over her chest, shivering in her soaked clothing.

The little girl recoiled, clutching at the boy and wailing incoherently. He pushed her toward Lynn, leaving small muddy ditches in the wake of her feet.

“Take her,” he repeated. “I can’t . . . I don’t know how.”

Lynn backpedaled away from his reaching arms and their struggling burden. Her unsteady legs folded underneath her, and she landed in a clumsy tangle of limbs and wet clothing. The child was shoved into her lap and instantly kicked her in the jaw. Lynn went over sideways, clutching her face.

The boy lifted the girl bodily in the air, shaking her with frustration. “You’ll die,” he screamed into her face. “You stay here with us and we’ll all die!”

A slow, building groan filled the forest, a sound so odd that hackles rose on Lynn’s neck and she dove for her gun. The boy didn’t try to stop her. His arms went slack at the noise, and the little girl puddled to the ground at his feet.

“Mama,” she wailed, fresh tears cutting paths in the grime of her face. “Mama.”

“Everything’s okay,” the boy shouted toward the makeshift shelter, and Lynn’s grip on the rifle relaxed. “It’s all right,” he said again, voice quivering with the effort of yelling. “Lucy’s fine, she’s right here with me.”

The noise subsided, replaced by the small whimpering of the child kneeling in the mud. “Mama,” she said again, peering anxiously at the tent.

“Don’t,” the boy warned her. “You can’t go over there.”

Lynn glanced at the little girl. “Is your mama sick?” She nodded vigorously in reply, but didn’t speak.

“I put her in there,” the boy said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Is she yours?” Lynn asked, gesturing toward Lucy.

“What? No! I’m only sixteen,” he said by way of explanation. “She’s like, seven years old.”

“I’m five,” came the disgruntled retort.

“Is she yours?” Lynn tried again. “Your responsibility?”

“Oh. Well, I guess they both are, now,” he said, fatigue filling every syllable. The little girl scuttled to his feet and perched there, eyeing Lynn distrustfully.

Lynn gingerly probed her head where the boy had hit her. A good-sized bump was forming there; it nearly filled the palm of her hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were one of them, coming back.”

“You’ve been attacked before?”

He nodded. “Yeah, just the once though. Not an attack really, they just walked into my camp and took our food.”

Lynn’s jaded gaze swept what he referred to as his camp, and she saw him bristle even though she held her tongue.

“There wasn’t anything I could do,” he said. “They said they wouldn’t hurt Lucy or Neva if I gave them our food.”

“Neva?” Lynn asked, curiosity spiked by the unfamiliar name.

“Mama,” came the answer, from the boy’s feet. The girl, grown bored with the conversation, was drawing in the mud. “Mama’s sick,” she repeated when Lynn looked down at her. “I can’t go in there, Eli said.”

“Eli’s probably right,” Lynn answered. “Those men—when was this?”

He shrugged. “Neva wasn’t in the tent yet, so maybe three weeks?”

“What have you been eating since?”

“Not much. I caught a fish with my hands one day. We found some berries, and Lucy’s been catching grasshoppers—” His voice broke on the last word, tears that she hadn’t expected began streaming down his face, but he was past the point of embarrassment. “I told her they were to cheer up her mom, but—”

He lost control again, a sob that shook his emaciated shoulders racked his body and buckled his knees. His arms folded around the little girl protectively, but when he looked up at Lynn there was steel in his voice. “You’ve got to take her.”

Lucy trudged along by her side, tripping when the long grasses snared her knees. She refused Lynn’s offers of help, stolidly asserting that anyone who had shot Cha-Cha didn’t need to hold her hand. As the girl had gone to bid her mother good-bye, Lynn had quickly spitted the dead animal and hidden it behind a tree, explaining the process to Eli as she did so. He’d turned even paler at the sight of the sharpened stick emerging from Cha-Cha’s throat, but didn’t argue against eating him.

As they approached the house, Lynn hailed the roof with one arm. She didn’t want Stebbs to mistake her for someone else. There was an acknowledging movement from the house, then she saw his dark form clumsily descending the antennae. Lynn glanced down at the little girl plodding alongside her. Weak as she was, a grim determination made her keep pace.

Lucy had argued, fought, pleaded, and eventually thrown rocks at Eli when he insisted that she was leaving the stream. He’d taken her aside and assured her that she could return once her mom was better, although the fleeting glance he’d shot at Lynn told her how long those odds were. Eli wasn’t trained to survive and had even less experience in tending the sick.

The grasses shifted in the wind as Stebbs made his way toward them, rifle slung across his shoulder. Any surprise he felt at seeing Lucy was well masked. “Hi there, little one,” he said. He bent down on one knee to talk to her, even though the posture was difficult for him with his twisted leg. “How are we supposed to split you, I wonder?”

Whatever animal magnetism the man had used on Lynn worked on Lucy as well. She ran forward and pitched herself into his arms, nuzzling her face against his old coat as if she’d known him forever. She pulled back, pointing a stiff finger at Lynn.

“She’s a bad girl. She shot Cha-Cha.”

Stebbs brow furrowed in confusion. “She shot who now?”

“There wasn’t anything there for me to bring back,” Lynn said for the third time as the trio huddled close to the cookstove, eating their supper.

“So you’ve said,” Stebbs said, shoving a forkful of beans in his mouth.

“I just don’t want you to think, you know—”

“That you stashed stuff in the woods and will get it later, when you don’t have to split it?”

“Yeah, that exactly,” Lynn said into her plate, face blazing. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Stebbs nodded and turned his attention to Lucy, who was eating from two jars at the same time. “Cut her off. She wasn’t starving, but was close. She eats too much right away, it’ll kill her.”

“I know,” Lynn said, stabbing a green bean with undue force.