Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

dig it out, though.”
    “Crap. I need to get moving.”
    “Could probably rig something up, do the same work as a jack. Some levers and blocks, maybe.”
    “Sounds good.”
    “How’re you payin’ for the work?”
    “Um, kale seeds?”
    “That’s your rent money for staying here. What else you got?”
    I thought for a moment. “There’re some crates in the back of the truck. We only opened two, but one of them had shotgun shells in it. You get the tire changed, and I’ll split the truck’s load fifty-fifty with you. Ammo’s worth a fortune if you can find someone to trade with.”
    Mary Sue cupped her hands around Eli’s ear, whispering something.
    He recoiled from her, a growl rattling from his throat. “We do that, we ain’t no better than the Peckerwoods.”
    I watched them carefully, looking away only when Mary Sue shot me a murderous glare. Why was she hating on me? I hadn’t done anything.
    Getting the truck jacked up and the tire changed took most of the day. First we had to bend the wheel well away from the tire using a wrecking bar Eli provided. We made a long, heavy lever out of a pair of two-by-ten rafters scavenged from the barn. Then we spent hours digging up patio pavers from the frozen ground at the back of the house to use as a fulcrum and blocks.
    Improvising a makeshift tire iron was much easier—we used an adjustable wrench and a length of galvanized iron pipe cut from the basement.
    We still had to actually jack up the truck. We wedged our lever under the truck just behind the blown wheel and stacked pavers under it to use as a fulcrum. More than twelve feet of the lever protruded from under the truck, angled upward so steeply that we had to reach above our heads to grab it. Using the lever, Eli, Ben, and I could raise the corner of the truck by ourselves, even though I was only using my left arm. We couldn’t raise it very far, though. Brand rushed to stack pavers under the truck. Then we let the truck back down and reset our fulcrum to lift it again. It took seven or eight lifts to finally get the truck high enough to swap the tires. Then we had to lift the truck again while Brand cleared all the blocks out from under it.
    “You ready to split up the load?” Eli said.
    “Yeah.” I helped him drag the wooden crates out of the truck’s load bed. We stacked the crates on the packed snow outside. As I went to move one of the last crates out of the back of the truck, something shifted, and I heard a metallic clunk. Something had been buried under the pile of crates. I couldn’t see exactly what it was, so I grabbed it and carried it out into the light.
    “Son of a mangy coyote bitch,” Eli said when he saw what I was holding. Then we started laughing. I held the truck’s hydraulic jack and tire iron. Instead of stowing the jack in the toolbox, the Peckerwoods had just tossed it in the load bed.
    Four of the crates held manacles; all the rest were loaded with ammo. We split everything down the middle, as agreed, although that probably made it the most fabulously expensive tire change in history. Unfortunately it was all rifle and shotgun loads, and all I had was a pistol. That gave me an idea, “You have any long guns I could trade for?”
    “No way,” Eli replied. “Just got the rifle and revolver you already saw. Can’t afford to give either of them up, not for any price.”
    So much for that idea. We resealed all the crates—I didn’t want the ammo flying everywhere if we hit a pothole or something. By that time the dim daylight was fading to night. We’d have to wait for morning to leave. Navigating unknown roads in a truck I could barely drive would be impossible in the pitch-black postvolcanic night. My anxiety increased with every day that passed—every day that Darla had to endure the Peckerwoods.

Chapter 58
    I woke with a start. Something had touched my head. I slept using my backpack as a pillow; now, by the light cast by the embers of our fire, I saw the pale gleam of an arm being withdrawn from my pack.
    I whipped out my left arm, caught the intruding arm, and twisted. I heard a high-pitched moan as I forced the intruder’s arm behind her back, bringing her to the floor with a thump. I rolled over onto her, controlling her legs with mine. They weren’t really taekwondo moves, but we had practiced ground fighting occasionally at my dojang.
    I leaned down and whispered in her ear, lacing my words with sarcasm, “You needed something from my