Wheeled vehicles could circumvent all that. The boats, however, had no choice but to pass right through the middle. The only question was where they might be able to pull them up on a bank and rendezvous with the land vehicles. Rufus solved that problem by making contact with one of those north bank landowners. They had set up roadblocks at the entrances to their property and were charging evacuees a fee to come in and set up camp. It was a hefty fee, but by now Rufus and other members of the caravan had got used to spending freely from the brick of emergency cash that Willem had brought with him. He had entrusted most of it to Amelia during his side trip, but kept more than enough to satisfy the rancher. So money changed hands, and, as dusk fell, the fleets of wheeled and water vehicles came together for one last time on the north bank of the river. This put them downstream of most of the camps, as they could tell just from the smell of the water. Behind them were the days when they could cool themselves off by splashing river water on their garments or—disgusting thought—jumping in and being towed behind a boat.