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Excerpt from a private letter.
February 12, 2028
My dearest Bonita,
How I miss you and wish I was home in your warm embrace. Things have gone well here and our claim is playing out richly! I believe we will have more than enough to secure a comfortable future for many years to come.
I wish you had come with me on this trip as I’ve discovered the most amazing place. I decided to take a break after ten hard days of work and went exploring deeper into the mountains. You know from previous trips with me just how barren and dry this area is so you would have been just as shocked as I was to stumble into a lush green valley in the middle of this desolate land. A brilliant blue stream, the color of your eyes, runs down the middle of it with green grasses and wildflowers covering both banks. The stream is fed by a twenty-foot waterfall that pours from an opening in the valley wall with a large pool at its base. I swear, I thought I was sun-touched and delirious so I sat for a good hour just gazing down at the beauty of it before I convinced myself it was real.
I made my way down and had to laugh as I startled a small herd of mule deer from where they had been drinking at the stream. When I reached the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, I stripped down to my birthday suit and dove right in. The cool water was crystal clear and tasted as sweet as wine. How I wished you were there with me to enjoy that moment.
I laid down in the soft grass of the meadow beside the stream and let the sun dry my body as I planned how I would build a beautiful home for you right where I was laying. It will be the perfect location for us to escape the troubles that our nation is going through. A safe haven where we can raise and grow our family. I know you will love it as much as I do.
I can’t wait to be home with you and plan to leave soon. I’m including a few pictures of the valley that I’ve scanned in so you can see why I’m so excited by it. I truly haven’t seen such lush natural vegetation since I left British Columbia. You know how much I love our life in California but seeing this valley gave me a powerful longing for the green landscape of my childhood.
I hope this data file reaches you today and the mail satellites aren’t backed up again!
All my love for you.
Your adoring husband,
Lucas
The first thing I notice when I wake up is that Glo has curled up against me. The next thing I notice is that we’re not in bed but on a hard wooden floor. The confusion only lasts for a second when the memories of what happened to Abuela and our home come flooding back. When I remember Beck pumping the handle to get us away from his brother, I shove myself to my feet and frantically look around the cart to find him. The breath and tension whoosh out of me when I see him sleeping at the other end of the cart. I study his peaceful face as he sleeps and I try to see the boy I once knew in the man he’s almost become. The only thing that looks the same to me is his brown wavy hair that has golden highlights running through it.
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter what he looks like. I need to decide if he’s a threat to my sister and me. I know he’s been in his brother’s gang but everything I’ve seen from him in the last twenty-four hours says he’s not like the rest of them. He let us pass after the ration station when his brother’s men would have robbed us of our supplies. And if he was a threat to us, then why did he not only race to warn us about the attack that was coming but flee from his brother with us too? I don’t know the answers to these questions but I do know that I don’t trust him. As far I can tell, he came to our house empty handed so he could be after our food and water. I pat the messenger bag that’s still over my shoulder. The old gun that’s inside it will be our safety net if he tries anything.
I’m surprised and take a step back when his eyes suddenly fly open and he launches to his feet. His moves are so sudden that I’m clawing open the bag to get to the gun but pause when he spins away from me and rushes to the windows. He moves from each one scanning the desert in all directions before slumping down on the padded bench with a deep sigh. His eyes lift to mine and I’m surprised to see that they’re full of weariness. His voice is a dry croak when he speaks.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep. I just couldn’t pump anymore and I was worried there might be something on the tracks I wouldn’t see in the dark.”
I just stare at him in silence trying to figure him out. He’s sorry he had to rest and he was trying to keep us from having an accident in the dark? I don’t get how he can be robbing people one day and trying to be a hero the next so I just give him a curt nod and turn away. I walk around the center handles and pull two jugs of water from the shelves before returning and handing him one. I watch him as we both drink deeply and try not to wince at the stale plastic taste of the water. It’s better than the taste of smoke and ash that I woke with.
When he finishes drinking he turns and looks back out of a window with a frown then says over his shoulder, “We should do our business and get going. I don’t know how far we got last night so we might not have much of a lead on him.”
I take another step back from him but this time it’s in disbelief. “What are you talking about? What lead? You can’t seriously think he’s going to come after us, do you?”
He turns all the way around to face me with a grim expression. “You don’t know Boyd like I do. He’ll come for us. Even if it’s just to save face with his men.”
I shake my head. “How? Does he have transportation? He’d die out here on foot!”
Beck huffs out a breath. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll find a way. We should go...soon.”
I chew on my bottom lip in worry for a few seconds before a dark thought swims into my head. “Is he coming for me or is he coming for you? Cause if it’s you he’s after then you can get off right now. I’m not going to let you put my sister in danger!” I practically spit at him.
I expect a reaction from him but all I get is sad eyes that look beyond tired. “It’s both of us. You defied him by running when he wanted you and what supplies you have and I betrayed him by warning you and then leaving with you. He’s going to want revenge, so like I said, we should go and put as many miles between us and him as possible.”
I want to argue that he wouldn’t care about me, but if he’s that deranged, then me shooting at him probably sealed my fate. Before I can say anything else, Gloria’s voice pipes in.
“Día, I have to go.”
I whirl around to see her staring at me with big scared eyes while she shuffles back and forth in need. I can tell she’s ready to burst and also that she’s overheard what Beck’s said about his brother coming after us. I nod to her and turn to Beck.
“You get off first and then wait for us before you get back on.” I don’t want to chance him taking off on us. I see by his expression that he understands my meaning but he only nods slowly and pushes off the bench. I watch him climb down the steps and move around to the other side of the tracks so I hop down and turn to lift Glo down. We don’t go far to do our morning business and then I rush her back to the cart. As soon as Beck hears us open the door, he comes around and stares at me before looking back towards our home.
“I’m not a threat to you. All I ever wanted was a way to get away from my brother. I didn’t warn you because I wanted something. I did it because it was the right thing to do and we used to be friends. You can leave me here if you think you’d be better off without me but I think it would be a mistake. I can help with the pumping and if Boyd does find us, I’ll fight him. I’m done being his punching bag!”
I look up at Gloria who’s standing in the doorway. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to protect her. I don’t know what we’ll find down the tracks. Having Beck with us might make all the difference in our survival. I turn from her worried face to his.
“You don’t even know where we’re going!”
He shakes his head and I see a small smile start to form on his face.
“I don’t even care. All that matters to me is that it’s away from Boyd and...I’m not alone anymore.” He blushes and looks away so I glance back at Gloria. She meets my eyes and gives a firm nod so I turn back to Beck and point at the door.
“Start pumping!”
He won’t meet my eyes when he nods but I can see the relief in his expression as he moves towards the steps. I go up ahead of him and start rummaging around in the basket that Abuela slid to me last night. It’s filled with prepared food that will see us through the next few days. I pass a wrapped tortilla that’s filled with sprouts and peppers to Glo and take one for myself. I catch Beck’s glance as he starts pumping the handle and then hold the wrap up to him.
“There’s one here for you too. Just let me get this down and I’ll take over so you can eat.”
He gives me a small smile of gratitude before focusing ahead out the front windows. I’m about to take a bite of my breakfast when I feel a tug on my sleeve. I turn to Glo and see the sadness and uncertainty in her eyes.
“What happened? Where’s Abuela?”
I take that bite of food to stall for time and look out at the slowly passing desert. The sun is just starting to rise on a new day. A day that will change Gloria’s life forever. I try and think of the words to explain to her that her home and the only mother she’s ever known is gone for good but the food sticks in my throat with the grief that washes over me. When she tugs at my sleeve again, I grab the jug of water and wash down the sticky mess.
“A gang came to the house to steal everything. They had a gun. Abuela...she...she saved me, us. She gave her life so we could get away.”
Gloria looks down at the wrap in her hand with a frown then back to me. “Will she be following us? Is she going to meet up with us later?”
I swallow hard and briefly close my eyes, hating to say the words but knowing I have to tell her so she’ll understand. “I’m sorry, Glo. She...she died.”
Gloria sucks in a breath at the words and I see tears spring into her eyes. “But, where are we going then?”
I shoot a look over at Beck but his eyes stay fixed ahead. Even so, I can see the shame that he’s feeling. I want to be angry at him. Rage at him for what his brother has done but all I feel is sadness so I turn back to her.
“We’re going to a better place. A place Abuela wanted us to go to. It’s very far away and it will be a hard journey but it will be worth it.”
Her little chin trembles as she nods her head but I can’t think of anything else to say to her to make this better. I let her go as she takes her wrap and moves to the far end of the bench to watch out the front windows. I look down at my own wrap but my appetite is gone and once again the taste of smoke and ash fills the back of my throat. I shake my head to try and get the image of Abuela surrounded by flames out of my mind but it doesn’t work. Instead, I wrap my food back up into the paper and cloth it was packed in and stand up, motioning Beck to trade spots with me. I need some mindless physical action to clear my head. I pump in silence as I try and do the math of how far we need to go. Abuela just said hundreds of miles. I don’t know if that means two hundred or eight hundred. I’ll have to look over the maps in the messenger bag when I trade back with Beck. I remember her talking about three junctions and to take the third so I call out to Glo.
“I need you to watch the tracks for anything on them so we have time to stop. Also, watch closely for the tracks to split off in a different direction! We must take the third junction. It’s very important we don’t miss it!”
She doesn’t turn back to me but I see her head nod so I leave her be. Grief is a beast that sometimes needs to be faced alone. With Glo watching the tracks for me, I put my head down and lose myself in the rhythmic pumping, every now and then raising my eyes to the gauge that shows our speed. I find the easiest speed for me to maintain is between ten and twelve miles an hour. I try and calculate how far we can go in how many days before our water runs out at this speed. I need to look at the rail map for the exact distance to do the calculations. If we run out of water before we get to the place called Coyote Rock, we won’t have any for the part of the journey we have to go on foot. All the pumping in the world won’t matter then. We’ll be in the middle of the desert and dead.