Geography is destiny.
Some dead guy said that. Napoleon maybe.
And Kid's seen enough of the country to believe it.
Take Sacramento, sprouting up just where the American and Sacramento Rivers meet. It's like that confluence called out through time for the city. And in response, the city did rise.
Yes indeed, the Cahalith thinks as he watches the boats come and go from the small dock in Discovery Park. This spit of land is situated just between the American river and the Sacramento river, at that point where two streams carved out a place habitable enough for humans to set down and make something of themselves and the land around them.
Of course, being one of the People, Kid understands that geography is destiny for reasons beyond coincidence or simple human need. There are other forces at work, unseen. Other things that cajole, demand, and coerce, that bend the works of man to their desires.
He's thinking about this as he lounges under the shade of a big tree, wearing an oversized white t-shirt, some battered work boots, and a pair of jeans running toward thread-bare. He's got a camo baseball cap on his head and, discreetly, a can of Miller High Life in his hand. Beside him on the grass is a bike and a backpack.
To anyone else in the park, he's just another homeless guy or day laborer, maybe a particularly crusty hipster, escaping the heat of this summer day. But he's not, he's something else altogether. And even now, at rest, he's on the lookout for others of his kind. Unwilling to give up the hunt for his People.