Before anyone could ask him more questions, he rode on. He left chaos in his wake. Men groaned. Women screamed and wailed. Some of the buyers and sellers decided they didn't want to hang around anymore. Several of them looked to the north as if they expected a million Valley soldiers to follow hard on the horseman's heels.

That didn't happen, of course. Little by little, the ones who stayed realized it wouldn't. But by the time Liz bought a mean-looking chicken (so she wouldn't mind so much when the bird got it in the neck), several more Westside soldiers made it back from the fighting in the pass. Some rode horses. Others were on bicycles with the wooden tires they used here instead of rubber.

They all told the same story, near enough. They would have easily beaten the men from the Valley if not for that machine gun. With it, King Zev 's soldiers could do no wrong. “They could kill us from ranges where we couldn't even touch them,” said a man on a bike. “How are you supposed to fight a war like that?”

“Why didn't Cal know they had it?” somebody asked.

“Beats me,” the soldier answered. “He didn't, though-never in a million years.” He paused, then added one more telling detail: “Pots is dead. That gun chewed up his armor like it wasn't there. Chewed him up, too.”

People moaned and wept when they heard that. The monster mutant dog had been a symbol of Westside strength for years. What did he symbolize now? The collapse of Westside strength? It sure looked that way to Liz.

Sack of avocados in one hand, chicken legs in the other, her head full of news, she headed back toward the house. She was glad to give her mother the chicken. She wasn't so glad to pass the news along.

Mom's mouth tightened. “I was afraid of that. Remember how your father said a heavy machine gun would be big trouble?”

“Well, he was right.” Liz didn't say that every day. She got on well with her father, but she didn't always agree with him- not even close. She paused, gulped, and asked, “What do we do if… if the Valley soldiers come here?”