Chapter Text
I began to think of what a deed I'd done
I grabbed my hat and away I did run
Made a good run, just a little too slow
They overtook me in Jericho . . .
Marilyn can't remember exactly when she opened the inn, if she's being honest.
It wasn't long after the outbreak, she knows that. When the world went to shit, she took to wandering; south from Winnipeg, where her old life died in fire and cordyceps. She walked Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana. Back then, nobody knew what was going on. The day they started clicking must've been quite a shock, but she can't remember it. She's getting old. She feels it in her bones when she gets out of bed every morning.
"Mare!" a voice barks from the kitchen. She pokes her head in to find Patrick, permanent grimace as always, preparing a rabbit for the night's stew. "D'you think you could get Lester's lazy ass in the kitchen? He's taking his time in the garden."
Marilyn sighs. “Lester does things a little slow, Pat. Patience wouldn’t kill you.”
“I sent him out a while ago,” he says, not taking his eyes off the rabbit. He’s working his knife along the pelvic bone, exposing the leg joint. “I can’t imagine what the holdup would be.”
Marilyn tells him she’ll check it out and leaves Patrick to his rabbit. The common area of the inn is quiet; tables and chairs empty, most of the candles unlit, the fireplace just embers. Come sundown, it’ll roar back to life. But there’s lots to do until then, and she’s puttering around the inn like a fool.
She has to shield her eyes from the sun when she steps outside. The sun rises behind Mare’s Hill (she hates the name, but it’d stuck years ago) to the east every morning, but it sets over the open prairie and the distant mountains. There’s not a cloud in the sky today, and the sun paints the land orange and red and pink and everything in between. It’s beautiful country, Marilyn thinks. I’m glad I get to see it.
Then she sees Lester, and she sees the stranger.
A few hundred yards away, a lone rider ambles on down Old 191 towards them. Their little town has grand sightlines: a clear view of the open land to the west, hills with vantage points to the east and north. They could spot visitors (less common were troublemakers; even less uncommon, infected) from a ways off. It’d been a few days since the last traders had come through—a caravan of Mormons from Utah off to peddle their wares and their faith up in Jackson—and everyone was a bit antsy.
A lone wanderer, though? On horseback? Headed south? An uncommon sight, to be sure.
Lester, who is supposed to be in the garden, watches the rider silently from the side of the road. Marilyn sighs. “You’re supposed to be helping Patrick,” she calls out to him, moving as fast as her hip lets her.
“But there’s—”
“I’ll handle it,” Marilyn says, putting a hand on his shoulder. Lester was no older than twelve by anyone’s reckoning, though he didn’t seem to be sure himself. He turned up some years ago, this poor child wandering Old 191 on his lonesome from God-Knows-Where. They took him in and made him one of their own. It was the decent thing to do.
Lester doesn’t look happy about it, but he relents. “I’ll bring Patrick his onions.”
“I appreciate that, young man. You do important work around here, you know that?”
He beams at her and darts away, running back around the innhouse as fast as his legs will carry him, and Marilyn sets her sights back on the wanderer. They’re not exactly riding briskly, and even though they must see her, they don’t seem fazed. “Had eyes on ‘em for a few minutes,” Lucas says, appearing beside her with a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Don’t seem to be a threat.”
“Good.” Marilyn’s hand absent-mindedly moves to her holster. “It’d be nice to have a guest for dinner.”
She finally gets a good look at the stranger a few moments later, and her heart drops at the sight. Their hair is choppy and uneven, their flannel shirt has a tear in the shoulder. They’re painfully skinny, but they don’t look frail; even though they’re young, there’s a weariness in their eyes that Marilyn’s seen too many times. All she wants to do is feed this poor kid.
“If this is a robbery,” they croak, “just tell me so we can get it over with.”
Their voice sounds like metal scraping on metal, like it’s hardly been used in months. Marilyn’s heart breaks all over again. “It’s not a robbery,” Lucas says warmly, tipping his hat. He claims the hat is practical; Marilyn knows he’s not too fond of his balding head. “We’ve got a little trading settlement here. If you’re friendly, we’re friendly. There’s food and lodging in the inn if you need it, a good place to fill your canteen.”
They squint at the two of them. Marilyn sees that look in their eye again; she can tell they don’t make a habit of trusting people. “Yeah. Sure. You hand out candy, too?”
“Listen,” Marilyn says, running a hand through her hair, “I apologize if we got off on the wrong foot. My name’s Marilyn, this here’s Lucas.”
“She’s in charge.”
Marilyn rolls her eyes. “No one’s in charge. Now, what’s your name?”
The stranger just stares at her.
“Not asking you to sell your soul or anything,” she adds, smiling weekly. “Just asking for a name.”
After a few seconds, they swear under their breathe and look down. “Ellie,” they mutter.
“Nice to meet you, Ellie,” Marilyn continues. “Where are you from?”
“Nowhere.”
“Well, where are you headed?”
“Nowhere.”
Marilyn and Lucas share a look. Lucas clears his throat. “Look here, Miss Ellie”—Marilyn sees the rider flinch, and she knows something’s up—“I can understand being a bit jumpy. But we’ve a good reputation. You ever heard of Mare’s Hill? We’re on friendly terms with traders from Flaming Gorge, Moab, Jackson. It’s not the big city or anything, but it’s a safe place to lay your head.” Lucas eyes up the horse, a beautiful bay filly. “Give your friend there a chance to graze and rest a spell, too.”
Ellie glances at their horse. Marilyn can practically hear them grind their teeth. “When do the axes come out? Or the bibles?”
Marilyn laughs. “I got my fill of the latter back home with the Mennonites, kid. Now, come on. Stew’ll be up in a few hours.”
“You give out food and beds. To strangers. For free?”
“We trade,” she explains. “Trade us your company and maybe a bit of your elbow grease for choring. But, honestly? You’re skinny, and I feel it’s my job to get a real meal in you.”
The look in Ellie’s eyes hardens, and Marilyn wonders if she’s scared the kid off. But after another moment, they sigh, pat their horse’s head, and close their eyes. “I’m keeping my guns.”
Lucas chuckles. “So long as you don’t use them on us, we don’t mind.”
Marilyn takes it upon herself to get the stranger situated, as it’s Lucas’s turn to watch the western road. “Our grazing land’s out behind the innhouse,” she says over her shoulder. Ellie’s dismounted, leading their horse around by the reins. “What’s this young lady’s name?”
After a moment, they say: “Rocky.”
“Well, you can tie Rocky up or let her loose if you like.”
“You know how to take care of horses here?”
It’s the first time Ellie’s seemed amenable to conversation, and it makes Marilyn smile. “Sure we do. We’ve a few ourselves, and trading caravans come through here all the time. Rocky will be at home. Missy does a good job looking after the animals.”
“How many people do you have here?” Ellie asks. They only see a few buildings, so it’s a natural question. “I just . . . I saw the garden. It’s not bad.”
Marilyn gets the sense that’s high praise from them. “Right now? Fifteen. Started with just me, Lucas, and Missy years ago now. But people have a way of passing through here and sticking around. We live communally; no one owns a thing, you see. Give what you can, take what you need. We all chip in on chores and defense. We trade for what we can’t make ourselves. It’s all pretty tidy.”
“Sounds a little like Jackson,” Ellie says wistfully, and Marilyn smiles. So that’s where’s they’re from. “From what I’ve heard, anyway.”
“Mmm,” she replies, choosing not to press them on it right now. By then, they’ve reached a hitching post, and Ellie’s tying Rocky up. “I understand you may want a little privacy,” Marilyn says, dropping her voice low, “but I’ve two questions for you.”
Ellie looks at her warily and sighs. “Fine.”
“Firstly: where are you going, really?”
“Nowhere. Really.”
“You don’t have anywhere in mind?”
“Nope,” Ellie insists. “Long as it’s not Washington. Or Colorado. Or California.”
“Sounds like you ought to be headed east, then. Or north, but you’re already headed south.”
“Guess so.”
“Whenever you get going,” Marilyn says, “stay on Old 191. Switch to the 28 when you get to Farson—give Farson a wide berth, every so often some gang of highwaymen think they’re gonna make a killing at the crossroads—and head up to Wind River. There’s good folks over there. Just make sure you’re set on supplies before you take that 28, 'cause there’s a whole lotta nothin' for about fifty miles.”
Ellie eyes her suspiciously, like they’re convinced she’s leading them into a deathtrap. This kid doesn’t make a habit of trusting anyone. “Right.”
“Not everyone in this world is wicked,” Marilyn says. It hurts to see someone so young turn out so jaded. She’s worried about the children born into the pandemic, those who don’t know a better world. “In my experience, most folks are just trying to get by.”
“Based on where I’ve been and the things I’ve seen,” Ellie says, “that’s hard for me to believe.”
“I’m sure,” Marilyn says lightly. “But you can relax while you’re here. I swear.”
Ellie flinches again, almost imperceptibly, and busies themself with going through their pack. Up close, Marilyn can see more signs of a rough life: two missing fingers on their left hand, tattooed ferns weaving their way up mottled skin (a burn, looks like) on their right forearm, scars everywhere. This kid’s been through hell.
“Second question might be none of my business, but I feel obliged to ask,” Marilyn says. “You didn’t seem thrilled about Lucas calling you miss. There something more happening there?
Ellie freezes. They turn to her, brow furrowed. “What?”
“I don’t make a habit of assuming,” Marilyn explains. “It’d be hypocritical of me, all things considering. Missy, Lucas, and I—we founded this little place in part so folks like us would have somewhere to go.”
They stare at her, long and hard. “Ah. Okay.”
“Wasn’t an insult,” Marilyn assures her. “God knows it’s not. I know being queer in this world ain’t easy, but—”
“You were right,” Ellie mutters. They sling their pack over their shoulder. “It isn’t any of your business.”
They storm off in the general direction of the innhouse, leaving Marilyn behind with Rocky. She gives the filly a pat on her flank. “You seem nice enough,” she says to the horse. “I’m a little worried about your friend, though.”
THREE DAYS AGO
I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met . . .
Jackson used to be home, but now it terrifies her.
It’s a scary thought. Ellie doesn’t even realize it until she’s standing on that same ridge overlooking the town, the same place she stood years ago when Joel lied to her and set all this bullshit in motion.
Dina and JJ are behind those high walls; staying with Jesse’s parents, if she had to guess. The family Ellie abandoned to chase a fucking ghost. Her heart ached when she thought of them, thought of her little spud growing up without her.
If Seattle changed her, Santa Barbara changed her tenfold. Not just the cruelty of the Rattlers or the fight with Abby on that stupid fucking beach; the physical toll was obvious. No, it was the road. From Wyoming to Southern California and back again, all by herself. She hasn’t spoken a word in months. Every settlement she passed on the road, she gave a wide berth. Then she finally got home, and Dina was gone, and Ellie couldn’t even blame her.
Spending that much time alone does things to you. Gives you time to ruminate on things you otherwise wouldn’t. Ellie’s just starting to understand her damage, but right now, she’s afraid of her own town. She’s afraid of Dina.
She approaches the gate slowly, her hands held high. The sentries aim their rifles at her and demand she identify herself; that doesn’t surprise her. She looks so different now. When she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror at a rest stop back in Utah, it was like looking at a stranger.
She liked it.
“Williams,” she calls out, her voice scratchy. “Ellie Williams.”
After she’s ushered in the gate, Tommy’s waiting for her by the stables, leaning on his cane. Seattle aged him a decade, but since that visit to the farmhouse, it’s gotten worse. Dark circles hang under his eyes (well, eye), his movement is sluggish. “And?” he asks.
That’s all he says. Tommy’s changed now, and Ellie knows that, but she expected more. How are you, Ellie? It’s good to see you’re in one piece. Mostly, heh.
“It’s over,” Ellie tells him. “She’s gone.”
The lie is effortless, and she doesn’t feel bad about it for a second. It’s what he needs to hear. Tommy chokes out a laugh that becomes a sob, and a different Ellie would’ve given him a hug. A version of Ellie that still considered Tommy something like family.
But now, her sight’s clear. Tommy’s a broken man, the brother of the broken man Ellie would always be haunted by. She doesn’t owe him a thing. He owes her.
“You ought to see Dina,” he says a moment later. His words are labored, uneasy. “That little boy of hers is growing up mighty fast.”
“No,” she says, the words leaving her mouth without her permission. “I . . . can’t.”
Tommy leans back and raises his eyebrows. “’Scuse me?”
Ellie didn’t put her plan together till she got here, but every atom in her body knows what needs to happen. “I fucked up, Tommy,” she says. “I hurt her. And . . . I don’t even know who I am anymore. Without him. Without her. I need to go and figure it out.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” she says, “that I want a horse, some food that’ll last, and a good map. Some ammo, too. And then I’m going.”
“Where?” Tommy asks. Maybe some of his old self is still in there, or maybe it’s just the “good news,” but his concern is real.
“I don’t know,” Ellie replies. “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
He sizes her up, squinting at her with his eye. Ellie isn’t sure how good his vision is these days, but she can guess what’s bothering him. “Stay long enough to get some food in you,” he says, “at the very least. I suspect Maria”—based on how he says it, she knows they’re still separated—“would like to see you. Dina, too.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t stay.” She has one last trick in her book, one last card to play. “Come on, Tommy. I . . . I killed Abby. After all I just went through for you—for Joel—you can do this one thing for me.”
The Miller men run on lies, it seems. Ellie sees the irony, but she can’t take time to reflect on that.
It works like a charm, guilting Tommy like this. He relents, and while he barks out orders to some of the stablehands to gather supplies, Ellie can hear the murmurs start. The whispers of her return. She’s getting nervous. She needs out of here before Dina gets wind of it all.
Thankfully, Tommy’s guys move fast. There’s a box of 9mm ammo, whatever .308s they can spare. A heavy leather sack of pemmican, jerky, a few bits of bread that would last her a day or two at most. She fills her canteen from a spigot, packs her bag. She climbs up onto Rocky, a steady filly she’d never ridden before, and slides her rifle into her saddle holster. She feels like a cowboy. It’s kinda ridiculous.
“Listen here,” Tommy says, approaching her just before she aims to leave. “I know you’ve traveled a lot in your days, but . . . keep your head on your shoulders, right? Be smart. Get back here when you can.”
“Right.” She grabs the horn of her saddle and takes a deep breath. “Tell Dina I—”
“Ellie!”
That voice sends a shiver down her spine, and as much as she wants to spur Rocky on through that tall gate, she’s frozen. Because Ellie sees her. Dina, eyes wide, running down the main drag, JJ nowhere in sight. “Oh my god!”
Ellie can’t make herself say anything, can’t make herself dismount the horse. Dina approaches her, looking up with glistening eyes. It’s like she’s spotted a ghost.
“Hey,” Ellie finally says. Her mouth feels dry.
“Thank god you’re okay,” Dina says, nearly sobbing, and Ellie can see the conflict in her. The love in her eyes that she used to see every day is there, but it’s distant. She can’t ever see Ellie the same way again, not after what she’s done. Ellie can’t blame her. She’ll never see herself the same way either.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie says, the words coming out with difficulty. “I fucked up.”
“It’s okay, I just—"
“It’s not,” Ellie chokes out. “And I need to leave.”
Dina’s face goes wooden, and Ellie’s heart hits the floor. “Right.”
“I don’t—” She doesn’t know how to say this. “I can’t stay here.”
“So you’re running away? Again? Because you’re too chickenshit to fix this?”
Ellie grabs the reins and looks away, because those beautiful brown eyes mean everything to her. She can’t handle seeing the sting of another betrayal in them. All she can do is repeat: “I’m sorry.”
“You’re a fucking coward, Ellie Williams.”
She can’t make herself reply. She just leaves. She’ll never forget that sound of that gate closing behind her.
A few hours south of Jackson, when night’s soon to fall, she comes upon Hoback Junction.
The ghost town’s about ten miles south of the big city, as far south as Jackson bothered to patrol. Most of the trouble (hunters or infected, take your pick) roamed down from the Tetons or Yellowstone; traders ran up from the south. Hoback was always clear. Ellie’s careful—there are always hills where hunters could be lurking—but the junction’s as quiet as ever.
She spots a gas station, hitches up Rocky outside, and kicks open the bathroom door. Ellie’s smelled better things in her life, but it could be in much worse shape. The mirror’s dirty, but she can still see herself: this wild-eyed, vaguely girl-shaped spider. Her hair’s a fucking mess. Maybe she should’ve grabbed a change of clothes in Jackson.
She pulls out her switchblade, grabs a chunk of hair, and gets to cutting.
It’s crude, it’s not easy, and she keeps nicking her fingers, but auburn hair’s falling to the floor in chunks. She’s been thinking about this for . . . a long time. It’s not like she hates long hair or anything like that, it’s just . . . curiosity. Now that Dina and her are done, why not go for it?
When she’s done, the person in the mirror’s even shaggier. Ellie’s never liked her face, never liked how round it is. How soft it is. She’s always liked the parts of her that are sharp: her eyes, her hands, the scar over her brow. Being girly never came naturally to her, not like it did to girls like Dina.
It shouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t bother her much, not really. But then why did she cut her hair?
The person in the mirror looks like someone else, is the thing. Can’t deny that. And she likes it. She likes it a lot.
FIVE YEARS AGO
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Take me back to the night we met . . .
They’re three days out from Salt Lake City. Ellie’s losing it.
She and Joel have been picking through way along the 40 for weeks now, through the ass-end of Colorado and into Utah. Ellie turns fifteen in a small town named Dinosaur, and while it contains precisely zero dinosaurs, it’s pretty fucking cool. Other than that, it’s a lot of walking. Joel’s been needy, doting on her like she’s a little kid every chance he gets. He thinks it’s his fault she’s broken, his job to put her back together. Ellie knows that he cares about her, but it kinda feels like it’s for him, not her.
“Now the thing to remember,” Joel is saying while they walk through an abandoned suburb, “is that these movies are all about family.”
Ellie’s half-listening to Joel talk about some movie series he liked, but she knows he’s trying, so she gives him a small smile. “I thought they were about cars.”
“Well, sure,” he says with a shrug, “but there’s more to it than that. It’s not just about the cars, it’s about the people who drive the cars. How they make a good team, all that. Someday I’ll have to show you.”
He’s been saying that more and more, like he’s imagining a life for them after all this is over. It’s a little exhausting, but Ellie can’t imagine a world where she has anything like home, so she doesn’t mind. Maybe watching a silly car movie with Joel wouldn’t be half-bad.
“How many of these things did they make?”
“Six. Last one came out the year of the outbreak, I think. Maybe the year before, I can’t remember.”
“Holy shit! Six movies? All about cars?”
“Goes to show you how much people liked cars, I guess.”
“Did you like cars?”
Joel scratches at his beard. “Well, I s’pose so. It was kind of a ‘guy thing’ to get into, I guess.”
Ah. Ellie keeps her head down and doesn’t reply.
After a moment of silence, Joel looks over his shoulder. “You ‘right, kiddo?”
“Yeah,” she says, forcing a smile. “’Course.”
Everything’s too fucking complicated. She’s been a jumble of feelings lately for a million reasons, but right now, she’s thinking about guy things. About the boys back in Boston who she got along with no problem, the girls who hated her. They knew she was different; they latched on and didn’t let go.
She used to wish she was a boy. She didn't make a habit of telling people that; not Riley, certainly not Joel. She knew stuff like that wasn’t for sharing. For years, she said a prayer every night before bed: Please, let me be a boy when I wake up. She already knew that she liked girls, but that wasn’t really part of it. It just felt like it’d be easier to her. Everything in her life would make more sense if she was a boy.
But Ellie’s not, and when Joel’s guard is down or he’s worried about her, he calls her baby girl. She knows it means a lot to him, but she can’t make herself feel anything but numb when he says it. It feels like he’s saying it to Sarah’s ghost, not her.
Whatever. She’d never be his daughter, anyway.
PRESENT
Ellie’s sitting out on the porch of the innhouse—really just an old ranch house, she notes—and takes in the nothing around her.
If there’s something she learned crossing the country, it’s that so much of the world is empty. She knows it was before the outbreak too, but it couldn’t have been like this. These hippies might be the only people in any direction for miles.
She swats at a fly on her forearm, lets herself relax for just a second. She knows these people don’t mean her any harm, deep down, but it’s hard for her to really believe it. These days, her rifle talks for her. She doesn’t care for a world where she has to speak for herself.
And she definitely doesn’t care for the way Marilyn saw right through her.
“Hey, there!”
Ellie jumps at the voice, her hand going to her hip on reflex, but it’s just a woman. Tall, sturdy, hair in braids. She’s ten paces away, but Ellie can tell she’s been working with sheep. She knows that smell all too well.
“I saw that beautiful horse tied up. I reckon that’s yours?”
Ellie tells her it is.
“Glad to see a new face around here,” she continues. “I’m Missy. You probably met Marilyn and Lucas already. You’ll meet the rest of the folks at suppertime.”
Ellie touches Joel’s old broken watch, the one she’s taken to wearing these last few weeks. It grounds her. “You just hand out meals to people?”
“Sure,” she says with a shrug. “We do alright out here, why not trade the surplus?”
“Got nothing to trade, unless you need pemmican.”
Missy smirks. “We’ve got plenty. Are you fit for farm work?”
Ellie chokes back a laugh. “Yeah. Lived on a sheep ranch for a while, actually. With a girl I loved.”
The other woman doesn’t need to hear the rest of the story to get the picture. “No one’s obliged to work,” she says, “but I’d take a hand out back if you’re up for it.”
Ellie thinks about that. Truth be told, she’s pretty tired, and she’s not thrilled at the prospect of working with animals again. But the Joel in her refuses to accept help freely without considering herself indebted. Thanks, old man.
“I’m good with that,” she says, rising to her feet. “What are we doing?”
Missy smiles. “Seeing as you have experience with horses, I got an idea.”
It’s always a good night when Patrick breaks out his fiddle.
The instrument is his prized possession, a pre-outbreak artifact he carried for years. He took it with him to the Salt Lake City QZ, then took it with him when the QZ fell back in ’21. It was slung over his back when he first showed up to Mare’s Hill seven years ago as a member of a missionary caravan up from Moab. While they didn’t find converts in Mare’s Hill, Patrick found a home. On his way back, he asked to stay the night, and then the next night, and then the night after that. That’s how Mare’s Hill grew; people tended to stick around.
Patrick’s nearing sixty, and his hands aren’t as good as they used to be, but he still plays every so often. Missy salvaged a drum from Bondurant years ago and repaired its head with rawhide she traded for, and she’d play it if the mood struck her. Other musicians passed through on occasion: that guitarist from Flaming Gorge who crooned like Johnny Cash late into the night, a woman who used to sing in some professional chorus out in Kansas City.
Music means a lot to Marilyn. It’s an act of defiance, she reckons, to make art in a world so cold and solitary. To share in the warmth of others.
Patrick trades for music books when he can get them, but he mostly works from memory. He has favorites: “Shenandoah,” “Erie Canal,” “Ashokan Farewell.” That night, he takes requests. John Peter asks for “Auld Lang Syne,” Lexi calls for a Taylor Swift cover (Patrick tries his best). It’s festive. A dozen good people laughing and eating and drinking, taking in the warmth from the fireplace.
Then there’s Ellie, the newcomer, sitting by themself at table by the door. They’re bouncing their leg to “I Will Wait,” but other than that, it looks like they’d rather be anywhere but here.
“That one helped me re-shoe Filly Collins,” Missy says, coming up to the bar. She must’ve seen Marilyn looking their way. “Handled it like a pro, but barely said a word.”
Marilyn re-fills her friend’s glass (corn whiskey from Jackson, Missy’s one true vice) and glances back at that lonely kid. “Jacksonite, I’d guess,” Marilyn said. “All I know is that poor kid’s running. I can’t get a read on them.”
The two women share a glance, confirming, silently, that they’d both come to a similar conclusion. “Should we have Lucas talk to ‘em?”
“Nah,” Marilyn says, “not unless they want him to. Don’t wanna frighten ‘em off.”
Missy sighs. “You’re right. You can’t force these things.”
“And we don’t know anything. Not for sure, anyway.”
But we’ve never been wrong yet, Marilyn thinks, and based on Missy’s smirk, she knows her old friend’s thinking the same thing she is. It’s a lifetime ago, but she can still remember their apartment together in Winnipeg, their little circle of fellow transsexuals who crawled out of the Canadian prairie to the nearest big city only to find it was all the same everywhere. Then everything went to shit, and it was her, Missy, and Lucas against the world. Three hard-as-nails queers knocking over every pharmacy on the plains for hormones.
It's funny, really, that they’re all still stuck together like this. What are the odds?
“Just gotta help ‘em out while they’re under our roof,” Marilyn says. “Nothing more we can do.”
“I Will Wait” comes to a close, and the inn roars in applause. Even Ellie gives a cautious clap. “We’ve got a guest tonight, folks!” Missy calls, holding up her drink. “A toast to Ellie and her health.”
The kid looks a little uncomfortable over the attention, but they give a faint smile and raise the whiskey glass they’ve been nursing all night. “’Preciate it.”
“Where’re you from?” John Peter asks. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
After a moment, Ellie says: “Boston QZ.”
“Goddamn,” Rita exclaims. “You’ve come quite a way to end up in the middle of nowhere.”
The inn laughs, and Ellie even lets themself a chuckle. “You’ve got no idea.”
Marilyn thinks about what they said about Washington, California, Colorado. They’re certainly no stranger to the road.
“You must have a good story or two,” Missy says. “Surely.”
That is when Ellie turns the cold shoulder. “No,” they say, going stiff. “Nothing you wanna hear, anyway.”
The inn’s silent for a moment before Marilyn clears her throat. “That’s alright. Ellie, is there a song you’d like to hear Patrick play?”
She half expects the kid to put their walls up, but after a moment, they say: “You know ‘Little Sadie?’”
“’Course I do,” Patrick says with a grin. “Classic.”
Patrick’s fiddle plays a deceptively jaunty murder ballad while a few of the men sing along, and Marilyn’s surprised to see the look on Ellie’s face. They’re mouthing the words as Patrick plays, but they look distant, wistful. There’s a slight smile on their lips.
That’s a start, Marilyn thinks.
Ellie stays at Mare’s Hill for three days.
On the first day, she insists on keeping watch; it’s just her, her Walkman, and her rifle up on the hill. The sunrise over the eastern hills is beautiful, and she doesn’t see a single stranger all day. No infected stragglers, no hunters. No traders, either. She wonders just how busy this little town really is.
On the second day, she works with the fiddler, Patrick, in the garden. She’s impressed by what they can grow in the wild prairie soil: Leafy greens like kale, radishes, small cucumbers, wild onions. Enough to get by just fine, that was for sure. Lester, the kid, pesters them with questions before Patrick shoos him away, and Ellie’s thanks him when the kid’s out of earshot. “He don’t mean anything by it,” he says. “He’s just friendly.”
On the third day, she watches the western road with Lucas, a bearded guy pushing fifty that seems to be one of the town’s elders. Two chairs are set up under an old telephone pole a few hundred yards from the ranch house, a better vantage point than Ellie would’ve guessed. From this spot, you could see down into the valley; a small unoccupied town a few miles away, the same old rolling plains nothing but rabbits and coyotes called home.
“Where d’you think you’ll go after this?” Lucas asks her.
Ellie’s doing routine maintenance on her rifle; cleaning the barrel, the receiver. “Wind River,” she says, thinking of what Marilyn said that first day. “Leaving at sunrise tomorrow.”
“They’re good folks,” he assures her. “Always been decent to us. But you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, you know.”
She’s not sure what to say to that. She’s already getting too comfortable as it is; a nice soft bed and a hot meal every day are luxuries the road doesn’t afford her. For the foreseeable future, she’ll sleep on the ground. She’ll forage, she’ll make a pound of pemmican last as long as it possibly can. She’s done it before. “I know,” she says. “But I need to go.”
“I respect that,” he says delicately. “It’s just . . . a good place. For . . . folks.”
There are so many ways to interpret folks there, and Ellie’s walls go up. “If you’re saying I look queer,” she says darkly, “I am. But I got along just fine back in Jackson. I can take care of myself.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you couldn’t,” he says, looking her square in the eye. There’s respect there, real admiration. “You clean that rifle like a pro, you’re a seasoned rider. You have the look of someone who shouldn’t be crossed.”
One of the many polite ways Ellie’s been called an asshole in her life.
“Still,” he says, “it’s not just about surviving, especially not on your own. It’s about living. It’s about finding your people.”
Ellie hesitates, because there’s a question that’s been bouncing around for days now. It’s scary; she feels like she’s at the start of a path she’s not sure she wants to go down, and voicing this seems like the first step. If she takes it, can she go back?
“Marilyn and Missy,” she mumbles, “are they . . . ?”
The word sticks in her throat: transsexual. She knows it because she’s watched movies: Boys Don’t Cry, Silence of the Lambs. Back in Boston there were whispers of the occasional FEDRA officer who was secretly like that, rumors of a boy who’d gotten kicked out of school for stealing women’s clothes. It’s not like Ellie dislikes them (not any more than she dislikes everyone, at least), but she’s never met one. They seemed to walk on the fringes. She certainly never heard of them leading a settlement.
“Trans?”
Ellie nods cautiously.
Lucas cracks his knuckles. “Sure. But it doesn’t . . . it don’t mean you should treat them any differently than anyone else. Or let it scare you off. Good people are good people.”
“No, I . . . I know.” Why is talking about all this so damn hard? “I’ve just never met anyone like that, I guess.”
He shrugs. “That you know of, anyway.”
Just then, a rifle cracks in the distance, and Ellie and Lucas are diving into the long grass of the prairie. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears. They hear a second gunshot, this one to the east. “Where the fuck was that from?”
“Second shot was from the hill,” Lucas says, his voice unnervingly calm. “Rita returned fire.”
“Fuck. Where do you think they are?”
Lucas pulls out a pair of binoculars and peers north at the hills, then south. He mumbles a curse. “I spot four,” he says. “At least two long guns.”
He hands Ellie the binoculars and she sees the same thing: hunters on a nearby ridge. They have a bit of forest cover; no clear shot, and even if she had one, it’d be near-impossible at this distance. They were fools to try and hit Mare’s Hill during the day; they were outnumbered, probably outgunned. But they did have high ground.
“Here’s the plan,” Ellie says, because she’s done this a million times. “Head back to the inn and make sure everyone’s safe. I’m flanking these motherfuckers. When you hear me start shooting, push up hard and cover my ass.”
“You’re doing that by yourself?”
She resists the urge to scoff. “I’ve done a lot worse, man.”
Ellie takes off before Luke can rubber stamp her plan, and the hunters are too focused on trading ineffective shots with Rita to see her cross the highway. Once she’s back in the grass, she disappears into the brush. She stalks through marshy ground, every additional crackle of gunfire grounding her. This is her element. This is where she belongs.
It's not long before she’s in rifle range, and the hunters haven’t moved an inch. She’s close enough that she can see one in a black coat is painfully skinny, one in brown is bald. She kneels, digs her hunting rifle into her shoulder, and breathes in.
Black Coat’s head pops like a melon. His friends are frozen for a moment, but it’s not long before panic sets in. “Fuck! Fuck! Where did that come from?”
Ellie’s on the ground, not daring to show her face. She pulls the bolt of her rifle back while another hunter yelps in pain—another hit for the good guys—and when she takes sight again, the three of them are retreating back to the south. She has Brown Coat in her sights—she sees crimson, a man clutching his wounded arm—but she doesn’t pull the trigger.
Cautiously, she stands up to find all of Mare’s Hill staring at her wide-eyed from across the road. She takes her time ambling back to the inn, where Lucas and Marilyn await her on the road, rifles in hand. “That was one of the best shots I’ve ever seen,” Lucas says breathlessly. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
“This guy I used to know,” she says, glancing at her watch. “I doubt those assholes are gonna bother you anymore.”
Marilyn’s looking at her like she’s a the second coming, and honestly? Ellie doesn’t hate it. “I don’t know if we can ever repay you for that.”
“Consider us even, then.” She slings her rifle back over her shoulder and gives the woman a tight grin. “I’ll take another night’s sleep, though. Wouldn’t mind some provisions for the road, either.”
Lucas laughs. “I think we can manage that.”
Ellie turns in early that night—she wants to be out of here by dawn—but she still takes dinner in the innhouse, listens to Patrick’s fiddle one last time. She’s the talk of the inn. Everyone takes the opportunity to tell her just how much they appreciate what she’s done, fawn over the shot. She lets herself smile, lets herself exist in the crowd, lets herself laugh at lewd jokes and tall tales. She finishes her stew and wipes the bowl down with the last of her bread from Jackson, savoring every last morsel of a good meal. She can’t remember the last time she felt this comfortable, especially in a crowd.
“A toast!” Marilyn calls, raising a glass. “To Ellie!”
“The Guardian of Old 191!” Lucas adds, and everyone cracks up.
Ellie throws the whiskey back and relishes in the burn. “Sounds like a country song,” she says. “Maybe I’ll write it.”
She’s numb to the violence, really. That headshot—she doesn’t feel it gnaw at her like it should’ve, like it used to. But this? A room of friendly strangers toasting her? She definitely doesn’t hate that.
Marilyn sees her off the next morning.
“Remember what I said about the 28, now,” the woman advises her. In the light of the sunrise, Ellie spots grey hairs hiding in the brown. She must’ve been Ellie’s age at the outbreak, maybe a little older. She can’t help but wonder if Marilyn was like that before it all went to shit, or she felt the freedom to be herself when it all collapsed.
Not like it matters, she thinks.
“I’m well-stocked,” Ellie assures her as she mounts Rocky, who’s been pampered a bit at Mare’s Hill herself. The late-summer morning is cold, so she’s put on Joel’s tan jacket, the one that still smells like him. It’s so big she can lose her body in it. She loves it. “Plenty enough food for the trip.”
“Good,” Marilyn says. “Stay safe now, y’hear?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“If you ever find yourself on Old 191 again, say howdy,” she says. “There’ll always be a bed and a meal with your name on it.”
Ellie blinks hard, looks away. “Thank you.”
“’Course.”
She knows what she needs to say to this woman, but it’s hard to make the words come out. She fidgets in the saddle, sucks in a breath through her teeth. When she finally says something, her words are low, barely above a whisper. “How did you know?”
Thankfully, Marilyn knows. Ellie sees that in her eyes. “If you’re asking that question,” Marilyn replies, “I reckon you already know the answer.”
Ellie closes her eyes, white knuckles the horn. “Fuck.”
Then she’s off down Old 191, off to the east, off to the promise of an open road.