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It happened late one night, out back of the bar. Edward was setting up his cook pots and slicing roots into a bucket. Franklin was busy starting a roaring fire. The men had taken to cooking late nights, Edward seemed to insist, and feeding whomever was still awake. It didn’t invite conversation, much other than thanks, but it warmed some of the locals to the two.

Johnny Boots saw it different. He felt that his woman, Betsy Klein, was paying that Bones man far too much attention. Betsy didn’t see it that way at all, but then she also didn’t see herself as Johnny Boots’ woman, either.

Boots was out back watching the fire grow along with his ire. He shot Edward a look, trying to warn the man off through sheer force of will. None of us knew, then, that battle was a losing proposition. Johnny Boots learned it soon enough though, and learned it for all of us.
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Now this was back in the early days of the dead west. Back then it didn’t have a name or anything, It was just where man was losing the fight to survive. The desert was bad enough on its own, but add the Brainers and their mounts to the mix and, well, to be blunt we were losing bad. Most civilized areas had already collapsed. The future wasn’t lookin’ too bright.

By then, this was only ten or so years after the Brainers had come in you understand, the whole of what used to be called Texas and most points west of it clear to the ocean had already fallen. The Brainers moved fast, faster than anyone thought they could. The disease they spread with them affected mammals of all sorts and made ‘em hunger. It made ‘em kinda stupid too, at first, but they got smarter as they adapted. That was our mistake in the first days, we showed ‘em all what we could do and they learnt from it like children.
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