And then Tex rubbed freckled hands over his tired blue eyes, wondering if he were at last delirious.
The beetles weren't eating Kuna.
They swirled around him restlessly, scenting meat, but they didn't touch him. His face showed parchment dry under the whorls of fog. And suddenly Tex understood.
"It's because he's dry. They won't touch anything dry."
Recklessly, he put his own hand down in the scarlet stream. It divided and flowed around it, disdaining the parched flesh.
Tex laughed, a brassy laugh with an edge of hysteria in it. Now that they were going to die anyway, they didn't have to worry about beetle-bombs.
Feet, a lot of them, clumped up to where he knelt. The red-haired giant with the green eyes stood over him, the men in a sullen, hard-faced knot behind him.
The red-haired man, whose name was Bull, had a gun in his hand. He said gruffly,
"We're leavin', Tex."
Tex got up. "Yeah?"