32
ATTICUS
Another full day on The Road left us with hunger pangs and sore muscles and dwindling hope. We still had bread in the pack but it was all we had. But water was becoming the biggest concern; there were no lakes or ponds or creeks or even the smallest of streams for many miles. And it had not rained in days. What little water there might’ve been had already been swallowed up by the earth.
And the horses were showing signs of fatigue; their shoes were already old and worn when we took them from the stable. After a while, Thais and I hopped down from the horses, and left them to carry only our gear.
My feet swelled inside my boots; blisters rubbed against the leather. But I soldiered on, never letting Thais on to my discomfort—she would’ve refused to let me carry her piggyback for a while when she twisted her ankle and could barely walk.
“Let me down,” she said, after a few minutes with her legs wrapped around my waist from behind. “I have to walk on it, or it’ll take longer to heal.”
I didn’t let her down.
Hours later, as the night fell, a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. The sky filled up with black clouds, and I knew we had to find shelter before the storm arrived. But mostly all I could see for miles in every direction were more fields, and not a single house or barn or shed perched amid the landscape.
“Maybe there’s a barn in the woods,” Thais said, standing next to me. She pointed at the cluster of trees out ahead. “And if not, it’s better than out here in the wide open.”
Agreeing, I took her hand into my right, the horses’ reins gripped in my left, and we set out for the woods.
The first few giant drops of rain hit our faces before we made it halfway, and by the time we came upon the outskirts of the trees, the rain came out of the sky in torrents, drenching us and everything the horses carried within a few short seconds. The lightning and thunder was brief, rumbling and streaking across the sky, but the heavy rain that accompanied it showed no signs of letting up after fifteen minutes.
Thais shook from the chill; rain streamed over her head and into her eyes. Her teeth rattled, and she still walked with a limp.
“We need to find shelter!” I shouted over the pounding rain, pissed at myself that she was already soaked.
We came upon the metal frame of an old rusted truck that looked like it had been sitting in the woods for fifty years. Everything had been stripped from it, and there was no way we could take shelter underneath the skeletal remains overrun by weeds.
I clenched my jaw, looking around. Finally, I saw something, released Thais’ hand and left her standing with the horses.
The hood lay on the ground, partially covered by leaves and dead branches. I went back over to the horses and rummaged through a pillowcase for the crank flashlight I’d found at the farmhouse.
“W-What is it?” Thais called out as I zipped past.
I went back over to the hood, cranked and then turned the flashlight on, clamped the opposite end between my teeth. Keeping the stream of light in front of me, I bent next to the hood and fitted both hands underneath the edge. I struggled to lift it, but with one heavy pull, I set it free. The metal creaked and popped as it was moved, and the vines and weeds that had grown around it pulled away, ripping and snapping; a few beetles scuttled from metal folds. I grabbed the hood with both hands and dragged it farther away from the truck. At the base of two side-by-side pine trees, I let the hood fall against them, creating a lean-to that could’ve been done more efficiently had I the time and resources to plan it out.
The flashlight blinked off. I pulled it from my teeth and cranked the pullout handle on my way back to Thais and the horses.
She was swallowed by a blue rain poncho from her head to her knees; she held another poncho out to me.
“They were in the backpack!” she shouted over the rain. “Took them from your room before we left!”
I smiled, and then took the poncho from her hand, slipping it over my drenched clothes and covering my head with the flimsy hood. After tethering the horses to a bush, I walked Thais to the lean-to and ushered her beneath it. The light blinked off again, unable to hold a charge.
The sound of Thais’ teeth knocking together was more audible than the rain now; the small space providing a shield not only from the elements, but from the noise. I shuffled my arms out of the poncho and laid it over the end of the hood where Thais’ feet stuck out, using it as a tarp to keep the rain off her. Then she came out of hers, to my argument she keep it on, and handed it to me. She pointed at the other end of the hood where our heads would lay, and although there was no water coming in from that side, I covered the opening with her poncho just as she wanted.
I crawled on my hands and knees and laid down beside her, my back facing the opening.
“D-Did you c-check for snakes?” she asked. Her arms were pressed tightly against her chest, her hands locked together like one fist.
“Yeah,” I said, lying on my side, my face inches from hers. “I checked for snakes.”
“I’m n-not afraid of s-snakes,” she said, shivering, “but I d-don’t want to sleep w-with t-them.”
I draped my arm over her waist and pulled myself closer.
“You won’t be sleeping with any,” I said; my pulse quickened having her so near.
THAIS
Cupping the back of my head in his hand, Atticus drew me to lay against his chest. My hands unfastened and my arms came apart and I curled up next to him, shuddering against his wet shirt, my fingers clamped about the fabric. His body underneath his wet clothes put off heat like a furnace, and I melted into him; the shivering subsided; my limbs relaxed.
I scooted closer so I could be nearer to his lips, then I lay my head on his arm. His mouth was wet with drops of rain; water clung to his facial hair and his eyelashes and I thought him a beautiful man, but couldn’t stop looking at his lips long enough to decide just how beautiful.
I’d never stopped thinking about when he’d kissed me; I thought about it through hunger and thirst and the pain in my ankle—my head and my belly swam every hour with the memory. Sometimes I wondered if I’d only dreamt it.
Despite my shyness, I pushed myself closer and touched my lips to his, feeling the droplets of rain from his mouth cool against mine.
ATTICUS
My arm tightened around her before the kiss broke, and I held onto her, as if afraid she’d somehow be torn away from me. And I felt my eyes filling up with tears. I wanted to cry, but I held back the need to let it all out, to release this thing inside of me I was both shattered by and thankful for.
I looked down into her eyes; touched the tips of my fingers to her chapped lips that hadn’t felt the pleasure of a drink in two days too long.
“You need to get hydrated,” I told her.
And without another word, I lifted from the wet pine needles and turned to the opening. Rainwater streamed down in several spots; I chose the one with the thickest stream, held out my hands cupped together to form a little bowl and filled it with water.
Thais raised her body and leaned toward me, cupping her hands underneath mine before drinking from them in slow sips.
“I think we’ll be okay,” Thais whispered as she lay wrapped in my arms sometime later. It was still raining, but it had begun to taper. “Even if we don’t make it to Shreveport, I think we’ll make it somewhere. Don’t you think so?”
I thought about it, and came to one conclusion: If we die tomorrow, at least I’ll die knowing that hope wasn’t an illusion, after all.
“Yeah, I think we might make it somewhere,” I answered, not having the heart to tell her the truth.