Ashen Winter

“You need to rest,” Darla said.

“If I can bike all the way to Warren with three shotgun pellets in my side, I can walk to the greenhouses without them.”

“Tell him to rest, would you please?” Darla begged Dr. McCarthy.

“He won’t listen to me, anyway. Just stay with him and don’t let him do any heavy lifting for a couple days.”

Darla scowled, but she got a clean T-shirt out of a basket in the corner of the room and tossed it at me.

As we approached the greenhouses, I saw Rebecca’s and A

“Did you find the shotgun?” I asked.

“Shotgun?” Uncle Paul said. “One of them had a little .22 pistol in his hand.”

I pointed at the other corpse lying in the snow. “He had a shotgun.” I walked over to the body. A huge red stain had spread from the hole in the guy’s chest to the surrounding snow, and the blood had already started to freeze. I looked around. Sure enough, there was a long depression in a snowdrift on the far side of the toboggan. The shotgun must have flown out of his hands and buried itself in the snow when Darla shot him.

I pulled the shotgun free and wiped the snow off it with my shirttail. Someone had painted four tiny blue flowers on the wooden stock. They seemed incongruous—too delicate to decorate a weapon of war. Amid the flowers, two words were drawn in fancy script: “Blue Betsy.”

“Weird,” I said to Darla. “Who decorates their shotgun with flowers?”

Darla shrugged.

“Decorates? With flowers?” Uncle Paul said. “Blue flowers? Let me see.”

I passed the shotgun to him.

“How did—”

“What is it?”

“Remember I told you I traded a pair of goats for a shotgun and gave it to your dad? And he took it with him when he left here last year?”

“Yeah . . .?” I said.

“This is it, Alex. The shotgun he took when he left for Iowa last fall. When he went to search for you.”

Chapter 3

I collapsed into the snowbank. Not a good idea when it’s below zero. But I didn’t notice the cold—I was too numb.

“You okay?” Uncle Paul asked.

“I guess,” I said.

“Give us a minute,” Darla said as she sat down in the snow beside me.

Uncle Paul nodded. “I’m going to help Rebecca and A

Darla turned to me. “You okay?”

“What does it mean? Is Dad dead? Why else would this guy have his shotgun?” I punched at a clump of snow.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe Dad sold it. Or traded it for something. He could be alive, right?”

“Yeah, he could.”

We sat in silence.

After a while, Darla asked, “Why’d you stand up in front of those guys?”

“I was trying to talk to them. To delay them.” In the rush to take care of Max and get Dr. McCarthy, I hadn’t really thought about the fight. “You saved my life again.”

“Yeah, what’s that now, forty-seven times?” Darla shrugged.

“About.”

“You have a serious talent for needing to be saved.”

“I guess. Thanks.”

“Trying to talk to those guys was stupid. I wasn’t ready to shoot yet.”

“I couldn’t let them walk off with the kids. And you got ready in time.”

Darla grabbed my collar, pulling me closer and yelling in my face. “Yeah, but Christ, you scared me! What if I’d missed? You do anything that idiotic again and I’ll shoot you myself to save the heartache of watching someone else do it.”

“Sorry.” I really hadn’t been thinking too clearly. Obviously. But still . . .

“And I still don’t get why the guy with the machine pistol didn’t perforate your sad hide.”

“He was u

Darla glared. “You have a death wish or something?”

“No. Crappy as this world is, I don’t want to leave it.” I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Don’t want to leave you.”

Suddenly she rolled on top of me, yanking our scarves out of the way and kissing me. Darla pressed her body into mine, burying me in the snow. Her weight, slight though it was, hurt my side. I ignored the pain, wrapping my arms around her and trying to keep up. The kiss lasted for a dizzying minute. When she came up for air, she said, “Don’t you ever do something like that again.”

“If it means I get another kiss like that, I might.”

Darla slugged my shoulder, hard enough to bruise.

“Got it,” I said. “Shouldn’t we be helping Uncle Paul?”

Darla stood, offered me her hand, and pulled me up. We made our way through the two plastic doors that formed an airlock for the greenhouse. It was relatively warm in there, which was good—I was freezing after being half-buried in snow by Darla.

Most of the kale had come out of the soft, moist greenhouse soil with its roots intact, so we could replant it. When we found a plant with badly damaged roots, we harvested the leaves, saving the stems and roots for the goats.

“Will the kale regrow?” I asked Uncle Paul as the five of us walked back toward the house.

“I think most of it will be okay.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” I thought for a moment, picking my next words carefully. “I’m going to leave. To look for Mom and Dad.” I glanced at Darla and was relieved to see her nod.

“How will you find them?” Uncle Paul asked.

“I’ll track down the two bandits who got away.”

“They aren’t going to volunteer the info you want just because you ask them to,” Uncle Paul said.

“We’ll bring guns,” Darla replied dryly. “Those are pretty convincing.”

There was a long pause in the conversation as we approached the house. Eventually Uncle Paul nodded. “I’ll start sorting out supplies for you. You’ll want to get moving at first light so they don’t get too far ahead.”

I held the storm door for my uncle and Darla. “Maybe we should leave now?”

“Better if you get a good night’s sleep. They won’t be traveling tonight either—their torches are still on the toboggan.”

The scene inside the house was positively tranquil after all the craziness of that day. Dr. McCarthy was gone. Aunt Caroline was sitting on the floor beside Max, holding a cup of water to his lips while Rebecca stirred a bowl of corn porridge.

“What’s this about traveling?” Aunt Caroline said to Uncle Paul.

“How’s Max?” Uncle Paul asked.

“He’s fine. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Alex and Darla are leaving in the morning.” Uncle Paul frowned. “One of those bandits had Blue Betsy.”

“What? No.” Aunt Caroline sloshed water across Max’s face, and he spluttered. “There’s no way we can keep up with all the work without Alex and Darla. And what if we get attacked again? What if they attack the house next time?”

“We’ll have to manage,” Uncle Paul replied. “We can board up all the windows on the ground floor, put bars on the doors, too.”

“Your leg isn’t completely healed from the fall and—”

“I’ve been off the crutches for more than a month, hon,” Uncle Paul said, clearly exasperated.

“I know, but you’re still limping.”

“Not much. The muscles are weak, that’s all. It’s getting better.”

“They’re still kids. We can’t let them go ru

“I’m eighteen.” Darla folded her arms over her chest. “And Alex isn’t a kid anymore, whatever his age.”

“Why do you guys keep talking about Alex and Darla?” Rebecca said. “I’m going, too.” She folded her arms, mimicking Darla so closely that it might have been fu

“Rebecca, no.” I said, as gently as I could manage.

She turned on me. “You think it was fun, waiting for you last year? Thinking you were dead? And then Mom and Dad left, and I thought I’d lost everyone, my whole family, gone. I’m not going through that again.”

“I know it’s hard,” I said, “but Aunt Caroline is right—she and Uncle Paul need help. Darla and I wouldn’t be leaving now except for that shotgun.”