A dust devil danced away whirling a funnel of dust. Sal Lemmon looked at it, and then he slid from behind the rubble and moved along down the shattered block, keeping to the wall of jagged holes and broken walls that had once been the Main Street of a town.
He remembered with a wry expression on his face that he had passed his ninety-fourth birthday eight days back. He had never thought he could be concerned with whether he lived to see his ninety-fifth, because there had always been the feeling that by the time he was ninety-four he would have made his peace with himself and with whatever was outside.
He moved warily, like a dusty rabbit, in and out of the ruins, shrinking through the sun's dead noon glare.
He stopped, and crouched in the shade behind a pile of slag that had once been the iron statue of some important historical figure. He contacted Captain Murphy on the walkie-talkie.
"Don't see any signs of Children."
"Max said he saw some around there," Murphy yelled.
"Max's getting too old. Guess he's seeing things."
"He saw them right around there somewhere."
"Haven't seen him either."
"We haven't heard another word from Max here, Sal."