It was too hot. And he'd been too long without enough water for both his horse and himself.

All day I faced the barren waste
Without a drink of water.

Those two lines had kept running through his head. He couldn't shake it. God only knows what the horse was thinking. Did horses have music? Did they get songs stuck in their heads?

He half-fell, half-dismounted in the shade of a large rock standing in the curve of the dry creek bed. He dug into the sand like a dog, using his hands as shovels. The sand became cooler but no wetter as the hole grew deeper.

He was face-down in the hole when he awoke. The horse was nearby, head hanging like the reins. He guessed that he'd passed out, and it was a pretty good guess.

Staggering over to the saddle he unhooked the nearly empty canteen, poured the precious water into his hat and held it for the horse to drink. It didn't take long to finish it.

The air was a little cooler. Night was coming on, he guessed, but you couldn't tell it by the sun. He no longer cared much. Probably would have been better if he hadn't escaped those Commanches three, no five, days ago.

The rock was less warm than the sand, a cooler place to put a sweaty back. He took out his revolver, checked the cylinder. Five rounds, and the hammer on the empty. One, maybe two, for the horse and one for him. No water. Better to end it quickly and mercifully.

The horse nickered, perked up its ears, looking off to the right. He came alert in an instant, gun at the ready.

It couldn't be. Music? Out here in the desert? Hearing things now, old pard, he said to himself, but he took the .45-70 from the saddle scabbard and very carefully moved to the right, up the rise, looking around the sagebrush and not over it.

It was music. Banjos, he thought. Maybe other things. Don't be too excited. Excitement could get you killed.

He looked down into a valley. Lush green along the banks of a river, several campfires, and a...steamboat?

Mirages. Had to be. The thirst was getting to him.

Then his horse walked up and pushed him with its nose. Pushed him towards the valley.

What the hell, he thought. I might as well drown in a mirage as die of thirst in a dry creekbed. He returned the rifle to the scabbard and led the horse downhill.

As he approached closer, he paused and took a brass telescope out of the saddlebags. Can't be too careful, look before you leap and all that, he thought. There were people on shore, sitting around the campfires, playing...music. He looked at the steamboat and read the name: Albert J. Hansell.

Well, he figured, if the mirage shows in the telescope it must be pretty solid. And that looked like water AND whiskey the folks were drinking.

He walked on towards the party.