Chapters (41)
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- PART TWO
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Calliope shook her head. They couldn’t go back to the station overrun with coyotes. Anyway, there might not have been enough gas left to get them there if they were brave or stupid enough to risk it.
“Me neither.” Amy rolled down the window and spit her gum into the air. “Guess we’ll have to hijack a car.”
“It’s not hijacking if there’s no one in it.”
“Steal then.”
Calliope’s stomach roiled. She felt dizzy. She’d heard a study on the radio, how even sober drivers tend to make the mistakes of drunk drivers when dehydrated. She needed water again. Though she didn’t want to steal anything, what choice did they have? She nodded. The desert broiled beneath clouds of ash, concealing a storm. Past the shrubs and cactus spines in the distance, the charcoaled skyline touched the dirt; lightning crackled a warning. Where the highway in Albuquerque had been a burial ground of dead vehicles, on this thin strip of road nothing remained. They were miles from the fertile valley beside the Río Grande, no farms nearby, no trucks or tractors. Tumbleweed scattered in the wind, scuttling spiderlike across the dirt-blanketed road.
“There, you see it?” Amy pointed out the open window toward a mesquite tree in the distance. A thick dust storm was picking up a few feet ahead.
Calliope squinted through the haze. “All I see is a tree.”
“It’s a truck, I’m sure.”
Calliope flipped on the high beams. Sure enough, adjacent to the tree, jutting into the thick trunk, a raised pickup, tires half the size of Calliope’s whole car. Mesquite leaves draped the truck bed like a canopy. It reminded Calliope of an art exhibit, metal and bark. How had the tree sustained that crash and not split?
“It’ll run.” Amy peeled another piece of gum from her tight jeans pocket, stuck it in her mouth with a smacking sound, then pulled her blond hair into a ponytail with the rubber band on her wrist. Calliope’s mouth curled into a smile at Amy’s fighting stance.
“Do you know how to drive that thing?”
“Sure. My brothers and I’d go to the dunes outside Cruces all the time in White Sands.”