The dead men here had been torn apart. There was so much blood, more than Manny had ever seen. It sluiced around on the concrete like some sort of macabre kiddy pool. The jeep came to a wet stop in front of the group. The act of braking sent a spray of gore out across Skullfucker Mike’s legs.

“Hey,” he said, “what are you all doing here?”

“Roland!” Manny said. “What happened to Roland?!”

Mike looked confused. Topaz raised his head to look at them. Manny was surprised to see tears rolling down his face. His lip trembled a bit, but when he spoke there was steel and fury in his voice.

“He decided to keep killing. I’m sure he’s still killing now.”

“No,” Manny said. “He’s dead…or that’s what the drones said. We have to find him.”

“Get out of that seat,” Mike said to Nana Yazzie. “I’m driving.”

In an instant, Topaz’s tears stopped and, before Manny could say anything, Topaz hopped in the back seat of the jeep.

“Fast,” Topaz told Skullfucker Mike as he took over from Nana Yazzie. “Go very fast.”

It didn’t take long to find him. Roland’s route through the army was painted in red. Hundreds of dead men, maybe more than a thousand, made a clear path with their corpses. That path didn’t end until they were almost at the Brazos, and they saw where Roland had fallen.

Roland’s armored body was splayed out limp, next to the carcass of an old semi truck. There were two very dead men directly in front of them, but neither of them looked to have done him in. Roland hadn’t gone down to enemy fire. He’d jammed a very large gun in his mouth and blown the top off of his head. To all signs, and to all logic, he looked dead.

Donald Farris shook his head and muttered something. Sasha just stared. Nana Yazzie put her hand on Manny’s shoulder.

“He was–” she started to say. But she was interrupted—as Roland lifted his ruined head to look at them. His eyes were still unfocused. Blood drooled down his nose, out of his mouth, and down from the gaping exit wound in his forehead. He spit out several teeth. Manny saw daylight through his skull. But still, Roland was able to speak.

“Who the fuck are you people?” he asked.

Epilogue

Manny stumbled out of Aisha’s house at around 7 PM. It was still bright outside, the scorching boil of the day had faded a bit, into more of a humid simmer. The normal stark, blinding blue of Texan September had been replaced by the oily gray-white of cloud cover. It looked, and felt, like a storm front was moving in.