4 Chapter 4

“I’d love to,” Elijah said, getting up from the table, “but I should probably get my shit together. Like you said, a hundred miles is gonna seem mighty far on a day like this.”

I gaped. My mouth fell open, but I couldn’t think of any words to push through it that weren’t rude. Eventually I settled on, “What?”

“What ‘what’? I told you, I have to be there.”

“Yeah, I know, but…I have to get a haircut and scoop my cat’s litter box, but I’m not gonna be able to get either one of those things done today.”

“This is a little more important…”

“Maybe, but no less impossible. Look out there! There’s no way.”

“People did it in covered wagons. I can do it in a rental car.”

“Covered wagons? Those people had to eat each other when they got stuck in weather like this!”

“One time.”

“That we know about!” I started laughing. “That’s your threshold? Not zero? If you have to eat your fellow travelers to survive, you’re okay with that as long as it’s only the one time?”