ON market day Ruth sent him off to school with the basket and some coin. "A dozen eggs, some kale from Mr. Covas, and, if a shipment has come in at the store, some green tea."

When Kimble neared town, Sandy Williams stepped into the road, a straw-filled basket in each of his hands. "Good morning."

Kimble nodded politely, but kept walking.

Williams, with his longer legs, easily kept pace. "What's your hurry, boy?"

Kimble's thought was none of your business. He ameliorated that to a short, monosyllabic, "School."

"Buying eggs today? Give you a good deal."

"At the market, after."

"The deal won't hold, then." He pulled back the straw. The brown eggs in the straw were large and smooth. "Need a quick sale, half off for cash."

The eggs did look good and Kimble could use the savings to buy some bread, the only thing he regularly craved. Ruth served lots of grains, but usually in soups or porridge. She'd managed biscuits, cooked in a covered crock, and flat corn griddle cakes cooked on a heated stone, but nothing risen, nothing with a good crunchy crust.

He stopped walking. "Let me see one." He supposed Williams wanted the money to buy liquor, but that wasn't really his lookout.

Williams tilted the basket and reached awkwardly for an egg at the far end of the basket.

"Not that one," said Kimble. He pointed at an egg in the middle. "That one."

Williams looked annoyed. "Sure, kid. If you want. You drop it, though, you bought it."

Kimble accepted the proffered egg and formed a tube with his hands, the egg in one end, the other end pressed against one eye. When he faced the sun, the light shining through showed the bacterial ring, dark and prominent, and the air cell had expanded to half the volume of the egg.

He handed it back carefully. He certainly didn't want to drop it. He'd smelled rotten eggs before.

"Well?" said Williams.

"Too old. No thanks."

"You're crazy, boy. This is a good deal."

Kimble shook his head. "No, thank you." This time when he walked on, Williams didn't follow.

BY dint of superior comparison shopping, Kimble saved enough on the afternoon's egg purchase to buy a small loaf of multigrain bread. When he presented it, along with the tea and the kale, he saw Ruth's tongue dart out and touch her lips.

"How hard can it be to make an oven?"

It took a month, in their spare time. They made a traditional horno, the dome-shaped adobe oven of the southwest. They found that the soil down in the bosque, not too near the clay deposits, contained the right mixture of clay and sand. Chopping and shredding the straw without metal tools was one of the most labor-intensive parts. Their brick mold was made of finished outside lumber, a piece of two-by-four, drilled and pegged with dowels. They made the adobe bricks five inches wide and fourteen long, thick as the wood mold. They left a smooth wooden log in to form a small chimney, high and to the back, and the door was a three-inch-thick flat slab of limestone chipped to the rough outline of the arched doorway.

Rosemary Werito, a Dineh who lived west of town, consulted on the design and talked them through the first day of baking. She walked back and forth from the horno to the cottage, supervising Ruth with the dough preparation and Kimble as he fed the fire. "Too much," she said. When she returned fifteen minutes later, "too little." Kimble was burning mesquite roots and dried cow manure. When he wasn't building the fire, he was digging a nearby pit to safely dispose of the hot coals.

At the end of the day, Rosemary went home with two loaves of bread and some badly needed cash and Kimble proudly shelved five more loaves in insect-proof bags.

They only baked once a week, but this let them take a few loaves in on market day to offset the cost of the imported flour.

Sandy Williams did not see this as a sign of virtuous industry. He only saw it as proof of Ruth's additional prosperity. It galled him.

SCHOOL closed for three months in the summer. The cycle had turned. Long ago, children were not taught in the summer because their labor was critical to keep the farm going. That tradition survived into industrialization, but now, in the territory, tradition became necessity again.

They were gardening seriously, both near the stream and down on the bosque. In addition, Ruth was using their red clay deposits to make storage crocks. As productive as the gardens were, the resulting food needed to be preserved. Now, every time they heated the horno for baking, there were pots in the back, being fired. The beans could be dried, of course, as were half of the tomatoes, but much of the food was canned in the crocks and sealed with wax.

Ruth now had ten students for the afternoon class, mostly classmates of Kimble's, but also a few adults who'd been there the day Ruth had put Sandy Williams in the dirt. They still practiced on the grass near the spring, but there were the beginnings of a structure. The boundaries of the practice area were now delimited by a rising course of adobe bricks and, in the wash below the dam, fiber-reinforced concrete roof beams were being cast in plastic-lined trenches in the sand.

One market day afternoon they returned to the cottage to find the door open and most of their belongings scattered about. A smoked chicken, recently purchased, was gone from the rafters, and the last two loaves from the previous week's baking were gone from the counter. But whoever had been there hadn't found the hidden wall hollow where Ruth kept her cash, or messed with the growing collection of crocks in the new root cellar.

There were tracks in the dust, a man's booted feet, larger than either of theirs.

"Williams," said Kimble.

"Maybe," said Ruth. "Whoever it was, I think we surprised him. He didn't go through all the baskets yet." She had Kimble stay home to pick up and trudged back into town to report it to Martha Mendez, the storekeeper who doubled as the county clerk, postmaster, and recorder.

The local law enforcement was volunteer and aimed more at transients and professional bandits. Disputes between locals were heard by the village council, which mostly depended on local quarrels working themselves out. For the worst things, messengers went twenty miles to the nearest Ranger barracks or one waited for the bimonthly visit of the territorial circuit judge.

"Did you see anyone?" asked Martha after hearing the details.

"Sandy Williams has been hanging around the edges of our property."

Martha made a face. Williams was the community's invisible elephant, the problem no one liked to talk about.

"Two loaves of bread and a chicken. Nothing else? No cash?"

"They didn't find where I keep it."

"I'll tell the boys." The boys were the council, grown men all. "Could be they'll go talk to Williams. Not promising anything."

Ruth snorted. "Well, I really just wanted it on the record and for you to spread the word. I'll be watching my place more carefully and I'll take care of it if I catch someone. Just suggesting others might want to keep an eye out, as well. You have any locks?"

She returned home with a Kevlar composite reproduction of an old mortise lock and enough epoxy to bond it in place on the inner face of the door. The door could be broken, but it would take time and effort. Their windows were small, head high, and double glazed. When they were swung open, Kimble could climb through them, but a large man couldn't.

The next time they both went to the market, they came back to find the kitchen window, inner and outer panes, broken. Just within the window, a crock with cooked beans and the last loaf of bread were missing from the counter.

"Now that's annoying," said Ruth.

Kimble was more than annoyed. He hefted the small clay crock of honey they'd just traded four loaves of bread for. "That was the last. I really wanted to try the honey on some bread."

Using some fine dark dust, Ruth checked the glass pieces for fingerprints, but the glass was still clear from the last cleaning. They did find some more boot prints though, in the threadbare yard.

"Looks the same," Ruth said.

Kimble pointed at the right heel. "It is. That crack is the same."

"Get some of that scrap cardboard and draw a full-sized picture. One you could hold up to a boot."

"Yes, Sensei."

There was one spare pane of glass stored in the cupboard beneath Ruth's bed and it was the work of a few minutes to place it in the frame. Summer was full on and there was no need of the second glazing until later in the year, but Ruth put it on her list anyway.

Kimble was comparing his drawing with the boot print.

"Not bad," Ruth said, looking over his shoulder. She tucked the drawing in her shoulder bag. "Fetch the dishpan, the one with the onions in it."

"And the onions?"

"Put them in the sink for now."

When he returned with the plastic tub, she carefully placed it over the boot print in the dust, then weighed it down with an adobe brick.

"Stay here," she told Kim. "I'm going to talk with Martha." She pointed two fingers at her own eyes.

Kimble bobbed his head. "Right, Sensei. I'll watch."

THOUGH Ruth had picked up the larger pieces there were still glass shards on the sill, counter, and floor, so Kimble gathered them all up. Goat-heads were bad enough-he had no desire to step on glass. It was a hot afternoon and stuffy in the cottage. He opened all the windows of the cottage, found a basket to put the onions in, and thought about the bread that was gone.

He deeply resented whoever stole the bread. Making more was really a six-hour job, between heating the horno, preparing the dough, and baking. In the summer, it was the sort of thing you began at dawn, before it got too hot.

There were many chores that could be done. They needed more clay from the riverbank for pottery, but he couldn't watch the cottage from there. Same problem with fishing or seining for crawdads. He could do laundry, but they'd done it two days before.

It was the worst time of day for it, but everything he needed to mix more adobe for bricks was already on site over by the dojo. He locked the cottage door, hung the hard, plastic key around his neck, and headed over there.

He stopped short.

There were two horses tied to the small cottonwood by the spring, one with a riding saddle and one with two filled canvas panniers on a pack saddle. The visible brand was the Bar Halo, a small ranch west of town belonging to the Kenney family. This wasn't too surprising. Ruth had let it be known that locals traveling her way were welcome to the spring's water, but he didn't see any of the Kenneys, or Orse, their hired hand. He heard distant movement and looked around the half-completed dojo wall.

Sandy Williams was in the garden, stealing tomatoes.

The kitchen garden was on the far (northern) side of the pond, handy to water, with a plastic mesh rabbit fence around it. Deer could jump (and had) right over the fence but they mostly watered down in the bosque. Also, the nearest neighbors' sheepdogs tended to keep the deer away from the top of the bluff.

Not very good at keeping people out, though.

"I'm seeing a couple of dozen Romas and a bunch of cherries in your basket," Kimble said loudly, from the other side of the pond.

Williams jerked around, a half-eaten tomato in his hand.

"Looking at your face and your coveralls, you've gone through another dozen, as well. That'll be six dollars. Then there's the matter of the broken window, the stolen crock of beans, and my loaf of bread."

Williams dropped the half-eaten tomato in the dirt prompting a cry from Kimble.

"Don't waste! What did you say to me when you tried to sell me those rotten eggs? 'You drop it, you bought it'?"

"Didn't have any choice, kid. Coyotes got my chickens last night. It was the last straw." Williams walked out of the garden gate. "Your house unlocked?"

"Sensei is going to beat the absolute crap out of you."

"We'll see about that. Anyway, I saw her head into the village just now. I'm done with this town-I'm gonna be long gone by the time she gets back. Just need a stake for the road and I know she's got it."

"The cottage is locked and even if you break in you'll never find it."

"So it is in the house," said Williams.

Crap.

Williams set the tomatoes down and stepped into the pond. "I'll bet you know where it is. I'll bet you even have a key."

Kimble's first impulse was to run hard and fast, back toward town. Even if Williams pursued him on horseback, there were places he could go no horse could follow.

But he doubted Williams would follow. Instead Kimble thought he'd kick in the door and ransack the cottage. Williams had done it once before, so he knew where not to look. He might find Ruth's savings this time.

Kimble circled to the left along the edge of the water. "You steal those horses? The council will ride after you for that. They'll send for the Rangers, too."

Unlike Ruth and Kimble, the Kenneys had lived in the town since before the Exodus. They were respected and well liked and stealing livestock was considerably more frowned on than just stealing food.

"Of course, if I were you I'd rather the Rangers caught me. The council might decide to go all Western on you, horse thief." It was an idle threat. Nobody had been hanged in Perro Frio, but it had happened elsewhere in the territory.

Williams, thigh high in the water, turned to track Kimble. "Shut up, you little faggot!"

Kimble began backing away from the pond's edge. "You know what's worse than a horse thief? A drunk and a horse thief!"

Williams surged forward through the water, and then stumbled. Kimble had moved sideways to put the old tractor between him and the man and Williams' toe caught it. Flailing his arms around for balance, Williams fell forward, sending a green tidal wave before him.

Kimble turned and ran back toward the horses, intending to at least let them go, scare them away, so they'd find their way home. He fumbled with the reins, but Williams had not used a slipknot and the horses, jerking away from Kimble's rush, had tightened the knots. Williams pounding feet grew closer and Kimble darted north, toward town, horses still tied.

The knots will slow him down, Kimble thought, but Williams didn't even pause at the horses. Kimble was struggling through the brush, slowed by the mesquite thorns, but Williams seemed to plow right through, closing fast. I'll never make the road, Kimble thought, and cut left, toward the bluff top. He knew a spot with a ledge halfway down and a sloping face below where it was possible to descend the fifteen-foot drop into the bosque.

He felt fingers claw at his back and he swerved hard, then sprinted the last bit to the cliff top, opening the gap between them. Panting, he turned, knees bent, facing Williams.

If Kimble was panting, Williams was wheezing, his face beet red. Seeing Kimble stop, he slowed, managing a breathless, "Ha! Trapped yourself." William stepped closer, wide-stanced, ready to cut Kimble off if he tried to dart right or left. He gestured. "I see that string around your neck."

Kimble's top two buttons had come loose as he'd run through the brush and the end of the key was visible against his skin. He stood up straighter and tugged the string, so the key dangled. "This old thing?"

Williams lunged, arm darting forward like a striking snake.

Kimble stepped back off the edge of the bluff. As he dropped, he reached up and grabbed the sleeve of Williams' outstretched arm from beneath.

Kimble went down the cliff-face feet first, his toes scudding along the dirt and rock, his free hand dragging down the face, until he stopped hard, on the ledge. Williams arced overhead, a look of sudden shock and surprise on his face as he pitched forward. Kimble turned just in time to see him crash though the branches of a Russian olive tree, then slam into the ground below.

He didn't get up.

Kimble came down the last sloping bit of the bluff with a tumbling cloud of dirt and rocks. He approached Williams cautiously. There was a huge knot on the man's forehead and a bone was sticking out of his upper left arm. He was breathing, though, and the sluggish bleeding around the protruding bone didn't seem arterial.