Hunger and Thirst Read Online Free PDF Page B

of Nevada?
    “I've always wanted flowers,” Natalie said.
    Jack jumped and spun to face her. He closed his mouth. “Sorry. Survival reflexes. I didn't hear you.”
    “I'm the quiet type.”
    “Usually.”
    She knelt beside him and patted soil over the seeds. “You didn't tell me you fixed the leak in the water tank. Or did our aliens from Area 51 creep up in the night and fix it?”
    “Had to be aliens.”
    “You know, you don't have to fix things, or plant flowers, to earn your keep. Your just being here is enough. These will be beautiful in the spring. Maybe you'll want to see them come up.”
    “I think I will.”
    ....
     In the evening, cold wind blew around the house. Jack worried about Artie and often walked around the house calling him, but he never appeared.
    Inside, in front of the fire, he fanned the cold out of his clothes and waited for the heat soak in. He remembered too many nights going to sleep shivering, waking up cold, walking all day cold....
    Natalie stood on the other side of the counter, in the kitchen, putting together something to eat.
    “You haven't told me,” he said, “how you got your finger bones. Whose fingers?”
    “If you knew, you might like me less.”
    “We were all different people in the past. I'd like to know. I'd like to understand better what it is that you do with them.”
    She came around the counter and stood next to him, to warm herself before the fire.
    “My mother had finger bones. It was a family secret, but it seemed normal to me. Like a kid, I kept asking for my own, and when I was eight or nine, she explained how I would have to get them, if I wanted them. At eight or nine, it was a bit shocking and took a while to sink in.”
    The fire had started to burn low. She placed several pieces of an old board on the coals.
    “My mother already knew that a man... a stranger... was going to try to hurt me while I was away from the house, while I was out hunting. She told me that I should think about him as I would another animal, like a coyote or bear. If he tried to harm me, that was how I was to treat him.”
    “She let you go out, knowing someone was going to hurt you?”
    “Someone would try to hurt me. When it came time, I wanted to go.”
    “You wanted to go?”
    “The exuberance of youth.” She smiled. “He surprised me. He came out of nowhere, ran into me with his shoulder, and when I was down, he tried to smother me with his hands. He had both hands over my mouth and nose, trying to keep me from screaming or to smother me — and I bit him, a lot. He stood over me screaming that he was going to kill me. He reached for his knife, as my mother said he would, and then I used his fingers—”
    “Which you had bitten off.”
    She pressed her lips together. “Yes,” she said. “That is what I did. It was a bit of a mess. I spit one out, grabbed the other one and threw them at him. I'd seen my mother do that once when she was about to be crushed by a three-hundred-pound sow. I threw them at him and he froze where he stood. He could move only his eyes.”
    The fire now burned hot. The pause lingered.
    “And then you killed him.”
    She said nothing.
    She looked at him solemnly. “Jack, I'll tell you this in short words and you can rethink how long you want to stay. I took three more fingers. My mother boiled the flesh off them and put them in a bag for me. I slept well that night.” She was looking down and her hair hid her face. “That's your Natalie. Those are his bones over there. Make your plans accordingly.” She sounded like she was talking about disease.
    “You're the same person you were ten minutes ago. I loved you then, I love you now. Ask your bones if you've changed my mind.” He decided to say what she had probably guessed. “Someday I'd like to see the Pacific. Maybe we could both go and see the ocean, live somewhere green, with trees.”
    She put her arms around him. “My place is here, in the desert. With you here, it's the best