THEY CAMPED THAT NIGHT on the trail. Lu thought they’d probably find a clearing if they rode another hour or two, but the time they’d spent with the notebook couldn’t be made up. Their horses were too tired.
After they’d unsaddled and watered the stock—their water-skins were running dangerously low again—Sadie passed around the meat. It’d been only two days, but already the bacon was gone.
“Mustard,” MacLemore muttered, as he chewed up his piece.
“What’s that, Daddy?” Sadie asked.
“Oh, nothing. … It’s just that we’ve been eating this charred pork for two days, breakfast and supper. For the longest time I thought it needed salt. Then pepper. Now I know. It’s mustard I want. I’d give anything for a pot of good German mustard.”
“How ‘bout your share of the gold?” Chino suggested. “Would you give that?”
“I don’t know about mustard,” Henry said. “But I’d give his share of the gold for a carrot. Or even a green bean.”
Chino and Henry both laughed. MacLemore eyed the men suspiciously.
They were too tired to dig mesquite roots, so Lu and Sadie gathered a heap of dry brush, including a few small tumbleweeds that’d wandered into camp, and Sadie lit a fire. She built it larger than normal, using nearly a quarter of their fuel just to get the flames going, but no one complained.
Chino offered to stand the first watch. He took one of his pistols from its holster, thumbed back the hammer, and laid it at the ready in his lap.
Lu woke hours later, nudged out of deep sleep by a sound he hadn’t heard in weeks—silence. The whole desert had gone still. Lu listened, expecting to hear a coyote wail. But none did. No crickets sang either. Even the wind, which hadn’t stopped blowing for one second in all the time they’d been in the desert, offered no complaint. The rustling of the foliage, a noise so constant and monotonous as to become silence, had given way to the real thing. It was the creepiest sort of racket Lu had ever heard.
He sat bolt upright, heart pounding in his chest, and was shocked to see a hairy little man standing over the remains of their campfire.
Lu screamed. It wasn’t very manly, perhaps, but he didn’t care. Reading Diedrich Knickerbocker’s notebook had gotten him pretty nervous, to say nothing of his encounter with that coyote two nights before. He hollered until he ran out of air, took a deep breath, and then started in again. Given the chance, Lu probably would’ve shouted himself hoarse. But after his second round of bellowing, the hairy little stranger cut him off.
“Be quiet!” he snapped. “Let your friends sleep.”
And sleep they did. All of Lu’s carrying on hadn’t disturbed his friends in the least. Henry lay stretched out not three strides from the horses, hat propped over his face like a cowboy in a painting. Chino sat upright beside the fire, just as Lu had last seen him. Only now, instead of standing guard he was snoozing, his chin resting lightly on his chest. MacLemore lay curled up beside his daughter, both so far under they might have been dead. Even the horses were dozing, though they did so standing up.
“Are they all right?” Lu asked.
The stranger put a finger to his lips. “Whisper,” he said.
He was the most peculiar creature Lu had ever seen. For a hat, the man wore what appeared to be an old coyote skin. The flea-bitten remains of the animal’s skull sat perched atop his head, while the rest of the pelt dangled down his back for a cape. He also had a bit of dusty fabric wrapped around his haunches, and an old rawhide belt. The rest of him was naked. Tucked under his belt was a pair of dead jackrabbits, both skinned and gutted. Some of their blood had gotten on the man’s belly fur, making it look as though he’d been stabbed in the side. So far as Lu could determine, he carried no weapon of any kind. But dangling from one wiry fist was an empty water-skin.
“Am I dreaming?” Lu asked him.
“No.”
“It’s so quiet. We’ve sat up a lot over the last few days. Usually coyotes howl all night long. I wonder why they’ve stopped.”
“The coyote howls for the darkness. And for the moon.”
“They do? Why?”
“Because it is cool, and they are ready to hunt. Only foolish men go out under the hot sun. Night is the time for life in the desert.”
As he talked, the stranger dug through the smoldering remains of their fire. When he found a cinder still possessing a tiny kernel of orange life, he plucked it out. Lu winced, but for whatever reason the man was able to hold the hot coal between his fingers without being burned. Very carefully, he placed it into a nest of dry twigs, gleaned from amidst the brush Sadie had collected. Lu felt certain that it would go out. But the stranger blew onto the dying ember, lightly at first, later with more force, and in no time, yellow flames were dancing amid the ashes. When the fire was large enough to sustain itself, he set about skewering the rabbits.
That done, he got up and trotted silently into the thicket, returning a moment later with a handful of prickly pears. If the spines irritated his skin, Lu could see no sign of it.
For the next few minutes he sat, pulling bristles from the cactus pads and tossing them into the fire. As soon as he’d got one clean, he added it to the skewers.
Lu asked him what he was doing.
“You need vegetables,” he answered.
The rabbits were beginning to sizzle on one side, so he turned the skewers. When he had them set up to his satisfaction, he looked at Lu.
For the first time, moonlight shone full in the stranger’s face, and Lu gasped. His eyes were the palest shade of blue Lu had ever seen. In fact, they were nearly white. Odder still, Lu felt certain he’d seen those eyes somewhere before, and not so very long ago. For some reason, as he looked into them, he couldn’t help shuddering.
“Jack sent me to find you,” the man said. “He is worried.”
“Jack? Really? Why?”
“You don’t have enough water.” He picked up the empty skin from where he’d dropped it, and tossed it to Lu. “You need to collect more.”
“We’re doing all right.”
“No. You have too many horses.” He pointed at Lucky. “That one is strong. He will live. But the rest?” He shrugged.
“Who are you?” Lu asked.
“This is my land.” He smiled, showing a mouth full of brilliant white teeth. Again, the sensation that he had seen them before, and recently, prickled up and down Lu’s spine.
“It used to all be mine,” the man continued, waving his arms at the horizon. “The whole hump, east to west. My plants. My animals. My people. Only this is mine now. This desert. It is all I have left.”
“I see.” Lu peered more closely at the man. He was only a trifle shorter than Lu himself, but much thinner. At first, Lu had taken him for an Indian. Now he wasn’t so sure. His skin wasn’t white, but nor was it the same coppery brown Lu had seen amongst Joseph’s or Goklayeh’s tribes. Plus, he was hairy all over, and had a thick beard. The more Lu stared at him, the less sure he felt. A person such as this seemed not to fit in anywhere.
“You’re nearing the Lake of Fire,” the stranger continued. “You must be fully stocked with water before you cross. Even then, I don’t think you will have enough. Do you drink a lot?”
“Not too much.”
“You must drink less. Much less.”
“When will we reach this lake?” Lu asked him.
“I might reach it in a day. But I’m on foot and very fast. You?” He pursed his lips. “You are slow.”
“You can run faster than a horse?”
Instead of answering, he got up and brushed the dust from his legs. “Your friends will wake soon.” He pointed at Sadie. Her mouth had fallen open. Drool hung from her lower lip.
“What should I tell them?”
“Tell them to kill a horse. Roast it for meat. Save the water.”
“I’ll tell them,” Lu promised. “But I’m not sure they’ll listen.”
The stranger nodded. “You howl good,” he said.
“Me?” Lu was taken aback. He remembered howling at the moon. But that’d been more than two days ago, hadn’t it? In the excitement over Jack’s departure, and the subsequent reading of the notebook, the whole event had slipped his mind. “How did you hear me?” he asked.
“You all howl good. It is good to howl.”
The stranger bent to turn the skewers one last time. It took him only a moment, and when he was done he turned and trotted down the path.
“Where are you going?” Lu called after him.
“I’ll tell Jack you’re alive. For now.”
“Wait.” Lu felt as though he should ask something more. He knew an opportunity was passing him by, he just didn’t know what it was. “What about this Lake of Fire?” he asked finally, stalling for time.
The stranger grinned, once more showing two rows of long healthy teeth. “Be careful,” he said. “Conserve.” Then he turned and loped away.
As he passed the horses, the stranger dropped onto all fours, his slow lope turning into a four-legged sprint. Then he leapt between the twisting coils of an ocotillo and was gone. It may have been nothing more than a trick of moonlight and shadows, but as he bounded into the thicket, Lu felt certain that he saw a long bushy tail sprout from beneath the man’s loincloth.
“What was that?” Sadie asked, knuckling the sleep from her eyes.
“Did you see him?” Lu asked hopefully.
“I saw something. Was it that coyote again?”
The image of the man’s pale blue eyes and long sharp teeth flashed through Lu’s mind. “I don’t know what it was.”
“Have you been sitting up all this time? Aren’t you sleepy?”
“A little.” Lu pointed at the fire. “There are rabbits cooking if you’re hungry. And prickly-pears.”
Sadie stared. “Did you do that?” she asked.
“He did.” Lu looked over his shoulder, at the spot where the stranger had disappeared into the brush. “He also said that we’re drinking too much water. And that we ought to kill one of the horses.”
“Kill a horse?” Sadie scoffed. “Maybe that old mule.”
Lu shook his head. “Lucky’s the strongest one.”
Sadie inspected the rabbits. Another minute or two and they’d be ready. “You sure we can eat these pears?”
“I suppose so. He said we needed vegetables.”
“Reckon it couldn’t hurt to try.” Sadie cut a bite from the pear closest the flames. “Well, it ain’t exactly delicious,” she said. “You want to try one?”
“Not right now. I’m going back to sleep. When he wakes up, tell Chino we’re coming near the Lake of Fire.”
“What’s that?”
Lu shrugged. “I think Chino will know.” Then he settled back, head on his saddle-seat, and went to sleep.
Crickets chirped, wind rustled through the brush, but Lu slept on. He didn’t even hear the howl of the lone coyote, racing along the path behind them, lifting its plaintive call to welcome the morning.
“But I still can’t see how we slept through it,” MacLemore said. They’d got everything packed, and were watering their horses in preparation for the day’s ride. “You’re sure you weren’t dreaming?”
“What about the rabbits?” Chino asked him. “They taste like a dream to you?”
“And he sure didn’t dream this.” Henry held up the extra water-skin.
“All right then, why does he see everything?” MacLemore looked accusingly at Lu. “Can you tell me that? Why him?”
“Maybe it’s because he’s nice,” Sadie said.
“I’m nice,” her father grumbled. “And I never met any savage war-chiefs, or coyote-men, or anything else.”
“Maybe that’s your problem, right there,” Henry suggested. “Lu probably didn’t call Gokhlayeh a savage. He may have thought it, but he didn’t say so. Did you, Lu?”
“Heck no. I smoked when they told me to smoke, ate what they told me to eat. And when he asked me for a present, I gave him one. There wasn’t anything to it.”
That’s what Lu said. But the truth was, Lu had begun to feel mighty proud of himself. As they rode out of camp, he thought over his adventures. He wished the boys back in St. Frances could see him now. They’d be so jealous they’d die. Jimmy Chiu would give anything he had just to hear one of Lu’s stories. Lu reveled in that thought all morning long. He’d begun pondering all the ways he might add a touch of gunfire to his adventures for style, when Sadie rode up alongside him.
“You think you’re mighty smart, don’t you?” she said.
“Maybe,” Lu replied.
“I saw the ghost-riders, too, you know.”
Lu looked at her. “Did you?”
“Well, I felt ’em anyway. And I heard you and Jack talking.”
“Oh.”
“And I saw that feller last night.”
“You didn’t talk to him though.”
“No, but I saw him.”
“Good for you.”
“I just don’t want you thinkin’ you’re always the only one. The rest of us see things too, you know.” And with that, Sadie galloped back to the front of the line.
Lu hated her for saying that, and went on hating her all afternoon. Chino kept trying to interest him in plants and animals, but all Lu could think about were the things he might say to her. A few were awfully mean. He even planned to talk about Sadie’s hair, which was as dusty as an old rag. It gave him a secret thrill to ponder all the ways he might hurt her feelings. But as the day plodded on, and Lu’s energies went more toward sweating than scheming, he began to lose hold of his anger. Spite just wasn’t in him. Finally, he gave up.
It was late afternoon when they came upon a small creek, the first moving water they’d seen in days, and Chino said they ought to set up camp for the night.
The creek was only an inch and a half deep, tasted of moss, and barely moved over the flat ground. But they drank it up just as though it were lemonade. When the water-skins were full to bursting, they led the horses a short distance downstream from camp, and set them loose. Chino promised they wouldn’t go anywhere, and he was right. Crash and Lucky stood in one spot for hours, alternately sucking up water and nibbling at the brittle grass that lined the stream banks.
With the balance of their day at leisure, Chino decided it was high time they replenished their stores.
“El Lago del Fuego is coming,” he said. “Best we stock up now, before it’s too late.”
“What is it?” Lu asked him.
“The Lago? Just more desert. But harder than this. And hotter. If we’re lucky, we can get through in a couple of days.”
“Hotter?” Lu could hardly believe his ears. How could anything be hotter?
“And what happens if we aren’t lucky?” MacLemore asked.
“Death,” Chino said. “But we’ll be lucky, I think.”
“Death? From the heat?”
“And the desolation. It’s a lonely place, the Lago. Lonely and thirsty.”
“Enough talk,” Sadie said. “Let’s get these chores done. I still want to wash up before bed.”
Chino gave each of them an assignment. He and Henry were to gather firewood. Mesquite grew everywhere, thick enough to build a bonfire a thousand feet high, but Chino wanted only the roots. Without a shovel, or even a hatchet, digging them up promised to be hard work. Henry whittled a couple of pointy sticks and got started. Sadie offered to help, but Chino had another task for her. Near the creek he’d found a stand of dark green weeds, which he called “Saint’s Tea.”
“It’s strong medicine,” he explained. “Good for the liver. We’ll likely need it sooner or later.” He showed her how to cut and bundle the shoots, which looked fairly simple to Lu. Sadie’s main problem would be finding the stuff. Chino said she’d probably have to wander up and down the creek for miles. “And watch for snakes,” he warned.
“Can’t I take my horse?”
“The horses need rest,” Chino said. “You’ll have to walk.”
Lu could hear her grumbling under her breath as she wandered away. “What about Mister MacLemore and me?” he asked.
“Prickly-pears,” Chino said.
He led them up the path, passing a half-dozen smaller plants. At last, seeing one he liked, its big green pads fairly bursting with juice, he stopped.
“Now, this here’s called napolito.” Chino pointed to one of the fresher pads. “It’s what we ate for breakfast.” He searched over the rest of the plant until he found a bright red fruit. “And this is tuna. But it isn’t ripe. I only want you to cut the napolito.”
“But that’s the spiny part,” MacLemore protested.
“Yep. You’ll have to use gloves.”
“But I don’t have any gloves,” Lu said.
Chino took a pair of canary yellow cavalry gauntlets from his jacket pocket. A line of fringe ran from the little finger all the way to the middle of the forearm. “Henry said you could use his. He got them in the army.” Chino laughed. “I think he used to wear them for parades.”
Lu felt ridiculous as he pulled the gloves on. They were a couple of sizes too big and the fringe slapped against his wrists. “Do I have to wear them?” he asked.
MacLemore clapped him on the shoulder. “I think you look smart.” He pulled on his own gloves, the very same pair he’d worn on the day they left St. Frances. “Now then, let’s get to work.”
At first, as they sawed the prickly pears from the bush, Lu was miserable. His one and only thought was of how glad he was that none of the kids back home could see him now. But Henry’s gauntlets proved invaluable. MacLemore’s fashionable riding gloves weren’t half as good. Barely a minute went by without his yelping in pain. Finally he asked if Lu wouldn’t like to trade, but Lu had decided he liked Henry’s gloves after all.
They’d cut more than half-a-bag of napolitos before Lu devised a method for processing the pears more rapidly. With his heavier gloves, Lu sawed the juiciest pads from the bushes, while MacLemore plucked out the spines and stuck them in the sacks. Both were happy with the arrangement, and in no time they’d filled one whole bag. Every few minutes they had to go in search of a new plant, but that was the only thing that slowed them down.
While they worked, they talked. Actually, Mister MacLemore did the lion’s share of the talking. Once in a while he’d ask Lu a question about his family or school, but mostly he told stories. He told all about his mother and father, and funny things he remembered from his boyhood on the farm. Lu listened to all of it with interest. Eventually he started talking about Sadie’s mother.
“I wish you could’ve met Sadie’s mother,” MacLemore began. “She was a fine woman. And I’m not just saying that, either. She really was. A credit to her race. And not prejudiced in the least. Why, she cared for everyone just the same. Black, yellow, red, green or purple. She was mighty white that way. Handsome, too.” He chuckled to himself. “I can remember my Daddy calling women ‘handsome’ when I was a boy, and I always thought it strange. Handsome. Still sounds sort of funny when you think about it. But that’s what my Daisy was. Handsome as any woman you’d ever like to meet.” MacLemore grinned. “Her beauties were the sort a woman gets from aging, not the adolescent prettiness of a girl in a school-yard. Nope, Sadie’s mother was an upright woman. And she had a way of dealing with our farm hands, too. I don’t believe I ever heard her resort to baseness. Not once. Daisy never called a spade a spade, if you see what I mean. Sadie favors her mother, thank God. Spitting image. Though she has but little of her mother’s style. My Daisy liked to wear the most beautiful dresses. And here I can barely convince Sadie to pack one in her suitcase, let alone put it on. All my fault, I suppose.” MacLemore shook his head. “It’s no wonder she has more interest in horses than boys. She’s spent more time with the one than the other, Lord knows. Don’t guess she’d recognize a corset if she saw one. But maybe that’s for the best.”
“I think Sadie is just about the most wonderful girl I ever knew,” Lu remarked. He hadn’t actually meant to pipe in, and certainly not on such a potentially disastrous subject. But MacLemore didn’t seem to mind, so Lu continued. “You ought to be proud of her.”
MacLemore stared at him a moment. “That’s mighty kind of you,” he said at last. “And I am proud. I just wish I could get a real boy to take an interest in her.”
Lu didn’t say anything for a while after that. MacLemore hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings, Lu was sure, but he had all the same. So Lu stayed quiet, busying himself with the pears while Mister MacLemore told stories about Sadie’s childhood. If he ever noticed how silent his young friend had become, he didn’t show it.
They harvested until after dark, and managed to fill all four bags. Lu guessed they might have forced another pear in somewhere, but all he could find were shriveled up old pads. And purple ones. Those he steered clear of. Chino never said a thing about the purple prickly-pears, but Lu reckoned they were sick somehow. Even Lucky turned up his nose when they came upon one in the path. And he’d eat anything, stickers included.
MacLemore still had a few more spines to pluck out, but that only took him a second. When he was done, he looked at the gunnysacks, full near to bursting, and grinned. “Dang, Lu,” he said. “You’re a regular pear-carving machine.”
“We’d best get back. The others are probably wondering what happened to us.”
MacLemore tied the last bag closed. Then he and Lu slung them over their shoulders, two to a man, and started back toward camp. Lu was pretty well tuckered out. After hours of staring at prickly pears, his eyes wanted nothing more than to go shut. He was so sleepy that he didn’t even notice the javelina blocking their path until MacLemore grabbed his arm.
It was staring right at them—an enormous pig, fully three feet at the shoulder, with hair bristling up at least another six inches. Its snort, as it looked them over, was deep and sonorous.
“What do you think we ought to do?” MacLemore asked. “Chino seems to think these things can be dangerous.”
“Let’s just go around it,” Lu said.
“Wait. I have a better idea.” MacLemore dropped his two gunny-sacks and reached into his jacket pocket. Lu wasn’t entirely surprised to see him pull out a revolver. It was a shade larger than the one he’d found in Sadie’s valise, but definitely of the same family. “I’ll fire a couple of shots,” he said. “That ought to scare it.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Lu said. The javelina had a look in its eyes that he didn’t care for in the least.
“Tell you what. I’ll fire twice. If the pig doesn’t run away, we’ll go around.”
It still sounded risky to Lu, and he said so. But MacLemore had his heart set on shooting. He aimed and fired, the bullet plunking into the dust a couple of yards in front of the javelina. It gave a snort, but otherwise held its ground.
“Maybe you ought to quit,” Lu suggested.
“Just one more.” MacLemore fired again. This time, his bullet struck a rock, smashing it into a thousand pieces.
Surprised, the javelina backed away.
“See that?” MacLemore crowed. “One more shot and it’ll run for sure. Did you hear the way it squealed?”
But Lu wasn’t so sure. The pig looked surprised, and a little confused, but it also looked as though it might get angry any second. When those bits of exploded rock bounced off its chest, the javelina did squeal, but Lu wasn’t sure he’d heard fear in its voice so much as outrage.
“I think we ought to forget the whole thing,” he said.
But MacLemore wasn’t listening. He brought up his little revolver again and prepared to shoot.
As he cocked it, Lu reached for his own gun. He just had the feeling that this javelina wasn’t going to put up with any more shooting. And he was right. As soon as MacLemore fired, the javelina charged, teeth bared in wild-eyed attack.
It took only seconds for it to cover the distance between itself and the two men, just time enough for Lu to thumb the hammer on his revolver, advancing the cylinder to a live round, and pull the trigger.
The resulting blast was a surprise, and in more ways than one. First, it was louder than anything Lu had yet heard, or was ever likely to hear. Much, much louder. It was so ear-splittingly noisy it made Henry’s rifle seem like a pop-gun. And it had a kick to match its roar. The recoil knocked Lu clean off his feet.
Next thing he knew, MacLemore was leaning over him. “My God, son,” he said. “Are you all right?”
Lu could just barely hear him over the ringing in his ears.
“Jeeminy! Dropped you like a ton of bricks, didn’t it?”
“What happened to the javelina?” Lu asked. He sat up, expecting to see a carcass, and was almost disappointed to see nothing.
“It’s gone. You must’ve scared it though. Darned thing raced through the middle of that mesquite yonder, and I don’t reckon it’s stopped yet.”
“What’d I hit?” Lu asked.
“Cactus.” MacLemore pointed at a nearby saguaro. A hole as big as a man’s fist had been punched straight through the trunk, about five feet off the ground. “What kind of gun is that anyway?”
“I’m pretty sure it was the bullet.” Lu slid the pistol back into his holster. “Bill gave them to me. They belonged to his wife.” He hadn’t intended to say that, but the words came out before he could stop them. For some reason, he still didn’t want his friends to know any more about his bullets than was absolutely necessary.
“His wife?” MacLemore whistled. “That must have been quite a gal.”
The rest of their party stood up as Lu and MacLemore strode back into camp. Henry looked worried. “We heard gunshots,” he said.
“Just an old javelina,” MacLemore explained.
“You didn’t shoot it, did you? Jack said that—”
“Just scared it, thank god. I’d hate to think what that bullet would’ve done if it’d struck meat.”
MacLemore told the whole story, even admitting to having riled the javelina up with his own shots. “Earlier, I’d been bragging to Lu about my wife,” he said, blushing. “That got me thinking about my dead son, and how he’d be about as old as I was when Daisy and I got married.” He paused. “I guess I felt old, and wanted to show off. Can’t have these young fellers thinking you’re just an old so and so … even if you really are.”
Lu was amazed at how forthright MacLemore was being. It was as though the truth were forcing its way out. When he’d finally finished talking, Henry demanded to see one of Lu’s bullets. Reluctantly, Lu acquiesced.
“Looks plain enough,” Henry said. “Brass jacket. Lead slug. Can’t see anything that ought to make it any more powerful than any other bullet. What’s this pink stripe?”
Lu said he didn’t know, but did admit to getting the cartridges from Bill. After that, Chino demanded to hear the whole Bill story again, with the gift of the bullets described in detail. For some reason, Lu was still reluctant, even now that his secret was revealed. When Sadie asked him how many bullets he had, Lu’s first inclination was to lie. “Ten,” he tried to say. But the truth came out instead. “Eleven, plus the one I already fired.”
“Lu was quick on the draw, too,” MacLemore said. “I don’t think Jack Straw himself could have done better.”
“And it knocked you over backwards?” Henry asked.
“Dropped him like a ton of bricks,” MacLemore replied. “Wham, he was down.”
“Did it hurt?”
“It made my ears ring,” Lu said. “In fact, they’re still ringing a little.”
“Take off your shirt. Let Chino see your arm.”
Lu did as bidden, though he was mortified at having Sadie see him bare-chested. Muscles weren’t exactly dripping off him.
“He looks all right to me,” Chino said.
Henry agreed. “Here, let me see that gun.”
He inspected every inch of the barrel before handing it back. “No cracks,” he said. “But I’d leave a cylinder open if I were you. Especially riding through this brush. If that gun is as powerful as you say, you can’t risk its going off by accident.”
“I already do,” Lu said. “Bill told me the same thing.”
It was getting late, so they ate a little supper—more of the roasted javelina meat—and then Chino said he was going to turn in. “We have another long day tomorrow.”
“I still need to wash,” Sadie said. “So don’t any of you wander down to the creek ‘til I come back.”
“You plan to wash that much?” her father asked.
“I figure it’s my last chance. And I can’t see getting my clothes all wet.”
Lu watched her go. He was trying to think of some way that he might slip out of the camp unnoticed—he still owed Sadie for seeing him with his pants unbuttoned—but the minute she left, MacLemore sat down beside him and asked if he wouldn’t like to sing a song. He sounded so hopeful that Lu just couldn’t say ‘no.’
They were only halfway through Streets of Laredo when Lu heard a splash, followed by a girlish giggle. It almost made him forget the words.
They got their first glimpse of the Lake of Fire shortly after noon the following day. Their path wound up and over a naked bluff, and there it was—a stripe of stark white stretched over the whole earth, north to south, and all the way to the horizon.
“Even the sky is white,” Lu observed.
“That’s the heat,” Chino explained. “It bleaches everything.”
“How big is it?” MacLemore asked. “I don’t believe I can see anything beyond.”
“Some places it’s narrow as forty miles.”
“And here?”
Chino shook his head. “No way to know.”
“I don’t see any roads,” Sadie said.
“Nope. Never has been a road in the Lago. Don’t reckon there ever will be.”
“So how do you know which way to go?”
“That’s easy. You head west.”
“For how long?”
“Long as it takes.”