They brought out their wealth. Not gold, but oil. Clean, viscous, pre-war machine oil. Enough to keep a settlement running for a year.
They poured it into a copper bowl at his feet. They knelt in the dust.
The Pilgrim looked at the oil. He looked at the settlement's generator, sputtering on fumes.
He didn't take the oil. He turned his back to them. Not to leave, but to face the horizon.
The dust storm was coming. A wall of red grit and lightning, miles high.
He stood like a statue for three days while the storm sandblasted his paint to bare metal✿. The settlement was untouched.