“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.
33
ATTICUS
When we crawled from beneath the hood the next morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky; the summer heat had settled across the landscape in a thick blanket of humidity.
And one horse was gone.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I stood where the horse stood last night, next to the speckled one. I’d tethered one horse so it couldn’t get away at least, but what was one horse with worn shoes when there were two riders and a small load of gear?
Thais came up beside me; her dress and the cotton pants she wore underneath were soaked all the way through; and filthy, caked with mud and pine needles. Her hair was sodden, tangled, lying ragged against her back; dirt was smeared across her face and neck, and something was crawling in her hair; she casually knocked it out.
I rubbed the back of my head, gritted my teeth in anger thinking about the horse that wandered off with some of our precious gear. I spotted something out ahead then: a heap lying in a puddle. It was my jacket.
“Didn’t make off with my coat, at least,” I said, holding it up; milky mud dripped from the sleeve. I laid it over the horse’s back. “But so much for everything else. Not to mention, we’re a horse short.”
Thais stepped up next to me.
“I’ll walk, you can ride,” I told her.
She leaned over and lifted the horse’s leg to inspect the horseshoe.
“I don’t think either of us should ride him,” she said. “And he probably shouldn’t carry our stuff for much longer, either. It would be cruel.”
I bent to check out her findings. She was right, but I wasn’t convinced the horse was useless.
“He can carry it,” I said with confidence, and set the hoof down in the mud. “How’s your ankle?”
“It’s fine.” Thais raised her foot and moved it around to demonstrate its mobility. “I can walk. You can walk. The horse can, but Atticus, I don’t want to make him carry this stuff much farther.”
I patted the horse on its muscled shoulder and thought about it. Staring westward, I considered how far from the river we were, knowing we had to be close because we’d been traveling for days.