“We can’t have that, Book. The worst thing we can have is insurrection.”
“Insurrection? You’ve been talking trash for weeks. You’ve been openly mocking my decisions ever since we left Camp Liberty. You freaked out in the Brown Forest and nearly killed Four Fingers. And you’re accusing me of insurrection?”
“That’s it!” he barked. “I have no choice but to place you under house arrest.”
I thought for a second he was joking. “What’re you talking about?”
Dozer turned to Red. “Take his knife away.”
Before I knew it, Red walked to my side and ripped my knife from its sheath—all because I’d quoted a line from Henry IV.
I appealed silently to the others. Red. Flush. Hope. All averted their eyes, not wishing to meet my stare. Only Argos bristled, emitting a low growl in the back of his throat. Angela and Lacey reached for their daggers.
“No, boy,” I said. I knew if he went after Dozer, they’d knife him in a second and fry him up for breakfast. Argos sat, the growl still vibrating his neck.
Dozer smiled that hyena grin of his and then turned to the others. “If anyone dares arm this Less Than, we’ll have no choice but to consider it an act of treason, and they’ll face similar consequences.” He sounded like some medieval king meting out punishment to a peasant. “Now everyone back to sleep. We’re moving out tomorrow.”
“Which way are we going?” I asked, careful not to add O powerful leader at the end of the sentence.
“Due south,” he answered.
“South?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. “We’re already way too south as it is, and Camp Liberty is to the northwest.”
“And we’re heading south.”
“Then how can we save the Less Thans?”
“We’re not saving any Less Thans. We’re saving ourselves.”
Dozer was daring me—or anyone—to contradict him. No one did.
As he and his minions disappeared into the black, I was consumed by a gnawing anger. Not just that we were abandoning the Less Thans, but that not one person had uttered a peep in my defense. Fine—if they wanted Dozer to be their leader, they could have him.
I’d get to Camp Liberty on my own. I was damned if I was going to let some power-hungry, lie-spewing, sour-breathed, barrel-chested bully stop me. Even if no one else believed in me, I still did.
One way or the other, I was going to make this happen.
THE SUN CLEARS THE eastern hills long before Dozer even stirs. Hope waits impatiently. When they eventually break camp and begin marching south, the sun beats down from its noontime position. They’ve already missed the coolest portion of the day.
But Dozer is in charge. And he isn’t going to tell them what to do.
As for the decision to march south, he seems convinced they will eventually march out of the Western Federation into some other territory that will take them in. He has no evidence to support his thinking, and when anyone asks him about it, his face twists into a tight snarl. For someone who is supposedly interested in what others have to say, he seems remarkably uninterested.
The land before them is prairie flat: endless horizons of waving grass and undulating hills. No lake or stream or creek in sight. No water anywhere.
Still, Dozer is in charge. And he isn’t going to tell them what to do.
Hope adjusts her pace until she’s walking side by side with Book.
“What’re you going to do now?” she asks. They haven’t spoken since the river.
Book shrugs.
“You still planning on getting to Camp Liberty?”
He shrugs again.
“Do you still hope to free those Less Thans?”
“I don’t know, Hope. If I free them, I’m afraid I might accidentally kill them, just like Cat.”
Hope recoils at his words. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
They march silently through the grass, the blades making swishing sounds against their legs. Hope carries the spear in her hand like a walking stick.
“Look,” she finally says, “I’m sorry I didn’t stand up to Dozer last night, but—”
“Save it.”
She drifts back into line, angry that he’s too stubborn to listen to reason, that if she had tried to come to his defense last night, it only would have made things worse. But Book doesn’t want to hear that.
The prairie stretches forever with no end in sight. Sweat bubbles from their faces. Lips split and bleed. If they don’t find water soon, they’ll never make it to another territory.
They set up camp that night as lightning flickers on the far horizon. Four Fingers begins to cry. “Storm!” he whimpers, his body jerking and spasming.
“Will somebody shut that moron up?” Dozer shouts. When no one does, he grabs his walking stick and whacks Four Fingers on the legs. “Shut up, I said!”
He wallops him a second time for good measure.
Four Fingers whimpers in pain.
Once Dozer returns to his bed, Book moves to Four Fingers’s side. “It’s just heat lightning, Four,” he whispers. “Not a storm at all. Just heat lightning.” It’s a good hour before Four Fingers falls asleep.
The next day they march beneath an enormous dome of sky, no one uttering a word. Even the normally talkative Flush, guiding his blind friend Twitch, doesn’t say a word.
That night, Hope and her fellow Sisters dig in the ground, scratching at the earth with knives and fingernails. Several feet down a brown ooze seeps up, and they scoop heaping globs of the slimy mud and strain it through a T-shirt. A murky liquid drips into a pot, which is then placed over a fire and boiled. They drink it before it cools. Hot, gritty mud water is better than none at all. They fill every canteen to the brim.
Sometime the next day, with the sun blazing hot and yellow, Dozer takes a long swig from his canteen … then immediately spits it out.
“This tastes like crap,” he says. “How can you drink this shit?” He turns the canteen upside down and a trail of sludge plops out, landing on the ground like bird droppings.
Instead of answering him, Twitch says, “We could always turn east toward the river.” Even though he can’t see, he’s well aware of the direction they’re traveling.
Dozer gives his head a violent shake. “Nuh-uh. We’re heading south.”
“But the river’s a water source.”
Dozer leans into Twitch. “Listen, Blind Man, when you’re in charge, you can make the decisions. But unless you want to be under house arrest like your friend Book here, I’d keep your piehole shut.” Then he turns to the rest of the group. “There’s water out here. We just have to do a better job of straining it.”
He says this loud enough so the Sisters can hear, then turns and resumes marching. The others follow, fingers of dust trailing them like shadows.
THAT