‘Reckon so,’ Dave said. ‘Time to stretch the legs, get a late lunch, and the like.’

They didn’t go into Ardmore proper, though, the ruins of which Sofia could see as Cindy pulled into yet another Flying J truck stop, this one on Cooper Drive, just off the highway. Unlike so much of the Midwest, Ardmore appeared to be marked for resettlement and redevelopment. Sofia had passed through here on the way north, late in the spring, and the town then had been deserted. They hadn’t even stopped for salvage, preferring to move quickly after having encountered signs of bandits on the trail the previous day. If those ne’er-do-wells had made their camp in Ardmore, as her father suspected, they had obviously been driven off in the months since Sofia had last been here. But by who? Her heart beat a little heavier inside her rib cage as she wondered whether she might be about to encounter the TDF for the first time. They used the same equipment as the US Army, of course, so there was no way of telling if those helicopters had belonged to Blackstone or President Kipper.

‘Is this a Blackstone settlement?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

Cindy smiled. ‘No. We ain’t quite in the belly of the beast yet, my friend. Seattle runs this here burg. Those were air force birds flew over us before. You can unpucker for now – nobody’s gonna press you into a work gang here, Sof.’

The Kenworth rolled slowly into a parking bay, crunching and hissing down through the gears before jolting ever so slightly to a complete stop.

‘Come on, hon, let’s go get us some supplies.’

‘Cindy . . . I only have a few dollars,’ Sofia confessed, feeling unexpected shame. She had taken so much from this kind woman, and all under false pretences.

‘Ppfft!’ The trucker blew off her worries. ‘Look, there’s a federal salvage depot across the road from the J. Anything you need, you can pick it up there. Is there something you need?’

A shrug.

‘I would like a map of Fort Hood and of this place Temple, where the federales are,’ she said. ‘And a small radio, if I could. I should’ve thought to get one earlier, in Wellington when we stopped and met those other lady drivers.’

‘Well, come on then. We’ll get fed and head on to the depot before we light out. See what we can do. I don’t know about the radio, but they’ll have maps for sure.’

Sofia followed the blue-clad truck driver’s lead and hopped out of the cab, with her spirits lifted slightly, glad to be able to stretch her legs and empty her bladder. Her breath fogged up again, but the cold was nowhere near as unpleasant as Kansas City had been. The borrowed jacket was more than enough to ward off the chill.