TW: Use of word 'Indians' for Native Americans.

He counted five of them, but they were only the ones he could see. Henry was no stranger to indians, having met a fair few on his travels, but those he met in the towns and cities along the way. Treated as little more than parasites within the kingdoms of the white man and given none of the dignity they deserved. Henry had wished the end of the world had come with more tolerance of others. What with there being so few people left, whatever the colour of their skin.

But old hatreds ran deep. Old prejudices still ruled and the white man still felt it was their right to rule all the lands. Were any of those white men here to see these fellows before Henry, they would most like revise that definition. These men and women were no parasites. Nor were they ruled by the white man. These people belonged to this land and they showed it in every hooded look at Henry and Annie.

Annie. She held up her hands and began to walk towards the riders, taking their attention upon herself, giving Henry time to take a better look at them. Under the Sun, they did not wear shirts, but rode with their skin bared, though not fully uncovered. Each of them had some kind of paste, or mud, painted upon their skins in elaborate patterns. As a man of culture, Henry would think himself able to understand those patterns, but he could not.

The paste also covered their faces and hair, with only their chins untainted. There, Henry could see more elaborate patterns, tattoos, not painted, and the way those tattoos appeared to move as they talked in low, rumbling voices, with Annie, fascinated Henry. They carried weapons, of course, as any right thinking person would do in these dark times.

Each had a rifle, a pistol and a bow and arrows, already strung, slung about their persons. One or two appeared to have long knives that were almost swords, but not quite long enough. Those long-knives had seen much use, that much Henry could see. The indians were not armed for war, however, they were armed for survival. Many reservations had become abandoned by the Federal government, left to fend for themselves and, in this new, even more violent world, the indians had had to return to their old lands and hunting grounds.

"You're lucky." Annie returned to him as the indians turned to ride away, their conversation over. "The Yavapai thought you were pale enough to be a Drifter. Wanted to know if I needed help putting an end to your suffering."

"Is that all they wanted?" Henry touched his face with an absent-minded hand. He didn't think he looked that pale, but, perhaps, fear of the indians, these 'Yavapai' may have blanched his features somewhat. "Are they just going to pass us by?"

"Just curious, is all. I've met some of their nation before. Good people. Always quick with a joke." Annie closed one eye, looking up to the sky, and hooked a thumb back to the shadows of the rocks. "They figure, so long as we don't bother them, they won't bother us. I reckon more folks could do to think like that."

The woman returned to her crouch within the comforting chill of the shadows. Within an hour or so, the Sun would begin to glide its way down to the mountains, in the West, and then the heat would no longer be their problem. Then night would fall, with all that that would entail. Murcies would begin to walk abroad, Skinchangers would lose all vestige of their humanity, howling at the skies and running along the landscape in search of prey.

The Drifters would drift, as was their want. Moving hither and thither with no reason or plan. No destination, no memory of their origin. Some had crawled from the Earth, some had become bit and turned after a fevered death. Either way, Drifters had little thought for anything except feeding upon the living. In the dead of night, the Drifters could alight upon a man before he even saw a hint of their lurid, decomposing flesh.

"These 'Yavapai' indians ...?" Henry had pulled his satchel around to the front and taken out his notebook and pencil. He couldn't stop himself from the urge to record everything. "They did not appear afraid of Drifters. What I mean to say is, even you, who I respect as a talented traveller within these lands, showed a modicum of care. You try to keep quiet, move slowly. These 'Yavapai', they don't seem to care at all. Are they, perhaps, secure from the ravages that have come to haunt the land?"

"Can't say as they are or aren't. I don't doubt they've seen their fair share of Drifters, but, see ..." She took another drink from the canteen still in her hand and, with the other, rubbed fingers down her mottled face. "That paste they were a-wearing? Maize. When the Drifters crawled out of Hell, the Yavapai turned to their past. They reckon their nation was born from the fruit of maize, so they reckon that'll save them from the dead."

"And does it?"

"Sometimes. I seen Drifters walk on by some Yavapai. Others I seen 'em fighting as desperate as I seen any folks fight." She shrugged, picking at twigs by her booted feet. "I traded for some of that paste, once. Never got around to trying it, but I can tell by the smell, there's more than maize in it."

She lapsed into silence, her eyes returning to watching their surroundings as though she'd talked more than she liked. Henry realised he hadn't written down a word of what she had said and, when it looked as though she wasn't prepared to speak any more, he licked the point of the pencil and began to record the new information. If they survived this endeavour, and if he ever had the luck to speak to the Yavapai himself, he affirmed to himself he would find out more about that paste.

If it did work, if it did give those who wore the paste the ability to move freely around the Drifters without fear of becoming accosted, it could prove a useful tool in taking back the land and returning to some semblance of civilisation. That he would receive credit for finding such a tool would not go amiss, either. Though, if he allowed the analytical side of his mind precedence, he doubted the efficacy of the concoction. Many a man and woman had spent countless hours searching for anything to use in the fight against the dead.

Before he knew it, the shadows had lengthened and he had filled several pages with musings. Much of it about the mysterious woman who continued to crouch by his side. He had changed positions several times, finding difficulty in remaining comfortable. She hadn't moved an inch and, after poking out her head into the sunlight, she sprang to her feet without any loss of movement from her long wait.

"We'd best get a-moving." She crossed to her horse and hung the canteen from the saddle. "We can reach that homestead by nightfall and the Yavapai said they'd passed it by not a day before. A whole bunch-a Drifters had set to calling it home, so they turned away."

Henry rushed to put away his notebook and pencil, tucking his satchel behind his back. By the time he had reached his palomino, Annie had already mounted and began to navigate her way around the rocks. He knew she had waited out the worst of the mid-day Sun for his benefit, putting a question mark beside the idea that she wouldn't take care of him out here in the brush. Whether that care would translate at the first sign of trouble or not was a different matter.

Annie had her own purpose on this adventure. Were Henry to become stricken by the heat, he would only slow her down and she most likely, and rightly, understood that he was not what anyone would consider an outdoorsman. Far from it. Even after spending so much of the last few years travelling between enclaves of the living, he would still prefer a cool office and a desk to write upon.

"You know, you are not at all what I expected upon first seeing you." Henry could only suffer stilted silences for so long and, here, atop a horse, he didn't have his writing to hold his attention. "My first thought was that here was a woman of few words. A woman of action and, I admit, danger. You talk far more than I thought you would."

"You talk far more than you should, and half again as I thought you would." She glanced at him upon saying that before turning away. He couldn't be certain, but he felt she had told a joke. "Sometimes I talk. Sometimes I don't. I prefer not to, but I can as needed. I reckon you need talk more than you need water."

There, again, a hint of humour within her words and Henry began to realise that there was far more to this woman than he had first thought. Not that he had thought ill of her before. With a singing voice like hers, no-one could be entirely bad. Yet, with the way she had handled the drunkard in the saloon, it seemed clear she was not entirely a good person, either.

Further attempts at getting her to speak proved fruitless, which did not serve the body of Henry's article he intended writing about her. Though he had learned more about her, and every tiny little bit of added information only served to interest him more in Annie, he still did not know the meat and bones of her story. He hoped he could coax more from her before the end of this journey. Or the end of their lives.

He did not hold out much hope for that, however, as they clambered over the hump of a rise in the land.

"Oh, dear." He looked up to the sky, making a quick calculation and knew that the Sun would soon fall beyond the mountains, leaving them in near darkness and it couldn't have happened at a worse time.

There, in a valley, sat the homestead they had searched for. But, between them and the rough but sturdy-looking log cabin, Henry could see near a hundred Drifters, and more beyond the cabin. They stood little chance of making it to the cabin in one piece.