Anders snapped awake. The white mare sprang forward, then stopped and raised her front hooves. He swiveled his head as she came down, again, onto all fours. The sun was directly overhead. They’d been walking all morning and Anders had fallen asleep. Dutch was twenty or thirty yards away. The rope trailed him through the cacti and creosote—his footsteps kicked up dust. He stumbled, fell, stood again and ran. Anders coaxed the white mare forward, turned her around and brought her to a trot after Dutch. No escape. Not from Anders. He brought the white mare alongside Dutch. “Where you headed, friend?”

Dutch stumbled. He righted himself and kept running. Anders pulled the white mare up ahead, then swung her around to face Dutch, who stopped.

Dutch raised his chin toward the sun and closed his eyes. “You killed Jamey. You’ll kill me,” he said. “I know you’ll kill me. I just know it in the eyes of my heart.”

Anders rested one elbow on the saddle horn. He squinted at Dutch. “I had to kill your friend. It was the only way I could escape. But I don’t plan on killing you. I never planned on killing anybody.”

“But you have.”

“I have. I’ll bet, so have you.”

Dutch fell to his knees. “I didn’t want to hang you. I told Jamey, ‘let’s just take him back to camp and get us some whiskey.’ That’s what I said. You’d trade for a lot of whiskey—those clothes and the white horse. All that leather. But Jamey wouldn’t have it. He’d never have it, no matter what I told him.”

“Jamey wouldn’t have it,” Anders repeated.

Dutch shook his head. He sank deeper into the sand, like a piece of grass gone dry. “I never killed nobody. I just watched Jamey do it. He said it set the people all free. That’s what he said. He said that they went up to Highland with Papa, that they lived in pools of blue water and green trees all around like it used to be, way back when.”

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“And you believed him.”

Again, Dutch shook his head. “No.”

Anders kneeled next to Dutch in the sand. He peeled back the sleeve on his left arm, folded it back to his elbow. “Look at it.” Dutch looked at the arm. There were two long, thin scars running lengthwise over the skin. They traced straight paths like ridges across a razor-topped mountain range. Anders ran the fingers of his right hand over them—they were the only thing he had left from the world before, those scars. “I was brought back,” he said. “But it wasn’t Papa. It was luck. It was good fortune. That’s all it was.” Anders rolled the sleeve back down to his wrist. “Ain’t no Papa in a world like this. Look around us, all this is what’s left. It’s just you and me and the damn sun and all this dirt.”

“Good fortune?”

“That’s right. Papa, the kings, that whole story is a lie. Like something you tell a kid so he behaves. They spread it around to make all the people listen real good.”

“You’re a real atheist, aren’t you? I never met one. They say they’re out there, that we was at war, but I never saw one.”

Anders stood and looked down at Dutch for the second time that day. He could let Dutch run free, but then they’d both die from thirst. No, he had to convince this man that they could survive together. It was the only way. They had to make it to Blythe Camp. Then, they could make a plan. They needed water, food, another horse or two. “You don’t believe any of that shit, do you? Any of that stuff about Papa?”

Dutch looked up at Anders. He struggled to his feet and looked straight into Anders’ face. “I’m just like everybody else. I believe whatever keeps my meals coming. The camp is alright. Some of the people are alright, too. I never wanted to kill nobody, not even you. I never wanted to do nothing bad. I only want food and water.”

Anders untied Dutch’s hands. He removed the tight loop of rope around Dutch’s waist and tossed it into the dirt. “You and me need to make a treaty,” Anders said. “Otherwise we’re gonna die before we find water.”

Dutch looked down at his hands. He held them out and studied his palms. “I’ll grant your treaty, but I want you to promise not to kill me. That’s in the treaty too.”

Anders smiled for the first time in...He didn't know how long. He held out his hand.

The two men shook on it.

Made their treaty.