"And that’s when I started to really understand this land. For instance, why us wreckers got so much heat from the Texas Rangers. Why the Rangers used to just show up out here, and chase down our convoys, and shoot us. They had databases and cell phones and all, but there wasn’t anything cute and modern about the goddamned Texas Rangers—the Rangers in the 2020s were exactly the same as the goddamned Texas Rangers in the 1880s! And if you were some nomad, living out of a tent in West Texas, then the Rangers just weren’t gonna be able to stand havin’ you around! Simple as that!" She was shaking her soup ladle. "They just couldn’t stand it, that we were out here wreckin’ stuff, and that we hadn’t cleared out for good and gone exactly where the government said we should, when we should. That we didn’t pay taxes, or get vaccinations, or have any rule books." She stirred her stew, and tasted it, and started crumbling a dried ancho pepper.