Page 82 of Heart of the Sun

If I could go back, I’d find you in the dark

Later, as the fire began to die, our bellies full of marshmallows, Emily strummed one last chord, the quiet of the night falling flat in the wake of her dwindling voice. Prisca yawned and Martha smiled down at Ady, who had fallen asleep on her shoulder, a gentle smile on the young girl’s face.

“That was incredible,” Vincent said quietly. “We’ll never forget it. I mean it.” He sounded slightly choked up as if she had just shown him that there were still good things in the world,and he’d clearly needed the reminder.

Emily looked tired, but peaceful and pleased and we said good-night to them as Emily and I made our way to a spot next to a grouping of pines. Our eyes met in the dim light of the stars and without discussing it, we zipped our sleeping bags together and then climbed inside, our jackets under our heads like pillows. She scooted toward me, and I wrapped her in my arms. “That was beautiful.”

She snuggled closer. “Thank you.”

Maybe the silent agreement to sleep together the way we’d done the night before was easier with the others sleeping nearby, because it offered an element of safety. I wanted her with a desperate aching neediness. But the fact that strangers were close provided limits that would be easy to break had we been alone. But even so, I knew in the last two nights we’d crossed a line, and that if one of us didn’t put a halt to it, it was only heading in one direction from here.

Day Ten

Again, we woke in each other’s arms and then left the others sleeping there in the early hours of dawn. Later, the sun, high in the sky, we heard the rattle of an old car approaching, and stepped off the road, weary from walking and needing a rest anyway. But when a tiny old woman and old man trundled by in the rusty car, Emily ran back to the road and started waving her arms. They came to a slow stop, obviously having seen her in their rearview mirror and we both ran to where they were parked.

“Hi,” Emily greeted breathlessly, producing that Nova-esque smile. “Can we catch a ride?”

The old woman looked her up and down and then glanced back at me.“Where ya headed?” she asked, obviously having assessed that we looked mostly harmless.

“As far west as you’re going,” Emily said.

The woman hitched her thumb toward the back door. “Hop in.”

Emily grinned at me, and I opened the car door so we could both slide in.

We exited the vehicle hours later, having crossed the rest of the way through Oklahoma and into New Mexico, the sunset brilliant over the snowy desert mountains. The old couple, who had been waiting for power to come back on or information to arrive, had finally grown tired of waiting and decided to drive to a daughter’s house about an hour from where we got out. We wished them well and began walking.

That tension that had been ramping up between Emily and me for days now—hell, maybe for weeks, even if I hadn’t acknowledged it at the time—was thrumming between us. The few hours in the car, our thighs touching, Emily’s head on my shoulder as we rocked down the road hadn’t helped matters.

“It seems like there are more people walking today,” Emily said.

“Or maybe it’s just the area,” I answered, though I’d had the same thought. And I suspected the people we’d told the Pritchards to look out for—who would be streaming out of the cities and towns once things got desperate or dangerous or both—had started to multiply.

There was some snow on the ground here and the sun glittered off it, the landscape somehow both stark and rich, and we stopped for a moment to drink it in.

“Should we look for somewhere to camp?” Emily asked, our eyes meeting briefly before we both looked away.

“There are some ranches way out there.” I pointed into the distance. “We could see if anyone is willing to put us up for a night,although I’d expect a no at this point. People will be rightly hoarding, not sharing.”

“There’s at least some shelter out that way among the rocks. How far do you think that is?”

“A few miles. Come on, if we start walking now, we can make it there before dark.”

We set off, walking about a quarter of a mile, when we heard a sound behind us, and turned to see a horse trotting straight toward us.

“Are you kidding?” Emily said. “I was just wishing we had another ride.”

As the palomino got closer, I saw she was wearing a bridle but no saddle. She didn’t seem wary of people, ready to walk right by us when I took hold of her reins. She shook her head back and forth for a moment but then stopped and stood waiting for me to take the lead.

“Are you here by providence?” Emily asked as she pet her cheek. “Poor girl,” Emily said, running a hand down her nose. “There’s not much grass on the ground here, is there? Are you hungry? Who would have let you go?”

“She’s probably just lost,” I said, but I had to figure something bad had happened to her owners if their animal was wandering alone.

“Well,” Emily sighed. “There’s no way to find her home so I guess she’s a free horse now. Should we remove her bridle?”

“Yeah, but I think we should bring her out there,” I said, squinting in the direction we had been headed, toward the ranch far beyond. “There have to be other horses, and maybe that’s even where she came from before getting loose. Are you up for a ride?”

She gave me a skeptical look. “The last time I was involved in a horse ride with you, I almost died.”

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