done I’ll go back. And everything’ll be all right. Just like it was before.”

Pike and Roosevelt glanced at each other. Then Hammond got up and strode away from the campfire. Connelly watched him go and looked at the others, surprised.

“He gets that way,” explained Roosevelt. “He’s younger than he looks. I don’t think he’s yet twenty- five.”

“He’ll come back,” said Pike. “He’ll be here in the morning. It must be a strange thing to be so young and know that you cannot have much of a normal life. In ways he has maybe lost more than the rest of us.”

“No,” said Connelly. “He hasn’t.”

Pike nodded. “I suppose not.”

Eventually they lay down to sleep once more. And as Connelly’s eyes shut he saw the desert.

White sands stretched to piercing blue horizons. Overhead the sun beat down, white-hot and unyielding, and as its rays fell upon the sand flats it made them glitter like snow. Harsh mountains lined the distance, muddy-brown and mutinous, and the wind barreled across the desert strong enough to knock a man over.

Connelly blinked, astounded at where he was. Yet somehow he knew he was waiting for something. Something was coming.

He saw it far away. Movement. Something small. He squinted at it but could not see it for the sun. It came closer, and soon he realized it was a man. A young man coming his way, directly toward him, and as he neared Connelly saw he was tall and pale and naked, and streaked with blood. He half strode, half staggered across the sands to Connelly, his arms dangling by his side, his crop of blond hair shining in the sunlight, his blue eyes agonizingly sad. The trail of his footprints wound away through the desert. They were red.

He walked up to Connelly and looked into his face.

“The world is changing,” he whispered.

Then there was a clap of thunder like the sky was breaking. Connelly awoke and nearly screamed. He looked about. The fire had died down. Roosevelt and Pike were asleep, but Hammond was sitting cross-legged across from him, watching.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

Connelly nodded.

“What happened?”

He did not answer, just shook his head.

“What happened?” asked Hammond again.

“There was a desert. A young man, covered in blood. And he… he told me the world was changing, and I woke up.”

“Well, it sure is, isn’t it.”

Connelly looked down at Hammond’s hands. Roosevelt’s gun was in his lap.

“What you doing with that?” he asked.

“Holding it. Getting the feel of it.”

“Why?”

“We didn’t come all the way out here to yell at him, did we?”

“I guess not.”

“You ever kill a man before?”

“No.”

“Me neither. I wish I had, though. Just so I could know. But I guess he’ll be a good start.”

“You going to practice on us?”

“No. I just like holding it. Just to know that I can. I can’t say why, but it makes a man feel good to know that he can kill another. Not that he will. But that he has the capacity. You know?”

“I guess.”

“You know, the hobos said you can get safe passage from Mr. Shivers, but you got to be careful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You got to walk out to the crossroads on a moon-filled night with no clouds in the sky, and you go out and find a stone and write your name on the bottom of it and bury it in the road. He comes in the morning, leading his line of men he’s taking off to hell, and he’ll read your name and then you can pass through that town easy and you won’t get harried by him or whoever he’s running.”

“Go to sleep, Hammond.”

He turned the gun over in his hands. “I can’t.”

“Try.”

“All right. I’ll try.”

“Well. Good night, then.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Good night.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

They kept going southwest and managed to get a ride from a truck driver who had already delivered his payload of chickenfeed. They went some twenty miles crouched in the back. They climbed down where he turned off the road and headed to the highway and he shook his head as he drove away.

As they walked a car coming from the opposite direction pulled over. “I’d head back if I was you boys,” a man shouted at them from the window. His family was in the back and all his belongings were strapped to the roof.

“Why’s that?” said Roosevelt.

“Storm’s coming. A duster.”

“A what?”

“A duster. Dust storm. You won’t be able to see three feet in front of your face tomorrow if you keep going.”

“Thank you,” said Pike.

“You boys not going to stop?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“You all are nuts,” said the man as he rolled up his window. “Bugshit. Just nuts.” The wheels spun and he careened down the road.

“Bastard doesn’t even know how to drive,” said Hammond. “And he’s calling us nuts.”

They kept going. As midafternoon came they passed over an old road and a crumbling gully. There they heard a muffled shouting from far to their left. Pike motioned off the road and they stepped quietly into the cover of the weeds as Pike looked over the top.

“What was that?” said Hammond.

“Some people are camped along the road, I’d say,” said Roosevelt. “Just off to the south of us.”

“So?” said Connelly.

“I don’t like this,” said Pike. “This whole area’s deserted, especially after that fella who told us about the… the…”

“The duster.”

“Right. Could be cops, could be bandits.”

“Bandits?” said Hammond, and laughed.

“I’ve seen them before. Hell, I’ve been robbed by them before. And if there’s as many migrants all over the place as it seems then the cops are sure to be frothing at the mouth.”

“Pretty sorry bandits or cops, talking so loud,” said Roosevelt. “We could hear them from miles away.”

“Maybe so. But I still don’t like it.”

“I could go take a look,” said Connelly.

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