“And keep the karma talk to yourself,” Lynn added.
Fletcher raised an eyebrow at Lucy, but she only shrugged and moved to help Lynn unpack their bedrolls from the horses. Brown Horse was favoring her tender hoof as she stood. The vinegarsoaked wrapping had turned the dust underneath her to a pungent mud. Lucy leaned against her, running her hand along the mare’s neck. Spatter took offense and jostled against her, vying for Lucy’s affection.
“Don’t mean anything by it,” she assured him, taking another yucca shoot from her pocket. She scratched Spatter’s nose absently while he crunched on it, her gaze drawn over his back to where Fletcher and Lynn were making camp. They moved in circles around each other, his slow and sure as he went about making food, hers erratic and nervous while she attempted to set their beds up while simultaneously keeping an eye on him.
Lucy smiled to herself and rested her head against Spatter, the warmth of his coat soaking into her skin. She knew Lynn didn’t want to believe in Fletcher’s talk of karma. While he might be doing good for strangers in the hope fate would be kind to his lost wife, Lynn’s own past was littered with bodies. And she was always on the lookout for whoever was coming to collect the debt.
“I wasn’t much older than Lucy here when the Shortage came about,” Fletcher said, the moonlight bouncing off the whiteness of his teeth as he spoke. “I was set up nice in Montana with my brothers and our parents until cholera wiped them out. I couldn’t trust our water source anymore, so I moved on, got it in my head that going south was the answer. No winters, right?”
Lynn and Lucy nodded their heads in unison. “We thought the same,” Lucy said, as she picked stray bits of jerky from her teeth. “Getting away from the snows meant not having to cut wood.”
“But leaving somewhere familiar means walking blind for water,” Fletcher finished. “And water is the coin of the realm.”
“How’d you do it?” Lynn asked. “Did you even have a gun?”
“Started out with one. I’ve had a lot of things on this journey of mine that are lost now. A gun, some maps. My wife.”
“You were married when you were my age?”
“No, that came later. The gun and the maps were with me at the beginning though. Lost the first to a bunch of ruffians, and the second shortly thereafter. I was left for dead and the rains turned my maps into pulp before I came around. My coat grew some mold after that too.” He added the second fact as if it had just occurred to him.
“What’d you do?” Lucy asked.
“Found a new coat.”
Lynn snorted, and Lucy tossed a handful of dirt in her direction, before continuing. “I mean after that, Fletcher.”
“My options were to lie there and die, or keep going.” He locked eyes with Lucy, all traces of humor gone. “I kept going.”
“And ended up where?” Lynn asked.
“I never ended anywhere. I have yet to stop.”
“You mean you’ve been on the road since then?”
“Roads, fields, mountains. You name it, I’ve traveled it.”
Lucy bounced a rock from hand to hand while she spoke. “So you’re saying in all that time you never found a place to settle?”
Fletcher said, “There have been plenty with access to water and decent shelter. I even discovered a cellar stocked with canned food, but I took what I needed for a few days’ journey and left it behind.”
“Why would you do that?” Lucy asked.
“Because I’ve learned a lesson, and more than once. If you have something, someone will take it from you, and with the loss comes suffering. It’s best to be beholden to nothing.”
“What about your wife?” Lynn asked, her voice seeming to slice through the air after Fletcher’s slow, rolling tone.
Another smile from Fletcher, this one so sad Lucy felt tears prickling her eyes. “She was the exception.”
“You’ve been looking for her all this time?” The question bubbled up on a wave of emotion, and Lucy’s voice trembled to stay under control.
“My best estimate is fifteen years,” Fletcher said evenly.
“That is so wonderful,” she said. The tears brimmed on Lucy’s eyelashes, and she hoped if they fell Lynn wouldn’t notice.
“And stupid,” Lynn countered, though her voice didn’t carry the same bite as the words. “It’s a long shot, walking around hoping to cross paths with her.”
Fletcher gave a lazy shrug. “I have nothing better to do.”
Lynn looked up to the stars and rolled her eyes, but Lucy thought she detected the faintest hint of tears reflected there.
“So that’s why you live on your feet? So you don’t get used to having anything?” Lucy asked.
“I find enough to eat for the day, I stay near water when I see it, and I walk. And I rather like my hat,” he added. “It’s useful.”
“We had a place in Ohio, a pond, a house. . . .” Lucy’s voice trailed off as she remembered her bedspread, Red Dog lying alone in the middle of it the night she’d left.