Gray (Book 2) (2 page)

But she didn’t feel attracted to him. Grateful, yes. Fond, sure. Exasperated, occasionally. But did feeling anything more matter in this situation? When your choices were exactly one—or nothing—you really couldn’t be choosy. What if this were how her whole life would play out? The gray skies, the scrabbling for insufficient food, a winter that lasted months or years, a terrible death from starvation or freezing always one mistake away. Maybe she should be interested in sex, for that reason. But the truth was, she wasn’t. Not with him, and not with anyone. Her sex drive was gone. All she cared about was food and warmth and staying alive.

She was glad it was getting dark, because she could feel herself blushing when he glanced at her as she got ready to bed down for the night. She laid out her bag and crawled into it, feeling awkward sleeping next to Benjamin for the first time since the first night they’d slept side by side. Why had she let her mind go off in that direction?

“You okay?” he said, when she turned over for the third time in five minutes.

“Yeah. Pretty minor damage. How ‘bout you? Ribs, head, nose?”

“I have at least one of each.”

“Be that way.”

“I am.”

He was that way. Stoic, taciturn, and certainly not happy to talk about his weaknesses. Or, for that matter, his strengths. She wouldn’t push. “Night,” she said, moving away from him another inch.

“Night,” he said.

* * *

The next afternoon, they moved down a gentle slope to a river that widened steadily as they walked along its banks, and Benjamin said they were nearly there. They made the reservoir at late afternoon, and the two of them built up three snow walls to hide their sled while they reconnoitered the shore to either side. “Look for tracks,” Benjamin said. “Human or game. And any holes in the snow that suggest there’s fresh scat.”

“And you look for likely fishing spots. Coves or—well, I guess there won’t be any docks left.” Looking over the water she wished now, more than ever, that she had more line. She’d sure like to be able to cast out away from the bank.

She settled for dangling her line for an hour at the end of the day but caught nothing.

The next morning, Benjamin prepared to go off on his own, looking for game.

“You okay with just the bow for protection?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine. And I’ll scream bloody murder if I get into trouble I can’t handle. And run in your direction fast while I scream.”

“Good. If I’m not back by nightfall, either I found a track to follow....”

“Or you’re in trouble. And in that case, I’ll follow you tomorrow morning.”

“No. Give it a couple more hours than that, in case I am tracking an animal. If I’m not back by midday tomorrow, then start to worry. You’ll practice with your bows, right?”

“Right.”

He left, her daypack on his back, and his sleeping bag tied with nylon rope onto it. With the weather this cold, it would be stupid not to be prepared for every possibility.

After he left, she walked south along the shore, scanning for animal tracks, paying close attention to the shape of the snow, looking for lumps that might be snow-covered scat. The hunt might fail today, but tracks or scat would mean on another day they might find some meat. The few remaining cans wouldn’t last them for long.

Thin ice had formed at the reservoir’s edges but didn’t go out very far into the water. Whatever insects there might have been a month ago were likely now in hibernation, or existed only as larvae or pupae or eggs. She thought there might be a few midges left in the cold water, but surely any fish surviving in there would be hungry.

She found a flat rock to sit on, brushed it clean of snow, and settled down to fish. She was out of the salmon eggs, but she still had lures. And she might be able to dig for worms or grubs if they didn’t work.

As she let the line sway in the mild breeze, she looked around her. As the morning wore on, she could see to the south a vague shape, barely visible. As she stared at it, she went from thinking it was only an illusion to thinking she was looking at something real. Finally, she stood, pulled her fishing line out, and began to walk toward it. As the shape solidified, she decided it was a silo, one of those breast-shaped ones. She debated with herself about checking it out and realized it’d still be there tomorrow, whatever it was. It’d still be there when Benjamin returned with the rifle, and it would be smart to approach it only once a weapon was at hand.

If they could find a silo full of grain, it would have been cooked by the great heat. Maybe only the outside layers, though. Maybe they could dig and find edible grain. Or maybe it had been full of silage, not raw grain. Was that edible, or could it be turned into human food by cooking it? She knew little about silage except that it existed. For now, whatever was in the silo, she’d leave it alone until Benjamin returned.

She turned back north, scanning across the water as she returned to her rock. The reservoir looked fairly full, maybe a foot below its highest. As the weather cooled more, and the snow piled up on the mountains, the water level would surely drop, and more of the reservoir would freeze. Eventually, she’d have to ice-fish, which she’d never done before.

She moved her fishing line several feet from where she had been and watched it for ten uneventful minutes, then let it dangle untended, pinning her rod between two rocks so no big fish would take off with it if he went for the lure. She built a gritty snowman to use as a target, and spent time practicing her archery skills. She only missed twice at 25 paces, and it was with the same arrow both times. She demoted the arrow, putting it with her first—and worse—bow. There had been no trees or bushes lately to use for making more arrows. A world without wood was a hard world. Fuel was hard to find, too. She wouldn’t mind heating tonight’s meat and vegetables, to warm up a cold evening.

And they were all cold evenings now. And cold days. Her fingers were going numb from having her mittens off for so long to practice her archery.

She wondered if, after staying here for a week, they could risk going back to that Walmart to hunt for supplies. She could not get the place out of her mind. She’d like more fishing lures—she’d lost one to an underwater snag a couple weeks ago and would surely lose more, no matter how careful she was. But no, if she were the leader of that group back there, she’d have moved the whole bunch of them in there, to be on hand to defend it. There’d be other towns ahead of them, with other concrete Walmarts or supermarkets that had survived the fires.

And maybe those would have other dangerous people. Crazy people. Cannibals, even.

How was Benjamin doing? The thought had barely crossed her mind when she heard the distant report of the rifle. She was caught between fear and hope: fear it was a person he had shot at, and hope it was an animal. Should she run toward the sound? No—either way, he’d want her to stay put, and by the time she reached him, any human fight would be over. She waited for a half-minute, breath held, but heard nothing else. Her fear eased off a fraction. If it were a battle with people, there’d be more noise, right? There’d be lots of gunfire.

Still, if anyone dangerous was anywhere around the reservoir, the gunfire would draw them to it. She kicked over her snowman, scattering the gray snow back over the ground. The snowfall had ended this morning, so anyone following Benjamin’s tracks back would have no trouble backtracking to find her, too.

The thought that there might be someone out there, coming, tracking toward her began to seem more real an image, like the silo solidifying out of the hazy air. Her neck began to tingle, and she glanced behind to make sure she was alone. No one was there. Even as she told herself she was being paranoid, she was pulling out her fishing line and breaking down the rod to stow away.

She backed up to the sled, climbing behind the snow wall they’d built to protect it, and sat on guard, bow and one of her best arrows gripped in her left hand. She could shoot within a second, if she needed to. The minutes ticked off, but nothing happened. She felt a little foolish for being so worried, but not so foolish that she wanted to climb from behind her protection and go back to business as usual.

When she peeked over the snow and saw a blurry form coming from the north, her heart sped in fear again, but soon she was sure, from the shape, and from the way he moved, that it was Benjamin. She ran out to meet him.

“I was worried.”

“I knew you would be. But it was only this.” He held up a rabbit by its hind legs, a sad, skinny thing.

“Fresh meat.”

“Yeah, but we can’t eat this raw like we do the fish. In fact, it’s a bit dangerous to clean it with bare hands. I wish I had latex gloves.”

“There’s still a plastic bag from my big pack, one I kept in there for trash. You could stick one of your hands inside it.”

“Good. We need fuel, too, to cook it. I think I’ll need to go north to find any. It’s all farm land around here, trees cut down long ago.”

“That reminds me.” She told him about the silo to the south.

“Definitely I should check that out after I get the rabbit gutted.”

“We’ll go together.”

“How’s the fishing?”

“No nibbles yet, but I wasn’t working very hard at it. I was focusing more on this.” She lifted the bow and arrow.

“Great. I have to get this rabbit cleaned.”

She looked at it, lying in the snow. “Awfully skinny.”

“I’m surprised it survived at all. It must have been living off digging roots. I’ll clean it.”

“I’d like to watch and learn more. I can clean fish, but I’ve never cleaned game.”

“Sure.”

“Good.” She wanted to learn more, to depend less on him. What if he left for hunting one day and never came back? Not to be heartless about it, but every survival skill she could learn from him, she needed to learn and to practice. She reeled her line in, found her backpack, and brought him the old plastic bag and the new knife. He hunkered down, thrust his right hand into the bag, and kept his left mitten on while he worked at cleaning the rabbit.

“If we can preserve the skin, it might be useful,” he said. “Moccasins, gloves, line a collar.”

“Damn, I should have looked for needles at Walmart.” Her list of missed items was growing longer. At least she’d remember needles next time she had the chance. She’d chant a list to herself every night, memorizing it through repetition so she’d not forget again. With no more pencil and paper, she couldn’t write a list.

He cut into the rabbit’s fur at the neck and forearms, then tore it and peeled it back down to the hind legs in one smooth motion.

It surprised her that it wasn’t a very bloody job. “Wow, was that as easy as it looked?”

“Yup, they come right off.” He stuffed the pelt into the snow. “Cool it out immediately, if you want to preserve it. And always clean and cook or freeze game right away. Even when it’s cold out like it is today, we’re doing this about as late as you’d want to after its demise.”

The meat was light colored, not far in appearance from chicken thighs. Coral had dissected enough animals in biology class and cleaned enough fish that watching this didn’t bother her. Without the pelt, it didn’t look like a bunny anymore, anyway, just more and more like supper.

“Cut behind the sternum next. And hold the skin away from the entrails, like this, as you keep cutting.”

He stopped cutting most of the way down the rabbit’s torso and dug into the belly, pulling up the liver, deep red and glistening. “Good. I can take the glove off. I’ll wash off the bag to use again later.” He dropped it, peeled off his remaining mitten with his teeth, and grabbed the carcass with his bare hands.

“Why? You said it was dangerous, I thought.”

“Tularemia is pretty common in rabbits. But it’s obvious on the liver, as white spots. This here is a very healthy-looking liver.” Barehanded, he continued slitting the belly open. “The important part of cleaning is right here—you don’t want to contaminate meat with urine or feces. With small animals like this, break open the pelvis, and you can lift it all out like this.” He pushed the rest of the organs onto the snow, pointing with his knife. “Heart, liver, kidneys, all edible. The rest, not edible. We’ll bury the good organs in the snow and let them freeze overnight.” He plucked them out from the rest of the guts and put them to the side.

“What next?” she asked.

“You could toss the rabbit whole into boiling water, or spit it—if we had spits—but for now I’ll part it out, like a chicken.” In moments, he had five pieces. It looked even more like chicken now. “I’ll clean it up next. I’ll leave the lungs, stomach, all that, for you, for fish bait.”

She helped him bury the pieces in the snow.

“I’ll go check out the silo now, or whatever it is.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“If there’s a silo still standing, maybe there’s a farm or ranch house that survived. I’d like to be sure there aren’t people around there, and I can move more quietly alone. Don’t wander far.”

“But you can wander.” It was a little condescending of him and irrationally irked her. Sure, he was the better hunter, but she hated that he felt he had to watch after her. When they pulled together, they felt like equals. When he needed rescuing, she had managed to do that alone. But sometimes, she felt talked down to, like now.