Fire Country by Estes David

Author:Estes, David [Estes, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: dystopian, strong female, dwellers saga, country saga, Adventure, dystopian western, desert
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

I been thinking for four days, but ain’t nothing come to me yet. It doesn’t help that Perry’s interrupting me constantly with wooloo questions like What’s it like to have legs? and You’d never eat a friendly prickler like me, would you?

Sure to his word, Keep’s been feeding the lifers three times a day to our one, but Raja showed me how Keep also cut the portions by a third, so they end up getting the same exact amount of food in the end. Yeah, Keep’s a baggard alright, through and through. And every night Raja and t’others get forced to go work the trees. I considered following them again, but it’d be a risk and I already know what they’re doing, so I just wait ’round in my cage for them to get back, thinking about everything I know, and worrying about whether Raja’s getting dumped with the bones. But every night he comes back and we look at each other. I see the weariness in his eyes, the defeat, the broken will. “Never give up,” I tell him, and then we both go to sleep.

Every day the winds swirl faster, along with my thoughts. My father. ’Ssurances. The Fire. Keep us out. More meat. More wood. More lifers. Border patrols. It’s all a mess of information and I don’t know how to organize it all. Nor do I know what in the scorch to do with it. My instinct is to rush straight to my father when I get home, demand that he stop making innocent men lifers, stop killing them, come clean with the village ’bout his agreement with the Icers.

What’ll he do? He’ll get out his snapper, add some scars to my skin, and then probably send me back to Confinement until the Call. I need a more subtle approach.

But first there’s an even bigger question I need to figure out. Why is my father doing this? A few days back I thought the answer was obvious—’cause we need more food and wood to survive—but now I ain’t so sure. Why would he kill off good men who can help hunt and protect the village? Even if we get a little extra food and timber it’s still working backwards.

It’s almost like he just wants to control us, keep us all in check, away from the rest of the world. Circ’s question: Have you ever wondered what else is out there? Maybe that’s exactly what my father doesn’t want us to wonder. If we’re too busy struggling to survive, to grow the tribe, to fulfill our duties as Bearers or Hunters or Greynotes or whatever, we won’t be thinking ’bout whether there’s more to life’n all this. Which means we’ll stay. In his control. Under his protection.

He’s always controlled my life, so why not on a larger scale?

But that can’t be it. No matter how lucky he is, the Fire’ll get him in the next coupla years, so what’s the point?

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