The five Rangers on their horses corralled them like cattle. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” they hollered.

Startled into action, Bea led the Community stumbling across the Basin. She wouldn’t let Agnes do it alone, keeping a step ahead of her no matter how fast Agnes tried to go.

Over the course of what must have been half of the fall, the Rangers shepherded them away from their pleasant Basin. At sundown, the Rangers would disappear and reappear at morning to keep the Community moving. They marched them back into those high desert places where they’d spent so many years. They walked them deep into the sage sea, favoring bad camp spots over good ones. They bypassed good water sources, only offering them slow, slight streams, or larval standing water. Where they walked them, the game was scarce. And so was shade. It was hard to imagine the route choice wasn’t intentionally cruel. The head Ranger had a habit of whistling all day atop his horse as the Community dragged themselves forward.

They were far from the Basin now. Delivered back to the emptiest high desert where they didn’t have the impulse to idle. One night the Rangers left and did not show up the next morning. Or the morning after. They left behind a new map and they never returned. They’d done their job.

*

The Originalists had seen the Caldera when they had first arrived. Day one. Not because it was so close to Middle Post—though it was certainly not distant—but because it was so tall and lonely in its height. It sat heavy on the horizon, an upside-down triangle, white in winter and green in spring, the tip-top point broken off, creating a catchall for anything that might stumble in. Well beyond it was the first mountain range they’d ever explored. The range was a shadowy hump on the horizon. The Caldera stood alone.

Agnes remembered it as a white hat atop the bald, sunburnt head of the high desert. The endless desert, its ruddy dirt and camphor scent after a rain. Its errant arms of sage and brush and grasses. Then there it was. A triangle hat belonging to a dunce.

“It’s like a pyramid of snowballs,” they explained to the Newcomers, who had never seen it.

“Like a colorless kite stuck in the sand.”

“A geometric marble end table.”

“A slice of white pizza, with the tip bit off.”

“White pizza,” murmured Patty.

But the only thing the Originalists had ever really known about the Caldera was that it was off-limits.

In their previous map there’d been a black circle where the Caldera would have stood. And black circles meant do not enter.

On this new map, the Caldera was at the top center, a white triangle with a red flag sticking out of its concave top. All around it were messy green triangles for trees.

“Didn’t the maps used to have actual information on them?” huffed Val, her arms wrapped around her bulging stomach.

“Don’t start with the maps again,” Bea said.

“It’s just that they’re always wrong. Who’s their mapmaker? One of their fucking kids?”

“It has all the info we need. Water is marked, it has topography, and all the landscape types are color-coded. What else do you need?”

“Well, what’s all this?” Val said, waving her hand around a swath of space between where they stood and the Caldera. It was the color of the parchment the map was printed on.

“It’s”—Bea looked at the key—“nothing important.”

Val snorted. “I’ll bet you ten pine nuts it’s gonna feel pretty important when we’re in the middle of it.”

“What’s your problem?”

“What’s yours? You’re so into the map. Did you make it or something?”

“Oh, come on, Val,” Carl said. “Now you’re just being stupid.”

“No, you’re stupid,” Val shouted, her stance defensive, threatening even. Then she clamped her mouth shut and drummed her fingernails on her belly, as though to distract herself. Carl rolled his eyes at her. So Agnes patted her on the back, and Val, sniffling, grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. Val was not herself. Or on second thought, Agnes thought, she was a very extreme version of herself.

“We need to find water,” said Bea. “Good water.” She poked her finger at all the spots on the map that looked blue between their position and the Caldera. “I think this is where we should head.” She jabbed at a large blue blob that looked like it would be a few days’ walk. “This blue line here must be a stream. It’s about halfway. Hopefully it won’t be dry.”

“Well, we’ll definitely have water at the Caldera, so there’s that,” said Dr. Harold.

“We need water before that, Harold,” said Debra.

“Well, I know that, Debra.” He smiled aggressively.

“Are we sure there’s even a lake at the Caldera? The map doesn’t show the very top,” said Frank.

“There’s two lakes,” murmured Bea, measuring distances with her spread fingers.

“How do you know?” Carl said.

Bea looked up. “Oh, Bob told me. He said there was one good lake and one bad lake. And the good lake was good for drinking and swimming.”

Debra squealed, “Swimming!”

“When did he tell you this?” asked Carl.

“Oh, gosh,” said Bea, standing up and stretching out her knees. “At intake? Our first day,” she translated for the Newcomers. “We could see it on the horizon. I asked him about it.”

“And you still remember?”

“Are you kidding? I think about it all the time.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the lakes,” Debra said in a scolding voice.

“Debra, you would have run off that very day.”

“Oh, I would have, you’re right.” They laughed. Debra loved lakes and was unhappy that they somehow never encountered anything more than shallow rivers and murky springs.

Agnes looked over her mother’s shoulder at the map. It was clear to her, looking at it now, that these lakes her mother sought were no longer lakes. The evidence was in their outline. The outline of the lake was bolder and bluer than the interior, as though it were meant to be a barrier between different times, between then and now. She could see the same thing in the alkali lakes, though they were colored pale blue. Around that pale blue there was also a blue outline. A dark blue. A thirsty blue. That line between then and now. Or between what they were hoping to find and what they would find.

Agnes began to see the map as a story rather than a piece of truth. Something that changed based on what their needs were. It wasn’t something to orient their lives to. It was a suggestion rather than a directive. They didn’t have to follow it. Did they realize that? She noted the location of the sun in the sky and turned in a circle, peering at each slice of land in front of her. She could name the places they’d been that lay in each direction. Corroborating it with the map, she was right each time. They had senses. So why did they still use a map that lost them as often as it oriented them?

Because they’d been told to. Because it was in the Manual that they should always refer to the map. That’s why. Because the Posts were on the map and the Posts were important. But she could name where the Posts were in each specific slice of landscape. Couldn’t everyone? Even the new Caldera Post. If it was on the Caldera, she knew how to get to it. No, the map was useless, and more important, it was endangering them. It was the last hand of civilization they wouldn’t let go of.

“We should just follow the animals,” interrupted Agnes.

“What?” her mother said.

“If we follow the animals, they’ll show us where the water is.”

Her mother smiled. “That’s a good idea, sweetheart,” she said, patting Agnes on the head. “But we’ve got a solid plan here we’re going to follow. I feel really good about it.”

*

They expected to reach the lake in a few days, but by the time the moon had waxed from crescent to full, they still hadn’t arrived. They found and followed the stream for a day, but it was mostly dry. They rationed water. Agnes again suggested they follow the animals and her mother shushed her.

They had to be close, she said.

They were close. In fact, they soon realized, they were next to the lake. Had been walking along it for miles. It was an enormous lake, or had been at one time. Now it was just a lakebed. No, a former lakebed. A lake that likely hadn’t been a lake for generations or more. Filled now with nothing but tall, rippling yellowed grass. A grass lake. On the map it was a quenching bright blue.

“I told you—the maps are always wrong,” Val cried.

“Oh, shut up, Val,” Bea sputtered. “The stream was right!” She chewed on her fingers anxiously.

“I guess we keep walking to the next lake on the map then,” said Carl. “Bea?”

“I don’t understand how there’s no lake here,” she mumbled through her fingers, as if speaking to herself.

“The map is old,” said Dr. Harold.

“But this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

“Well, how was it supposed to be?” said Glen, gently.

She blinked up at him, a worried look. “It said there would be water here.”