I hung my pack off my left shoulder and squeezed my right arm through the strap, scrunching my eyes closed against the pain. Slowly, I worked my way across the stream, sliding my butt along a fallen log, and staggered up the bank on the far side. I had to put some distance between me and Target and find a place to hole up and rest. I wished I’d had the foresight to bring some Neosporin and an Ace bandage from home. If the wound got infected, I’d die for sure.

When I emerged from the trees on the other side of the stream, I glanced around. No particular direction suggested itself, so I struggled up the hill, keeping the brightest part of the sky to my back; heading east, I hoped.

Minutes blurred into hours in a long, gray nightmare. Slowly up one low hill: step, breathe, step, breathe. Resting as I slid down the back side. Another halting sidestep up the next hill. Each time I crested a hill, I looked around, hoping for a good place to stop. Each time, I saw nothing but ash-covered slopes and a few scraggly trees. I got more and more tired, until nothing but the flaming pain in my side kept me awake. I was thirsty, too; I drank all the water I had left, but five minutes later, I wanted more.

The ease of gliding downhill got me moving off the ridge-tops. The hope of finding shelter convinced me to push laboriously up from the valleys. Each uphill slog was slower than the last. As my legs dragged, my heart beat faster until I could feel it palpitating in my chest. My arms and legs were numb. After a while I was barely aware of them at all, as if they were merely mechanical attachments I could manipulate but not feel.

I traversed four, maybe five hills this way. As I approached the crest of the latest hill, I thought it impossible to continue for even one more slope. I’d have to find the best shelter I could, nestled against a tree in one of the valleys, perhaps. Once I found shelter, I’d rest and wait—to heal or die.

When I topped the ridge, I saw a farmstead ahead, only a mile or two off at the crest of another hill. I started the long, easy downhill glide toward it and tried to psych myself to battle one more uphill slope. I could make it. I would make it.

The homestead was small and simple, just a house and a steep-roofed barn. About half the trees around it were down, but both buildings were intact. I worried about being chased off by the owners. Maybe I could hide in their barn unnoticed for a while.

My breathing mask had been dry for hours now. The ashfall was light and thin, but every movement kicked more of the fine dust into the air. I had to stop every few steps to rest and cough, great hacking spasms that brought up nothing but flecks of blood—my throat was so dry.

As I approached the barn, I heard a strange noise—a loud grinding, like two rocks rubbing together. I swayed on my feet, almost falling. I caught myself on the back of the barn and leaned against it for a few minutes, trying to catch my breath. The grinding noise continued uninterrupted.

I gathered my strength and slowly skied around the barn. There was a massive set of sliding doors on tracks facing the house. Someone had shoveled the ash away from the doors and thrown them wide, letting light into the barn.

The scene inside the barn was odd. A bicycle without its wheels had been bolted to a huge wooden workbench. A girl stood on the bike, kicking the pedals downward with her feet, sweating with effort. She looked to be my age, more or less. The back wheel of the bike had been replaced with a large gear, which connected to another gear and a belt that turned a cone-shaped chunk of concrete. An older woman was leaning over the concrete cone, pouring something into a hole in the center of it.

Neither of them gave any sign of having noticed me. I pushed my skis forward, down the little slope where the ash had been shoveled away from the barn doors. My skis caught on the barn’s dirt floor, throwing me forward. I was too tired and weak to catch myself. My head thumped against the dirt. And everything went black.

Chapter 17

I woke to someone shaking me. I supposed it was a gentle shaking, but I had a headache so gnarly that it felt as if my brains were being beaten to liquid against the inside of my skull.

“Sit up,” a girl’s voice said.

I cracked my eyelids and reached out, trying to find my staff. I grabbed the girl’s thigh instead. She removed my hand. “Take it easy, you’re in bad shape. But I need you to sit up.”

I let my hand drop and looked around, moving my head slowly. I was on a couch in front of a fireplace. A big fire had been set—I could feel it on the side of my face and arm, but I was still freezing, like being outside without enough clothing on a sunny winter day. Someone had spread a heavy wool blanket over my otherwise naked body. I couldn’t remember getting undressed.

The girl stood above me. A strange angel, my addlepated brain thought. Surely angels didn’t wear T-shirts and overalls. And I’d never heard of an angel perspiring, let alone sweating as profusely as this girl was.

I slowly lifted my upper body, trying not to jostle my aching head. She jammed a pillow behind me, propping me partly upright. She held an oversized coffee mug to my lips. I freed one hand from the blanket and took the mug, drinking deeply. Warm water, but I was so thirsty that pure ambrosia wouldn’t have tasted better.

The water brought on a coughing fit. Every rasping cough triggered a bolt of pain between my temples. When I pulled my arm away from my mouth it was spotted with globs of gray sludge and flecks of blood.

The girl took away the mug of water. She returned with a rag that I used to clean my lips and arm. When I finished, she put four dull-red pills in my hand. “What are they?” I asked.

“Just ibuprofen.”

I took the pills and drank another mug of water. The older woman came into the room then, carrying a small bottle of Jim Beam. She poured a shot of it into the mug.

“Mom!” the girl protested. “We need that. As a disinfectant, not a drink.”

“I know, Darla, but he’s got to be hurting. This will take the edge off.” She held the mug to my lips.

“I already gave him four Advil. Do we have to waste all our medical supplies on this kid?”

I took a sip of the bourbon and spluttered it back out. It tasted horrid.

“I’ll hold your nose,” the woman said. “Drink it all at once.”

It burned my throat on the way down, and when she let go of my nose, the fumes burnt my nostrils, too. I had to side with Darla—bourbon made a better disinfectant than beverage—although I wasn’t thrilled to learn that she considered using medical supplies on me a waste.

I started coughing again. The woman held out a rag, and I used it to wipe my mouth and arm. “Thanks. I appreciate—”

“Don’t you mention it,” the woman said. “I’m Gloria Edmunds, by the way.”

“Alex.”

Darla had been doing something by the fire. Now she returned and began stripping the blanket off me. I grabbed it before she could pull it away from my groin, to preserve my modesty.

“Let go. There’s nothing there I haven’t seen. Who do you think undressed you, anyway? And honestly, I’ve seen better equipment on goats.”

“Darla!” Mrs. Edmunds said. “Keep a civil tongue with our guest.”

“Some guest. He’s using our medicine, drinking our water, and will be eating our food soon, no doubt. Why’d he have to find our barn?”

“Because the good Lord led him there, that’s why, young lady. And you’ll treat him exactly as you’d want to be treated if you fell over in someone’s barn, halfway bled out.”

“Yes, Mother,” Darla said. “But I’m not dumb enough to go wandering around in this crap,” she added, muttering.

I let go of the blanket. Darla pulled it off me and set it aside. My equipment definitely wasn’t looking very impressive. I guess bleeding all over northeastern Iowa hadn’t done much for my manhood. The cut at my side had mostly crusted over. A little blood seeped slowly from one edge.