"Oh? Where's mom?" asked Red looking towards the house.

"That bitch is dead. I killed her myself; I take care of my own shit jobs."

"What about the boy? He yours or did he come after?"

"Mine, but he came after. I wasn't thinking too clear about things back then or I would never have done that to a kid."

Red lowered his hands and brushed off his sleeves, looking at the blood stains on his shirt, "I'm not in any place to judge you. You know that."

Jimbo looked him up and down again and said, "Well, you'd best come into the house. Then Veronica and I can hear your story out of the sun."

The heat didn't bother Red, but standing around talking in the dust swept driveway seemed uncivilized so he followed Jimbo into the house.

"So this isn't your place then?" he asked as they went inside.

"No. We came up from Denver and stopped here a couple weeks ago. The animals were about dead and we'd all seen enough of killing to last us awhile so we started taking care of them. The power went out ten days ago, but this place has an old fashioned water pump right alongside the faucet in the barnyard. Now we're farmers. I don't know what we will do when the grain runs out."

"Kill them?"

"I hope not. We found a few books on 'Country Living' the next house over, it looked like wanna-be farmers lived there. The books are a good start."

The men moved into the kitchen, which struck Red as the most natural thing to do. They sat down at the utilitarian Formica table. A moment later the young woman from the barn came in. She didn't put her gun down like Jimbo did; she kept it nestled in the crook of her arm, a threat not lost on Red.

"So, you got whipped and ran huh?"

"No, I…well, it didn't come to a fight. I could just feel him and knew he could kill me. Hell he coulda dominated me, maybe. And he had a few friends."

"That sucks. Why'd you come here?"