The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch Read Free Book Online Page B

brutal point at one end. I leaned forward, slipped it into my palm, then pushed myself backward until I was up against the wall of the gorge.
    The kid nudged the leader. “He’s awake.”
    The bald man was about to step forward, but the one I had shot, a teenager with a shock of golden hair that fell over his eye, appeared out of nowhere.
    “Who are you?” he spat. “What are you doing here?” I gripped the rock in my fist, ready to defend myself, but the bald man pushed him out of the way.
    “He’s just a kid, Will,” he said. “Not much younger than you. Now step back and let me handle this.”
    “We oughta string him up, right here and now, Marcus.”
    The bald man, Marcus, looked around the bare walls of the crevasse. “String him up from
what?”
    “Marcus —”
    “No one is getting strung up,” Marcus said sternly, which only enraged Will more.
    “He shot me!”
    “He
grazed
you, Will,” Sam said. “You were barely bleeding. You’re not even limping.”
    Will ignored him and kept after Marcus. “He’s a spy for Fort Leonard! They both are! When I get home, I’ll tell my father. I’ll tell everyone!”
    Marcus took a step closer to Will until their chests were almost touching. Marcus was actually an inch or so shorter, but he had shoulders like a buffalo and something deep and forceful in him.
    “Tell them anything you want, Will, but for right now, shut the hell up. You’re giving me a headache.”
    The black man laughed at that, a booming “Ha!” that caused Will to shoot him a deadly look before he sneered and, with a chuckle, shook his head in a snotty attempt at saving face. In the end he skulked away downstream, kicking a charred log from the fire with his bad leg. Marcus turned his back on Will and squatted down in front of me. I jerked away instinctively.
    Marcus held up his hands, palms out. “It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t mean any harm. Will there’s daddy owns a lot of cattle and things. Sometimes he thinks that means he’s next in line to a throne we all keep trying to tell him doesn’t exist.”
    Marcus smiled, obviously trying to put me at ease, but I just stared at him, turning the rock around in my palm.
    “Looks like Sam gave you a hell of a knock there.”
    “Sorry,” Sam said in a deep Northern accent. He dropped his paw of a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Couldn’t let you shoot Jackson here. We’ve just gotten to like him.”
    Jackson shrugged out from under the man’s hand, embarrassed. “Sam …”
    “What do you people want?” I asked.
    Marcus dropped his grin. “I’m Marcus Green,” he said, then pointed to the kid who stood shyly in the background. “That’s my son, Jackson. His highness there is Will Henry. Sam Turner’s the man who gave you that tap on the head.”
    “Howdy,” Sam said.
    Marcus looked back at Sam. Something passed between them that ended with Sam looking off after Will, then nodding. Marcus slipped a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt.
    I flinched backward, ready to swing the rock as best I could, but Marcus held his hands up again to steady me, then began sawing at the ropes around my wrists. I watched him carefully, even as the ropes popped open and he started on the ones at my feet.
    “That your dad?”
    Marcus waited, but I said nothing. Grandpa always said you should never tell anyone anything they didn’t need to know.
    “Well, whoever he is, he looks like he’s hurt pretty bad.”
    Marcus looked up at me as he worked, like he was taking my measure. He was trying to talk himself into something, and the fight was going back and forth. When the ropes snapped under his knife, he glanced back at Sam again. Sam hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod.
    “We can help you,” Marcus said under his breath. “We have a town. It’s not too far. My wife, Violet, is a doctor. Not one of those drunks running around claiming to be a doctor either — she’s the real thing. Army doctor before the Collapse. We could