an interesting stink to her. Not bad, not like him, but sweat and something else.
“You’re a newson, ain’t you? Fresh meat?”
“Utterly charming man.”
“You a walk-in? Duster? Where you from?”
“A place you’ve never been.” The back of his neck quivered with the look she gave him, up-and-down. She let it hang. “I found my way. My own way, yes.” She leaned closer. “Do you have,” her breath was clean, “ baths here?”
Damn near snotted himself. “We do. You don’t.”
Again the look, the smile. “So your excuse might be…?”
“We get baths when we get water. You get water when you’re worth your water. You ain’t worth.”
“‘Worth,’” she smiled the word, “I hear that a lot.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“And I would do that because?”
“Because I say.”
She looked at the rest of the ’teria. She eyed kicker Stosh, others. Then looked again at Chris. “Are you a father?”
“What?”
“Have you ever been a father?” she said.
“I got a working pair, that’s what you mean!”
Again, the look that tingled.
She’s figuring! I tell her she’s coming and she figures! “Look, I say ‘you,’ you come. I get the kicker over—him you’re eyeing—he’ll decide you, toot sweet. I’m jobbing for the Boss; he’s the Daley here. You come with, be part and pick you up some worth maybe, maybe you get that bath and…”
On “bath” she slipped her butt off the stool and snaked out of the ’cove like a slink, like he’d dipped her from a vendor bin! “Coming?” she said.
They drew grub and drink, pulled cleaned-out breather silks. Chris dug out a pretty good flashlight, bats, and carry bags.
“Use up them bats, Harp, and I use up you!” the admin said, handing out the shit.
Chris nodded. “Give a kid a list and a lock and he grows him kicker’s balls.”
The girl looked at the admin boy and followed Chris.
The sun was as up as it got. Long Season might be ending— was ending, Boss’d said—still, clouds were thick and day was barely brighter than old-time Texas winter twilight.
“Where to, boss?” she said.
He about decked her, calling him Boss, then figured her ignorant and let it slip.
“There.” Chris tipped his chin across the miles of pulvered deadland toward the ragged line of crud and masonry, toward the forever bong-bong that was Chicago.
They weren’t 100 steps Wetward when she put it out there. “And where were you on The Day, Prince Charming?”
They made another 50, 60 steps into the deadland. “Driving bus,” he said.
“Sorry, what?”
He raised his voice above the wind and pulver hiss. “I was driving my bus. Perrytown to Dolph Station.”
“Oh. Not Chicago. I know Chicago.” She chuckled. “Knew it when.”
“Most who knew Chicago-that-was are pulver,” he said a dozen steps later. He kicked ground. It rattled like old bone.
“Right you are, Mr. Driver. Most. Not all. Bet you didn’t know that. There are a few left. Yep.”
“Okay!”
“And you? You’re from the south? Yes? Somewhere in Dixie?”
He’d known her half an hour, best. Already he cherished the memory of silence.
“Dolph Station. That’s Texas.”
“Huh,” she started…
“Nobody hit D.S. Nobody hit Perrytown. I was between them, anyway.” She drew breath. “The Panhandle! ‘No Man’s Land’ old folks called it.”
“Missed the war?”
“Maybe.” He’d missed it, hadn’t heard the warnings, hadn’t caught the news, never saw a flash. Maybe something. Maybe the earth jumped, maybe he’d caught a flicker in the sky. Maybe he thought a thunderstorm was coming and kept looking for rain. He liked driving in rain. None came. Time they got to Perrytown, Wave One was over. No more Austin, Houston, Dallas, Galveston, no more much of anything. No TV, radio, no electric anything. Everything had gone silent, “Pulse-Dead” folks said. The Day had come and gone. He’d missed it. “Okay. Never even seen