Free Hunger and Thirst by Wayne Wightman

smelled like the desert when it had just started to rain. He loved her. He didn't understand himself.
    ....
    In the night, they lay together on their backs. Moonlight turned the curtains white. Between the curtains, the window separated them from the stars.
    “My bones tell me a lot. Not everything. Big things I see right away, but everything else is glimmers and hints, some stronger, some weaker. Some things seem more likely. I don't know everything, but I knew today was going to be terrible and you were going to be disappointed with me, horrified even. I knew I wasn't going to give that woman a second chance with us, but what I didn't know was what else to do.” She was quiet.
    They may have dozed. Since they had been lying in bed, the stars had turned across half the window.
     “If I had to do it over, I’d do it again, exactly the same way. If I dispose of a crazy person to protect you, and you leave me for it, at least I’ll know you’ll leave me alive. I’ll never be a willing victim. I’ll never put my safety where it’s free for the taking. Except for you, Jack. Except for you. You've had my heart since the first day. Can you still love me?”
    “I can. I do. But when I think of that pathetic woman out there—” His mind locked up and wouldn't give him the words he needed.
    She took his hand and held it to her cheek.
    The stars turned.
    “Your mother wouldn't approve of me.”
    “You saved my life. She'd approve of that.”
    “Tomorrow I’ll gather up all the traps except one or two. If we don’t have anything to trade, we’ll go hungry like everyone else. But I will try as best as I can, just like you, like your mother would approve of, to be a nice guy.”
    “You'd do that?”
    “For you, yes. And I'll be creative about it.”
    She rolled on her side to face him. Behind her, stars faded and disappeared into her black hair. “This morning I wanted to stare at you and remember how you looked at me before any of this happened. Stay with me,” she said. “I'll try to be who you want me to be.”
    He believed she meant it. He wanted to believe it was possible. He couldn't believe it was possible.
    ....
    Jack wandered through the scrub, hands in his back pockets, turning his face to the sun to bathe in the mid-spring warmth. The snow had visibly drawn back up the mountainsides. Blue and yellow flowers speckled the desert.
    Yesterday, Natalie had come back from the highway with three ratty paperback books and a packet of flour. Today, after he did a patch on a windmill water pipe, he was going to sit down, like a gentleman of leisure, and read a book. He couldn't remember the last time.
    This morning Natalie told him she would be several miles east on the highway to meet two travelers; she wanted to barter with them before they met others.
    He turned to go back to the house when he heard the slightest snap . It had been carried on the wind or he wouldn't have heard it. He knew his desert sounds; it was a sound someone or something had caused.
    He waited and listened, scanned, and breathed in air for unusual smells. Finally, another snap ,and he had the direction.
    A dozen paces and he heard a crackling noise. He went further, another dozen steps and he caught the smell of Natalie's cologne. She had picked it up a month earlier and used it every day. He went closer, more slowly.
    Twenty yards away, he saw Natalie squatting with her back to him. He could see her arms moving muscularly in front of her... skinning and gutting the animal, he thought. Then he realized he was hearing the sounds of chewing and snapping bones. She was eating.
    He could see only her arched back and the wilds of her black hair. He saw her drop a stripped bone to her side.
    Suddenly, she stopped, froze, then leaped to her feet, spun around, and faced him, eyes to eyes, set for full defense. Her hands were bloody past her wrists, her mouth and chin smeared red.
    Jack couldn't read her expression. Anger, threat, fear,