FourHe didn't stop riding until he reached a mountain range, a narrow trail taking him high up into its interior, discovering a cave where he camped, fed his horse and stretched himself out to sleep.
The sun dropped low behind the horizon. Across the vast sky a single eagle swooped, its plaintive call a mirror to the stark loneliness of the mountains. Anything that lived here scratched out a sorry existence. The arid land was hard, unrelenting, the lack of rain a killer. He'd seen it on the ride, prairie dogs and coyotes, even birds sometimes, lying in tangled heaps, bodies twisted and blackened, baked hard by the heat.
He'd filled two canteens with water back at the town, and barely half of one still held liquid inside. If he didn't find another town, farm or homestead soon to replenish
