Page 63 of So Far Gone

“Asher!” Leah smiled at Joanie. “I’m sorry. He gets wound up.”

As often happened, Asher seemed to misunderstand what the problem was with his question. “I’m not saying Native Americans lived when there were dinosaurs. I know they didn’t. I just wonder if theyknewabout dinosaurs back then, like we do now, from fossils and stuff?”

“Yeah, I don’t know that, either, I’m afraid.”

“Some people at our church don’t believe in fossils, but I do—”

“Asher,” Leah interrupted. “You really need to give Joanie a break. Why don’t you go play with Billy.”

Asher looked over at the sleeping German shepherd, whose coat was a swirl of colors that Leah had decided could be called pulling taffy.

“He’s asleep,” Asher said.

Joanie took a dog biscuit from a tin, a sound that caused Billy’s ears to perk up. “Give him this.”

Asher reached for the dog biscuit. “How do you say—”

Joanie cut him off. “I really have no idea.”

Asher marched over in his boots and crouched his little legs in front of the dog, who lifted his head with an exasperated groan—his animal instincts no doubt drawing a bead on how irritating this small human was about to be. He accepted the dog biscuit without enthusiasm, crunched it, and licked up the pieces that fell onto his dog bed.

“Take him outside if you want to,” Joanie said, “he probably needs to drain the old doggy vein anyways.”

“Drain what?”

“He probably needs to pee’s what I’m saying. And if you want to play with him, there’s a rope with a knot out there. You can throw it to him, or maybe he’ll play tug-of-war with you.”

“Oh. Cool.”

Leah rolled her eyes. Asher was still trying out that word,cool, which, coming from him, sounded like the least cool word in the English language. He opened the door and went out with Billy. “Come on, boy!”

Leah noticed that when the door closed, the wall of the trailer shook a little.

Joanie exhaled heavily. “Boy’s got a few questions, don’t he?”

“It’s okay to tell him to be quiet. We do it all the time.”

“And does that work?”

“No. Not really.” Leah had noticed an old Dell laptop (color:cave entrance) that was cantilevered on an alphabetized bookshelf where authors and subjects were blended together (a style of shelving that she’d never seen before). The computer was shoved into theM’s, pushing back a line of western paperbacks by authors named McMurtry and Portis, and between them, several books about macramé. (One was calledThe Macramé Bible,Leah recalling a sermon by Pastor Gallen that, among other violations of scripture, chastised people who called various things “the Bible” of this or that.)

“Joanie? Can I use your computer? I need to check my school homework.”

“Oh. Sure.” Joanie grabbed the laptop, flipped it open, and handed it to Leah at the counter.

“Can you—”

“Oh, of course,” Joanie said, and she tapped a few keys, put in the password, and opened an Internet browser. She handed the laptop back, just as outside, there was a scuffling sound.

Leah and Joanie looked up at the same time, to see Asher, still holding the knotted rope, being dragged down the stairs by the dog.

“Uh-oh,” Joanie said, and she went outside to check on him.

When the door closed, Leah worked quickly, signing in to her top secret Gmail account. There were two emails right on top from Davy.J.Gallen. She started with the first one, from yesterday, which was about his biblical studies class at his Christian college in Tacoma.

Hey Leah. Today in BS we went over Letter to the Ephesians, 4:1–16, where Paul tells Christians to stop fighting and get along. To “live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” (Uh, hello,Dad!) The whole time I was thinking about your novel, and that maybe you could name the settlements that the young couple visit after the epistolary books of the Bible. Ephesia, Corinth, Galatia, etc.... Then, in the end, your heroes could come back to their own town and kick butt and take names. Like inFury Road, but with less violence. Oh, and remember that hilarious guy I was telling you about, Marsh? The prof asked him what he got out of Ephesians, and Marsh was like, “Uh, that Christians need to stop beefing?” That guy is so funny. The prof was all, “You mean that we must remain united in our faith in Christ, virgin-born and God incarnate, whose redemption through the substitutionary shedding of his blood promises us our own bodily resurrection?” And Marsh is like, “Yup.” Classic!

Hey, I’m not sure if you’ll be at Bible Study on Saturday afternoon, or at church Sunday, but I have no classes the rest of the week and my parents are bugging me to come home for some reason so if you’re around—

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