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propped
the rifle in a corner by the back door.  He opened a cupboard and took down two
whiskey glasses and a bottle of Maker’s Mark.  The cupboard’s top shelf was
crammed with extra bottles.  There were even more bottles in the cellar, a lot
more, pilfered loot from abandoned neighboring cabins.  He’d transported the
booze to his place years ago, powerless against a compulsion to stockpile the
stuff despite having abstained since before the apocalypse.
              Even after the very
long dry period, he remained wary of imbibing again, fearful it would trigger a
recurrence of old problems.  But so many of those problems were rooted in old
world circumstances that no longer applied.  And this was a situation that
called for whiskey, a thing he understood on a gut level.
              Noah set the glasses on
the table, poured two fingers of bourbon into each, put the bottle in the
middle of the table, and sat back down.
              The man picked up one
of the glasses and sipped from it.  “Good stuff.  Thank you.”
              “You’re welcome.”
              “I’m Nick, by the way.”
              Noah nodded.  “You know
my name, I guess.”
              Nick picked up his
glass again, taking another small sip.  “Yeah, you’re Noah.  I’ve heard plenty
about you these last few months.”
              Noah grimaced.  “I can
imagine.”
              “Let’s get something
straight right off the bat,” Nick said, leaning forward and bracing his elbows
on the edge of the table.  “Your sister’s anger is misplaced and unfair.  I know
that.  There’s no way you could have come to her rescue.  That’s the common
sense side of it, the absolute truth, you and I know that, but your sister…” 
Nick shrugged.  “Look, I’ve got no plans to hurt you.  If Aubrey asks me to
kill you, well, I just ain’t gonna do it.  I was humoring her yesterday with
the warning shot business, but that’s as far as that goes.  And, shit, man, if
it were up to me, we might even become friends, maybe get together now and then
and work on drinking up all your bourbon.”
              Noah spent a few
moments digesting all this before saying, “But it’s not up to you.”
              Nick shook his head. 
“It’s not.”
              Noah knocked back the bourbon
in his glass and poured some more.  “Why do I get the feeling Aubrey’s message
is some kind of ultimatum?”
              “She wants you to
leave.  Doesn’t care where you go, just as long as it’s somewhere far away from
here.”
              “This is different from
what she told me yesterday.”
              A pained look crossed
Nick’s face.  “Yeah, well, I think seeing and talking to you again got her all
riled up.  She thinks you’ve got a sweet set-up here and wants to claim it for
herself.”
              “I’ve worked hard to
make this place what it is.  She’s got no right to it.”
              “I don’t disagree,
son.”  Nick pushed back from the table and folded his arms.  “In a fair
situation, I’d suggest sharing some of the wealth with us.  After all, you’ve
had a big head start on us in terms of scavenging the area and hoarding
supplies.  I’m sure you’re a fair-minded person and might even be okay with an
arrangement like that.  The problem is that Aubrey’s not interested in sharing. 
And like I said, I won’t kill you for her, but I can’t stop her from taking
matters into her own hands.”
              “You really think she’d
kill me?  My own sister?”
              Nick’s expression
turned grave.  “I think she might, yeah.”
              Noah fell silent for a
long stretch of moments.  He picked up the whiskey glass and held it in his
lap, squinting at the amber fluid inside it as if he could divine answers from
its