Lynn leaned forward, trying to see what Mother meant.
“Also, he doesn’t have much in the way of whiskers.” Mother touched her own face to illustrate. “Kinda built small too. You oughta put your foot up next to his, see if you think his boots would fit.”
Even the appearance of the other men had screamed “enemy” to Lynn. But this one, with his small hands and eyes that were clear even in death wormed at her. “No,” she said. “I don’t think I will.”
Mother watched her cautiously. “It’s probably time for me to—”
A flash of light along the corner of the woods to the southwest brought both of them flat on their bellies, rifles to the ready. Through her scope Lynn saw Stebbs, his own rifle at his shoulder, peering in their direction. To her surprise, Mother stood up and hailed him with one arm. “Yeah, we’re all right,” she said under her breath. “Asshole.”
Mother looked down to where Lynn still lay prone in the grass, her rifle barrel resting across the torso of the dead boy. “You don’t have to help me with this one, if you don’t want to.”
“I’m fine.” Lynn said, proving it by grabbing him under the arms and dragging him away before Mother could move to help. When she came back from the field, his boots were knotted together, dangling from her neck. They were nicer than her own, newer, with steel toes.
The guns and ammo from the men went into the old steamer trunk Mother had tucked away beside the root cellar. Years of dropping anyone who came close to the house had given them a ready supply of weapons and ammo, but both women stuck to the rifles they had learned on, the stocks worn smooth from years of resting their cheeks against them.
Lynn glanced at the shelves of the root cellar while Mother packed away the guns. The dim light that filtered in didn’t show her anything reassuring. The glass jars from last year’s canning were almost gone. The few carrots and celery Lynn had pulled from the ground earlier in the harvest were covered in sawdust, their green tops wilted.
“We need to get out to the garden,” Lynn said. “The second planting is out there waiting.”
“I know it,” Mother muttered into the gun trunk. “But I don’t like being so far from the house with those men from the south about.”
“I don’t like the idea of starving.”
Mother’s answer was to give her a handgun. “I’ll come with you. We work fast and get back to the house. You should be purifying today too.”
Lynn stuck the handgun into her belt. “I can’t take a day sitting next to the tin when we should be harvesting. For all you know it’s wasted time anyway, the water could be just fine.”
“That’s how people in Africa cleaned their water, back when we still knew what people on other continents were up to.”
“Hell of a lot hotter in Africa,” Lynn argued. “Their water probably just about boiled on sheets of tin.”
Mother snapped the lid of the gun trunk shut. “You ever had cholera?”
“No.”
“Then it must be working,” Mother said.
“Either that or the water’s always been fine,” Lynn said, hating the idea of useless hours spent watching over bottles of water that didn’t need purifying.
“Only one way to find out, and if you’re wrong we’re both dead. Now let’s get out to the garden before I change my mind about that.”
Mother’s mouth stayed down in its normal position, not inviting conversation as she stripped husks off sweet corn. Lynn was shelling the last peas while debating the pros and cons of breaking the silence. Though they spent most of their days working side by side, they hardly spoke to each other if they weren’t on the roof. Voices could attract people, or cover the sound of someone approaching. Mother kept her rifle within reach, the safety off. Only the right words could be used to break the silence.
“We had four cords of wood, this time last year.”
Mother stopped shucking, her hands still for once. There was a small grunting noise that Lynn took for agreement.
“We’ve got two.” Lynn ventured. “It’s not enough.”
“No,” Mother agreed. “It’s not.” Her hands kept working, building up their store even in the face of futility.
“So why bother?” Lynn’s voice shook as she tossed the last pea pod into the bucket. “Why gather water? Why pick the vegetables?”
Mother smiled thinly, hands still working. “If I’d thought like that sixteen years ago, I’d have drowned you the second you were born, then shot myself.”
“But you didn’t.”
Mother snapped another ear of corn from the stalk. “Plenty did. ‘I took the road less traveled by—and that has made all the difference.’”
Familiar with the glance Mother gave her, Lynn asked the question. “Who wrote that one?”
“Robert Frost.”