The sun, a brand new copper penny, stood low on the eastern rim of the desert, spilling light like thin, watery blood across the scrub. Dust motes danced in the anemic rays, a million tiny souls adrift. He rode, a gaunt shadow upon a gaunt horse, the creak of leather a dry cough in the vast stillness. His name was Thomas, or had been once. Names, like men, wore thin in this country. He had ridden south from the ruins of what men once called a town, a place now no more than crumbling adobe and the bleached bones of cattle. The wind had scoured it clean, leaving only the grit of memory. He carried little: a worn saddlebag, a rifle he'd taken from a dead man, and the burden of days lived too long. The horse, a rawboned roan with eyes like polished stones, stumbled often, its breath a rasping sound in the dry air. He saw the buzzards first, circling high and slow, black flecks against the immense blue. A distant promise of carrion. He spurred the horse, a halfhearted gesture, and felt the dull ache in his own bones. The land was flat here, stretching to horizons that shimmered and wavered in the nascent heat. Nothing but rock and sand and the twisted forms of creosote bush, like figures in a bad dream. He found them at the base of a low mesa, half-buried in the sand. Three men. Or what was left of them. The buzzards had been at work. Their clothes were rags, their skin like cured leather. One had a bullet hole in his forehead, a neat, black punctiliousness. The others, it was harder to tell. The desert claimed its own with a brutal efficiency. He dismounted, the sand sighing beneath his boots. The air was thick with the scent of death and the faint, sweet odor of mesquite. He knelt, not out of reverence, but out of a habit of scrutiny. Their pockets were empty, their boots gone. A fool's errand to scavenge here. He stood, the sun now a searing brand on his neck. He watched the buzzards, still patient, still waiting. They knew. They always knew. He watered the horse from his canteen, a small allowance, then drank sparingly himself. The water was warm, metallic. The world was a place of thirst and dust and the endless reckoning of small things. He spat, the spittle a dark mark on the parched earth. He rode on, the sun climbing to its zenith, a white-hot coin in the sky. The shadows shortened, then disappeared entirely. The air hummed with an unseen energy, the vast indifference of the land. He thought of nothing. Or of everything, distilled to its barest essence. Survival. The turning of the earth. The slow, inexorable march toward whatever end awaited. He saw the distant shimmer of the river in the late afternoon, a ribbon of silver in the haze. The Colorado. Or what was left of it. A trickle now, in places, choked with alkali and the bones of things that had failed to make it. He felt no surge of hope. Only a dull recognition. Another landmark on the endless road. He reached it as the sun began its descent, painting the sky in violent hues of orange and purple, like a bruise. The water was shallow, barely moving. He let the horse drink, then knelt himself, scooping the muddy liquid into his cupped hands. It tasted of earth and the long, slow decay of the world. He drank until the thirst was dulled, not quenched. He found a small rise overlooking the river, a place where the wind had scoured the sand clean, leaving patches of rock exposed. He would make camp here. He tethered the horse, then sat, the rifle across his knees. The stars began to appear, one by one, cold and remote, like the eyes of ancient gods. The silence was absolute, broken only by the distant hoot of an owl. He had no fire. No need for it. The night air was cool, but not cold enough to bite. He watched the river, its slow, dark flow a mirror to the endless passage of time. He thought of the men in the sand. Of the countless others. They were all the same. Dust to dust. A simple equation. He pulled his blanket tight about him and lay back, his eyes fixed on the indifferent stars. The world was a hard place. And growing harder. But he was still in it. And for now, that was enough. The wind whispered secrets in the creosote, ancient and unheeded. And the night deepened, cold and vast and full of the slow, turning of the world.