Silence met her demand and a dark dread billowed in her stomach. “Lucy?”
“Who is making a song?” The little voice sounded curious, yet cowed. “You don’t do that.”
Lynn was off her elbows and down the antennae in a moment, rifle clutched in the crook of her arm. Keeping the man in her sights and her aim steady was impossible with Lucy standing in the open, every step bringing the stranger closer to spotting her. She grabbed the little girl by the elbow and yanked her inside, Red Dog trailing from her other hand. When she turned right at the landing instead of heading down the stairs, Lucy quit protesting and clutched Lynn in return, the strangeness of going into the upper levels of the house quieting her.
Lynn headed for the living room, where the two front windows looked out onto the road only ten feet away. She silently raised the window enough to slide her rifle barrel under. Lucy crouched beside her, eyes wide.
The whistling was much louder now. He came into view slowly, hobbling on bare feet over the patchy gravel road, hands jammed into his pockets against the slight chill of the breeze. Lynn could see the stark outlines of his meager muscles under the thin covering of his goose-bumped skin. Still he whistled, each shuffling step falling in time with the tune he forced between his teeth though it seemed it was a struggle even to breathe.
Lynn took her own breath, exhaled partway and stilled her chest, eye to the scope. Suddenly she was very conscious of Lucy’s hand on her arm, the warmth of each tiny finger seeping into her skin.
“He looks lonely,” the little girl said, and Lynn let out the rest of her breath in a rush, pulling away from the scope.
“Of course he’s lonely,” she snapped. “He’s alone. Now I need you to be quiet and not touch me for a minute.”
Lucy’s grip on Lynn’s arm tightened. “You’re not gonna shoot him, are you?”
“I . . .” Lynn looked down at Lucy, her blue eyes wide and questioning, Red Dog tucked protectively under her elbow. “This is what I do, Lucy,” she said softly. “This is how I keep us safe.”
“But he didn’t hurt us,” Lucy said, bewilderment bringing her fine eyebrows together over her tiny nose. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“We don’t know that.”
Lucy’s lower lip stuck out in an expression Lynn knew all too well. “Then ask him.”
“What?”
“I’m not letting you shoot him ’til you know he’s a bad man.”
“You’re kidding.”
Lucy crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow imperiously at Lynn, the strongest echo of Neva she’d seen in the child yet.
The whistling had stopped. Lynn glanced out the window and saw that the stranger was standing directly in front of the house, his gaze riveted on the freshly cut woodpile. “Looks like he knows we’re in here already,” she said. “You stay inside.” Lynn tapped her finger on the end of Lucy’s nose with every syllable for emphasis.
The front door hadn’t been opened in years, and the hinges groaned as she pulled it inward, heart in her throat. The porch was covered with piles of rotting leaves, years of debris left to decay. Lynn stepped around them, her attention hooked on the stranger’s face. He had jumped at the sound of the door but now stood hunched against the chill, eyes wary and trained on her rifle.
Her stomach clenched in apprehension before she spoke, every muscle in her body straining to stop her tongue from breaking Mother’s rules. “Where you headed?”
He looked away from the gun and up to her face, then jerked his head to the west. “That way, I suppose,” he said.
Lynn licked her lips to hide her irritation. “Why that way, is what I’m asking, and I think you know it.”
A small smile played with the man’s lips and she noticed that though his face had fine lines on it like Stebbs, his hair was solid brown with no traces of gray. “I’m headed that way because it’s the opposite of the direction I come from,” he said. “And I’m in a hurry to get away from there.”
Lynn checked her grip on the rifle and took a step closer. “Where are your shoes?”
“They took ’em,” he said briefly, and Lynn saw his eyes dart over her shoulder, drawn to the window by some movement of Lucy’s. “You alone here, girl?”
“No,” she said. “My father lives here with me.”
“But he sends you out to investigate strange men?”
“I’m the better shot.”
The man’s eyes went to her hands on the gun, sure and confident. “I believe ya.” They watched each other warily for a moment and the wind gusted, making him jam his hands farther into his pockets and turn away from the breeze.
“Who was it took your shoes? Another wanderer?”
“I’m no wanderer; least, I wasn’t ’til a few days ago. I was set up nice, just like you.”
Lynn’s eyes cut to the bloody gashes on his feet, the dirt packed in between his toes. “So what happened?”
“It was taken from me, in the night.” He looked back to the east as he spoke, as if the words could conjure those who had harmed him. “A truckload of men come up on me, took my gun, coat, shoes, anything in the house they thought they could use and some stuff there’s not been a need for since I don’t know when. They loaded it all up and left me smelling their exhaust.”
“You couldn’t stay and make a go of it?”
He shook his head and looked at the ground. “All’s I had left was the roof over my head, and there’s plenty of those still standing. Thought I’d find something else, maybe a house with some wood already cut and left behind, a few tin cans hanging around in the cupboards.”
“Don’t be thinking because I asked your story I’m interested in being a part of it,” Lynn said coldly.
The man put his hands in the air. “Didn’t mean nothing by it. You can see I’m in no shape to be taking anything from anybody.”
“All right then,” Lynn said, backing away from him with her gun slightly raised. “I’m gonna walk back inside the house here, and I want you to sit tight—”
“Stand tight, you mean?” She saw another flicker of a smile and she fought down the urge to smile back at her own mistake.
“Whichever,” she said, no trace of her stifled humor showing in her voice. “I’ll be back shortly.” Lynn ducked inside the house and shoved the door closed. “Lucy,” she whispered, “run down to the basement and get my mother’s boots and coat.”
“The ones by my cot?”
“Yeah, go grab ’em. Hurry now, while I keep an eye on him.”
Lucy scrambled off, evidently believing that Lynn’s good humor could evaporate at any moment. She returned slightly breathless and buried underneath the quilted dark blue coat that Mother had always worn, the boots dangling from one hand. Lynn took them from her without a word, ignoring the quick puff of air that still smelled of Mother. When she pulled the door open, the stranger was cowering against the chill, the veins in his arms flat blue lines. Lynn walked to the edge of the porch and tossed Mother’s boots and coat into the wind, the right boot pinwheeling over the left and landing at his feet. “My mother wasn’t a large woman, but you’re not that big of a guy. It might be a fit,” she said, her mouth clamped tightly against the emotions that welled in her throat, threatening to break through and send her running after the coat, an object that was so entwined with the thought of Mother she could hardly picture her without seeing it.
The man bent down cautiously, watching Lynn as if waiting for some trick to be played. She remained still, gun pointed downward, and he grunted appreciatively when a pair of balled-up socks rolled out of one of the boots. The coat was snug through the shoulders, but the sleeves were the right length. He sat down to lace up the boots, and Lynn felt a pang of protectiveness shoot through her at the sight of an adult going through Lucy’s morning ritual, although his hands were numb from the cold and somewhat less sure than her nimble fingers.
Lynn cleared her throat when he stood up experimentally. “They fit?”
“They do, and I thank you,” he said, clear eyes connecting with hers and holding her gaze for the first time. “You probably saved my life.”
“I owe a few.”
He nodded once as if he understood and looked back to the east. “Whether you’re alone or not, you be
