Watching the cloud of dust coming closer in the distance, I knew that we were in a tight spot. I looked down at the horses and considered saddling them up and making a run for it. The dun and my buckskin were in fine shape and could easily outrun the Eaters. We could have ten miles behind us before they could recover from their all-night run, but I knew that it would mean leaving the pack horses and most of the supplies. Those pack horses had been loaded down with supplies since we left Hooverville and we had pushed them harder than we should have on the push south. They were worn out and needed rest a couple days on good grass to recover before they would be their old selves again. They were in no shape for a hard run. We could pack some things with us on the saddle horses, but we were on the northern edge of the Badlands now and we would need everything we had just to survive.

I tried to get a good count of the men that were coming down on us. I had guessed that there were thirty, judging by the dust and guessing as I watched them come down on us through the haze of dust that they threw up, but as they came closer and I could make them out more clearly through Boone's binoculars I counted more like twenty or twenty-five. Each of them was painted white from head to toe, their hair greased back and shaved to either a thin Mohawk or a ponytail after the fashion of their ancestors. That paint they wore was made from powdered concrete or the grey mud that was often found along the rivers and streams of the plains. All of them had weapons in hand and they ran with a purpose. They had blood in their eyes and they were out to revenge their fallen comrades.

"Well, Cain," Boone said, "I'm open for any ideas."

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking."

The terrain was on our side, at least. The hill on which we sat was the highest point for at least five miles in any direction, the plain was mostly flat and open to the north of us, and the gully offered a natural fortification that we could take advantage of. I couldn't see many rifles among them yet, but they were still more than three-quarters of a mile away. Most of them seemed to be armed with the tomahawks, machetes, and improvised melee weapons that were their favored arms. Most of the gun traders that had been trading with the northern tribes avoided the Eaters at all costs. What few firearms they possessed had been procured through raids and attacks on passing caravans and ammunition was always in short supply in their ranks. I held my own rifle by the action in my left hand and for a moment I felt a chill at the thought of such a fine weapon falling into the hands of savages like them.

"There sure are a lot of 'em," Boone said, "I don't see many rifles."

I turned to reply to him and saw that he had his rifle up and was looking through the scope at the approaching war party. That scope was much more powerful than the binoculars and would offer a much better view. I had heard of those good scopes from the soldiers back at Hooverville. There weren't many of those in the tribes' hands and I'd heard that they made a man able to hit a target at several hundred yards away . . . and Boone was known for his marksmanship just as I was in the Fire Hairs.

"Boone, how good a shot are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you as good as they say you are?"

"I can take off a Blowfly's wings at six hundred yards, past that I'm more than fair."

"Good. I've got an idea."

I ran down the hill to the edge of the gully, Boone on my heels, and in a minute or so I was on one knee and taking aim. Boone dropped to his belly beside me and looked through his scope at the approaching party. I adjusted the sight on my rifle and took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and gently took up slack on the trigger. The Eaters were just over eight hundred yards out by now, almost to the edge of our range. Boone's Hunting Rifle could easily make shots at that distance, as could mine, but I didn't want to waste lead on long shots that may or may not score a hit. I let out another breath and slowly tightened my finger on the trigger, taking a sight on a man in the front of the group. He was a big man and carried a scrap metal axe that was almost as tall as me. I adjusted my aim so that my bullet would hit him somewhere in the chest, took a reading of the wind from the waving grass, and then let out another breath and squeezed off my shot.

Boone and I fired at the same instant and I saw two men drop from the front ranks. I levered another shell into the chamber and took quick aim at a man that looked like a leader, squeezed off another shot and a half-second later I saw him fall. Boone fired again and I saw a fourth man go down, then he bolted in another round and shot another man in the leg and brought him to his knees. The Eaters began to return fire, mostly with Cowboy Repeaters by the sound of the shots, but their bullets kicked dirt and thudded into the sod more than a hundred yards ahead of us. I fired two shots as fast as I could lever them in, dropping a man that was firing a repeater just as he was working the lever.

We fired our guns empty, but by then our shots were having the effect that I wanted. The Eaters were firing wildly at us, their bullets still falling far short of us, but by now they were spreading out and falling back out of rifle range. Boone slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle and took aim at the fleeing group, an act that I thought was foolish. They were retreating and must have been nine hundred yards away at least. I thumbed shells into my Medicine Stick and levered a round into the chamber as I watched him adjust his aim upward, ease down on the trigger, and move his rifle to match the movement of his target. I got out his binoculars again and watched the running men, who by now were either scurrying for cover or just running back towards the north, just in time to see a man grab for his throat and spin around, blood gushing from a hole in his neck, before falling to the ground. The echo of Boone's shot lost itself in the vastness of the open plains and he heard him curse as he worked the bolt and load another round.

"That was a great shot!"

"The hell it was. I was aiming for his head."

He fired three more shots, just as fast as he could work the bolt, and I saw the bullets cut the dirt at the feet of one man and within inches of another's head as he poked over a hummock of grass topped with a sage bush. The echoes of the shooting died away, Boone reloaded his gun again, then all was as quiet again.

The attack had been broken and the Eaters had been turned back, but I knew that we weren't out of the woods yet. I counted six men down and one wounded, which meant that it would soon be seven. If infection or blood loss didn't kill that wounded man, his comrades would. I had heard many stories about the Eaters killing their wounded and making them into supper. I had no sympathy for the poor bastard. He had come asking for it and would have killed us just as fast as we had killed him.

The war party had spread out and by now were probably working their way around us and closer to our position, although the plain made it almost impossible to do so without being spotted. They would probably wait for nightfall and sneak in under the cover of darkness. That's what I would do in their shoes. The sun was still high in the sky, but it was past noon and it was sinking slowly towards the west. Sunset was still several hours away, but like any Tribal warrior the Eaters would have an infinite patience born from years of training and waiting in ambush on lonely roads and trails. They would be out there somewhere, hiding in the tall grass and the dips of the land, waiting to come down on us as soon as the sun set and the plains were dark.

Two hours passed without incident. The sun was warm and there was very little wind, and the heat of midday made the gully hot and stuffy. My rifle grew hot in my hands and sweat stung my eyes but I didn't dare move to wipe it away. If we were watching for them then they were watching for us, probably inching their way toward us and watching us for even a tiny movement that could draw their fire. Our guns could easily out-distance theirs, but once within range a Cowboy Repeater could be deadly accurate.

"Some idea you had there, Cain. I wouldn't have thought of that."

"I remembered a story I heard about you. Something about you shooting a Radbuff at a thousand yards. A Plainsmen scout who was there to see it told me about it a year ago."

"I remember that guy. He was a decent shot himself."

"So it's true? About the long shot, I mean?"

"It was more like 950 yards, but close enough."

He turned to smile and a bullet cut the grass within three inches of his face. I saw the flash of the muzzle and the movement of the grass where the muzzle blast knocked it aside. I lifted my rifle and fired at the blast, then twice more to the right and left of the spot where the shot had come from. I heard a scream and saw a hand flop out from behind a clump of grass. I worked the lever and held my sight on the hand, but it didn't move and there was no further sound from its owner.

"You okay, Boone?"

"Yeah, he just knicked me a little. How far out?"

"About four hundred."

"Damn, these guys are good."

They were good. They were too damned good. At least one of them had managed to crawl nearly halfway to our position through the grass and done it without either of us noticing him do it. I'd crept up on enemies like that but had never been bold enough to try anything like that. That made eight men down on their side. It was a dear cost for even such a large war party to pay for two men. They had lost nearly half their number in trying to get at us and so far the both of us were unscathed, which in most tribes would be seen as a grievous defeat. Even one or two losses would mean a huge loss to the tribe and to the warrior or chief leading the party. They had come after us out of revenge, but now they would be shamed in defeat and want to kill us for spite. The treasure trove of gear and weapons that we carried would be a great prize as well.

The hours passed by and the sun sank lower and lower into the western sky, and as time went on there were few signs of our attackers. A shot came from a gully about three hundred yards west of us but the bullet went far wide and clipped dirt several yards from where I laid. Boone fired twice at the shooter and there were no more shots from him. He wasn't sure whether or not he had hit him but he definitely came close.

The sun sank deeper into the western horizon and the land began to be shrouded in shadow. The plains were as calm and as stoic as ever, the grass moving in infinite waves on the soft breeze and rolling away from horizon to horizon, indifferent to the doings of men and the struggles that we brought to the land. I heard Buck snort and stamp his feet back in the gully as he cropped the rich grass and splashed his nose into the gurgling stream as he drank. It never ceased to amaze me to see how calm and collected a horse could be even in the worst of circumstances. I've seen horses so skittish that the slightest movement in the grass could spook them into a dead run, while others could stand still and calm even in the midst of battle with the sounds of guns and the screams of wounded and dying men and the smell of gunpowder and blood in the air. Even while men were fighting and dying all around them, those horses would stand and crop grass as if nothing were wrong at all.

Thinking of Buck and the other horses drinking from the stream reminded me of how thirsty I was. All day I had been laying on my belly in the tall grass and had nothing to drink or eat since the early morning. My throat was dry and my tongue was swollen and sore in my mouth, and when I shifted my position slightly my stomach rumbled. I wanted desperately to get my canteen from my gear, but I didn't dare move. This was a kind of fighting at which I was much practiced and experienced. This was the kind of fighting where skillful shooting, physical strength, and martial skill all came second to the one most important attribute of a Tribal fighter: patience. I'd been in fights like this where hours could pass without a movement or a shot and ambushes where a man would have to lay in wait for several hours or even days at a time and scarcely move or make a sound while waiting for an enemy.

Hours continued to pass and the sun sank farther and farther into the horizon. The day grew cooler and the shadows grew long and I knew that our time was running short. Our enemies were out there somewhere, hiding in the tall grass just out of sight, and they weren't going anywhere. They were out there, just waiting for us to make a wrong move. Already they had gotten close twice. Once more careless move and one or both of us might catch a bullet between the eyes from some hidden sharpshooter. The Eaters had few guns and even less ammunition, taking all that they had from those that they raided, and in a short time any man among them that was lucky enough to have a good rifle could easily become an expert marksman.

Finally the sun began to sink down behind the hills enough to throw enough shadows to cover our withdrawal. Boone eased back in the grass and I threw shots at the most likely places where a man might be hiding. I heard a yelp from a hummock of dirt and fired two more shots to either side of the spot before I eased back down into the gully. They knew we were still in the fight, anyway.

The plains were darkening quickly and we had little time in which to act. We threw saddles over the horses and packed the few supplies that we had out onto the pack horses, drained a canteen each to quench our thirst and refilled them from the creek, and grabbed a few bites of jerky for our supper. A fire was out of the question and there was no time to cook a proper meal. The Eaters would be watching the gully and would be ready for an attack at any minute. The night was coming on fast and it would soon be too dark to see and that would be when they would rush us. Our marksmanship had kept them at bay all day and they had lost men in trying to come at us, but in the dark they could rush in on us and bring their numbers down on us. We would get a few of them, but there were still too many of them.

I ate the jerky a mouthful at a time, stuffing the leftovers into the pocket of my hunting shirt. My buckskins felt heavy and hot under the summer sun and they did little to keep out the heat of the day. I was still wearing my thick winter buckskins that had been made for the colder climate of the north. I had noticed that it was getting steadily warmer as we went south. I would have to make some lighter ones from the hide of a deer or a Splithorn once we took some down. I'd heard that the hide of Splithorn made good leather, but I had never had the opportunity to work with them. I slid my rifle into the boot and stepped into the saddle. I drew my revolver and checked the loads, finding it fully loaded. I held the gun in one hand and the reins in the other, tying the reins of the sorrel pack horse around the saddle horn so they wouldn't drag. Boone had the other pack horse and he held one of his pistols ready in hand, his rifle slung across his back and sitting his horse as well. Whatever action took place now would be close work, too close for a rifle, and we would have to be shooting on the run.

We sat our horses at the foot of the gully and waited for the perfect moment to move. If we left too early then we would be exposed in the dim light of dusk, but if we waited for the moment of darkness just after the sun sank fully behind the horizon then we would have a chance to move before they could see us. I knew they were creeping in close and that they would be ready to shoot on sight. Buck was tense and ready for a run after his day of rest and he stamped his foot in anticipation of the coming action. He was as much a fighter as I was and he was ready for whatever came next. I liked the feel of a good horse beneath me, the rough leather of the reins held tightly in my left hand, and the smooth feeling of the bone handles of my gun in my right. The gun was heavy but perfectly balanced and deadly accurate, the best pistol that I'd ever owned. I sat my saddle and waited for the sun to dip far enough into the horizon, feeling as tense as my horse for a good run.

Boone was in the lead, watching the sun sinking lower and lower. The plain grew dark and the sun became a glowing red disk amidst a field of yellows, golds, and oranges against the deep blue and black of the gathering night. Any other time it would have been indescribably beautiful, but I had too much on my mind to really appreciate it. Somewhere out there in the darkness there were enemies who wanted my blood and the blood of my friend and who would be coming down on us at any minute. Finally the disc sank behind the nearest hills and left only a faint glow in the sky. It was coming on to full dark and the moon would soon be rising, but for the next few minutes it would be almost too dark to see. Boone looked back at me and nodded, then touched his heels to his dun and started forward. I spoke to Buck and gave him a nudge with my knees and then we were on the move.

I held my pistol up and ready, the hammer cocked and my finger on the trigger. The plains were black around us and the vast distances that had engulfed us on our ride south were lost in the dark of the night. The gully was deep, but not deep enough to completely hide a man on horseback. Our heads and hats showed just over the lip of the gully, a good target for a rifleman in the daylight but nearly invisible in the darkness. My eyes scanned the grass and the rim of the hills, still backlit by the last rays of sunlight, for anything that might betray an enemy's position or presence, but I saw nothing but the dark waves of the grass and the failing light behind the hills. Buck swished his head and chomped on the bit. He was eager to be moving, to be running, to be a free horse on the plain again, to be in the thick of the action. I knew that he was anxious, because I was too.

We made it nearly a hundred yards down the creek bed, leaving the gully behind and following the shallow cut of the creek bed. We were pointing east and slightly south, angling down from the site of our battle and moving slowly so as to make as little noise as possible. I felt my muscles tense and contract and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The air felt different, I felt different. I felt invigorated. I felt alive.

Suddenly I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a small movement that probably would have gone unnoticed any other time, but it was there and when I looked up I saw the dimmest outline of a man rising from the grass against the last of the daylight. I saw his shaved head and the thin line of a rifle in his hands, a rifle aimed at Boone's back. The thought of firing and the buck of the gun came at the same instant and I saw the man throw up his arms and fall into the grass. Boone let out a wild yell and put the dun into a dead run. Buck tensed up and then broke into a lope, tugging at the pack horse's reins so hard that he almost pulled her down before she got her footing. A shot barked from the grass behind me and I heard the bullet ricochet off a rock and careen off into space. I dug my heels into Buck's sides and he bowed his head low and went all out. Boone's gun barked twice in front of me and I saw the muzzle flashes ahead of me, then a man came out of the darkness on my right and lifted a gun to fire.

We fired at the same instant and his gun went off almost in my face, showering me with sparks and blasting me with unburned powder. My ears rang and I felt something hit me across the forehead, but I saw a red hole open in the man's chest and heard him scream as I raced past him. A man jumped onto the pack horse and she began to pitch and scream, so I slid to the side of the saddle with my hand gripping the horn and my leg curled over the seat and when I looked back I saw an Eater trying to climb over the pack horse's neck and get a knife under her throat. I leveled my revolver and fired twice into him. His body jerked and he fell screaming under the horse's hooves. I pulled myself up into the seat again and fought back the pain in my head as we raced off into the night.

Boone led the way into the darkness and I did my best to keep up. The horses were fresh and were running all out but in the dark it was hard to keep up with Boone at times. There were a few shots from the gully and I heard bullets singing through the air or cutting the grass on either side of us, but we were soon far out of range and the shots were soon forgotten. We were out on the barren plain again and were running for all we were worth, although in the starry darkness it was hard to know exactly which direction we were going. The moon had risen by now and I wanted to get a look at it, but my head was pounding and it was all I could do to keep my seat and keep Buck pointed in the same direction as Boone. After a few miles we slowed to a canter and I took the time to reload my magnum.

We rode through the night, stopping only twice as we crossed small creeks to water the horses and refill our canteens with fresh water. I ran my fingers over my forehead and found a gash where the bullet had cut its way across my scalp, but it was only a graze and the bleeding had stopped. I packed cool mud over the wound and made a poultice out of grass and some rags that I kept in my saddlebags for the purpose, and then we were off again. We rode on through the darkness, still unsure of our direction but still unwilling to stop for fear of the Eaters catching up with us. We were far from the gully and had left the Eaters far behind, but they had run through the night once before to get at us and they would do so again if given the chance. They had dead and wounded in tow now, though, and they knew that we packed a mighty punch. They would be more careful now, if they came at all, and so we had to be just as careful ourselves. We made a dry camp at first light and cooked some breakfast and fresh coffee while Boone gave some first aid to the wound on my head. We didn't use our Stimpaks, for we had precious few of them and they had to be reserved for worse wounds.

With the sun up again, we found that somewhere in the night we had changed course. We had been going south and meant to follow the little stream that had flowed through the gully, but after the ambush we had left the stream bed and gone across the prairies and had been going due east. I had heard of this country, but neither I nor Boone had ever been here before. The last creek we had crossed had been several hours ago and already the grass was beginning to change from the thick and rich green that it had been into browner, thinner grass that looked parched and dry. The sun beat down on us with a new ferocity and heat waves danced in the distance and painted pictures of shimmering blue lakes that were not really there. We ate our breakfast and packed camp again, then started south again. The horses were tired from the long ride, but they were still ready for travel and they quickly began to eat up the miles with a space-eating trot. We rode with our rifles out and ready across our saddles, although it was unlikely that we would need them in country so desolate.

The farther we rode, the more barren the country became. For the last few days we had seen creeks nearly every hour and had not wanted for water, but that night we made camp on the second creek that we had seen all day. It was little more than a trickle and the water tasted alkaline, but Boone had some purification tablets that made the water tolerable to drink. The horses grazed on the sparse grass, but it was poor fodder and already they were losing flesh from the stiff pace we had set. We were confident that we had left the Eaters far behind and that they would turn back for home if they hadn't already. Now, though, we had a larger and much more serious problem.

Looking over our supplies for the evening meal, I didn't like what I saw. We had tried to ration our foodstuffs on the ride south, but we were both big men and good eaters and so the food had gone faster than expected. The dried meat was gone, most of the canned goods that we had bought in Hooverville, and the dried fruit was almost gone. We still had most of the pemmican that I had brought from home, but that was more of a last resort ration than a main entrée. We had taken no time to hunt or gather along the way, trying to set as fast a pace as we could, and now we were paying for it. The country around us was sparse and getting more and more barren the farther south we rode and it looked like less and less game would be available to us. There were still the Splithorns and a few deer that would be out in desert like this, but I doubted that much more than varmints could live in a country this bare.

I put some of the dried vegetables and the few herbs that we had collected beside the trail into a pot for a kind of stew. Fresh meat would have done us good, but there was none to be had and we were both exhausted from the long ride and too tired to go out and hunt. The plain was barren and featureless as well, offering no landmarks aside from the most rudimentary hummocks of dirt or rocks or clusters of rocks. To go very far afield in search of game would be to risk getting lost on the plain and possibly never find our way back to camp. Men had starved to death after making just a mistake, but in this country it was more likely a man would die of thirst long before starvation did him in. I brew some coffee along with the stew, one of the few things that we still had plenty of in the packs, and after a few sips we were both feeling better. The food was thin and had little taste, but a few pinches of pemmican offered some variety.

The brackish water made decent coffee once it was purified, but there was still the realization that the water was getting more sparse and the fodder for the horses was growing more and more thin. They had already lost flesh after the long ride of the last couple days. We had pushed them hard, perhaps harder than we should have, and they would need some rest and good grass before they could be their old selves again. Boone sat across the fire from me and sipped his coffee, not looking around or seeming to notice our plight at all. He had traveled this country before and would know it better than I, so I figured that he knew more than I did about our situation.

"Boone," I said after the meal was finished, "if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. I don't know this area at all. Is it all like this?"

"For the next couple hundred miles. Ever since the bombs fell, this is what most of the world looks like. Most of what I've seen of it, anyway. Something about the isotopes in the atmosphere and the effects they had on the weather patterns or some shit like that. You don't know it, but you've lived in what most people in this world would call a paradise. Clean water, thick grass, forests of healthy trees, and more game than you can shake a fist at. Good game, too. Back in Nevada the gentlest thing we have are giant mantises that'll still tear your head off and eat your brains if given half a chance.

"The caravan roads are further to the west. There are springs along the route and a couple wells that the original scouts drilled. There used to be a few stations, but after that Legion raid I don't know if they'll still be there. The Legion and New Nevada were at peace the last I heard, but the Legion never passes up a chance at a raid. There's been a lot of hate between those two ever since the Second Battle of Hoover Dam."

"Hoover Dam? Like Hooverville?"

"They named the town after the dam. There was a big battle there seven years ago. We whipped the Legion good that day, I'll tell ya. Two thousand of the bastards came down on us, but old Jubal had a surprise for 'em. He's the president of the New Nevada Republic. He used to be a courier, but he fought against the Legion with the NCR and drove them back across the Colorado River. The NCR used to claim Nevada, but they dropped their unification treaty after the second battle at the Dam."

"You were there? You saw the battle?"

"Yeah, the whole thing. I was there with Jubal and Chief Weathers. He was a Mojave Ranger back then, but when I left home Jubal had made him Chief Ranger of the whole ranger service. Tough bastard, Dan. I saw him charge right into the thick of things at the Dam and kill more legionnaires than any other man that was there that day. He led from the front and was the first one over the wall when we went across the Dam and attacked the Legion camp at Fortification Hill. That was a long time ago, though."

That was the first time I'd heard Boone talk about his past. I had heard stories about the wars of the southern nations, but I had never seen or talked to anyone who was actually there. Most of the soldiers in the garrison at Hooverville were young men and were mostly out on either their first actions or slightly experienced men sent up to help the new recruits. Boone said the war was seven years past, enough time for a budding nation to come into its own. There were tribes on the northern plains that were that young and younger and I'd heard of tribes farther to the south and east that were less than a year old. I had a hard time imagining a place like the nation of New Nevada that the soldiers at the trading town talked about. It had always seemed like some place out of a story, like the stories of the Old World that the elders sometimes told. None of them had ever seen those olden times, but the old books that we had taken from the old vaults were full of information about those old days and the grand places that were all now in ruins. They seemed so far away, so unbelievable, just like New Nevada.

I tried to get Boone to talk more about the lands to the south, my curiosity up after hearing about the great battle at this place called Hoover Dam, but he didn't say any more about it. He sipped his coffee until it was cold flung the drags into the fire, then took his rifle and went out into the darkening plains. He liked to go off by himself from time to time and stand guard, so he said, but I knew it was something else. He had what we called the warrior's heart. Some men never get over the trauma of battle. Warriors in our tribe, like many others, were trained from birth to fight and kill without regret or compunction but there were some men who couldn't live with the things they had done in the heat of battle. They carried the regret and the guilt of their deeds with them for the rest of their lives, never letting go of the pain they felt. Memories of the blood and the screams of the dead and dying haunted their dreams and their quiet moments. It was so with Craig Boone.

I packed the supplies and rubbed down the horses with a handful of rough grass. They were tired and haggard-looking, but they were ready for travel. Buck especially seemed eager to be back on the trail. He was a good trail horse and one of the best horses that I had ever seen. I couldn't have picked a better mount if I'd had all the horse herds of the northern tribes to choose from. I added fuel to the fire and banked it, then checked my weapons and slid into my bedroll.

When dawn came we were in the saddle and heading south again. We had filled every receptacle we had with water from the stream, knowing that the water was getting more and more sparse as we went farther south. The desert in which we rode seemed to go on for as far as we could see, so we thought it would be a good idea to carry as much water as we could. It proved to be sound planning. We rode all day without seeing a drop of water and no living thing aside from a few small lizards that darted from one scrub bush to the other in search of shade. We made camp in a shallow gully and had a small meal of dried fruit and pemmican. We had no fire, since there was nothing to burn. We gave the horses a good drink from the water bladders and bags that we had brought from the last stream, taking only a few swallows for ourselves, and by the time they had had their fill there was little more than two or three gallons left.

Three days after the fight with the Eaters, our food supplies ran out. We ate the last of the pemmican over a fire of Radbuff chips and dry twigs and washed it down with weak coffee. Coffee was the one thing that we had a lot of but we were careful to ration it as carefully as we could. We could hunt for more meat and gather more herbs and fruits, but coffee was a luxury which we could not replenish. We had plenty of ammunition supplies for reloading the spent shells, but out here there was nothing at which to shoot. I knew that the Radbuffs came across this country in their annual migrations, but it was hard to imagine such vast herds making their way across these deserts. I mentioned it to Boone and he merely shrugged and said that their route was farther to the west where there was richer grass and more water. We had angled off toward the west as we made our way south in an attempt to find that same rich grass and good water. The horses were slowly getting used to the fodder and were getting leaner, but the lack of water was starting to get to them just as it was to us.

According to Boone, there would be a station down the trail where the caravans would lay in for supplies and rest the men and the animals. They had a well there and they grew grain and hay for the Brahmin and Bighorners that the caravaneers used for transport. I had seen Bighorners a time or two while hunting, but the Brahmin that Boone described were something that I had never seen or heard of. He said that they were two-headed beasts with giant udders that gave sour milk but that their meat was delicious when cooked well. He said that there were huge ranches where men raised anywhere from dozens to hundreds or even thousands of Brahmin and Bighorners on vast tracts of land that they slaughtered for meat. I had never heard of anything like that, either. Why would men go to the trouble of herding and raising animals to eat when they could just go out and hunt them?

The plains gave way into pure desert. The dry grass that had replaced the thick green grass of the north gave way to long stretches of nothing but sand, dry earth, and scrub brush that was covered with thorns. Heat waves danced in the distance and painted shimmering images of lakes that were not there. Boone called them mirages. I looked at those blue lakes that showed against the horizon and longed for the cool water that they would offer. My tongue was like a dry stick in my mouth and my throat was raw and sore. I lifted my canteen and wet my lips before taking a few small sips. That canteen held a gallon of water but now it was starting to feel light. I was thirsty enough to drink it dry, but I knew only too well that water was precious and that we couldn't afford to waste what we had. Boone was no better. His horse plodded along during the day's ride and had started to stumble more and more. The pack horses were no better. Only Buck seemed unaffected by the pace and the heat and the thirst, but I could see the way that his eyes were going wide from time to time and the way that his tongue sometimes flopped out of his mouth. He was tough and he was steady but he was still getting tired and thirsty just like the rest of us.

We camped in gullies and along dry creek beds where we were hidden from sight and where we could find reflectors for the heat of our fires. The days in this place were blazing hot and my buckskins had long since been sweated through many times, but once the sun went behind the western hills and the moon came out to cover the desert sands with her pale light the temperatures would plummet and it would soon become freezing cold. We pulled our blankets tight around our shoulders and huddled around the fires at night with steaming cups of weak coffee cupped in our hands.

The nights were cold and the days blazing hot. All day I sat my saddle and smelled my own sweat as it soaked through my clothes. Finally I stripped off my hunting shirt and rolled it in with my bedroll and borrowed one of Boone's spare shirts. The shirt was small on me and tight across the chest, for I was broader and thicker through the chest and shoulders than Boone was, but it was lighter and breathed much easier than the buckskins. I rode bare-chested for most f the day and the next. Soon my lighter skin was reddened, then browned by the sun. I wished I had one of the wide-brimmed hats that the southerners favored. Boone wore such a hat, but he had no other and couldn't loan me one like he had the shirt.

For two days we rode without food or water. We made dry and cold camps in the most hidden places we could find, which weren't really that hidden at all. The plain on which we rode was utterly flat and completely featureless. I had spent most of my life on the plains and in the mountains and had seen the immeasurable distances of the Big Sky Country and the Northern Plains all my life, but I had never felt as alone, as small, or as lost as I felt out on that arid stretch of nothingness. For the past week we had seen no living thing. No man came within view and no animal of any kind was to be found anywhere we looked. We hadn't even seen the tracks of any animals. It was no surprise, either. Not only had we not seen anything or anyone, but we had found no water to speak of either. In such a place as this nothing, man or beast or plant, could live without water.

More and more Boone began to speak of his home in the desert that he called the Mojave. He said it was arid, like here, but that there was more water and more plants to eat and animals to hunt. He hadn't spoken of his home very often, but something in the desert seemed to bring it out of him. He talked of people and places and battles that I had never heard of before: Hoover Dam, Nelson, New Vegas, Fortification Hill, Jacobstown. Caesar, Legate Lanius, General Hanlon, Chief Weathers, President Jubal. I was most intrigued by the talk of the man he called Jubal. He didn't seem to now the man's last name, even saying that no one really knew much about him at all, but when he spoke of him he spoke with respect and admiration that gave me a new respect as well for the man and his deeds. He said that Jubal had been north to Zion Valley and fought in the Tribal wars of the Sorrows and the Dead Horses against the White Legs, of which I had heard before, and that he had fought off the Legion and the raiders from the Mojave at the head of the New Nevadan Army and the Nevada Federation.

I had heard stories of the Courier before, but I had never surmised that it was the man that Boone called Jubal. The stories had always seemed like a man that was born in a fairy tale, a man that was so strong and brave that he couldn't possibly be real. Boone said that he was a stout man, tall and strong, the fastest man he had ever seen with a gun. He said that the man named Weathers was a almost a match for him, and that I was a match for either of them. I doubted that. I had never put much stock in speed with a handgun. I was known as a fast man with a short gun and a dead shot with any kind of a weapon, but I had never practiced or tried to be so. I used a gun to fight and to hunt and I came from a land where a man had only one shot on a man or an animal, a single shot to decide between life and death. A man had to be fast and accurate or else he was quickly a dead man. I'd seen many a man that had died after firing his shot or loosing his arrow just a split second after the other man or been mauled by a Panther or a Yao Guai an instant after getting a clean sight.

We talked often on those first days after the fight with the Eaters, passing the time and easing the tension of the vast distances around us, but now we talked little. We were both tired, hungry, and most of all thirsty. The horses hung their heads as they walked, their eyes rolled in their heads, and their tongues hung from their mouths under the merciless heat of the beating sun. my vision swam at times and my skin and eyes were sore from the bright light of the sun and the reflection of the brown and tan earth over which we traveled. I tried to wet my lips and when my tongue touched them it felt like a dry stick. My lips were cracked and raw, my throat was sore, and my stomach pained me from time to time with pangs of hunger. I desperately wanted a drink, but when I lifted my canteen it felt empty. I pulled the cork and lifted it up to drain any moisture it might have into my dry mouth, but there was none. Not even a single solitary drop to wet my tongue.

Sweat beaded on my brow and heat waves danced in the distance. The horizon shimmered against the copper sky as we rode. The air was hot and there was no breeze at all to offer respite from the heat. Buck's neck and flanks were slick with sweat and my borrowed shirt was dark with it. It seemed that all I could remember was heat and sweat. Back home it was cool with a strong mountain breeze coming down every so often. The air was thin and cool, not heavy and hot like it was here. Back home they would be hunting now, making new clothes and lodges out of the fresh skins taken in the spring hunts. Soon the winter would be coming again, the great herds would migrate to the south again, the game would scatter into the mountain valleys where they were safe from the winter storms and the deep cold. Cold? I could scarcely remember what it was like to be cold. My clothes smelled of dirt and stale sweat, there was stubble on my face from many days without shaving, and my hair and beard were gritty and shaggy. Boone, who was normally shaved and well groomed, was just as shaggy.

I must have dozed in the saddle for an hour or more before Boone nudged my shoulder. My hand instinctively went for my gun, but I looked to my left and saw his face looking back at me. I had only been dozing, but I was dreaming the old dream again of the great battle with the Red Warriors of the Legion. Each time I dreamed it the dream seemed to become more real, more like a prophecy than a simple dream. I had been told that my mother was a powerful vision woman, as was my grandmother before her, and some of the old women of the Fire Hairs had said that I may have the give of sight as well. I had never thought about it much, but the more the strange dream came to me the more it upset me. Could it really be a foretelling? A premonition of things to come?

I shook the sleep off of me and looked over at Boone. His grizzled face was hidden behind a pair of reflective sunglasses that he had taken to wearing since we entered the desert. His dun seemed to be walking in half a daze, her eyes glassy and her tongue out, and every so often she would stumble as she walked. Her ears were pricked now, though, as were Buck's and those of the pack horses trailing behind us. They were also moving at a faster pace than we had set before. Only one thing could make them speed up in this heat: water.

Boone pointed at the horizon and I followed his gesture to a tiny dark dot in the distance. It was hard to pick out from the rest of the barren landscape, the little black mass dancing in the simmering heat waves, but it was obviously man-made and out of place here. There was also what appeared to be a patch of green around the distant dot, indicating water. All around us was the same brown, barren landscape at which we had stared for days, but that distant patch of green grass broke the monotony of the desert and stood out like a sore thumb. A soft breeze, the first I had felt all day, blew in from the west and I caught the faintest smell of water on it. The horses' nostrils flared and they picked up their pace. There was water and good grass ahead and they weren't about to take their time getting to it.

A mile fell away behind us, then another and another, and as we came closer the one shimmering black dot separated into several. A black and grey line cut across the brown grass and scrub brush from north to south, stretching from horizon to horizon.

"Old highway," Boone said, his voice hoarse from thirst, "that's the caravan road. That'll be Last Chance Station up ahead."

Last Chance Station. A fitting name for the place. I didn't care what it was or what it was named at that moment. All that I needed to know was that there was water there, and where there was water and buildings there would be food and people and shelter. I eased up on the reins and let Buck have his head. He was chomping at the bit and was almost trotting now, eager for the water and the grass, and behind me the pack horses tugged at the reins. Finally we closed the distance to the station and the buildings became clear. There were six in all; a corral and small barn for the livestock, a long building that must be the main station office and store, a storage shed, and three small shacks that must be living quarters for the station staff and garrison, all made from adobe and laid out in a circle for easier defense.

There was a courtyard in the center of circle, and at the center of that was a tall windmill and a large basin. The windmill was turning with the light breeze, the bar screeching and groaning as it turned, and as we came closer I caught the sweet sound of water pouring out of the pipe and into the basin. There was a large garden south of the collection of buildings which was fed by irrigation pipes that ran from the basin, in which grew corn, potatoes, and other plants that I couldn't identify. No one stirred and there was no sound from the station as we approached. That was odd. I would think that two strangers riding in out of the desert would be cause for a stir. Someone should be taking notice. A dog should be barking, a guard calling the others, something. Then I saw the reason why. I had thought that the roofs of the buildings were dark because of whatever they were made of, but when we were within three hundred yards I could see it clearly. The buildings were all burned.