Rite of Passage

But I wasn’t out of things yet. In spite of my theoretical training, I wasn’t any too sure that I could handle Horst, but I still had my pistol under my coat and Horst hadn’t relieved me of it yet.

He turned back to me, and I said, “You can’t do this. You can’t get away with it.”

It was a stupid thing to say, I admit, but I had to say something.

He said, “Look, boy. You may not know it, but you be in a lot of trouble. So don’t give me a hard time.”

He still thought I was a boy. It was no time to correct him, but it was very unflattering of him at a time when I was finally getting some notice from people to make a mistake like that.

“I’ll take you to court.”

He laughed. A genuine laugh, not a phony, curl-mymoustaches laugh, so I knew I hadn’t said the right thing.

“Boy, boy. Don’t talk about the courts. I be doing you a favor. I be taking what I can use of your gear and letting you go. You go to court and they’ll take every- thing from you and lock you up besides. I be leaving you your freedom.”

“Why? Why would they do that?” I asked. I slipped my hand under my coat slowly. I could feel the hard handle of the sonic pistol.

“Every time you open your mouth you shout that you be off of the Ships,” Horst said. “That be enough. They already have one of you brats in jail in Forton.”

I was about to bring my gun out when Jack came up leading Ninc. I mentally thanked him.

He said, “The kid’s got good equipment. But I can’t make out what this be for.” He held out my pickup signal.

Horst looked at it, then handed it back. “Junk,” he decided. “Throw it away.” He handed it back.

I leveled my gun at them. (Hell on wheels strikes again!) I said, “Hand that over to me carefully.”

They looked at me and Horst made a disgusted sound.

“Don’t make any noise,” I said. “Now hand it over to me.

Jack eased it into my hand and I stowed it away. Then I paused with one hand on the horn of the saddle.

“What’s the name of the kid in jail in Forton?”

“They told us about it in Midland,” Horst said. “I don’t remember the name.”

“Think!” I said.

“It’s coming to me. Hold on.”

I waited. Then suddenly my arm was hit a numbing blow from behind and the gun went flying. Jack pounced after it, and Horst said, “Good enough,” to the others behind me.

I felt like a fool.

Horst stalked over, reached in my pocket and brought out my signal, my only contact with the Ship and my only hope for pickup. He dropped it on the ground and said in a voice more cold than mine could ever be because it was natural and mine wasn’t, “The pieces be yours to keep.”

He stamped down hard and it didn’t break. It didn’t even crack. Frustrated, he stamped again, even harder, and then again and again until it finally came to pieces. My pieces.

Then he said, “Pull a gun on me twice. Twice! He slapped me so hard that my ears rang. “You stupid little punk.”

I looked up at him and said in a clear, penetrating voice, “And you big bastard.”

It was a time I would have done better to keep my mouth shut. All I can remember is a Hash of pain as his fist crunched against the side of my face and then nothing more than that.

Brains are no good if you don’t use them.

16

I remember pain and sickness and motion dimly, but Hell-on-Wheels’ next clear memory came when I woke in a bed in a strange house. I had a vague feeling that time had passed, but how much I didn’t know. I had a sharp headache and a face that made me wince when I put a tentative finger to my cheek. I didn’t know where I was, why I was there, or why I ached so.

Then, as though a bubble had popped, the moment of disassociation was gone and it all came back to me. Horst and being knocked around. I was trying to push my way out of bed when the old man who had told the story came in the room.

“How be you feeling this morning, young lady?” he asked. His face was red, his hair white, and his deepset eyes a bright blue. It was a good strong face.

“Not very well,” I said. “How long has it been?”

“Two days,” he said. “The doctor says you’ll be well soon enough. I be Daniel Kutsov. And you?”

“I’m Mia Havero,” I said.

“I found you dumped by the camp where Horst Fanger left you.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him. Everyone knows of him. A very unpleasant man — as I suppose he be bound to be, herding Losels.”

“Those green things were Losels? Why are they afraid of them?”

“The ones you saw been drugged. They wouldn’t obey otherwise. Once in awhile a few be stronger than the drug and they escape to the woods. The drug cannot be so strong that they cannot work. So the strongest escape. They be some danger to most people, and a great danger to men like Horst Fanger who buy them from the ships who bring them to the coast. Every so often hunters go to kill as many as they can find.”

I was tired and my mind was foggy. My head still hurt, and when I yawned involuntarily it was painful.

Sleepily, I said, “It seems like slavery, drugging them and all.”