600 Miles: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Read Online Free PDF Page A

you," she said. "Don't worry, it's just me."
    I kept looking, wondering if it were some kind of trap.
    "Please," she said, "I promise ain't no one else out there, mister. They're still sleeping."
    "Ain't no way of knowing that," I said. "Just you mind yourself while I keep going. Your boy starts shooting at me and you're going to be the first to go."
    "He ain't coming, I swear to you! Please, I came because you're the only one who can help."
    "Help?"
    "You gotta get me away from here! You don't know what them people is like, that awful old woman and them men who done some pretty bad things."
    "You telling me they ain't your friends?"
    "Friends? They ain't nothing of the sort. They're bad people. They took me from my husband some time ago. A year, maybe. I don't even know anymore."
    "They kidnapped you?"
    "No. My husband, he— He done got tired of me and traded me for a bunch of stuff they were hauling in that truck. Whiskey mostly, and a fancy pair of boots. Ain't too nice thinking about, that me a woman of flesh and blood weren't worth more to him than that, but so it is I guess."
    It was the first time I'd looked her over real good, and weren't no way I could imagine a man who'd have traded her for no whiskey and a pair of boots. The old woman maybe, but this one, though not too young, weren't too hard on the eyes. Her face was dirty and you could see the hard lines, but her eyes were soft, pretty even, her ample curves hard not to notice until I caught myself staring and looked away.
    "Listen, I don't know what you're expecting," I said, "but if you think I'm going to haul you all the way back to your husband, wherever he's at, you can stop thinking about it right now."
    "My husband? God damn it, mister, ain't you heard nothing I've said? Now you listen to me. I saw you kill that man and if I had screamed you might not be standing here right now. I ain't saying you owe me nothing, just saying is all. I'm glad you killed him, truth be told. I only wish you'd killed the rest of them too. He was a horrible person, and maybe I don't know it and you're just the same, though I have a feeling you're not and if you take me along I can cook and carry things and do whatever else you ask. Just hurry up and let's go!" 
    It weren't something I had to think about too long.
    "Then come on, before them other two come looking for us. I ain't promising you nothing, but if you want to walk with me you can."
    "It's all I could ask for, mister."
    "All right. And stop calling me 'mister'. The name's Elgin."

Chapter 6
     
    She ain't talk too much at first but it was all right by me. We didn't need to be drawing no attention, whether it was from them two who might have come looking for us or them Mexicans who might have still been around. "Gitty" she said her name was, which was as strange as any though she said it was what her daddy used to call her when she was a little girl, and though he had been dead a long time it stuck with her and she liked it much better than "Bridgette", which she said her name really was. I told her Bridgette sounded like a real pretty name to me, but weren't no convincing her of that. "Just plain old Gitty," she said, and so that's what I called her from then on.
    Things were a bit stiff in the beginning, what with her not knowing what kind of man I was, and what with me not having had the company of a woman in a long time. Just how long it had been I couldn't quite remember. A few years maybe, maybe more, though no doubt it would have been an embarrassing thing to admit. It weren't that I was a bad looking fella, I think, or that I didn't have a certain charm. It was just that it were hard to find female company unless you had something worth giving, if you know what I'm saying, and, well, even if I did, it weren't something that I wanted to be paying for no more.
    Not that me and Gitty was having company in that way, mind you. Just walking together was all we'd done. After a while, it seemed to me she were