Fifteen minutes later, Javier's pick-up truck tears up the dirt road, kicking up dust and flying the now familiar white flag of trade.

The truck bounces to a stop beside the blood bus and the engine instantly dies. Mason vaults out of the passenger side, his steel-tipped, snakeskin cowboy boots hitting the stone walkway with a clink. He tips his hat to the crowd on the porch. "Howdy, Hillcresters. I hear tell I've got liquid gold runnin' in my veins."

[*]

Rosita leads Javier into the barn-like garage where Jesus parked his truck full of munitions. "Anything at all, huh?" Javier asks as he follows her inside.

Rosita surreptitiously unbuttons the top two buttons of her blouse as she walks ahead of him. She stops at the tailgate of the truck and subtly tugs down on her white undershirt until she's sure she'll be showing plenty of cleavage.

Then she lowers the tailgate to reveal the supplies, turns, and leans back suggestively against it. "See anything you like?" she asks.

[*]

"Just keep squeezing," Elijah tells Mason, who now lies next to Maggie on the queen bed in Aaron's old room. Blood flows from his vein to Maggie's. "I'll be back. I need to get something else from the bus." He squeezes past Carol in the doorway.

Carol checks on Maggie to make sure she's only drifted off to sleep and then pulls out the chair from the vanity, sets it next to Mason's side of the bed, sits down, and hands him an open bottle of Gatorade from the general store. He takes a sip. "Kind of you to keep me company, Mrs. Dixon," he says. "Though I don't know if your husband would appreciate it. Where is he, anyway? I was hoping he'd found some beer."

"Daryl is out hunting," she says. "And…you should probably know, since you keep calling me Mrs. Dixon…We are very much together. Daryl and I. But we aren't exactly married."

"Well, it's close enough for government work, I reckon." He takes another sip and then sets the Gatorade down on the nightstand when his radio crackles.

Amos's voice comes through. "Mason," he barks. "Where are you? Your sister says you went to give blood to those people? The people who brought armed men to our doorstep – you're giving them blood now?"

Mason unclips the radio from his belt. "Relax, Pa," he says. "They're paying us for it. I'm sure Javier is collecting some choice supplies even as we speak."

[*]

"Fuck, yes!" Rosita is bent over the tailgate, and the belt buckle that is now down around Javier's knees clangs as he drives into her from behind. "Oh, God," she moans, gripping the gap between the tailgate and the bed for perch as he thrusts harder. She didn't expect him to hit the exact right spot, at least, not more than once. "Fuck yes!"

"Oh, Rosita, you naughty…" Javier switches to Spanish.

Soon, there are no words at all - just a lot of animalistic grunting and, eventually, long, shuddering groans.

[*]

Mason squeezes the yellow happy face ball in his left hand. Elijah, who has returned, watches the blood flow and unkinks the tubing in one spot. "You don't have to squeeze so hard," he says.

Mason squeezes softly and then relaxes his hand. "My mother, God rest her soul, had a prosthetic foot," he tells Carol. "Diabetes led to nerve damage which led to skin ulcers which led to infection and…well…you get the picture. Nothing fancy. Just a metal prosthetic. But I think it's still in a closet somewhere. I'll take beer, flashlights, or more children's Benadryl for it, if your friend," he nods to the sleeping Maggie, "would like it."

"Thank you," Carol tells him. "That would be very helpful."

Still holding the ball, Mason scratches his cheek, which is lined with a faint, grayish-blonde stubble. "What's the name of that archer woman?"

"You mean Dianne?" Carol replies.

"Dianne," repeats Mason, lowering his hand and resuming his squeezing. "Is she married to the black gentleman who talks strangely?"

"Ezekiel?" Carol asks with a smile. "No. They're old friends. They've been in the same camp since almost the start."

"I don't think she cares for me much," Mason says.

"Dianne just has a stern expression," Carol assures him. "And she's reserved. And when she met you, you were holding a gun on a teenage boy."

"I'm twenty now," Elijah corrects her. "Not really a teenager."

"Everyone under thirty looks like a kid to me," Mason says.

"Would you have shot me?" Elijah asks. "If Carol and Daryl hadn't shown up, would you have killed me?"

"Well now, that's neither here nor there." Masons squeezes the yellow ball. "That's all water under the bridge."

[*]

Rosita tucks her white tank top into the waistband of her jeans while Javier zips up and buckles his belt. They're still breathing hard. She goes to button her light blue overshirt and finds four of the buttons popped clear off. Only the two she undid herself at the top still remain intact. "Great! You ruined my shirt!"

"I'll get you another one. I'll get you a whole Walmart full of them."

"You think I shop at Walmart?"

He laughs. "It's just a shirt."

"I like this shirt. I'm taking it out of the supplies." She nods to the truck. "So now you get a smaller pick."

He looks over the contents of the bed and whistles. "Where did you find all this?"

"Bluemont Vineyard."

"Mason and I looted that place a year ago."

"It was behind a false wall," she says. "Jesus has a way of finding things."

Javier's eyes fall on the Dillon Precision Press.

"You aren't getting that," Rosita tells him. "We need that."

"Relax. We've already got two. But the gun powder we could use." He slides two large jars to the side. Then he opens two of the green metal cases, examines the contents, and closes them. He slides one metal case toward himself. "And this case of .223 ammo." He slides the other one next to it. "And this case of reloading bullets."

"Whoa! No." Rosita shakes her head. "You can have a couple of the boxes of bullets that's are in that case. But not the whole case. That's half our bullets!"

"Look, Rosita…I can't go back to Amos with so little. He'll have my head on a platter. We didn't even tell him we were coming here. He's going to be pissed off enough as is."

"Fine, four boxes of bullets."

"That's not even half the case."

She slinks close and slides a hand in the back pocket of his jeans. Their bodies are almost touching. She kisses his ear and whispers, "Please? Next time you visit, I'll more than make it up to you."

Javier smiles. "You drive a hard bargain, hermosa."

After he takes the supplies and loads them into his own pick-up, she asks, "Are you staying for dinner?"

"Are you cooking?"

Rosita scoffs. "I don't cook."

"Why not?" he asks. "You do everything else."

"Trust me, there are far better cooks than me here."

"That spaghetti wasn't that impressive," he says.

"Yeah, well, that was Aaron. But Carol will cook tonight. And it'll be good. You should stay. I mean, if you want." She shrugs. "Not that I care."

"What are we having?" Javier asks.

Daryl has emerged from the woods and now comes weaving through the high grasses of one of the uncleared fields. His crossbow rides his back, and he holds something upside down by its feet: a wild turkey.

"It looks like we're having a very early Thanksgiving," Rosita replies.

[*]

Dianne pops her head inside Maggie's room. "Daryl's back from the hunt," she tells Carol. "He got a wild turkey. He asked you to come down and cook it."

Carol wonders if Daryl is asking her to come down to cook it because it's ready to be cooked, or because he doesn't like her spending time with Mason. When she stands, Mason asks Dianne, "Are you going to keep me company now?"

Dianne looks him over placidly. "I'm needed on watch," she says and leaves.

"See," Mason says. "She doesn't like me."

Carol smiles. "Elijah can keep you company."

"Yes, he can," Mason replies, "but he's not a pretty lady."

[*]

As he washes his hands using cold water from the hand pump, Daryl eyes Javier, who is plucking the turkey with Rosita on a nearby picnic table behind the Inn. They're talking in Spanish and Rosita is laughing on and off. Daryl can't quite figure out if her laugh is fake. Sometimes he thinks she's just stroking Javier's ego, but sometimes it sounds like he might be sincerely amusing her. Daryl can only make out every fifth word, using the little Spanish he picked up those three years he worked construction in Macon.

Javier says something about Rosita's brother, and then something about American football, and he takes a step back and pretends to be throwing, and then pretends to trip. Rosita laughs and shakes her head.

"This bird ain't gonna pluck itself," Daryl grumbles.

Rosita catches Javier's eye, says something in Spanish, and Javier snorts. Daryl's pretty sure he's being made fun of.

"Sorry, amigo," Javier tells him. "No more funny business."

"Gonna get a cleaver," Daryl mutters as he walks away.

He finds Carol in the kitchen, which is bigger than any kitchen he's ever seen outside a restaurant. There's a wooden, bench-like table that looks like a servant's tables in an English period piece movie. Copper and steel pots hang above the stove. Wooden molds decorate the walls. Carol is mixing spices for a dry rub in a small silver bowl on the island counter. The inn, fortunately, has three good grills out back – a large propane one and two smaller charcoal grills.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey yourself."

"How's Maggie? Rosita said Elijah found a blood match. Mason." He pulls the cleaver out of a big wooden block. "And you was sittin' with 'em?"

"Is that why you wanted me to start cooking?" Carol shakes some poultry seasoning into her bowl and gives him a wary look. "Even though the bird's not plucked yet? So I wouldn't be getting eye fucked by Mason?"

He nods to the bowl. "Gotta make the dry rub, don'tchya? 'N heat up the grill."

"True enough." She pinches in some salt. "Maggie's sleeping, but she's getting the blood she needs. It was very kind of Mason to donate."

Daryl grunts. "Ain't donatin'. Gettin' paid in supplies."

"Still, he didn't have to do it," Carol tells him.

Daryl leans back against the counter opposite her and taps the flat end of the cleaver against his knee. "Think maybe Javier's gettin' paid in somethin' else."

"Well, that's Rosita's business." Carol shakes some pepper into the bowl. "Don't go putting that cleaver to any parts of his anatomy."

Daryl stops tapping the cleaver. He pushes off the counter. "Ya smell damn good," he says. "Kind of sweet."

"It's the basil. Not me."

He leans in and sniffs her neck. Then he sniffs the spices in the bowl. "Yeah. Guess so. Still. Like the way ya smell."

She smiles as he walks out the door.

[*]

The sun is setting gently in the hills. Elijah packs up his medical supplies. The smell of roasted turkey wafts through the inn. Mason is no longer in the bed beside Maggie. She has risen from her slumber and sits up drinking Gatorade from a straw, with H.G. curled up and asleep on the bed at her hip.

Enid sets a plate of food down on the nightstand for her, and then puts two more on the dresser. "One's for you," she tells Elijah. "I thought we'd eat up here and keep an eye on Maggie."

Elijah nods. "I'll go wash up."

Enid takes her plate and sits down in the chair. "Were you able to feed H.G.?"

"Not yet. But hopefully later, when I've had lots of liquids. Thank God for Nabila." Maggie strokes the soft hair of H.G.'s head. "And for that man who gave me his blood. Whoever he was."

"Mason Weatherford."

"He sure ran off fast," Maggie says.

Enid smiles. "I think he smelled the turkey."

"And Elijah," Maggie continues, "he had no obligation to save me and bring me here."

"He saved me, too," Enid tells her. "He – " Enid's about to say more when Elijah walks back in, and she falls silent instead.

He takes the chair from the roll-top desk in the corner and pulls it up next to Enid before grabbing his plate and sitting down. "I'll leave tomorrow," he says. "When I'm sure Maggie is better."

"Don't," Enid pleads. "Come on. You've seen what we've got. What we're building. How can you think of leaving now?"

"I told you. If I keep moving, I'll survive."

"People aren't sharks!" Enid insists.

"And if you're alone," Maggie asks him, "what exactly are you surviving for?"

Elijah looks down at his plate, stabs some turkey, and consumes it in thoughtful silence as laughter drifts up from the dining room downstairs.