To Major Thompson, any town meant potential danger and they sped up to pass through quickly. They had stopped outside of Lordsburg to acquire decontaminated water for drinking, but from there, the sole focus was to put an eye on the Northerners and stick with them. It wouldn’t matter that they were seen. They’d lit up the landscape for twenty square miles with the explosions in El Paso. Thompson had made room for Plimpton to stand with him in the cab while Gallagher and Collins drove, and he glanced at the councilman, not for the first time, wondering at the nature of the slightly built fellow’s power. After all, Thompson himself was a man of power, a man with leadership built into his DNA. Yet Plimpton, despite being a somewhat frail… No, frail wasn’t right… A man of smallish build and the air of what Thompson considered a dandy. Yet, despite this, the councilman had supreme confidence. Thompson had seen it falter when they were under attack, but Thompson himself had felt his loins lock as he had contemplated jumping out into air filled with hydrogen cyanide, roaring flames and marauding telepathic demons.
