“So how do you know what’s real and what’s something you made up?”
Lynn shrugged. “I guess you don’t. In the end I know Mother did what she thought was best when it came to raising me. If what I remember fits into that idea of Mother, it’s probably true. Why you asking me this?”
“No reason,” Lucy said, picking up a stone and flinging it into the night.
“Liar,” Lynn said. “Out with it now.”
“I don’t want you to think…”
“If it’s something you remembered about your mom, you go ahead and say. It won’t hurt my feelings. I’m good at pretending I don’t have those, anyway.”
“Okay.” Lucy took a deep breath. “Certain things will cause a memory to come rushing at me, and I don’t know if it’s because I need to know she loved me and I’m making it up, or if it really happened.”
“I can’t tell you whether your memories are true or not, but your mother loved you, very much.”
“But she left me,” Lucy said, her voice catching in her throat and barely clearing her teeth. “She knew she wouldn’t ever see me again when she shot herself.”
Lynn was quiet for a long time, long enough for more stars to blaze up and make themselves known. “That was a dark day.”
“I know it,” Lucy said, trying to ignore the tears creeping down her face. “Grandma told me about how I was sick, and the men from the south traded her for my mom, and my mom went with them because she thought I would die without Grandma to doctor me.”
“And you would have, little one. There was nothing I knew to do for you, and your uncle and Stebbs were lost thinking you would be taken from them. Vera saved you, like none of us could have.”
“But she didn’t have to kill herself!” Lucy cried out, giving vent for the first time to the anger she hadn’t known was inside her. “You could have gotten her back from those men.”
“Maybe,” Lynn admitted. “But maybe by the time I did, the things that had been visited upon her would’ve changed her for good and forever, and she’d have been no kind of mother to you.”
“She could’ve tried harder,” Lucy said. “Held on a little longer.”
“Sure. And if Stebbs had shot a little sooner at the man holding a gun on your uncle, I’d have my own babies. But that’s life, little one—lots of little maybes and what ifs all lined up in a row. And if you put your mind to following some of them that never came about, you’ll get lost and not find your way back to the way it really is.”
“The way it really is sucks.”
“It can, from time to time,” Lynn agreed. “But there’s good things too. Your mom dying means I got to have you, and your uncle dying means you’ve got me all to yourself.”
Lucy scooted across the porch to lean against Lynn, resting her head on the older woman’s shoulder and inhaling the clean smell of her hair. “And me losing everybody makes me scared of losing you.”
Lynn slipped an arm around her, the strength of it buoying Lucy’s spirits. “That goes for both of us, little one.”
Seventeen
It really would have been nice to have the creek a little closer, in Lucy’s opinion, but she wasn’t being picky after the long, dry stretches they’d seen the end of. Perhaps for good. It hadn’t escaped her how comfortable Lynn had become with the little house in the week they’d been there. More than once, small comments had trickled out of the older woman that seemed to be her way of feeling out Lucy’s opinion without asking for it.
Lynn had always been difficult to read, and more so now that their survival depended on her choices. Continuing to California meant the mountains, and the looming threat of the desert beyond. Staying meant trusting the little creek would never run dry, the winters never cold enough to require more than burning scrub brush to keep them from freezing.
Lucy faced a battle of logic and emotion. The promise of California, and a life less ordinary, was to the west. The possibility of salvation for Carter demanded she continue. But the gray ridge of the mountains that sliced through the map was a weight on her heart, an obstacle to be met. She knew that Lynn was waiting on her to make the call. If she chose to push on, the responsibility for both their lives lay on her.
The creek stayed clear, if not deep, and the wind was warm. Lucy watched as the wind ran its fingers through Lynn’s loose hair one day as they went in search of the stream’s source. To the west, thunderheads were piling, creating their own impressive mountain range in the sky. Lucy snuck a glance at Lynn.
“I see it,” Lynn said. “If it behaves anything like that last storm, we don’t have time to make it back to the house. We’ll head for the creek and try to find some decent shelter beneath a tree.”
Lucy nodded, her thoughts still tangled in themselves.
“In the meantime,” Lynn said as she turned Black Horse’s head, “I wouldn’t mind you letting me in on what’s going on in your skull.”
“So that you can figure out what to do?”
“More or less. If you’re set on staying, we need to gather wood, stockpile food. Wouldn’t hurt to set aside as much water as possible. We don’t know how reliable this stream is, year round.”
“In other words—same life, flatter scenery.”
Lynn didn’t say anything, and Lucy shot her a glance. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”
Lynn shrugged. “Sure you did. And you’re right. No, your life wouldn’t be any different than mine was. Same worries, but with the same satisfactions, too. A place you call your own, to guard and to keep.”
“All alone on the prairie,” Lucy finished for her.
“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing, to me!” Lucy said, violently enough that Spatter turned his head to see what was the matter. “I want to be with people, Lynn. I know you don’t understand that, but…”
“Spit it out.”
Lucy felt as if her feelings were roiling in her gut, spilling out in a tide that found a form in words and made her decision for her before she knew it had been made. “I got this feeling, like we talked about the other night. I got this what if deep down inside me. If I don’t go all the way, if I settle for what we have here, I’ll never know what I could’ve been.”
Lynn rode quietly for a few minutes, digesting what Lucy had said. “Well, you have to want something, right? Your momma said once that when you go, you go big. I guess I signed up for this a long time ago without knowing it.”
“If you don’t want to, Lynn, I can’t ask you to—”
“Shut it, I’m going. You want this, right down to your marrow. All I ever wanted was a rainfall and to live to see the sunrise. I had those, and plenty of times over. Now it’s your turn, and I’m with you to the end.”
The sky broke around them, the rain masking the tears that ran out of Lucy’s eyes at the relief of having made her decision, and the fact that she didn’t have to go it alone. Lynn gave Black Horse a solid kick, and he took off for the stream, Spatter racing to keep up. The horses hit the bank and skidded to a halt in the mud. The women dismounted and clustered under the tree, pulling their mounts in with them as far as they could.
The smell of warm, wet horse filled her nose, and Lucy nuzzled Spatter’s velvety muzzle. He pushed back against her with a contented grunt and Lucy laughed, but an unfamiliar voice carried on the wind and she fell silent. The look in Lynn’s eyes said that she heard it too. She motioned to Lucy, and they slid down the bank to glance downstream.
A bedraggled woman was hunched under a scrubby tree, yelling ineffectually at her children to get out of the creek before the rains made it swell. But the two kids, scrawny yet smiling, were splashing each other without a care in the world.