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Whoa, he says

But she’s already on top of hi him by the neck and poised with her other hand quickly unsheathing the gurkha and raising it for a kill strike

Whoa there, he says, shrinking fro up his hands in subonna hurt you It’s ht of the boxcar, and her mind clears of the phantasms of sleep, and she notices that all around her other uns and other weapons at her

It’s okay, says the man who she has by the throat He says it to everyone else in the boxcar I just startled her is all That’s what I get for wakin a dreamer

Lee Not Moses Todd at all Lee The hunter Lee, theflesh spiced with aroara Falls He was thein the corner of the car with the Stetson hat

Lee, she says aloud

That’s right, darlin It looks like we’ve been ether once more

I’M SORRY I punched you, she says

He ers

I’ve had it worse, he says But one thing’s for sure--I won’t be wakin you up from any naps anytime soon

The train has stopped at an intersection in a s for survivors and supplies One of Wilson’sMexican they call Popo, strolls casually about, approaching the slugs as though he would ask theun to their heads Te of a store, watch froun, and they can see the slugs stand still for aa little in the breeze, then collapsing to the ground as if they were balloon animals deflated by a sudden leak

What happened to your friends? she asks

Well, Horace, he got too close to a slug Took a bite out of his arht after that Kept waitin to die or to turn or soer than any of us expected him to

What happened to him?

I don’t exactly know for sure See, Clive and I woke up one , and he just wasn’t there anyone We waited for him till sunset, but he never showed up Maybe you feel the change co Maybe he went off to be by hiarette and leans back on the bench and stretches out his legs and crosses his ankles

And Clive, well, he wanted to keep on going just the two of us But I was gettin kinda tired of the plainsman routine, if you want to know the truth I told hiht out for the west, see what kind of society I been hearin they got in California We parted right, and we put up a onna bother it It’s nothin to nature, but it did us soood

He flicks his ash to the sidewalk and slides the back of his hand under his nose

How about you? he asks He nods in the direction of Maury, who sits on the curb with a bunch of wildflowers clasped in one thick hand Looks like you picked yourself up a travelin companion

She tells hi after she saw Lee last About hoas carrying his granny down the road followed by a whole parade offor a feast She tells how she found a slip of paper in his pocket with his name and the address of his relations in Texas and how she’s been trying to tote hi else that delays her and gets in the way of her undertook s, she says, but she doesn’t feel like going into detail Suffice to say, she’s been in theher like the poorest doctor in the world, you got soot a handle on surviving

Yeah, she says Stayin alive ain’t the hard part The probleht

What do you s I don’t care to talk about

Little sister, anyone alive’s got a collection of those things