"Hungry?" Ryan asked, turning his head quickly, finding that Krysty was sitting closer than he'd thought. So close that their noses almost touched and her veil of crimson hair brushed lightly against his cheek.

Her green eyes drilled into his and she half opened her mouth, saying nothing. Despite the cool of the evening, Ryan was perspiring.

It was utterly inevitable that they should kiss. And having kissed should kiss again, and again. His hand was holding the back of her neck, and her hair seemed almost to caress his fingers. His tongue thrust between her parted lips, and her sharp teeth nipped him, so gently. His right hand slipped down the rough material of her overalls, finding the zipper, lowering it in a whisper of movement. He felt the warm swell of her breast as his palm cupped it, and the nipple harden like a tiny animal. Her own hands were delving under the long coat, but the wealth of guns and the panga hindered her from reaching and touching him.

"Ryan..." she panted. "Please, can?.."

"Where? In the war wag?"

"No!" Vehemently. "Not in there. Out here where you can breathe free. Over there, in those trees beyond the river."

Caution, and the memory of those odd totemic warning signs, made him hesitate. But his desire overcame all resistance and he took her by the hand and they walked together, jumping a narrow brook, finding a space of cropped grass alongside a quiet pond. Trees hid them from the war wag, and the gathering darkness kept their secret.

It was too cold for them to strip, but she wriggled out of the overalls, and he pulled off the dark gray denim trousers, laying the LAPA ready to hand.

They were both desperate enough not to waste time on any preliminaries and he roiled on top while she guided him into her. Krysty moaned softly as Ryan penetrated her, thrusting, feeling her moistness and heat close around him. She locked her heels in the small of his back, drawing him deeper, pushing up with her hips at his steel-hard maleness.

They reached a juddering, simultaneous climax, and he lay down on her, his face buried in her neck, panting as if he had run a long distance race across broken ground. She touched him on the side of the face, kissing him with an infinite tenderness.

"That was so good, Ryan. So good that I'd like to do it again."

The second time, later, in the velvet blackness of the forest, was slower. They explored each other's body with fingers and lips, touching and arousing each other. Finally he lay back, the short grass prickling his buttocks as she straddled him, lowering herself teasingly slowly, so that the tip of his erect penis touched and entered and then withdrew. Until she smiled and enveloped him, throwing her head back as she pumped and rose and fell. The girl's mouth opened and she sighed with the pleasure of their lovemaking, her teeth white as wind-washed bone in the twilight.

The second orgasm was without the hurry of the first, and for many minutes after they lay tangled in each other's arms. The night's cold stole over them and eventually they broke apart and pulled on their clothes.

"They'll be lookin' for us," said Ryan.

"Not if they guess that we... Look, there, beyond that fallen tree."

Ryan followed her finger, reaching for the pistol, then checking the movement. Some hundred paces away from them, only a smudge of light against the dark trees, he saw a man. Standing silently watching them.

"Who is he?"

"Looks like a mutie." The man was old, and as Ryan's eye adjusted to the night, he could make him out more clearly. Barely medium height, with silver-white hair tied in two long braids, each with a scrap of red ribbon knotting it at the end. He wore a robe of some kind of animal hide, and it was decorated with a staggeringly complex design in multihued threads and silks. His face was dark, the eyes hidden in the deep sockets.

In the hair was a single feather, white as fresh snow.

Even as they watched him, the old man moved back a couple of paces and then vanished among the pines behind him. It was done with great grace. Suddenly the space where he had been was empty.

"Goin' after him?" asked Krysty.

"No. Could be a trap. Maybe he's the one who put them signs up, warnin' us to stay away."

They moved fast, back to the safety of the war wag. Ryan's hand never left the butt of the automatic. Nobody said anything about their absence, although Ryan caught Hunaker giving a sly wink to Samantha.

In the morning the Trader had gone.

The only person who had seen him leave was Abe, who had been on guard on the river side of the war wag. Everyone gathered around the lanky man as he reported to J.B. and Ryan Cawdor, just after dawn.

"No warnin', but he was behind me. I turns and he pats me on the shoulder, like he did when you'd done somethin' real good. Know what I mean? I says to him, like, how's he doin' and he says he's never better."

"What was he wearing?" asked J.B.

"Usual. Carryin' that old Armalite of his. Steppin' good, not stooped like he's been. No cough. Looks past me to the trees and the snow up beyond. Real cold. I seen his breath plumin' out. Says he's goin' for a walk, and not to take on if he's gone some time. That was about three, maybe four hours back." Abe shook his head, the long flowing hair moving from side to side. "He sure looked pretty to me, up and walkin' tall."

"He say anythin' at all, apart from that?"

"No, Ryan. But he did say there was a letter for you. Said he'd got a scribbler to write it weeks back when we was on the road to Mocsin."

Ryan spun on his heel to go and look for the letter. But Abe coughed. "Yeah?"

"There's one other thing, Ryan. But it's kind of stupid."

"Go on."

Abe glanced away. "No, Mebbe in a while. I got to think on it some. Go read your note." It didn't take long.

It was on the steel table in the corner of the Trader's cabin. The edges of the handmade paper were crinkled. The letter was stained with machine oil and what looked like ketchup smeared over the bottom half. Because of his own illiteracy, the Trader had been forced to get a writer to produce the note for him. Which may have led to its brevity and lack of emotion. Or it may just have been the way the Trader was.

"Hi Ryan," it began.

If you're reading this then it means I'm dead. This rad cancer's been eating my guts for months and I know there's no stopping it. So this is me saying goodbye and the best of luck. If it goes the way I hope, I'll just walk away one night so don't you blasted come after me. Please. That's the Trader asking and not ordering, Ryan, old friend. We've been some places and done some good and bad things. Now it's done. That's all. I thank you for watching my back for so many years. You and J.B. watch for each other.

There was no signature.

So he'd done it. Ended his life in the same quietly efficient way he'd run it. Minutes later, as Ryan walked through the war wag, there were several of the women, and some of the men, red eyed. Samantha was weeping on the shoulder of Hennings. Rintoul was clicking his fingers in a nervous, abstracted way, and Finnegan's usual good nature had vanished.

"Break this up," called Ryan, making them jump and turn hostile faces his way. "Trader went as he wanted. Save your sorrow."

Outside in the freshness of morning the rising sun was tipping the hills to the west, turning the snow to blood. Abe was sitting on the ground, nursing his own M-16 rifle, gazing out across the river toward the forest. Ryan hunkered alongside him.

"Tell me, Abe."

"What?"

"You was goin' to tell me. Somethin' that Trader said or did. At the last?"

"No. Wasn't like that, I told you allhe said. Then he just walked off, over there." He pointed with the muzzle of the gun.