Chapter Twenty?Eight — Thirst on the Wind

  The morning after Jonah tended Miles’s ribs dawned hard and pale, the sky washed out by a thin smear of cloud that promised heat, not rain. The wagon train rolled out in silence, the way?station’s charred skeleton shrinking behind them as they pushed deeper into land that felt older, harsher, and less forgiving by the mile.

  By mid?morning, the air tasted wrong.

  Dry. Metallic. Like the world itself was running out of breath.

  Finch called a halt near a patch of brittle grass. The oxen collapsed gratefully into the shade of a crooked outcrop. Jonah walked ahead to help water them — and froze.

  Miles saw it too.

  The water barrel. The largest one. The one the entire ration plan depended on.

  It lay on its side in the dust.

  Dry.

  Completely, impossibly dry.

  Jonah swore under his breath. “No… no, no— Finch!”

  Finch stormed over, face flushed with heat and fury. He knelt hard, thrusting his hand into the empty barrel, then yanked it back as though the dryness itself had burned him.

  “How?” someone cried behind them. “We filled that two days ago!”

  “It can’t be empty—!”

  “Is it leaking? Did it crack?”

  Finch inspected every stave, every iron hoop. Nothing. Not a fracture. Not a weak seam.

  “Then where did it go?” Mrs. Dunne whispered.

  Miles’s stomach twisted. “Someone used it.”

  “Or spilled it,” Jonah said.

  Finch shot him a dark look. “Nobody spills thirty gallons.”

  Fear rippled through the group — not panic yet, but close. Children tugged at their mothers’ skirts. A baby wailed, sensing the rising tension. Esther’s face tightened as she held her son closer.

  Miles swallowed thickly. “We still have the two smaller barrels.”

  Finch shook his head. “One’s half full. The other’s less.”

  Jonah’s jaw clenched. “That’s not enough for two days, let alone four.”

  “And the only water source we know is behind us,” Esther said quietly.

  They all knew what that meant.

  No one wanted to say it.

  Miles did.

  “We can’t go back,” he whispered. “The riders would kill us before we reached the basin.”

  Finch’s silence was answer enough.

  The Blame Begins

  The murmurs started small.

  Then grew.

  “They used too much—” “They’re wasting water—” “No, someone’s hoarding it—” “Check everyone’s barrels— check their canteens—!”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Finch slammed the butt of his rifle into a wagon wheel. “Enough!”

  The camp fell silent.

  “We don’t turn on each other,” Finch growled. “Not now.”

  But fear makes people foolish. And thirst makes people cruel.

  Soft arguments broke out anyway. People glared at neighbors. One man accused another of taking extra for his livestock. A woman cried that her children were sweating through their blankets at night and needed more water.

  Miles felt the tension rise like a tightening noose.

  Jonah stepped in front of him instinctively — protective without thinking. Miles’s chest warmed at that, even through the fear.

  “Everyone calm down,” Jonah said firmly. “We ration. We hunt water like we hunt game. We make a plan.”

  “Plan?” someone snapped. “We need a miracle!”

  Esther lifted her chin. “We have survived every danger so far. We will survive this too.”

  But Miles could see the fear behind her eyes.

  And he felt something else too.

  A tug.

  A whisper.

  A memory of Ptesá?’s warning.

  Where the wind hides. Where sound does not stay.

  Not the basin. Somewhere ahead.

  Somewhere worse.

  Finch Makes the Call

  Finch took a long breath, wiped dust from his mouth, and faced the company.

  “Listen close,” he said. “We move light and fast. We cut rations again — adults get half of half. Children get what’s left.”

  Mothers paled. Men lowered their heads. Jonah’s hand tightened into a fist.

  Miles’s stomach sank further when Finch continued:

  “We don’t stop until we reach the foothills. There’s a spring marked on my map — an old trapper’s note says it’s reliable.”

  “How far?” Jonah asked quietly.

  Finch’s jaw flexed. “A day if we push hard. Two if the oxen slow.”

  Miles glanced at the swaying animals in the heat. “More like two.”

  Finch didn’t deny it.

  “Get ready to move,” he ordered. “We walk until dark.”

  A Private Moment in the Heat

  Miles and Jonah returned to their wagon to gather canteens. Jonah opened his, frowned, and shook it gently.

  A thin slosh. Barely enough for a swallow.

  He passed it to Miles. “Here. Take it.”

  Miles shoved it back. “No.”

  “Take it,” Jonah repeated, voice firmer.

  “You need it more.”

  “I’m not hurting like you are,” Jonah said pointedly. “And you can’t hide pain from me anymore.”

  Miles’s face flushed. “Jonah—”

  Jonah stepped closer — close enough that Miles could see the dust smudged along his jaw, the bruise blooming from last night’s fight, the heat behind his eyes.

  “You listen to me, alright?” Jonah said quietly. “I’m not letting you collapse out there. Not from bullets. Not from bruises. And especially not from thirst.”

  Miles swallowed hard, something tight and fragile breaking in his chest.

  “I told you,” Jonah murmured. “You’re not alone.”

  Miles’s voice cracked. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

  Jonah shook his head, stepped even closer, and cupped the side of Miles’s jaw with his palm — gentle, careful, grounding.

  “That’s not how caring works.”

  Miles’s breath caught.

  Jonah let his hand linger for a moment longer, thumb brushing lightly against Miles’s cheek, before stepping back.

  “Drink,” Jonah said, voice soft but steady. “Please.”

  Miles did.

  Only a sip.

  But Jonah watched him like that sip was the most important moment of the day.

  The Road Ahead

  Finch shouted. The wagons creaked. The oxen groaned.

  Miles and Jonah fell into step beside each other as the company moved out, the sun growing heavier above them.

  Thirst gnawed at everyone. Fear stalked the slow steps. The air shimmered with heat.

  Miles touched the charm beneath his shirt.

  Help the weak place, Ptesá? had said.

  Walk the true path.

  Miles wasn’t sure where that path led.

  But as the wagons lurched forward into the shimmering heat, and Jonah brushed Miles’s hand with his own — just a whisper of touch — Miles knew one thing for certain:

  He wasn’t walking it alone.

  Not anymore.