Forager (9781771275606) Read online

  If I opened my mouth I’d gag. Good thing my stomach was empty.

  My left hand shook. My right went numb from the force of Josh’s grip. My voice was gone. In its place was a dry lump I couldn’t swallow. Instead of answering, I pointed my wavering left hand at the window.

  Josh walked over to it, and Jason made his way across the empty room toward me. He sauntered. He strutted. Could he really hate me that much? Yes, he could. He punched the meaty part of my left shoulder. My left hand quit shaking, or at least I think it did—I couldn’t feel it anymore. Now both arms were numb. Lucky me.

  What were they doing here, anyway? Hadn’t Josh gotten enough fun out of eating my lunch? Had he brought Jason along just to torment me further?

  Josh’s sharp intake of breath came from the window. My heart sank even further. He’d seen the deer.

  “Nice shot, stupid!” Josh snatched the bow out of my hand, and then ripped the quiver off my back. I ducked my head, but the quiver’s strap still scraped painfully across my scalp. He flung me toward the bedroom door. “Let’s go, eagle eye. You and me are going to see my father. I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out about this.” Josh turned to Jason, handed him my bow, and said, “Stay here and keep watch.”

  “I’m not staying here. Besides, I want a look out that window. What did he shoot?” Jason asked.

  “Deer, good-sized one, too.” Josh waved Jason to the window. “Have a look, and then I’m taking him.”

  Jason stepped to the window, gave a low whistle, and said, “Why do you get to take him? You keep watch and I’ll take him to Dad.”

  It didn’t matter to me which one took me to see the mayor. I was as good as dead either way. I thought of making a break for the staircase. My arms might have been a bit numb from Josh and Jason’s rough treatment, but my feet worked fine. If these two morons continued to argue, I might get a chance. Of course, they both ran faster than me and I probably wouldn’t get very far, but any chance was better than none.

  Josh killed that idea almost before it got started. “Whatever, Jason—we can both go. It might take the pair of us to drag him there, anyway.”

  “We shouldn’t leave this post unmanned. What if Scavengers show up?” Jason asked.

  “Stay here if you’re that worried, but I’m taking Orphan Boy to Dad.”

  Their arguing gave me time to come up with a new plan. “Why don’t the three of us butcher that deer and split the meat? We don’t have to tell the mayor anything.” It was a long shot, but desperation drove me. It made me shudder to picture myself shackled in the jolting ropes with the Bull, Eric, a grin of eager evil on his face, holding the stun baton charged and ready in his hand.

  “Nice try, Orphan Boy, but even if we agreed to split the meat, you’d be the one to do the slaughtering,” Josh said.

  I grabbed for that ray of hope. “Hey, I’ll sweeten the deal. Give me a day to slaughter the deer and you guys can have all the meat. All you gotta do is keep quiet.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. “What? You saying we’re loudmouths, Orphan Boy?” Jason snarled.

  “No, of course not,” I lied.

  “You can forget about slaughtering that deer! We’re taking you straight to Dad. Who knows, maybe it’s your carcass that’ll get cooked over a fire. A burial fire.” Josh’s wicked chuckle sent a chill up my back.

  The sun shone bright as they frog-marched me off to the mayor. The clear day’s gentle autumn breeze carried the soft chirping of a swallow somewhere off to my left, and the smell of corn dust filled the air, but not as heavily as earlier.

  Walking became even more uncomfortable when the numbness in my arms wore off. Hot pins and needles of pain pushed their way out of my skin. It reminded me a bit of what it felt like to get jolted.

  I wanted to claim my shoelace needed tightening, or fake a cramp, something, anything to slow this psychotic parade. I racked my brain for ideas, but each forced step was one step further from the house and one step closer to the mayor. Finally, inspiration struck.

  “We should go back and get the arrow.”

  Jason stopped. Josh kept walking and pulling. For a moment I thought I was going to be ripped in two. That would solve all my problems. Finally, after several seconds of Josh pulling on one arm and Jason holding firm to the other, Josh stopped.

  “We really should get the arrow. You know Dad’s gonna want it back,” Jason said.

  “Fine, but make it quick. I’m tired of fooling around with this idiot,” Josh snapped.

  They might have been in a hurry, but I wasn’t. Deliberately, I walked as slowly as possible.

  “Hurry up, Orphan Boy!” Josh yelled.

  “I’ve been standing all morning—my feet hurt,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. My feet actually did hurt. A little.

  “Who cares about your smelly feet?” Josh shoved me in the back. I decided it might be a good idea to walk a little faster.

  We walked behind the house and past the rusty swing set into the field. I could just make out the deer through the corn, but once in the field, the highway was lost from sight. “Hey Josh,” I said. “Why don’t you take a look at the road and check for Scavengers?” He frowned, but for a change he actually heeded one of my suggestions. It was in all our best interests to make sure the highway was clear.

  Cornstalks surrounded me. I kept my eyes on the uneven furrows of ground between the rows. Many of the yellowed leaves from the stalks covered the ground, disguising the rough terrain of the fields. After everything else, keeping my feet was essential. Falling on my face would only give the twins another reason to bully me.

  Amazingly, I reached the deer without falling. Up close, the sight of the dead deer left me a little queasy. I knew the bow was powerful, but I never realized it could punch an arrow completely through the body of a full grown buck and still bury itself three inches into the ground. I put my forefinger and thumb together and placed them over the hole in the buck’s flank, right behind his forelegs. It was close, but the puncture in the buck was slightly bigger than the circle I’d made with my fingers. Stepping over the deer, I tugged on the nock of the arrow to pull it out of the ground. A shiver ran through me when I realized that it could make the same hole in a human.

  Josh spoke behind me, “Good, you got it. Now, let’s get out of here. I got better things to do than to babysit your butt all day, Orphan Boy.”

  “We’d better field dress this deer while we’re here or the meat will spoil,” said Jason. I could have hugged him. The longer we stalled the better my chances.

  “Uh, have either one of you gutted a deer before?” I asked.

  “Dad’s laws say no hunting. How would we know anything about dressing a carcass if we’ve never shot one?” Jason replied.

  I should have known better than to say, “Someone’s got to do it.”

  Josh threw up his arms. “Fine, you do it. No reason for Jason or me to get bloody. Besides, your mom used to be a doctor. You ought to know what’s what.”

  Mom did teach me some basic human anatomy, but I’d never seen the guts of a deer before. I could only hope its insides were similar.

  Kneeling down, I cut the buck open. Intestines, heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, all warm and slimy under my touch. It was all familiar, though. I recognized the organs without much difficulty. It took about fifteen minutes to clean out the deer. When I finished, blood covered my hands and arms. “Hey guys, you mind if I go in the house and wash up?”

  Josh and Jason shared an evil grin. Then Josh said, “No, we’ll take you to Dad just as you are. All that blood will just make you look guiltier.”

  Talk about taking advantage of guy when he was down. They couldn’t have planned this, but I’d just let them make things worse. With blood all over my hands and arms, I must have looked like a madman who enjoyed washing his hands in the blood of his kills.

  I remained on my knees facing the deer with my back to Josh. He grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me to my feet.
r />   Heat boiled through my blood. I erupted—every ounce of me was on fire, and even my vision turned red as anger surged through me like lava.

  The next thing I knew Josh was lying on the ground. A bright-cherry impression of my knuckles was turning a dark, husky red on his jaw. Jason stopped me after the one punch. He kicked my feet out from under me and forced me to my knees. He threaded his arms through mine and his knee found a very uncomfortable spot in the small of my back.

  I lifted my head up enough to see Josh. He climbed to his feet, slow and steady. Had I really hit him? I must have. The knuckles on my right hand were sore. All my daydreams of slugging the guy suddenly turned into nightmares. In my musings, once I’d hit him, he stayed down.

  I didn’t much care for the way his brown eyes turned into sharp jagged chunks of ice, or the solid set of his massive shoulders. But what really bothered me was how his large hands were clenched tightly into two indestructible pain-inflicting hammers. I was a dead man.

  All of that went through my head in time it took to blink. There were two more blinks in me before my world ended. Oh well—at least I wouldn’t have to feel the bite of that stun baton.

  Josh opened his left hand and rubbed his jaw. I must have popped him good. “And here I thought shooting the buck was the stupidest thing you’d ever done, Orphan Boy. You’re dead!”

  His words were lost by a slow-moving red dot crawling across the cornstalks. I’d never seen anything like it. It was a pinpoint of light, as red as the blood on my arms. It moved fast, wiggling back and forth, and very methodically speeding towards us. Jason was still resting his knee in the middle of my back, but his grip subtly loosened on my arms. He’d seen the red dot too.

  “Josh, wait a sec. Look at that light,” he said.

  Josh kept walking toward me. I kept my head down and watched his feet. Each step was like watching death himself walk toward an empty doorframe. There was no stopping him. No shutting him out. And all at once he was there. He grabbed my chin and raised my face level with his. I didn’t care about his face. His cocked right arm and clenched fist held my full attention.

  Then the dot jumped off the ground and, I guessed, onto my face. I couldn’t see it, but Josh certainly did. He paused. His arm hung suspended in its cocked position. The dot moved off my face and settled firmly on his chest, right where his heart would have been if he had one.

  Then from the tree line came an iron voice. “That’s enough, boys. That red dot is the laser sight on my rifle. It’s accurate to within one quarter of an inch. So unless you lower that fist real soon, boy, I’m going to have to put a bullet in you.”

  Josh opened his hand and dropped his arm in one quick motion. I wished I could make him do that. “This isn’t over, Orphan Boy.”

  Josh always was a master of the obvious.

  All three of us stared at the tree line. A figure on horseback slowly emerged through the branches. “I’m a Forager, name’s Sawyer. You boys supposed to be keeping watch? You know you got Scavengers on the highway about three miles out?”

  A Forager wouldn’t lie, especially about Scavengers. Without hesitating, I grabbed the whistle hanging from my neck and blew.

  Chapter Three

  I gave the whistle three quick blows: the south side warning. I counted to ten, and then I did it again. The answering whistles relayed throughout the town, and right after that, the civil service siren began its loud, mournful howl.

  A bushel of unorganized questions scattered through my head, but two burst to the front—Who was this Forager, and what was he doing here?

  Appointed by the governor, Foragers were a bit of police, a bit of tracker, and a lot of searcher. Only they could legally conduct searches outside the town limits. Usually, if we needed a Forager, we’d have to send for one on the monthly supply train. To have one come through town without being summoned wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare.

  I took a good hard look at this Forager named Sawyer. He wore a wide-brimmed green hat, with the clover insignia of the Forager Corps pinned to the front of the crown. Astride his horse, his height was hard to judge, but he was rail-thin and wiry. His tanned face showed his years in weatherworn lines. I guessed him to be in his fifties. His pale whitish-blue eyes froze me, like ice.

  He noticed me staring, and directed his question at me. “How long before the defenders arrive?”

  “Soon. They have to stop at the armory first That’s a dozen blocks from here, plus however far they’re coming from.

  “Good, that’s gives us some time. Care to explain what’s going on?”

  No, I didn’t. It was bad enough that the mayor would soon be sentencing me to eight painful jolts. Further punishment from a man who could legally kill me wasn’t necessary.

  “We should be getting ready for the attack,” Jason said.

  “We’ve got some time before those Scavengers get here. I’m waiting,” the Forager said.

  “I uh—well—you see—” I stammered.

  “He shot that deer with this bow.” Jason raised the weapon over his head.

  “And…”

  “And what?” asked Jason.

  “And why were the two of you making him field dress it? And why were you fighting?”

  “It’s against the law to shoot a deer,” I said.

  The Forager sat up straight on his horse and a wrinkle formed above his nose as his eyebrows came together. “Why?”

  It was the same question I wanted an answer to. Josh and Jason both gave half-hearted shrugs. There was something fake about it. They were lying. I wondered if the Forager noticed it too.

  “You two—” He pointed at Josh and Jason. “—aren’t going to tell me why it’s illegal to kill a deer in this town?” Brushing the hair back from his forehead, he continued as if it didn’t matter. “Yet, you forced the shooter to gut it, and when he was done, beat him?” The Forager’s penetrating gaze fell on me. “You knew it was illegal, yet you shot the deer anyway.”

  What could I say? He’d never understand my hunger, or the injustice of the deer eating the corn, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring up Josh and Jason’s bullying right in front of them. I just nodded.

  Our defenders began arriving, armed men and women hurrying to take their positions. Old Bill was one of the first. He carried a scope-equipped hunting rifle, and after seeing us in the field behind the house, he jogged around to the front. A moment later, the barrel of his gun poked out the bedroom window.

  I walked to the edge of the cornfield. In a matter of minutes, the entire area filled with townsfolk, each one determined to do their part to keep the Scavengers at bay. More and more people arrived. Almost two hundred people tramped by the house and through the field.

  No one commented on the deer. Some must have seen it. Others couldn’t have missed my red-stained arms, but everyone was too concerned with the attack to worry about one malcontent boy, or the dead buck he was responsible for.

  A light tap on my left shoulder turned me around.

  “Good work, Dillon. How far out are the Scavengers?”

  I’m dead.

  It was the mayor. An old twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun hung across his shoulder. The one man in the entire town I was trying to avoid, and he’d found me.

  Looking at the mayor was like staring at an older version of Josh or Jason. He shared their same tall build and the same brown hair, though his was neatly trimmed and graying. I guessed him to be in his mid-fifties. The big difference between him and his sons showed in his warm smile. He genuinely cared about the town and the people in it.

  I pointed to the Forager and said, “Ask him.”

  The mayor’s right fist clenched, and his eyes went hard and flat as he took in the mounted man. “Sawyer Thompson,” he said with contempt.

  For his part, the Forager seemed just as surly. “Harold Mason.”

  The two of them eyed each other like a pair of fighting cats ready to pounce. I didn’t have a clue what their history might be, but it
obviously wasn’t good.

  The mayor looked at me, and the Forager mumbled quietly to himself, “That explains the deer.” Did he have to mumble so loud? Was everybody trying to get me in trouble today?

  “What deer?” the mayor asked. Then he noticed my arms. “Dillon—is that blood?”

  I could only nod.

  “Where did it come—oh my. What have you done?”

  Yep, I’m dead.

  “Someone’s got some explaining to do. Eric, get over here!” The mayor called to the nearest Bull. “We’ve got a situation!”

  The Bull approached slowly and steadily. Usually an enforcer wore their size like it was armor. Stout, blocky men and women that tended to take up more than their share of space. Even with his cropped blond hair and his short black boots, Eric didn’t look the part. He was like a squirrel—a rabid one—from his undersized frame to his narrow, pinched face. Even his stride was stunted. Yet despite all of that, he had more enforcements than any two other Bulls. The mayor called him his Head Enforcer. Everyone else knew that meant he was the head Bull.

  “Harold, this isn’t the time,” the Forager cut in. “You’ve got a band of Scavengers on their way here. You aren’t seriously going to be enforcing ridiculous laws at a time like this?”

  “Keep your opinions to yourself. Not that it concerns you, but I’m only making sure my Head Enforcer is aware of the situation.”

  “Whether your laws concern me or not is debatable, but a band of attacking Scavengers isn’t. This can wait.”

  The mayor gave the Forager a hard look, and then he turned, whispered a few words to Eric, and said, “Don’t go anywhere, Dillon. After we take care of the Scavengers, you’ll be dealt with.”

  I was grateful to the Forager for speaking up, but did he have a plan for when the Scavengers were gone? Would he stop the mayor from enforcing the punishment for his “ridiculous laws”? What did the Forager know that the rest of us didn’t?

  “Where do you want me, Dad?” asked Chane. She wore cut-offs and a swimsuit top, and held a shotgun, looking prettier than usual with her long blonde hair in a ponytail. She’d walked into the cornfield without any of us noticing. Now that I’d seen her, I couldn’t peel my eyes away.