A refugee from the group he’d watched passing on the highway? There weren’t too many other explanations considering the direction she was coming from. But no, if she’d just left the highway she wouldn’t be that dusty and scratched up, would she? She looked as if she’d been trailblazing for a while.
Unfortunately the trail she was blazing pointed right for Aspen Hill, and even slow and plodding as she was she’d reach it eventually.
Trev grimaced, really hating this turn of events. He knew what he had to do, and this was why he was out here. It was a duty he’d volunteered for himself after insisting that they couldn’t let the refugees in, and he hadn’t changed his mind on that count. He just hadn’t expected he’d have to turn away a starving woman who obviously needed help.
Why couldn’t it have been a group of ragged and belligerent ruffians who’d cuss him out and make it feel easy for him to turn them back? Trev had lost most of his guilt about the three men yesterday after the guy his age flipped him off. Although even if this woman made it unpleasant he didn’t think he could possibly turn her back without feeling like complete garbage.
Still, no help for it. For good or ill the City Council had spent the emergency money on other things, and there simply wasn’t any food for even a few dozen refugees, let alone a few hundred. The town would be lucky to survive the winter as it was. Trev took a reluctant breath and stood, crossing the top of the hill and making his way through the sage on the downward slope towards her.
The woman’s head was hung low in exhaustion, eyes on the ground, and she didn’t even see or hear him coming until he reached the bottom of the hill, more than halfway to her. But finally she paused, tucking a strand of blond hair hanging in front of her eyes back behind one ear, and looked up. She immediately saw him and froze, eyes widening with fear. Without a word she shrank back, nearly stumbling on a stone she’d just stepped over, and her eyes darted between his face and the Mini-14 poking over his shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Trev hurriedly called, carefully keeping his hands at his sides to show he meant no harm. He didn’t relish turning her back but he certainly didn’t want to frighten her. “I’m a scout from the nearby town.”
A sort of desperate relief filled the woman’s face. “A town!” she breathed. “How far? Is there a place I can stay?”
Seeing her pitiable condition was almost enough to make him rethink his insistence that they turn away the refugees. Even knowing the grim reality of the situation it seemed inhuman to have to refuse her, monstrous even, and he felt physically sick as he forced himself to shake his head. “I’m sorry, I’m here to turn everyone back. The town is walled off between the hills, all the roads blocked. We’re not letting anyone in.”
Her relief slowly bled away into a sort of stunned disbelief. “But they told me there’d be a place for me when they sent me south away from the riots.”
Trev couldn’t meet her large blue eyes, welling with tears, and had to look away. “Which town were you sent to?”
“P-Price,” she said in a quavering voice. “I’m almost there, aren’t I? Is that the town you’re guarding?”
“No, Price is farther south. If you follow this hill behind me east you’ll reach Highway 6 in about a mile. You can follow it south to where you’re going, and you’ll find refugees who can help you get there.” As he finished speaking he started to unsling his daypack to give her all the food and water he had. He couldn’t let her past but he wasn’t completely heartless.
She must have thought he was going for his .223. “No!” she nearly screamed, stumbling forward a few steps before dropping to her knees. At first Trev assumed she’d tripped until he realized she was literally begging. “I can’t go back to that! You don’t know what it was like in the group I was traveling with, what they do to—” she cut off with a ragged breath and lifted her clasped hands beseechingly. “Please, whatever your name is. I’ll-I’ll make it worth your while if you let me into your town. I’ll do anything.”
From the way the woman said it Trev had a feeling he knew exactly what she was offering, and the sick feeling in his gut got worse. He’d never even considered going to a prostitute or paying for sex, but even if he had he’d never forgive himself if he forced this woman to resort to such a desperate act just to survive.
Nothing up to this point had come close to driving home the point of just how bad things had become, or how much worse things would become before they got better. If they ever did. And Trev’s resolve completely vanished in the face of his disgust at himself. “No, it’s all right,” he said quickly, “I’ll bring you in. We can’t let you stay, I’m sorry, but at least we can give you a meal and a bed and maybe some food to help you get to Price.”
Her hopelessness was replaced by an almost absurd look of relief and gratitude, and seeing it Trev had to look away again, for some reason feeling even more guilty than with her begging. “Oh thank you, thank you! I won’t cause any trouble, I promise. I’m a good person, I’ll get along. And maybe when you see that you’ll let me stay.”
Trev didn’t respond, and he still couldn’t look at her as he realized why he felt so awful. How many other good people would they have to turn away? Would his neighbors have any more stomach for the task than he did? He could convince himself it was just one person he was bringing in, and just a single meal and maybe a few provisions, but there’d be more situations like this in the future. Probably every day if things among the refugee groups on the highway were as bad as this woman made it sound. With so many they wouldn’t even be able to offer a meal to most, which meant they’d either have to turn away people in this same sort of desperate circumstance, or try to help and end up starving along with them.
But then he’d known it would come to this from the moment he joined Lewis in arguing that point at the town meeting. The expression “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” had never felt more applicable.
“I’m Trev,” he said, offering her his hand.
She took it with both hers and clasped it like a lifeline. “Amanda Townsend, but call me Mandy. Thank you!”
Trev retrieved his hand as quickly as he could without being rude, and to disguise it finished his earlier motion of reaching into his daypack to pull out a bag of jerky and his water bottle. Mandy accepted them almost reverently, although she wasted no time in lifting the stainless steel container to her cracked lips and swallowing in desperate gulps.
In spite of her sunburn and grime she was an attractive woman, although considering her earlier offer it almost felt wrong to notice that.
He walked a few steps away while she ate and drank and pulled the radio off his belt. “Trevor Smith on the northern border here,” he said. “Can you send someone else to take my place out here for a few hours? I’m bringing in a refugee, over.”
There was a long silence, then an unfamiliar female voice said “You’re kidding, right? The same Trev who pretty much demanded we turn away refugees at the town meeting?”
Trev felt his face flushing. “She’s about to collapse from exhaustion and deprivation. I thought we could at least give her a meal and a place to spend the night before sending her on her way.”
The reply came after another uncomfortably long silence. “Oh okay. That seems like the Christian thing to do.” He wondered if that was sarcastic. “By “we” I assume you mean “me and Lewis” can give her food and a place to stay, right?”
“Yeah, I do,” Trev replied with a sigh. He’d intended to feed Mandy with his own food from the start, but whoever it was on the other end of the radio didn’t have to make him sound like such a tool. Then again he was going directly against what he’d publicly said earlier. “Over and out.”