was time to accomplish her first chore of the day: milking the goats.
And she used to complain about early flight briefings? At least no one required her to be mentally alert while tugging on goat nipples. It had gotten to the point where she could milk the herd in her sleep—which was likely to be the case this morning. Her body was not happy after the physical exertion she’d put it through yesterday. Not happy at all. She’d be lucky if she could walk. The people who sheltered her understood little about physical therapy. Yet Cam knew that if she wanted to heal, if she wanted to get strong again, she’d have to force herself through the daily torture disguised as training. She looked at her hands: scratched, chapped, swollen in spots from frequent falls. Those hands had once held the throttle of an F-16. Those hands now milked goats. What would her hands be doing in five years? Ten? Fifty? Did people live that long anymore? Did they want to?
Once, her hopes and dreams for her life had stretched out like a wide-open country road in front of her. She’d known exactly where she was going, and how she was going to get there; all she had to do was follow the path.Now she couldn’t see much past the tip of her nose. She hated driving blind.
“Well,” she whispered to herself, emphasizing her Southern accent, which in truth she’d been losing slowly over time, “it sure don’t matter now, Miss Scarlet, does it?” Scarlet was spelled with a single T because the guys in her fighter squadron who’d given her the call sign and written the name on her helmet hadn’t known
Gone with the Wind
from the Weather Channel. “Now you milk goats.”
A one-way ticket to hell—that was what she’d surely bought that day the missile slammed into her F-16. One minute she was running for her life through thick North Korean forests; the next she was here, in a cold, remote, postapocalyptic no-man’s-land. Everything else was one big, fat, useless chunk missing from her memory.
“I can always tell when you’re thinking about the past.”
Cam rolled over. A pretty seventeen-year-old girl smiled at her from the adjacent bed. “Zhurihe! When did you get home?”
“A few hours ago.” Zhurihe gave a distinctive tiny sneeze that ended in a squeak.
Cam smiled. “Allergies again.”
Eyes watering, Zhurihe smiled. “They stay with me after I visit certain places.”
Cam knew better than to ask just where those
certain places
were, or what she’d done while there. The girl disappeared with no warning for days, and once for weeks at a time. “Mushroom picking again?”
“Uh-huh,” Zhurihe replied.
Yeah, right.
The girl’s response brought back Cam’schildhood memories of sneaking off to find her brothers behind the old tumbledown tobacco barn. They’d bribed her with Krispy Kremes so she wouldn’t make a peep about catching them chewing and smoking when they were supposed to be off picking blackberries. Cam had a strong feeling that Zhurihe hadn’t been picking mushrooms, that she never was. The girl was a pretty teenager with a baby face and braids that made her look even younger, but something about that face looked mischievous. Cam had no proof, only a nagging feeling that there was a missing piece in the puzzle. Yet it was on one of her supposed mushroom-picking missions that Zhurihe claimed she’d discovered Cam buried under the permafrost, snug in her high-tech casket.
At the same time, despite her sporadic tenancy here and Cam’s moments of doubt, Zhurihe remained an emotional anchor, and had been ever since Cam had been set adrift in this world she no longer recognized. Zhurihe was a Mongol name that translated to
heart
in English, a fitting label for this teenager who was, bless her heart, equal parts instructor, guide, cheerleader, and a shoulder to cry on. That Zhurihe—and everyone else in Mongolia—spoke perfect English was a mystery in itself, something about a long-dead king who’d unified all of
And she used to complain about early flight briefings? At least no one required her to be mentally alert while tugging on goat nipples. It had gotten to the point where she could milk the herd in her sleep—which was likely to be the case this morning. Her body was not happy after the physical exertion she’d put it through yesterday. Not happy at all. She’d be lucky if she could walk. The people who sheltered her understood little about physical therapy. Yet Cam knew that if she wanted to heal, if she wanted to get strong again, she’d have to force herself through the daily torture disguised as training. She looked at her hands: scratched, chapped, swollen in spots from frequent falls. Those hands had once held the throttle of an F-16. Those hands now milked goats. What would her hands be doing in five years? Ten? Fifty? Did people live that long anymore? Did they want to?
Once, her hopes and dreams for her life had stretched out like a wide-open country road in front of her. She’d known exactly where she was going, and how she was going to get there; all she had to do was follow the path.Now she couldn’t see much past the tip of her nose. She hated driving blind.
“Well,” she whispered to herself, emphasizing her Southern accent, which in truth she’d been losing slowly over time, “it sure don’t matter now, Miss Scarlet, does it?” Scarlet was spelled with a single T because the guys in her fighter squadron who’d given her the call sign and written the name on her helmet hadn’t known
Gone with the Wind
from the Weather Channel. “Now you milk goats.”
A one-way ticket to hell—that was what she’d surely bought that day the missile slammed into her F-16. One minute she was running for her life through thick North Korean forests; the next she was here, in a cold, remote, postapocalyptic no-man’s-land. Everything else was one big, fat, useless chunk missing from her memory.
“I can always tell when you’re thinking about the past.”
Cam rolled over. A pretty seventeen-year-old girl smiled at her from the adjacent bed. “Zhurihe! When did you get home?”
“A few hours ago.” Zhurihe gave a distinctive tiny sneeze that ended in a squeak.
Cam smiled. “Allergies again.”
Eyes watering, Zhurihe smiled. “They stay with me after I visit certain places.”
Cam knew better than to ask just where those
certain places
were, or what she’d done while there. The girl disappeared with no warning for days, and once for weeks at a time. “Mushroom picking again?”
“Uh-huh,” Zhurihe replied.
Yeah, right.
The girl’s response brought back Cam’schildhood memories of sneaking off to find her brothers behind the old tumbledown tobacco barn. They’d bribed her with Krispy Kremes so she wouldn’t make a peep about catching them chewing and smoking when they were supposed to be off picking blackberries. Cam had a strong feeling that Zhurihe hadn’t been picking mushrooms, that she never was. The girl was a pretty teenager with a baby face and braids that made her look even younger, but something about that face looked mischievous. Cam had no proof, only a nagging feeling that there was a missing piece in the puzzle. Yet it was on one of her supposed mushroom-picking missions that Zhurihe claimed she’d discovered Cam buried under the permafrost, snug in her high-tech casket.
At the same time, despite her sporadic tenancy here and Cam’s moments of doubt, Zhurihe remained an emotional anchor, and had been ever since Cam had been set adrift in this world she no longer recognized. Zhurihe was a Mongol name that translated to
heart
in English, a fitting label for this teenager who was, bless her heart, equal parts instructor, guide, cheerleader, and a shoulder to cry on. That Zhurihe—and everyone else in Mongolia—spoke perfect English was a mystery in itself, something about a long-dead king who’d unified all of
Similar Books
