Free Cold Allies by Patricia Anthony

window to blow some of the cigarette stench out of the car.
    Tad was so silly. If he had a brain in his head, which he didn’t, he would know she was headed west. There was a network of fans out west. Wealthy fans. Someone would certainly be kind enough to rent her a condo. There would be plenty of spending money. And maybe, if it ever bothered to snow decently again, she could even go skiing. She’d heard there were good slopes around Colorado Springs.

    NEAR CALHAN, COLORADO

    Jerry Casey sorted through the blankets and clothes in the back of the pickup. When he was finished, he went through everything carefully again, a knot of horror tightening in his belly.
    His food and water were gone.
    It was hot, and already his mouth felt cottony. To the east the sun was peeking over the flats, making a dull, glinting mirror of the sand.
    Yards away in the camp, cook fires had already started, and the heady smell of coffee mingled with the stench of old urine and shit. Grabbing his cup, he walked to the nearest tent. Just outside the flap, he saw, a hollow-eyed woman was sewing a child into a shroud. The body’s small legs were covered, but the face was still exposed. The corpse’s skin was a sickly gray, the same color as the tattered sheet she would be burying him in.
    The woman glanced up. Her eyes were like glinting seepage at the bottom of a shadowy well. “Something to drink?” she said.
    Her question confused him. Then he realized she saw his cup. “Yes, ma’ am,” he told her. “Somebody done stole my water.”
    Her face was all dry cliffs and arroyos, the flesh so thin he could see the bones underneath. A hard, desert floor of a face. “Got to watch what you drink around here. My kid didn’t,” she said furiously.
    See what happens? she might have shouted at her son if he could somehow still hear her. See what happens when you don’t do what you’re fold?
    The dry wind teased at the sheet, flapping it back and forth over the corpse’s neatly folded hands. The fluttering disturbed Jerry more than anything, because he knew the tickle of it was something only a dead person could stand. An almost overwhelming urge came over him to reach over and tuck the sheet in. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Get into everything, them kids,” she said, shaking her head.
    “I’m sorry,” he told her, but she didn’t seem to be listening.
    “You come a long ways?” She was staring out over the desert now, rocking a little.
    “From Texas.”
    “We come from Oklahoma, but to them damned Colorado troopers we’re all Texas trash.”
    Jerry wanted to get away from the woman with the skull face. He couldn’t leave without saying something else, though. He didn’t remember his own Ma real clear, but he remembered the manners she had taught him. The only problem was, he couldn’t think of a thing to say.
    “You’re alone, I noticed. Young boy like you. Don’t seem right.”
    “My Pa died back on the road.”
    She looked down at her son and the winding sheet with mild surprise, as though she had forgotten he was dead. “Well, you’ll be wanting some water, most likely. Get you some of mine,” she offered, nodding her head toward the tent. “It’s boiled.”
    “Yes, ma’am. I sure do thank you.” Jerry turned away from the boy’s corpse and pulled open the tent flap. Two other children were sleeping inside. One little girl’s face was bone-dry, her cheeks high-colored, as though she had a fever.
    Quietly he made his way to a wash pan, dipped his cup in the water and took a drink. The water tasted flat, the way all boiled water did. Without disturbing the children’s sleep, he made his way outside.
    The woman was still sewing.
    “Thank you, ma’am,” Jerry said again.
    The boy’s folded hands were disappearing into the sheet.
    Another few moments the face would be covered; and Jerry thought that when it was, it would be a good thing.
    She didn’t look up from her work. “You’re a good boy,” she said.

    THE