Wolves by D. J. Molles

takes it, caps it. Slings it over his shoulder. He looks between the newcomer and Huxley. “Desperate men. That’s what they made us. And desperate men with nothing left to live for …” Jay pokes Huxley in the chest. “…  they’re the most dangerous animal alive.”
    Jay seems momentarily overcome by something. Some dark memory.
    His fingers are flicking off his thumb, agitated.
    He looks away from them.
    Huxley stares at Jay’s sunburned neck for a few seconds before turning back to the caravanner. “What’s your name?” He pries at a little bit of Spanish in his memory. “C Ó mo se llama?”
    â€œSoy Rigoberto.”
    Huxley sniffs. “How about just Rigo.”
    Rigo nods. “Is hokay.”
    â€œOkay.”
    Jay turns back to them. “His family was a trading caravan. He might know where to get guns.”
    Huxley raises his eyebrows to Rigo in question. “Guns? You know where we can get them?”
    â€œGuns. Yes.” Rigo points further on down the road.
    East. Everything goes east.
    â€œBorderline,” Rigo says, overenunciating the word. “We go.”
    Huxley and Jay exchange a glance.
    Rigo starts walking.
    â€œOkay,” Huxley says, falling in step. “Borderline we go.”

Chapter 7
    They happen across a sign that tells them they are leaving New Mexico and entering Texas. The sign is old and dilapidated, bent over on its rusted metal poles, the words scrubbed by years of wind and dust, and only just barely legible.
    Huxley stops in front of the sign and looks at it.
    â€œTexas,” Jay says with a smile and a laugh. He has nothing else to add.
    Huxley wonders if this is what Rigo had spoken of—the borderline between the two states. Perhaps this sign is a waypoint to a stash of buried weapons. But Rigo pays the sign no mind. He’s traveled these roads before, it seems. He keeps walking.
    Another hour or two passes. It is midafternoon. The sun is heating their backs. Huxley crests a rise and stops dead in his tracks.
    â€œHoly shit,” he says.
    Ahead of them is a jumble of squat structures made from all manner of materials. Some of them are natural, and some of them are scrap. But if there is scrap, then there is civilization. And these little structures are surrounded by a wall.
    â€œIt’s a settlement,” Jay says, with some wonder in his voice.
    â€œDoes this mean we made it across the Wastelands?” Huxley asks.
    Jay shakes his head. “Hell if I know.”
    Rigo realizes that the two of them are behind him, not moving. He stops and looks back at them, curiously. “Borderline,” he calls back to them. “Is hokay. Vámonos.”
    The group of three stands in the center of the road and regards this small stand of civilization in the distance. Besides the occasional caravan, this is the first sign of other people that Huxley has seen in a very, very long time. He can’t help but feel relieved by it. Huxley had run and hid from even the trading caravans, for fear that they were slavers in disguise. Jay was the first person he’d spoken to in over a month. Rigo the second.
    Rigo continues on toward the settlement. There is this panicked moment in Huxley’s mind when he doesn’t want to get any closer. Other people mean danger, and he has spent so much time avoiding them. But then he remembers that he has nothing left to live for. He is not running anymore. He isn’t hiding.
    Just like Jay said. I’m the most dangerous animal alive.
    As they approach the settlement, Huxley can see that two sentries are posted at the front gate. The closer they get, the harder these men look. Young and wild, with the look of people that fight and kill for their meals each night. One, watching the newcomers, holds a long rifle across his chest. The other stands at a big contraption off to the side of the gate—something that looks like five scattergun