We passed through the prairie like a dust storm, leaving nothing in our wake. Every now and then we’d stop and do a bit of trade, but there was never any negotiation. That was all done in advance, we were just there to drop off or pick up the trade goods. I was just another set of hands in the loading and unloading process, but I kept my eyes out for threats the same as everyone else.

  We stopped in one of the suburbs of OKC. OKC wasn’t there any longer, but some of the outlying communities had survived. When we arrived, we did the same unloading and loading that we did everywhere else, but Niel informed us that we’d be spending the week there in one of the old strip motels.

  There were enough rooms and beds for all of the men to get their own. I got handed a key and my pay for the trip so far, and I got told to fuck off until the caravan was ready to go again.

  I asked Miguel what to do to fill up the time, and he suggested that I go and find a whore.

  Instead I started wandering the old suburb, walking through the ruins of the past. I was wandering through the abandoned streets of a residential area when I realized I’d picked up followers. A bunch of little kids were hiding between houses and looking at me.

  “I don’t bite,” I said to them. “Come on out.”

  “You’re not going to shoot us are you?” one of the girls shouted.

  I gnced down at the Ruger and shrugged. “Wasn’t pnning on it.”

  So the kids came out nervously and came up to me. There were eight of them, the youngest was about eight years old, but most of them were closer to my own age. The leader was the girl who’d asked whether I’d shoot them, and her name was Heather. She was fourteen.

  They offered to show me around, and I accepted. We ended up at an old basketball court where the grass was growing through the pavement, but the hoops were still there.

  They had a hand-sewn beanbag, and we pyed a bit of hand-basketball. The ball didn’t dribble or bounce, of course, but we’d fight over it and throw it at the hoop to try to score.

  “What’s it like to hold a gun?” one of the boys asked me.

  “What kind of dumbass question is that?” I asked him, and he blushed. He was missing his left ear. I sighed. “Look, it’s a tool. Just like a knife or a hoe or a whatever the fuck. I don’t need a gun to kill, you can use other tools to do that too. Guns are just better at it.”

  “Yeah,” the kid said. “I guess.”

  We kept messing around for a few hours until it got dark. Then I went back to the motel and fell asleep.