Death Valley by Kathleen Duey

Author:Kathleen Duey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

Chapter Ten

The morning dawned bright and sunny. Jess rolled free of her blanket and crawled out from under the rocky ledge. The crooked mesquite branch Will had used to check for snakes was still lying close by. He had covered his head with his blanket, and Jess could hear his deep, slow breathing. He was still sound asleep.

Jess stood looking up at the cloudless sky. The sand was cool beneath her bare feet. The sunshine was hot against her skin, and the air was already warming up. She swallowed. Her throat was sore, as though she had spent the day before shouting at the tops of her lungs. She looked down the valley. There were no wagons in sight.

Will stirred, and Jess watched him sit up, then took her canteen from her bag and tilted it to her lips. She meant to take a small drink, saving some water for later in the day. Instead, she downed two big gulps, then realized she had finished all but a spoonful. She reached into her bag and touched the cool glass of the vinegar bottle. It held less than half of what her canteen had held.

Jess glanced at Will. He was shaking sand from his socks and pulling them on. She found a flat rock to sit on and put on her own socks and shoes, picking a few barbed seeds from the knitted cotton. The water in her belly seemed to increase her hunger without really slaking her thirst.

She looked at Will. “Should we eat some of the raisins with our meat?” Will glanced at her, then shrugged, bending down to rummage through his bag. Jess felt a rush of anger so intense that it surprised her. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like all this is my fault?”

He stood up, glaring at her. He kicked at his bag. “I have about two swallows of water left in my canteen and I already ate half my raisins. Eat what you want. It isn’t going to make any difference.”

Jess stood. “Don’t talk like that, Will.”

He rubbed his hands over his face. “Why not? It’s the truth.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said, shaking her head. The fear that she barely had managed to suppress was rising. “It isn’t true, it isn’t,” she heard herself repeating stupidly, her voice shrill. Then, helpless to prevent it, she began to cry.

“Leave off, Jess,” Will was saying. “I already feel as bad as—”

“You feel bad?” Jess cut him off, wiping at her eyes. “What about Ma and Eli and Jed and—”

“It’s my fault, Jess, not yours.” Will interrupted her. “If I hadn’t gone for the rifle and made Pa cut himself, none of this would have happened.”

Jess stared at him. For the first time, the way Will had been acting began to make sense. “You can’t believe that.”

Will half-turned, looking out at the hills. “I should have held the oxen in, too. I should have thought about what the smell of water would do to them.”

“And Pa should have thought about how hard all this would be on Ma and me and the boys.

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