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insects, like John the Baptist. “He must have followed us from the dig,” she said.
    â€œImpossible,” said Kleat. “It took us five hours by car to get down here. We would have seen him behind us.”
    â€œOne way or another, here he is.”
    â€œHe’s stalking us,” Kleat said.
    It did feel like that. But which of them was he after?
    The man began walking toward them. The boy. He was much younger than she’d thought. His blond hair was almost white from the undiluted sun. He had a cowlick and reminded her of Dennis the Menace, on smack. All he lacked was a slingshot in his back pocket.
    Kleat placed one hand on the table. Molly looked twice. His hand was covering his dinner knife.
    â€œRelax,” said Duncan. “He probably just wants some of our peanuts and beer.”
    The fans loosened the countryside from creases in his clothing and his hair. The sunset lit the fine dust into a fiery nimbus. The French couple covered their food.
    Molly expected bad smells, the reek of old urine and feces and sweat, but he only smelled like dust. He came to a halt behind the fourth chair at their table, with the window—and the sunset—behind him. It was hard to see his eyes. A thin corona of red dust wafted from his shoulders.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Kleat demanded.
    â€œI see you out there,” the man said. “Going through the motions. Wasting away.”
    â€œIs that so?”
    â€œLike starved hogs. All that dust for nothing, Jesus.”
    For all his raw bearing, he had a voice like the breeze. Molly had to strain for it. He was American, no faking the West Texas accent. Twenty years old probably, going on a thousand, one of those kids. He’d seen it all.
    â€œIt don’t work,” he said. “You can’t hide.”
    â€œIt worked. It took a while. But we found our man,” Duncan said. “Molly did.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe young lady,” said Duncan.
    The stranger didn’t waste a glance at her. “What man?” he said.
    Kleat lifted his chin. It showed his scar like a second smile. “A pilot. He’s found. It’s done.”
    The stranger stretched his fist to the middle of the table and opened his fingers. Molly looked for track marks on his forearm, but there were none. Then she remembered that the poppy was so cheap here, people just toked it. A clot of hard black dirt, as hard as cement, fell from his hand onto the tablecloth.
    â€œQuit pretending,” the man said.
    The thing looked worthless, an animal turd, nothing. A chain protruded from one end.
    Kleat lifted the chain with his dinner knife. “Jewelry?”
    â€œYou could say that.”
    It was a fistful of mud grabbed from the earth and dried in the sun. Molly saw his finger imprints. Then she saw an edge of flat metal at one corner. With that and the chain she could guess what it was. She took it from Kleat and scratched at the crust with her fingernail, but it was baked on hard.
    â€œHere,” said Duncan. Without ceremony, he sank it in his water glass. He stirred with his spoon and the water clouded dark gray, then black.
    While the clot dissolved, Molly spoke. “We left food for you. You never ate it.”
    The man didn’t say a word to her. He just stood waiting, infinitely tolerant. Flying on junk, she thought. But his eyes were too bright, too present in the shadow face.
    â€œWe know what it is,” said Kleat, “if it’s even real.”
    â€œReal as you or me,” the man answered. “Real as anything.”
    â€œThree possibilities then.” Kleat issued a thick stream of smoke. “You bought it. It’s your own. Or you looted it. Is that what you did?”
    Duncan scooped out what was left of the clot and crumbled it over his dish. What emerged was a small, flat metal plate, a dog tag, just as she’d suspected. Her heartbeat quickened.
    If this really had been stolen