Lucy gave him a cold stare. “You think I can forget her blood dripping everywhere and the fact her rifle is on her back more than in her hands? It isn’t right. That isn’t Lynn, and I’m not about to forget it.”
“You keep it close in your mind though, little Lucy,” Fletcher said, all traces of his familiar smile gone. “I know you’ve got convictions same as she does. I won’t be with you to speak reason if you get it in your head to drag her back across these mountains for the sake of someone you don’t even know is still alive.”
Anger stirred in her stomach, sending her scalp prickling. “I didn’t tell you about Carter so you could use it against me.”
“And I’m not saying it to fill the empty air. Don’t ask her to do it.”
Lucy kicked Spatter harder than usual, and he hurried to catch up to Mister, his steps not slowing until he was safely nestled in the shadow of his leader.
Guilt nibbled at Lucy as they pushed on, often traveling through the night if the heat of the day had not overly tired the horses. Lynn’s condition remained the same, but Lucy’s own body never wavered. The thin air actually felt good in her lungs, and she could feel the difference as they descended, a certain heaviness in her lungs that required some forgotten effort to breathe as they wound their way down. Fletcher never commented on their progress, though Lynn had given the map over to him after a particularly long-lived nosebleed had soaked one of the corners.
It took resolve to not ask Fletcher to pull out the map every night and show Lucy how far they had come during the day, gauging to see how close Lynn’s safety might be. She watched Lynn like a hawk during a downward descent that had nearly made her dizzy, but Fletcher only shook his head at her when he saw the direction of her gaze.
“Doesn’t work that way,” he said quietly to her.
“What’s that?”
“I see you watching her for signs of improvement every time we come over a steep hill. Her headaches might recede soon, but her body has been stressed for a long time. She’ll need to recuperate once we’re on level land again.”
Lucy’s heart leapt in fear at the thought. Fletcher had said he was heading north after they crossed the mountains. “How long?”
He followed her thoughts. “I won’t leave you in my wake until she’s all right.”
She let out a breath as if she hadn’t been holding it. “Thanks.”
“Surely you knew that by now, that I wouldn’t leave?”
“But you will,” Lucy argued. “When it’s time. You’ve got your own life to lead.”
Fletcher smiled to himself and looked back at the road.
“What’s so funny?”
“You and Lynn,” he said. “Always looking for people to let you down, but for different reasons. She doesn’t trust me enough to believe my motives are altruistic. You think I’m more devoted to someone else than to you two.”
Lucy snuck a glance at Lynn, whose body was swaying with each step Mister took. “Well . . . aren’t you?”
“Rose has been waiting on me for years. A few more days doesn’t make any difference.”
“But for us it might, is that it?”
Fletcher nodded once, slowly, not taking his eyes off the road. “It may.”
“You don’t think we’ll make it, do you?”
“I think women traveling alone face a unique set of challenges, and it’s best if Lynn is feeling well when I leave you.”
His last few words echoed through Lucy’s mind, bringing with them the faces of all those she had lost through death or separation: her mother, Uncle Eli, Maddy, Carter. Her heart faltered, missing a beat when she realized that even Vera and Stebbs could be lost to her now. With the mountains between them, it was a real possibility she would never see them again, or hear their voices. She took a ragged breath and looked at the horizon.
“When you leave us,” she repeated, giving each word the weight it deserved.
The day they came down out of the mountains was one Lucy had always pictured in her mind as warm and pleasant, with a clear blue sky and the weight of the world removed from her shoulders. Instead she was picking her way around another rock slide in the rain, and ankle-deep mud had sucked one of her shoes clear off her foot.
Spatter was shaking his head against the downpour of rain, refusing to step over the guardrail even when she yanked on the reins.
“Damn it,” she shouted, dropping Spatter’s reins in frustration. “He won’t move,” she shouted over the downpour to Fletcher and Lynn, who had already coaxed their horses off the highway and around the guardrail that had stopped the rocks. They hunched over their own mounts, miserable in the rain.