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could put his finger on, just a bad feeling.
    And there had been rumours. Again nothing very tangible. Just an increasing number of reports of bandit tribes moving south. The crystal-freak gangs getting bigger. It was almost as though the wolves were hungry in the hills and moving on the town. Only the town was Festival and the predators were human. If that was the case it was going to make a wagonmaster’s job a great deal more difficult, particularly as most dealers were too concerned with profit margins to provide a solid escort for their caravans.
    Eddie shrugged. If anything was going to happen it would probably be when they crossed Broken Hill the next morning. After that they’d be in Festival territory proper and there’d be nothing to worry about.
    Eddie climbed the iron ladder to the small sleeping cabin at the rear of the big puller’s great black iron boiler. Inside the little cabin Danny Junior, the stoker, sprawled in his bunk in his vest and leggings, his heavy fur-lined jacket banging from a nail and the rich smell of good Brissol weed filling the cabin.
    ‘Hey chief, wanna pipe? You look on a down.’
    ‘No’ now kid, where’s Mac?’
    ‘I dunno, mebbe in a card game. He shut down steam an’ wandered off.’
    ‘I wanna make an early start. You better get the fire going before dawn.’
    ‘I was gonna crash soon, so tha’s okay. What’s the trouble, though, chief? We’ve come five days from the Bridge, it’s been real easy.’
    ‘No trouble, I just got a bad feelin’, I wanna make an early start.’
    ‘I never heard you bitch before about a trip bein’ too easy.’
    ‘Yeah well, maybe I’m gettin’ old.’
    ‘Mebbe you been pushin’ caravans too long, mebbe you should settle down in Festival. Join the stageguards.’
    ‘An’ get fat? Sure.’
    Eddie pulled off his steel-shod boots and climbed into his bunk.
    ‘It’s a good life bein’ a solja, so they say.’
    ‘Those fools swaggerin’ round Festival in their fancy surcoats. They ain’t soljas. I should know, I was in a real army.’
    ‘When was you in an army?’
    Eddie paused.
    ‘I rode with Joe Starkweather, years ago, when I was just a kid.’
    ‘No kiddin’, when he put down the Christies?’
    ‘Yeah, an’ when he breaked the tribes.’
    ‘Shit.’
    Danny puffed on his pipe. Starkweather and the commune army were almost a legend and now he finds out that old Eddie was with them. The world was pretty strange.
    ‘How come you never settled in Festival when Joe led his people outta the commune?’
    Eddie thought for a while. When they had followed Joe to Festival, after the commune had lapsed into isolationism and dogma, he had the chance. Most of his comrades had stayed in the comfort of Festival. Even Louise with whom he’d gone through three campaigns.
    ‘Just couldn’t stay in one place, I guess. Just had to keep on keepin’ on.’
    That was it. After the first month in Festival he had become restless, split with Lou and signed on to collect a puller for the yards in the North. There he had met old Mac and they had been partners ever since, hauling caravans. Mac driving a puller, Eddie either stoking or, eventually, riding herd on the whole deal as wagonmaster. For twenty years they had pushed loads from the Great Bridge, in and out of Festival, to and from the southern ports. He could never settle down. Settling down was a form of dying.
    Eddie swung his legs over the side of the bunk. He couldn’t shake the restlessness. He dragged on his boots again and laced them.
    ‘I’m goin’ out for a last look round.’
    ‘Okay chief, I’ll prob’ly be asleep when you ge’ back.’
    As Big Eddie walked across the compound formed by the circle of wagons, skirting the men grouped around the fire in the middle, a small nervous man hurried up to him.
    ‘Evenin’, wagonmaster.’
    Eddie recognised the man as Hoover, a small-time crystal dealer travelling alone with a package of crystal in the caravan strong box.