A small sound pulled the chief from his thoughts. It was not a footstep. It was the sound of a wooden cup being turned over in small hands.
Nakai stood beside him. The boy was eight years old, small and watchful, with the grave face of a child who had learned too early to listen before he spoke. He was the chief's grandson, the son of Lani, who had died in childbirth six years earlier, and the chief had raised him since, with the help of the women of the camp. Nakai carried a wooden cup everywhere now, as if carrying it were a duty. It was smooth from handling, darkened by years of water, and this morning it was empty. He held it out toward the basin, then drew it back, then held it out again, the way a child holds out something he is not sure he should offer.
Grandfather, he said, and his voice was small in the wide, dry air. "Is there water?"
Nan-tan-lupan looked at his grandson. He did not look away. He did not soften the truth into a story, because the boy had already learned to tell when a story was being told to him instead of the truth, and the chief would not spend the last of his credit with his grandson on a lie.
No, he said.
Nakai nodded. He had expected it, and expecting it did not make it easier. He looked down into the cup, as if the emptiness inside it might have changed while he was not watching, and then he looked up at his grandfather again. His eyes were dry โ he had cried his tears out days ago, and the body, when it is thirsty, keeps what little water it has โ but his mouth was set in a stubborn line that belonged to someone older.
We will find some, the chief said. It was not a promise he could prove. It was a promise he chose to make, because a child standing beside an empty basin needed to hear that the world had not finished with him yet, and because a chief who stopped saying it would stop believing it himself. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder, and the boy leaned into it, just slightly, and together they stood and watched the basin, and the sun climbed, and the dust moved, and nothing changed โ except that, for one more morning, they were still standing there together.
They came back from the west in the late afternoon, when the light had gone the colour of old brass and the shadows of Red Mesa stretched long across the camp. There were three of them, and the camp saw them before it heard them, because their horses made almost no sound on the dusty ground, the hooves scuffing rather than striking, the way a tired animal moves when it has given everything it has and is still being asked for more.
Besh rode first. He was forty-seven, the oldest scout, steady as a man could be after days in dry country, his scarred hands loose on the reins, his face unreadable. Behind him came Kani, thirty-four, sharp-eyed and quiet, his head turning constantly, taking in the camp the way a man takes in a room he has been away from and is afraid to find changed. Last came Chinche, twenty-three, the youngest scout and the fastest rider in the band, and he could barely stay in the saddle. He swayed with each step of his horse, his hands knotted in the mane, his head dropping forward and jerking up again, not wounded โ exhaustion had done this to him, plain and simple, the exhaustion of riding hard through country that gave nothing back.
Women came out of the shelters. Children stopped their games. The chief walked forward to meet them, and Nakai followed at his heel, the wooden cup still in his hand. No one ran. Running wasted water, and they had all learned, in fifty-five days, not to waste anything, not even hope, until they knew what shape it would take.
Besh dismounted slowly, as if his legs had forgotten how to hold him, and stood before the chief. He did not look at the ground. He looked at Nan-tan-lupan directly, the way a man does when the news he carries is bad and he will not soften it by looking away.
Nothing, he said.
The word fell into the camp like a stone into a dry well โ no splash, only a sound that stopped too soon.
Kani spoke next, his voice low. "Dead Canyon is dry. We walked its whole length. The stone basin there holds nothing but dust. We dug with our hands where the ground was darkest, and the earth came up dry as ash."
Chinche, still half in the saddle, lifted his head with an effort. "Two days farther west," he said, and his voice was hoarse, "there are dead animals. They followed a dry riverbed. They kept walking after the water was gone, because they did not know where else to go. We found them where they fell."
No one spoke for a moment. The women looked at one another. An old man sat down slowly on a stone, as if his legs had decided for him. Nakai pressed closer to his grandfather's side. The scouts had been the camp's last outward hope โ the west searched, the west empty โ and now the map of the world had narrowed to the camp itself, and the camp had no water.