“Good girl,” said Curran, and began licking his own pouch, which he’d emptied almost as fast as the dog had. Then he let go a sonorous belch.
“Compliments to the cook,” said Arie, and belched herself.
“I wish I could eat three more,” said Kory.
Renna tossed her empty pouch to Talus for final cleanup. “I’m so tired, I don’t think I could keep chewing,” she said.
“I’m with you,” said Arie. “We’re so done in, I think we’d better all sleep.”
“No watch?” asked Curran.
“I think for this one night we could let Talus act as watch.” She gave the dog several solid pats and scratched her rump. Talus’s hind leg thudded happily. “If any of us wakes up and feels able to watch awhile, we’ll do that.”
No one argued.
Their bedding was spread together in the center of the tarp—two sleeping bags and a couple of bedrolls they’d thrown together at the cabin before they bugged out. Moments later, they were bundled together and within seconds Kory began snoring. The night was partly clear, and Arie stared up at the stars visible in wide gaps between the clouds. The sound of the ocean seemed more distinct now, too, even with the boy on one side of her and Curran nearby, already breathing heavily. A shooting star streaked across an open space, quick and luminous.
“Wow,” breathed Renna. “Did you see it?”
Arie hadn’t known anyone else was still awake. She groped for Renna’s hand and squeezed.
“Make a wish,” she whispered.
When she opened her eyes, it was already early morning, and Handy had stoked another fire. Arie climbed out of the bedding, taking care not to disturb everyone else. When she tried to straighten, she groaned, putting both hands to her stiff back. She walked to Handy in a literal hobble.
“I don’t think I moved a muscle all night,” she said, turning her head one direction then the other, working out the kinks.
“Me, too,” said Handy. With the onset of day, he’d made a bigger blaze than the previous night’s.
Arie bent to it, glad for the warmth on her hands and face.
“What do you think about showing Kory the ocean today?” said Handy.
“Of course,” said Arie. “I’m yearning to lay eyes on it myself.” She shook her head. “Haven’t seen it since the Pink hit. Two years? That seems impossible.” She stared west, as if she could peer through the shoulder-high vegetation and spot the shore from where she stood. “We made remarkable time yesterday,” she said. “We need a slower day today.”
“If we play our cards right, we might be able to find clams.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “That’s a grand idea. What a treat that would be.” Her mouth began to water.
He’d made tea, and now poured some into a mug. “Cheers,” he said.
She took it gratefully and blew on the surface while he got himself a cup. “We were damned lucky yesterday,” she whispered.
Handy nodded, holding the cup in both hands. Steam rose from it in lazy tendrils. “I can’t even calculate the odds.”
“And what do you imagine the odds are that they’ll trace us here?” She glanced over at Kory, who was still nothing but a boy-shaped lump in the blankets.
“I think we’re in a fair position,” he said. “Assuming they managed to find the Wallace place when they left the Webb cabin, they’d likely see it as a place to stay for at least a night, to stock up.”
“We certainly left them plenty,” said Arie. Their departure had been hurried, but as methodical as she could manage under the circumstances. They’d left a massive heap of goods lying in plain sight. “Chasing us, they’ve been sleeping rough a while now, I guarantee it. If they find the cabin, they’ll slow down for at least a few extra hours.”
“We left plenty of temptation,” said Handy.
They drank their tea in silence awhile. Handy smiled and pointed up. A snowy egret glided past, its improbably gangly legs pointed straight out behind it. It landed out at the edge of the highway where a creek must have formed, ready to stand patiently until breakfast presented itself.
Less than an hour later, the five of them, plus Talus, were huddled on their bellies in the dunes above the beach, weighing their options.
The strand was deep and wide. To their left, an impassible formation of rock jutted out into the surf almost fifty feet. To their right, an open beach stretched north for miles, as far as they could see. And everywhere across the sand—singly, in pairs, or in huddled groups of three or four—were other people.
Arie couldn’t tear her attention away from them. They’re everywhere, her mind yammered, as if she were staring at an innumerable crowd. In reality, there were probably a score of people, altogether. But oh, it had been long and long since she’d clapped eyes on so many together in one place.
“They’re clamming,” said Handy. “It’s the perfect time.”
“I don’t know,” said Renna. Her eyes roamed from one tiny group of people to another. “It’s really exposed down there.”
“Look, though,” said Curran. “Watch them for a second.”
Arie realized then what he was seeing. “They’re all on guard,” she said.
“Exactly,” said Curran.
It was true. Whether it was a single person working alone, or a small group pooling their efforts, every head was in motion. Every eye was scanning everyone else. It was a weird dance of hopeful trust and fearful suspicion, an uneasy alliance that said, I will do what I need to do, you will do what you need to do, and we’ll all mind our own damned business.
“You’re right,” said Arie. “Let’s go.” They rose from the dunes and made their way down the slope to the strand. Curran ordered Talus—now at full alert, nose up and testing the air—to heel. Kory walked close to Handy, goggling everywhere at once. They kept going until they’d reached the edge of the surf.
“There it is, my friend,” said Renna. She ruffled Kory’s hair. “What do you think?”
The boy had apparently forgotten, for a moment, the strangers on the beach. He stared at the moving water, mouth slightly agape. The heavy sky reflected onto the surface so that everything was gray. The tide was rough and choppy, flinging itself against the nearby rocky outcrop in great gobbets of spray and foam.
When the edge of the surf lapped up the strand, Renna grabbed Kory’s sleeve and pulled him backward a few feet to keep from being doused to the knee. She was laughing, and Kory’s wary, watchful face began to soften. She ran at the surf, grabbed a sand dollar and a heavy scallop shell, and then darted away again. “Look!” she told him. She handed him each shell in turn, explaining what they were. He handled them almost reverently, and when the next wave receded, he ran out to the tide-line and collected some souvenirs of his own.
Arie glanced around from the corner of her eye. She could see they were being intermittently watched by a few nearby people. An older couple several yards away had an actual clamming rake, and they worked industriously to keep their haul out of sight. A man who looked to be in his early twenties worked by himself, doing far more digging than finding. As Arie watched, he managed to pull up a razor clam with an exuberant whoop; instead of a bucket, he dropped the clam into a bright-purple plastic mold, something a child once would have used to make a sand castle.
She was about to look away when she realized another man, fifty feet or so down the strand, was watching them openly. When he saw her looking, he didn’t glance hastily away—as everyone else was doing—but instead smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. Arie continued to look right at him, but didn’t respond to his gesture.
“Don’t look around,” she said quietly, hardly moving her lips. Curran and Handy, standing nearby, kept doing what they were doing—Curran tossing a stick for Talus, and Handy watching Renna and Kory play tag with the surf—but Arie could tell by their postures that they’d heard her. “There’s a gang down to the right, keeping a sharp eye on us.” Arie picked up a couple of pieces of driftwood and put them in her pocket, as if collecting souvenirs.