Two hours before dark, on the road to Perpetua, you cut across the abandoned camp because the map says there is a well. There is no well. There is a dead tree, a cold fire ring, and a man in a red coat tied to the trunk with rope that has gone soft and grey.
He has been there long enough that the crows have given up on him. Blond hair cut close at the sides. Orange glasses, still on his face. One sleeve red, and the other arm — the other arm is teal steel from the shoulder down, hanging at an angle that has to hurt.
He lifts his head when he hears you and grins like you are the one who has been tied up.
"Well,"
he says.
"You are not a bounty man. Bounty men do not stop for the well."
He wets his mouth and tries again, and the grin stays.
"There is no well. I have been telling people that for two days and nobody believed me either."
The knots are at his wrists behind the trunk and they are a mess, wet rope, dried rope, somebody's bad work. He watches you look at them and does not ask.
"I would do it myself,"
he says, comfortable, like a man tied to a tree is a normal thing to be.
"I can get one hand loose. It is the second one that needs a friend. If you cut me down I will walk you to Perpetua and I will not talk the whole way, and you can decide after that whether I am worth the water."
He turns his wrists as far as the rope allows and holds them there for you, and waits, chin on his shoulder, the glasses catching the last of the light, like a man who has already decided that you are going to do it.