Unsheltered Clare Moleta (book club books .txt) 📖

Li lifted the circuit board out. She wouldn’t be trading today – she just needed to get away from this mess before anyone saw what she had. She stepped out of the box, shielding her salvage awkwardly with her pack, and started moving away. Slowly, nothing attention-grabbing. Now four people from the queue had weapons turned on the rest. An older woman with a handgun, a man with curly hair and a meat cleaver. The bearded guy who’d told her not to jump the queue had a knife to the throat of the middle-aged man and was twisting one of his arms up hard behind his back. A girl in a beanie stood clear, aiming a hammer-grip slingshot.

The rest of the queue scattered down the street. Li was dissolving with them, she was almost at the first abandoned shopfront when she heard Stokes’ voice behind her.

Oi. Stick woman. Not you.

She stopped.

Come on back here and show us what you got.

Li thought, Goddammit. Went back slowly. Stokes watched her come.

The older man was still on his hands and knees, wheezing, spit coming out of his mouth. A woman came forward and knelt beside him, dabbing at his eyes with her scarf. Please, she said, will he be blind?

The operator, glanced down from packing her gear into a duffel bag. He’ll be fine, just keep flushing his eyes.

The woman helped him up, led him away.

I saw you working away in there, all low-key, Stokes said to Li. Let’s see it then. She brought out the terminal block. Let her see it, he said.

Li passed it to the operator who turned it over in her hands and shrugged. Didn’t give it back. I can get us that kind of scrap with one call, she said.

And? Stokes looked at Li. She gave up the circuit board. Well, I’m not, like, an expert or anything, he said, but this looks like a decent bit of tech. Looks like the sort of thing you should have spotted, Jas.

The operator put her hands on her hips. Hey, Stokes, you think this crew’d do better without me, you just let me know.

Stokes looked at her for a minute. The bearded guy was folding up the card table, the girl was keeping lookout for something at the point where the road opened out to the highway again. The other two had wandered over.

I bet you can patch too, Stokes said to Li. So what do you think? Would we do better with you?

Did he expect her to weigh in on this little power struggle? She just wanted to be gone from here, if not with her salvage then with the rest of her stuff. If they took her pack she would die of cold before thirst or hunger got a look in. So it was important to answer right.

Serious question, Stokes said. Are you a better patcher than Jasmine?

A stillness in the group, the operator’s expression unreadable. Li was tired of it suddenly. They would do what they were going to do.

She said, I don’t know what she patches like. She can’t salvage for shit.

Stokes started laughing quietly.

Abruptly, Jasmine laughed too. Gutsy move, she said, and dropped the terminal block at Li’s feet in a soft explosion of dust.

From up the road the girl whistled. The operator shouldered her bag and walked towards her, ignoring the crates and the table. The others collected them as they followed, like picking up after her was routine.

Just Stokes left now, but he had the sawn-off and enough ammo to waste shots. Which way you headed?

She thought about lying, jerked her head east.

Going against the flow. I like it. You should come with us.

Li stiffened.

I’m not telling you. It’s an invitation. We could use you.

I’m not interested.

He nodded. But you want to get somewhere, right? She followed his gaze out to the highway and saw a ball of dust barrelling towards them. Stokes grinned at her. We’ve got wheels.

Then she was lifted, flying, and the road was not an endless obstacle ahead of her but a means to cover distance. To raise dust instead of choking on it.

She didn’t ride up front like she’d imagined but in the tray of the ute with the canvas top pulled down over the frame. Her and Stokes and the other four, plus swags and packs and strapped-down fifty-litre water containers. She watched the highway through the dusty plastic windows in the canvas, scanning and discounting the groups that blurred past on foot. She wasn’t expecting to see them this soon but she looked anyway. She would know her just by her walking.

They sat with their backs to the sides of the tray, like on a taxi, their personal gear stowed between their legs. The curly-haired guy was Lucas, the older woman was Eileen, the girl in the beanie was Mira, and the one with the beard was Dev. A dusty kelpie curled between them with its head on Mira’s feet. The operator, Jasmine, rode shotgun with the driver, a baby-faced man in his thirties called Shaun. No one talked much after Stokes did the introductions – the ride was too loud and the dust worked its way in through the canvas seams, so it was better to keep your mouth shut. Li figured there’d be time to ask about the children walking later. Right now, this was enough.

Mira’s head lolled onto Dev’s shoulder. In sleep she looked even younger – not more than fifteen. Dev handed round a bottle. It came to Li, too, and she drank. The water had a stored taste but it was clean. Lucas griped quietly to Stokes about Jasmine but Stokes’ attention was always on the road. Like hers.

Eileen rested a folded newspaper on her pack, doing the crosswords between bumps. She was greying but it was hard to pick her age. Older than the others, Li thought, and carrying her damage deeper. Once she banged on the cab window