By the time Beau made it up to Travis—the closest town of any size to the spew—Rufus had satisfied himself that the answer was upstream—so, generally northward in the direction of Waco. So once Beau’s pontoon boat was in the water, that was the direction they moved. It was an ungainly style of travel, putt-putting a few miles at a go up the meandering river, shadowed by Beau’s son-in-law Reggie driving Beau’s pickup truck ten miles for every one that the boat covered. When road and river came together they would stop and Reggie would drive Rufus back to the starting place and they would move all the vehicles up and park them. It felt agonizingly slow. But all they had to do was move faster than Snout.