Children of a New Earth Read Free Page B

always picked on Amy. They never gave her a chance. He wished, as he always did, that he could wipe that smug expression off Patrick’s face.
    Patrick dropped his guard. He was midway through mouthing the word “feisty” as Luke darted in.
    Luke hit the ground hard. Once again, Patrick had used his anger against him, leading him in and then sweeping his feet out from under him. Luke clambered to his feet chagrined.
    Head low, he exited the circle. At a gesture from Isaiah, Kurt shuffled fearfully forward. “At least that won’t be the most embarrassing defeat today,” Daniel commented at Luke’s side. Luke nodded as Patrick squared off in front of his new opponent.
    “Grease Monkey again, eh?” Shawn jeered from Luke’s other side. “Glad I don’t have to take an ugly girl like her to every dance.”
    What a dumb fuck . With so few kids at the ranch, teasing got pretty redundant. Shawn was too stupid to even see that he had left himself wide open. “You want me to ask Daniel’s sister for you?” Luke replied. “She’s what, twelve, this year?”
    “Shut your face, ass wipe,” Shawn growled a bit too loud. Isaiah scowled in their direction. “Ain’t going with no twelve-year-old.”
    “What about Elisabeth?” Jimmy Manualson piped in, referring to Amy’s sister. “She’s fourteen.” 
    “Kurt’s already asked her,” Shawn moaned.
    They all looked at the scrawny kid trying to dance out of Patrick’s reach while still remaining in the circle.
    “How did he ever get up the nerve?” Jimmy asked. “I thought he was terrified of the beast she calls her father, not to mention her sister.” He gave a worried glance toward Luke, Amy’s friend and chief defender, fearing he had said too much.
    Luke, his anger spent, just shrugged. “He just did, I guess.” He had already told Daniel the true story; no one else needed to know.
    In fact, Shawn had lumbered up and asked Elisabeth out. Elisabeth, unsure of how to get out of it, had told him that Kurt had already asked her. Then she tromped off to Kurt’s place and announced that they were going together. Kurt hadn’t disagreed.
    After combat practice was over, Luke rushed toward the low metal building that served as the ranch’s garage. He was worried. Amy had never come back to class. That was not terribly unusual, not nearly as unusual as her dismissal had been. Coupled with the rumors of a ranch-wide meeting, however, he was sure something was up.
    The entire yard surrounding the garage was littered with junk. Car parts and other less identifiable bits of metal sprouted weeds, and clumps of weeds sprouted bits of metal. Paint peeled from the metal siding of the garage in huge flakes. The whole building was slowly sagging to one side.
    Neither the paint nor the sagging was particularly unusual. Most of buildings around the ranch were showing their age in this way. The ranch was at war, against nature and other less visible enemies. Paint and maintenance were not priorities.
    The mess was another matter altogether. Most of the houses were fronted with orderly garden rows, reflecting both the lack of space in the valley and living proof that one of the enemies, at least, was being beaten.
    The garage and its occupants had always been another matter. Luke had heard some of the older members’ murmurs, and had heard the boys repeat it often enough. The ranch had made a deal with the devil, in the name of Marlin Beland. Sure, he too had a small personal garden in front of his house. The house the ranch members had built for him, that is. It was tended by his daughter Elisabeth, when it was tended at all.
    Meanwhile Marlin and his oldest daughter Amy lived a life unlike any other at the ranch. They didn’t work on the communal farm, help with the hunts, or care for the sheep. They ate the food the ranch provided; wore the clothes others wove and sewed for them. The ranch supported them.  
    Or so they all say when things are going well , Luke thought.