“Oh, don’t worry,” said Crow, cocking his weapon. “I’m ready every second of the day.”

I popped the hatch and climbed out, wondering how I was going to get out of this one with a new set of wheels but without having to shoot somebody. I got the hood up and faked messing with the engine again, thinking about the last time I’d done that and how it had played out.

The cruiser crept up the road behind me, the tread of its tires clacking at the tarmac. Out the corner of my eye, I could see the barrel of Alpha’s rifle, pointed right across the engine, angled straight into the road.

Wasn’t long before the growl of the cruiser was at my shoulders, brakes tapping and squeaking to a stop. I turned around then, watched the wheels make their last rotation before they eased to a standstill. I stared into those black tint windows. I grinned and waved. And then I just stood there and waited.

Seemed like a month and nothing happened. I glanced at the trailer, but the thing was almost empty. If they’d gone west looking for salvage, then they’d not done too good a job.

“Banyan,” Alpha whispered from behind the wagon. “Go say hello.”

She was right. Standing around was getting me nowhere. So I amped up the grin and waltzed up to the driver’s door. And I’d almost reached the cruiser when the window slid down a crack.

I stopped dead.

The window buzzed a little lower. And the smell. Oh, man. The smell was so bad it made my belly squirm.

“Hello?” I called, not wanting to move an inch closer. “Got a little engine trouble here.”

I heard a voice croak something from behind the wheel, but I still couldn’t see a face through the shadows. I acted like I was scratching at my back but really I was getting the pistol ready. I took a step closer and was sweating like crazy now, and that combined with the sick feeling in my stomach and that awful stench wafting over me, I felt like when I was ill in the mud pit, back stuck in that filthy fever.

I went to say something, but before I got the words out, I saw the driver’s face bobble into the sunlight.

His skin was almost green and his eyes had clouded over, the marks on his face were like moldy bits of corn. The man was trying to speak but his mouth was too thick with spit, his lips too cracked and bleeding.

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

Then I shouted for Alpha.

She came running up behind me as I covered my mouth with my shirt and stepped closer to the cruiser. I peered in at the rest of the man’s body — his clothes soiled with sweat, his right arm missing below the elbow. He’d tied his shirt beneath the stump and it was soaked black with blood that was still dripping. I almost puked right then, but that was nothing next to the far side of his neck. The skin gnawed all the way to muscle. Bits of bone poking through.

Alpha groaned behind me.

“What is it?” Sal squeaked from the wagon. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” I shouted. “Don’t you come out here.”

Crow, of course, was already on his way.

He hollered at the stink then made a sound like he was laughing. “Not bad,” he shouted, throwing open the doors to the cruiser. “Today be our lucky day.”

“Lucky?” I muttered, staring inside at the carcasses stacked on the rear seat. It was the man’s family, I guess. Three smaller bodies and a bigger one. Nothing left to bury but bones and patches of hair.

“That’s right, little man. Lucky.” Crow held his nose as he slammed the doors shut. “Got ourselves a new set of wheels and didn’t even have to kill no one to get it.”

He was right. We’d take the wheels, though not the cruiser, not as greased with death and poisoned as it was. But as the man went to switch his engine back on, to keep on toward who knows where, I felt Crow shoving me in the rubs.

“Spoke to soon,” he said. “You better take care of business.”

I snatched the pistol from out the back of my pants. But that was as far as I got with it. Sure, I’d waved the nail gun around before, even taken out one of the Harvesters with it, but there was some new thing needed now to pull a trigger in cold blood. And I remembered what my father had told me. About me being a builder. Not a fighter.

“Come on, bud,” Alpha said, stepping past me to fire a shot through the driver’s skull. “It’s just putting him out of his misery.”

She was right. The guy had been all out of time. But that didn’t make killing him weigh any less heavy. He’d been just pushing down the road, I reckon. Just trying to do the right thing. And now he was slumped over his steering wheel. Dead.

“What happened to them?” Sal whispered, running up. His hand clutched at me, and his legs wobbled as he stared into the car.

“Locusts,” said Crow.

“It should be too cold,” I said. “It should be good crossing season.”

“Should be, little man.” Crow opened the driver’s door and wound the window up, then slammed the door shut to seal the stench inside. “But should don’t mean shit.”

He was right. It don’t.

And it weren’t long before Sal went and threw up all over my boots.

I worked the rest of the day getting the wheels off the cruiser and rigging them up to my wagon. I even salvaged two extra tires off the dead man’s trailer and I strapped them across our roof. The water in their tank smelled bad and tasted worse, but it kept a hungry mouth from getting thirsty.

The sun was dropping and the wind had stayed down, and we were all famished by the time we uncovered the stash Sal and me had buried. I had to keep Sal from shoving all the corn in the microwave so we could cook it and eat it all right then.

“Gotta pace ourselves,” I told him. “Got a ways to go yet.”

But how far were we heading? I’d no real idea. To Vega, first. That was the plan. We had to get ourselves a GPS by trading something. Or someone. I watched Hina as she chewed her rations and licked her fingers clean. But you can’t go trading people, I thought. You do that and you’ll end up the one not worth a damn.

Still, we’d have to do something. Without the GPS gadget, we couldn’t plug in the numbers that were supposed to lead us to the Promised Land. My father and the trees.

By nightfall, there was only one thing left to be dug back up — Zee’s bag where I’d squeezed my book and the bark, along with the camera and pictures.

I’d deliberately worked around the spot, kept it hid. Problem was, Crow was always around. Always paying attention. And I reckon that made him a real good watcher, but right now it just made him a huge pain in the ass.

“We got to be careful,” Alpha said as I siphoned off the last of the cruiser’s water. “Now he’s got his wheels, what’s he need us for?”

“He needs the numbers.”

“So he takes the woman.”

I glanced over at where Hina was sitting. “I can’t get through to her,” I said. “But she knows things. She knew my father.”

“Just keep focused on finding those trees.”

“She ain’t distracting me.”

“Good.”

“She’s got nothing on you.”

Alpha eyes flashed, and for a moment it was like I could feel the electricity howl inside her.

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special,” she said.

“Oh, you’re special all right.”

“Yeah?” She laughed. “For how long?”

“Stick around,” I said.

“No one sticks around, Banyan. Not for a feeling. Not in the end.” She was grinning when she said it, but I saw her smile disappear as she turned to walk away.

I’d pieced the engine back together and had the wagon ready, but I let them all rest awhile longer. I paced the tarmac with my telescope in one hand, my gun in the other.