The Capture (6 page)

T
HE 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
un
interested.

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.

T
HAT EVENING,
I
WATCHED
as Hope poured huge panfuls of brown slop onto a T-shirt. At one point, after she and Scylla shared a glance, Scylla pulled the strainer aside, allowing pure sludge to make it into the pot. An instant later, the T-shirt was back in place. When Hope saw me watching her, she looked away.

Later, over a dinner of cooked grasshoppers, Dozer spat out the water like a drowning man.

“What is this crap? Is anyone else drinking this shit?”

“Mine's pretty bad, too,” Red said.

“Mine too,” said Angela, who pretty much copied everything Red and Dozer did.

Dozer eyed Hope and Scylla suspiciously.

“It's that way for all of us,” I blurted out, although to
be honest, my water didn't taste half bad. Murky, yes, and with a bitter aftertaste, but there was no grit in it.

Dozer planted his eyes squarely on Hope. “Tomorrow you all better do a neater job of straining or there'll be hell to pay.”

Hope crunched a charred grasshopper between her teeth.

Midafternoon of the next day, the sun was hot and the wind hotter. The prairie was unending. Hope's voice broke me from my reverie.

“Hey.”

I didn't answer. It had been a good hour since I'd produced enough saliva to even swallow, and I was in no mood to waste it on idle conversation.

“What if I said I'd help you free those Less Thans?” she asked.

“Where were you three nights ago?”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Of course, but I don't know how the two of us are going to take down a whole camp and free a hundred Less Thans. Especially since I'm so untrustworthy—I'm the one who left Cat behind, remember?”

She ignored my sarcasm. “What if I said others will join us?”

“Who?”

“Uh-uh. No names. Not yet.”

“Then how—”

“You have to trust me.”

Despite myself, I felt my heart beating faster.

“So are you interested or not?” she asked.

“Sure, but—”

“Good. But there's one condition.”

What is it?
I wondered.
She makes all the decisions? I never speak to her again?

“We rescue the Sisters from Camp Freedom,” she said. “You help us. We help you.”

“But the two aren't the same at all,” I sputtered. “Your camp has fences. Barbed wire. Guard towers. Liberty has none of that.”

“So yes or no?”

I thought for a moment. “How many girls are back there?”

“A hundred and twenty-five.”

“And you think it's possible? To free them all?”

“It won't be easy, but yes.”

Even though I was still angry with Hope and knew the odds were stacked against us, there was something in her voice that made me believe. It was like when I'd first laid eyes on her, back at Camp Freedom. She was walking with a group of others, and it was apparent—
even from a single glance
—that she was different. Not just her beauty, but something else. Something I could never put my finger on. Something I just
knew
.

“Okay,” I said.

Before I could say another word, she moved up the column and began talking to her friends.

The next day was hot and windy—a furnace blast straight from hell.

Dozer looked downright green by the time he stumbled from his bed. Twice we waited while he puked his guts out.

It was late afternoon when a small rise appeared, extending left and right as far as the horizon allowed. Was it a dam? A wall? A barrier?

Flush was the first one to get there.

“Train tracks,” he said, disappointed. We had hoped it was some kind of levee with a sparkling blue lake on the other side. No such luck.

Dozer walked across the tracks without even looking down.

“Wait,” Hope said. “Maybe we can catch a train instead of walking.”

Everyone stopped and turned. Even in a sickened state, Dozer still managed an air of belligerence. “You telling me what to do?”

“No, just trying to make sure we get out of here alive.”

“You don't think I am?”

Dozer looked around; it was vast prairie for as far as the eye could see. The wind flapped his T-shirt. “Who says these tracks are even used anymore?” he asked.

“Look at 'em,” she said. Although knee-high weeds
poked up from the gravel bed, there were places where the rails glinted from friction. Sometime in the recent past—a week? a month? a year?—a train had come through.

“But the tracks head east and west,” Dozer said. “We want to go south.”

“We'll get off at the first water source, then head south from there.”

Dozer considered this. He was never the deepest of thinkers, and sometimes you could practically hear the squeak of wheels turning in his head.

I knew the reason for his indecision: it was someone else's plan. Someone had an idea for saving us—and it wasn't him.

“It's what you told us you wanted all along,” I said. “The quickest way to a water source.”

He'd never said any such thing, of course, but I was counting on the fact that he was so dazed from barfing his guts out that he barely knew up from down.

“
I
said that?” he asked.

I nodded vigorously. “On more than one occasion.”

His eyes gave a woozy acknowledgment of his genius. Then, in a voice like John Wayne, he called out, “Set up camp. We'll catch the next train that comes through.”

“So that was your plan?” I asked Hope that night, when no one else was within earshot. “Make him drink dirt until he'll do anything you say?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she said. I was pretty sure I detected a glimmer of a smile.

Later, a far-off thundering woke us from our sleep, and we spied a small, wavering star just above the eastern horizon—a freight train's distant headlight. We stuffed our rucksacks and crouched at the base of the tracks. The train's rumbling shook the earth, bouncing our bodies like popcorn.

Once the locomotive passed, we rose to our feet and jogged alongside. The cars were ancient—the wooden planking badly weathered, the red paint chipped and faded. But there was a problem. The doors were shut tight.

“There!” Flush shouted, pointing to a single car whose wooden door was ajar.

We turned to Dozer. As the self-proclaimed leader, it was up to him to make the first move, so when the car came alongside, he raced forward, pushed off against the ground . . .

. . . and went splat against the door. He landed hard on the gravel bed.

“Damn it!” he cursed, as though it was the train's fault.

The car was moving away from us.

Hope turned to one of the Sisters and shouted, “Scylla, run! Everyone else, follow.” Scylla took off and we tried to catch up. Flush did his best to guide Twitch.

Scylla didn't stop until she reached the engine. Then she turned and waited. When the car approached, she squatted down and jumped high enough to grab hold, landing a foot in the opening. She wedged her back against the wall and pushed against the door with all her might. It groaned open with a shriek.

One by one, the other five Sisters joined her, then the Less Thans. Finally, it came down to Four Fingers, Argos, and myself, running alongside the train.

But there was a problem. Even after watching everyone else, Four seemed confused. And I was so badly out of breath, there was no way I could force him onto the train by myself. I looked to the others for help.

Dozer glared down from the freight car opening. “Leave him,” he called out, then disappeared into the shadows.

Hope and Scylla jumped down from the train, then ran until they caught up with us. Scylla grabbed Four Fingers's left arm, Hope latched onto his right. At first he resisted. Then Hope counted out loud. “One, two—”

On “three” they tossed him into the black interior of the boxcar. He staggered to a standing position and smiled.

Scylla and Hope leaped into the boxcar next, leaving only Argos and me.

“Come on, boy,” I said, badly out of breath, my legs churning as fast as they could. “Your turn.”

Argos soared through the air as effortlessly as if he'd been doing this his whole life. His claws scraped the wooden floor as he slid halfway across the car.

My turn. Exhausted as I was, I could do this. But then, just at that moment, Flush called out at the top of his lungs,
“
BRIDGE
!”

I looked up, frantic. The train was cresting a slight rise. In the near distance, spanning a dry ravine, was a narrow bridge with metal guardrails. Once the train reached it, there'd be no room for me. If I didn't get on now, I never would.

Now that the train was heading downhill, it began to pick up speed—faster and faster, the
clickety-clack
louder and more insistent. The bridge was growing closer and I was running faster and my heart was hammering harder and it was all happening way too quickly,
clickety-clack
,
clickety-clack
.

The train was pounding down the incline now, getting farther and farther away. Panic swelled in my chest. I could barely breathe. Barely catch my breath at all. My legs were rubber. I wasn't going to make it.

“Come on, Book!” Flush yelled.

And then others began screaming too. “Come on!” “You can do it!” “Jump!”

The train was steaming downhill. The bridge was only forty feet away. The
clickety-clack
of wheels on rails was mesmerizing and awful, like some drumbeat
leading me to my death. Louder and faster, the sound pounding in my ears.

And for that brief moment, it wasn't the train I thought about, or my exhaustion, or what would happen if I failed. What I thought about was Cat. My friend, Cat. The one who I'd abandoned, who at that moment was either being butchered by Brown Shirts . . . or already a tasty meal for wolves and worms. I shouldn't have left him behind.

Flush shouted,
“Jump!”

With every last bit of strength, I raced forward, caught up with the car, then took off, my one good leg pushing against the earth, my hands and arms straining for the boxcar, sailing through air in a silent forever.

Thwack!

My body slammed against the side of the train, but only my torso made it inside; my lower half dangled off, feet and legs kicking blindly. Hands grabbed for me, but too late. I was slipping, and the girders of the bridge were closing fast. Once my legs slammed into those metal beams, I'd have no chance of holding on. My legs would be crushed, and I'd be ripped out of the train and hurled beneath its wheels.

The Less Thans and Sisters did their best to grab hold, but my fingers slipped, my clothing tore, and I started sliding back out of the boxcar. My legs kicked wildly, drunkenly, and I was consumed by a wild panic.
In another instant I'd be dead. Gone. Sliced in two.

Help me!
I wanted to scream.
Someone, please help me!

Good-bye to Flush and Twitch and all my friends from Liberty. Good-bye to life. Good-bye to Hope.

That's when I felt the yank on my hands. My wrists were tugged with what seemed an otherworldly strength and I was flung inside the boxcar . . . just as the girders of the bridge whooshed past.

I went sailing through air until I slammed into a crate on the opposite side of the car. Stars popped before my eyes and my head swam. I caught my breath. I was safe. I was alive. I had made it.

And when I looked up, there stood Four Fingers, a goofy smile plastering his face. He had just saved my life.

When I cast a glance at Dozer, he walked away, refusing to meet my eyes.