Jude speaks an entire dialect of shrugs, this one managing to imply a lack of knowledge and a lack of pursuing it. Jude is good at: fires, shrugging, and visual aids. "Smarter people than me have tried to figure out, and haven't gotten much of anywhere."

When he's satisfied with the fire, he toes out of his boots and finds the stranger a blanket, holding it out at enough of a distance to be reached if the stranger meets him halfway.

"Some people call them observers. We know they keep tabs, make changes to the place sometimes. But they haven't really dropped us a list of whys and hows about the place."