It's Better This Way Read Free

a kid, my dad, Sandra, and I would go up into the Sawtooth Mountains and do some sky gazing on an old telescope that he’d had since he was a kid himself. We had to travel farther and farther each year to find true dark as Boise continued to expand.
    It was funny in a way to think that in the span of about ten minutes, the skies once again became the same as when Plato, the Israelites, and even the first men had looked at them. The line of the Milky Way always made me think of the bulls, wondering where they had come from. If they could find us, could there be other alien beings within the bright cluster of stars I could see every night, looking for them? For a year or so after it happened, I fantasized that some benevolent race would come and help us fight off the invaders. After another year, I had made up my mind that since the bulls ignored us as if we were insects, they must be obeying some galactic law, which meant none of the other powers within the galaxy were going to do anything about it.
    I could see the glow of dawn coming, so instead of trying to sleep anymore I got out of my bag and rummaged around for firewood. By the time the first fiery line of sunlight broke over the central wastes, I had water boiling and the last scoop of coffee brewing. Anytime one of our scavenger crews found the stuff, it got locked away in the main pantry of the big house. It was worth more than gold these days. The only people who were given a coffee ration were the scouts. A few of the citizens probably grumbled about how they deserved it, as well as a few of the crew members who had unearthed it by chance somewhere. Scouts needed to be the most alert and sometimes had to walk or run for hours. Bulls were easy to spot, but other humans bent on taking what you had were sneaky, clever animals. Besides, the penalty for filching goods, especially coffee, was banishment. The same as for stealing it from anyone else on the way back to The Farm or stealing it once it had been locked away in the pantry.
    I cringed at the thought of banishment. I’d seen it more times in the nine years I’d been a citizen of The Farm than I liked to remember. I’d voted for it against others that had stood accused of some crime or other more times than I wanted to think of as well. The terror in their eyes as they were stripped completely naked and marched down the road for a mile before being told to get lost would give me nightmares for a week or two after. The escorts would never shoot the banished either, no matter if attacked. It was the severity of being forced out naked and not even being humanely killed that served as a warning to everyone else. Over the years scouts and crews and more than a few farmers and ranchers found the naked corpses of those that didn’t have what it took to survive with absolutely nothing. Which was most of them, I’m sure.
    Once in a while though, a cunning few somehow survived, usually by lasting long enough to find the closest occupied home and lying in wait until the perfect time to ambush, murder, and steal. Rape was almost always a given if the ambushed had been unlucky enough to be female. Most banished took the hint and relieved the dead of everything that would help them survive a long trip away from The Farm and even the central wastelands. The Farm had a fairly long arm of influence, and it had become an important hub in the network. The few who didn’t get the hint usually came back into our territory and tried to exact revenge. Sometimes they got some revenge, but in the end they always died. Once in a great while one of the banished would manage to get his hands on weapons, food, and enough followers to make things difficult for everyone around the region, including us.
    The council would ask Mom to give the okay for a kill squad to hunt down the self-proclaimed king, messiah, god, whatever he called himself. Once it had been a banished husband and wife, and their religious fervor had ignited a lot of