Never Too Far by Thomas Christopher

way.” Nahum pointed behind him over the hill. “My place is not too far from here. Why don’t you come for something to eat? You look half starved.” 
    A meal sounded good, and it would make the meager amount of food they had left last longer, hopefully until they got to the forest where he could hunt for something. Still, he wasn’t sure it was worth the risk to go off with this very odd man.
    “Don’t trust me, huh?”
    Nahum shoved his hand in his frayed pants, pulled out a handful of bullets, and flung them all into the river.
    “Frisk me. No more ammo.”
    He held his arms out in invitation, but Joe didn’t move.
    “Here, ” Nahum said, “take the rifle.”
    He planted it right in Joe’s chest.
    “You got no more excuses.”

 
     
    Chapter 12
     
     
     
    A while later, farther down the river from where they met Nahum, they arrived at a raft laid up on the bank. It was across the river from the trees where the smoke was rising. In the center of the river was a dry mud flat that shined like a dull sheet of tin as the water flowed around it in two thick channels.
    “Can I make it across?” Joe said.
    “Bring the horses and leave the wagon,” he said. “Don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen to it. You’re the first person I’ve seen along here in a year.”
    “I can’t take that chance.”
    Nahum waved his hand in the air with a dramatic flourish. “Drive on, then,” he said.
    Joe couldn’t tell if Nahum was annoyed or if that was just the way he acted.
    “I know a place to stash it,” Nahum added.
    They rode until they came to a rocky outcropping that stuck out of the ground near the river. That’s where they left the wagon. Joe led the horses as they walked back to the raft, where Nahum heaved it into the water and used a pole to push himself across.
    Joe looked at Mary and said, “We got to take the horses across, okay? So I got to help you up. I’m just going to lift you up. That’s all.”
    The floppy hat nodded.
    Joe scooped Mary up in his arms. He was surprised at how light her body felt, despite her big stomach and the child inside. He thought it would weigh her down more. Once he swung her up onto Lester’s swayed back, she immediately tossed her leg over his neck and sat straddling him like she’d done it a thousand times before. That surprised him too, just like the way she took care of the horses after the duster. In truth, anything she did was a surprise, at least until he learned more about her.
    Joe scrambled on the back of Sam and they waded slowly through the river. At its deepest point, the water only came to the horses’ knees. Evening approached and the sun dropped lower, but the air was still hot. On the opposite shore they weaved through a cluster of trees until they came to a mound of patchy brown grass with a brick chimney sticking out. A stream of white smoke rose from the top. Behind the chimney was a rusty windmill that looked as if it might topple over any second.
    “It’s an old bunker from a long time ago,” Nahum said, “when everybody thought the world was going to end.”
    He laughed and grabbed the black metal ring on the wooden hatch and yanked it open. They walked down a set of crumbling steps until they reached the floor of the bunker. It looked like a root cellar and certainly smelled like one. Musty and earthy. Above a wood table, a lone lamp hung from a rafter along the low ceiling. The lamp burned with a bright halo that quickly weakened before it reached into the bunker’s dark corners. On the stovetop sat a steaming pot of what smelled like boiling fish. Joe stayed stooped over, keeping his head bent so he wouldn’t bang it on a rafter. He felt like a mole in an underground burrow. And when he watched Nahum rummaging for cups and plates, the strange man sort of resembled a mole himself. His broad hands were like a mole’s flippers, and his bearded face was like a whiskered snout.  
    Joe noticed Mary moving off to a dusky corner,