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And yet leaving her three cans of vittles was not an act of cruelty or hostility. Not unless the cans were tampered with or poisoned, and the girl had examined every inch of them under the stark light of the morning sun. No pinholes, no evidence that the cans had been opened and somehow resealed.
No, someone had given her the cans as an act of charity.
After weighing it all out and eliminating the risks, she took the can opener from her pack and carefully worked its sharp hook around the edge of the can of beans. She did it slowly, with great control, making sure not to spill a single drop of the sauce.
She set the lid aside and looked at the nutrition information on the can. High in protein, low in sodium. The first was a good thing; the latter wasn’t. Not in the desert, where the heat leached water from the body. Sodium helped retain water. Lots of iron, though, and she needed that.
Sitting in the shade of the Explorer she ate half the beans. Taking her time, chewing them one at a time, almost weeping from the wonderful taste. Licking the sauce from her fingers.
It took an incredible amount of willpower not to eat the whole can. Once she started, her mind conjured a hundred reasons why she should continue on and clean out every last bean, every last drop of rich red sauce.
“Don’t be a hog,” she told herself, speaking the words out loud. “Like as not we’ll be wanting those beans afore long.”
Her scolding voice sounded just a bit like her father’s, and that made her smile as she wrapped the can in the plastic she’d used to gather morning dew. It went into her pack along with the other cans.
She could already feel the effect of the food. When she pulled herself to her feet, there was strength in her legs. When she took a breath, she could feel her lungs fill all the way.
“I’m obliged to you,” she said aloud, but her voice didn’t seem to carry very far, so she used her finger to write a thank-you in the grime on the Explorer’s broad windshield.
Then she addressed the road that lay before her. She knew that she had a piece of work ahead of her. Today already held the promise of being hotter than yesterday. Hot enough to make rock soup, as her father used to say. The town was at least six miles ahead.
Now, though, she was sure she could make it.
She dug a scarf out of her backpack and tied it over her tattooed scalp.
Don’t want to boil what brains you got left, girl, she told herself.
Then she stepped out of the shade of the SUV and onto the road.
For the first four miles there was nothing but road and a few smashed cars on the shoulder, but none that held any surprises. She found a lot of bones along the way—mostly animal bones—but there were human skulls and rib cages mixed in. No way to tell how they died, but out here there was no shortage of things that would pick a juicy bone clean in no time. When she squinted and looked up into the sky, she saw a single vulture drifting on the thermals, maybe two thousand feet up. Was it the same starved buzzard who’d watched her from the wing of the plane?
“Not today, you ugly varmint,” she said.
The buzzard, pretending indifference to her, continued to circle above the road she walked.
Then the girl saw the tank.
It sat askew in the middle of a steel bridge that spanned a dry riverbed. The tank was massive, with a hull that was easily twenty-five feet long and a dozen feet wide, and it had been slewed around to completely block the two-lane bridge. The long cannon barrel pointed away from her, as did a heavy-caliber machine gun. The tank and the ground around it were littered with hundreds of empty shell casings that were pitted and rusted.
The tank was monstrous and looked like it was powerful enough to win any battle. And yet here it stood, empty, its sides stained with old smears that were probably once bright red.
She either had to climb over the tank or go down into the riverbed. The sides of the riverbank were very steep, though, and it would take a lot of sweaty effort under the pitiless sun to make that detour.
She walked sideways down the edge of the riverbank to see around the tank.
On the other side was a long line of wrecked cars and trucks, stretching off into the heat haze. Beyond them, she could see the purple silhouettes of buildings.
The town she’d seen on the map.
Nothing moved, though. No gray people. No reapers.
Nothing that she could see.
This was different from the jet; it wasn’t an enclosed, darkened death trap of a metal shell. If she got into trouble she had a fallback plan. She could run.
So, she climbed.
There were all sorts of metal fittings that were useful as handholds. It was hot, though. The first touch burned her fingers, and she whipped them away.
