I hope Ma had forgotten me by the time they dragged her onto the dam. I hope she looked at my face and saw a stranger framed in the nursery window. I can’t bear to think that she died knowing her daughter was the one to forsake her.

By noon, I have sweated through my undershirt and am feeling faint. Heat rash speckles my palms, but when the wagon comes with the water, I’ve harvested only enough to earn one ladle. I accept the drink, nod my thanks, and hold the water in my mouth until I’m back in the fields and out of the guards’ sight. There, I drop to my knees and spit it all out. I watch the soil soak it up, my throat dry and scratchy.

After the water wagon leaves, we’re instructed to shift from harvesting to weeding, tossing anything we pull into our baskets so they can be dried out and used for textiles or fuel. The surface dirt is bone-dry, but when I pull my first weed, damp earth clings to the roots. The General must have the fields watered in the evening, when the workers are back at the shanties, spent from the day and dreaming whatever fogged dreams the drugged water induces. If I can sneak out to the fields then . . . If I capture runoff from those watering sessions . . .

Shouts from the dam pull me from my thoughts, and I look up to see a convoy rolling into Bedrock. I push to my feet for a better view. At first I think it’s some division of the General’s army, men back from pillaging another poor settlement, new workers for the fields in tow. But the procession of wagons is mismatched—some built entirely of worn wood, others part Old World rover—and no one with the unit wears a ram-skull mask or the Loyalist black. In fact, the people with this convoy look as disheveled as those from any settlement in the wastes. Slapdash goggles are pulled over their eyes, threadbare scarves wrapped around their necks and noses. I can make out woven wool shirts and the occasional leather jacket. Harnessed mules tow the wagons, whose payload is hidden beneath sheets that are pulled over the bed. Ropes and braided rags cinch the fabric down tightly, but by the bulking shape, it’s obvious that there’s a lot of whatever they’re moving.

The dark-skinned driver at the front of the procession cracks a whip, guiding the way down Bedrock’s dirt street. Gunners are positioned around the bed of each wagon, long barrels resting against their shoulders now that they’ve entered Bedrock and left the dangerous wastes behind. A handful even hold bows, the quivers slung across their backs.