He looked around. Somehow, the country bothered him. He wasn't sure why, but ... everything was wrong.
His head weighed an agonized ton. He put it down again. Plum went sedately forward. After a while she stopped. Harry looked up. Another fence. And what a fence! About ten feet of heavy steel mesh, topped by three feet of barbed-wire—five separate strands. What in the world had Sam Pangborn been thinking of to put up a monster like this?
He looked around. The gate should be further west. He rode that way. He found no gate. He turned back, heading east. No gate. Nothing but fence. And wasn't the fence gradually curving inward? He looked back. Yes, there was a slight inward curve.
He dismounted and tied Plum to the fence, then stepped back and figured the best way to get to the other side.
The best way, the only way, was to claw, clutch and clamber, as they used to say back when he was a kid.
It took some doing. He tore his shirt on the barbed wire, but he got over and began walking, straight ahead, due north. The earth changed beneath his feet. He stooped and touched it. Sand. Hard-packed sand. He'd never seen the like of it in this county.
He walked on. A sound came to him; a rising-falling whisper. He listened to it, and looked up every so often at the sky, to make sure he was heading in the right direction.