“That was no goddamn ordinary rattlesnake.”

“What was it then?”

Burns stares at the solid and substantial weapon in his hand, seeing, feeling, knowing its dogmatic reality. “I don’t know. Do you know?”

“I was born into the Sun clan.” Sam watches the fire, holding out his strong, open hands, spreading the clever fingers. “I was initiated into the One Horn Society when I was twelve. I learned many secret things.”

“Where was that?”

“Down in the kiva. Many secret things. For ten years, before I went away…” He pauses. “Before I went away I was leader of the flute ceremony. The shaman taught me himself. Before he died. And then…”

A coyote begins to bark, far off, out in the desert. Answered at once by a second, in a different quarter. And a third. The barking passes, by slow degrees of modulation, into a quavering howl. The horses stop and lift their heavy heads to stare, through the dark, at something men cannot see.

“Well,” says the old man, still studying Sam’s knife, “then what?”

“Eat your supper.”

Burns leans forward with the knife, picks up the meat. “You can tell me, Sam. What the hell, were partners.” He carves a hunk off the blackened roast of dog. “How’d you do it?”

“Holy secret, boss. You tell me something.”

“Call me ‘Jack,’ damnit.”

“You tell me something, Jack.”

“Yeah?”

The Indian points toward the smoldering city, the scatter of fires and lights spread across ten miles of the horizon. “How do you think we’re going to find him? In that dying mess? All those frightened people? You don’t even know what he looks like now.”

“I know his name.” Burns chews slowly and grudgingly, with little appetite, on the unsalted meat. “I’ll know him when I see him.”

“You think so? You last saw him twenty years ago. How old was he then?”

“Rrrmmm…” The lean jaws make a clicking sound as the old man eats; he readjusts his loose bridgework. “How old was he? Hah…” Staring at the embers of the fire, Burns smiles. He draws an ancient wallet from his hip pocket, opens to a picture under cracked celluloid. Smiling, he contemplates the faded image of a solemn, towheaded, handsome boy of ten or twelve. “Good-lookin’ devil…just like his daddy. We’ll know him when we see him, Sam. No doubt about that.”

“How do you know he’s even there? In the city?”

Smile fading, the old man puts away the picture. “You touch on a tender spot, partner. We don’t know. All I know is he was there four years ago when I got that last letter. The last letter anybody got, I reckon. If he ain’t there anymore then I don’t know where to look. We’ll ride on to California. I’ll find the little bastard somewheres.”

“How do you know California is still there? How do you know he’ll know you? Or want to?”

“All right, Sam…” Burns frowns at his big, powerful, interlocked hands. “You sure know where the fear is, all right. Don’t you, you son-of-a-bitch. I don’t know.”