could have. I told her Neva was coming last night, and she didn’t take it so well.”
“It’s understandable.”
“Yeah well, maybe, but I don’t want Neva bent out of shape about it. Or Lucy mad at me, for that matter.”
“Want me to go down and try?”
“Better hurry,” Lynn said, nodding toward the west, where Eli’s and Neva’s figures could be made out. Stebbs lumbered to his feet and disappeared inside.
Neva broke into the side yard ahead of Eli, poked a finger into the side of the half-melted snowman by the wood cord and smiled. Eli nodded and said something to her, but it was lost in a cry from the basement.
“Shit! Lynn! Get down here!”
The urgency in Stebbs’ voice sent Lynn reeling down the stairs where he was cradling Lucy in his arms, her entire form limp, and her closed eyes red-rimmed with fever. “How long has she been like this?” Lynn stared dumbfounded at the unconscious Lucy. “Lynn!”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know! I thought she was sleeping. I haven’t been back down here since I woke up.”
Two sets of feet pounded down the stairs, and Eli fell forward into the basement, Neva close behind him. “What? What is it?”
Neva’s hands flew to her mouth when she saw Lucy, tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. “Give her to me,” she said.
Stebbs handed her over carefully and Neva cradled the light head against her own dark one, rocking her slowly back and forth. “What happened, baby? What’s wrong?”
There was no answer.
There was a light touch on Lynn’s shoulder. “She’s not . . . not gone, is she?”
“No,” Stebbs answered Eli. “There’s a pulse, but it’s light.”
“What happened? When did she get sick?”
“I don’t know,” Lynn said, her voice shaking. “She crawled into bed with me last night and I thought she was fine, but she didn’t want to get up. . . . Shit, I’m so sorry, Neva. I didn’t know.”
Neva waved away the apology. “Get me a cloth,” she said as she laid Lucy back on the cot. “We’ve got to break this fever.”
Stebbs looked in amazement at his own hands, still hot to the touch from holding Lucy. “She’s burning up.”
His words caused a panic in Lynn’s mind, dredging up memories of bodies without bullet holes strewn across the fields, bodies that the buzzards wouldn’t touch. Cholera burned through people so quickly they died in their tracks, wandering in a haze toward a water source that Mother wouldn’t let them near. One man had veered away from the pond and hailed Mother from the yard. Lynn had clutched onto her tightly, fear of the stranger digging her little fingers deep into Mother’s tanned skin.
He’d begged for water, pleading that he was not ill like the others and would not contaminate the pond. Mother had refused and sent him off with a warning. Hours later he was back, shit streaking his legs and begging for a bullet instead. This time, Mother had granted his request.
Lynn dug her fingers into Stebbs’ coat, her voice a harsh whisper. “It’s not the cholera, is it?”
“No, she always does this,” Neva said, peeling off a layer of warm sleeping clothes from Lucy. “You can’t just get a little fever, can you, baby? You’ve got to go big.” Tears were still sliding down her face, but Neva was moving with purpose. She looked up at her audience. “Move! I need a cold, wet cloth—now. And a thermometer, if you have one.”
Neva’s conviction broke Lynn’s stillness. She shot up the stairs with Eli on her heels. “There’s some washcloths in the bathroom,” she called over her shoulder. “Use the clean water downstairs in the tank.”
“Where are you going?”
“Thermometer,” she answered without bothering to explain why she was running up the staircase. Mother had squirreled away all of Lynn’s baby clothes, blankets, bottles, and—she hoped—baby thermometer as well. She burst into the attic, throwing open lids to steamer trunks and tossing clothes in the air in a frantic search. The objecting screech of a baby toy told her she’d found the right trunk, and Lynn dug to the bottom, overwhelmed with relief at the sight of the plastic thermometer.
“Please work,” she said to it, and the digital screen lit up at her touch.
Her heart was beating so hard, she almost didn’t hear the footsteps on the roof. Lynn instinctively dropped down, hand clutched protectively around the thermometer. For a moment there was nothing, only the sound of her own blood pumping through her veins. Then she heard it again.
Someone was on her roof.
She crept down the staircase quietly, dodging the patches of late afternoon light in the living room and slinking into the kitchen. Eli was already downstairs; she could hear his muted voice in conversation with Neva, her tone pitched high with concern. Lynn edged down the steps, handed the thermometer silently to Neva and reached past Eli for her handgun.
“There’s someone outside,” she whispered to him. He tensed but didn’t look away from the cot where Lucy lay, her arm dangling over the side. Neva had to hold her jaw shut to use the thermometer; Lucy was too weak to close her own mouth.
“Where?”
“On the roof, for sure. I’m betting more,” Lynn answered quietly, but with her eyes on Stebbs. He noticed and joined their group at the foot of the stairs.
“What?”
“Men on the roof,” Eli said, his voice pitched low to not alarm Neva. “What do we do?”
“Not much we can do. They already have higher ground. You run out there firing and they’ll pick you off.”
“Only if he’s a good shot,” Lynn countered.
“Assume he is. Put down the gun.”
She didn’t move. “They’re not taking my house.”
“I’m guessing they don’t want it,” Stebbs said evenly. “They didn’t meet any resistance coming in. They have the advantage but aren’t pressing it.”
“So what do they want?” Eli asked.
“We go find out.” Stebbs gave Lynn a hard look and peeled her fingers off the gun. “You going to keep your head on straight?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Don’t look like it. You go out first, keep your hands up where they can see them. I’ll follow her, and Eli you come last. Be calm, no reason to upset Neva just yet.”
Lynn glanced back at the cot before leaving. Water from the cloth on her forehead was streaming down Lucy’s face, matching the tears on Neva’s. “Hold on, kiddo,” she said quietly. “We’ll be right back.”
She climbed the stairs stiffly, every nerve in her body protesting the absence of her gun. The door creaked open and she walked into the sunlight, both hands open and visible. Three armed men stood in the yard, a woman kneeling in the mud in front of them, a noose around her neck. Lynn walked forward cautiously, highly conscious of the man on the roof and the prickle of hairs on her neck telling her that his crosshairs were focused there.
“Get off my roof,” she said.
One of the men spat on the ground and smiled at her, showing off gaps in his teeth. “That the way you greet your neighbors?”
“Neighbors that drag a woman around by her neck, yes.”
“Lynn,” Stebbs said quietly in warning as he stepped from the doorway. Eli emerged behind him, his hands held up as well. His eyes were on Lynn, a mute entreaty to keep her mouth shut, until he spotted the woman.
“Vera!”
