“I don’t see how.”
“It’s not for you to be worrying.”
“If they shoot us all, I’ll be worried.”
I couldn’t believe Will was talking this way to a pirate. The pirate couldn’t either. “For a boy who’s a prisoner of pirates,” he said, “you’re pretty cheeky.”
Will shrugged. “I’m just saying if we all get killed, what good is kidnapping us?”
“If we’re all killed, what good is worrying about it?” The pirate snickered and slapped his companion on the back, and Will was quiet for a while.
The truck continued to slow, and the men grew more alert. I couldn’t hear the helicopter anymore, and I guessed it had flown away so as not to get close to the border and risk being shot down. I didn’t think Minnesota had an air force, but it definitely had air defenses, and it wouldn’t let an unknown copter cross its skies. I heard the radio crackle in the front seat and some voices blurt forth in a different language. The driver responded, and there was some more crackling. The truck bumped loudly over a couple of barriers, and each time, we landed hard on our rumps. Finally it slowed and then came to a complete stop. All was silent.
The radio burst forth again in that strange language. The driver answered, and another voice joined in as well. Then more silence.
I strained to hear something, and I could just make out boots crunching against gravel outside. I pressed my face to the truck’s side, and I could hear the engine ticking as it cooled. More boots crunched, and a new voice called out. There was some muffled talking, and some more boots joined in. Then a hand grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me away from the side.
“What’s so interesting?” asked the pirate who had spoken to Will. He was large, bearded, and bald, and his arms were covered with tattoos.
I shrugged. My ears burned.
“You’re wasting your time snooping,” said the pirate.
“You’re going to buy your way across.” The idea came to me in a flash.
“You’re a smart missy.”
How else did pirates move about so freely? They couldn’t fight their way across, because they were outnumbered. Plus all those boots outside meant people talking about something important: money, water, or both.
“But how do you know they won’t shoot you once you’re across?” I asked. “No, that would be stupid,” I said, answering my own question.
The pirate nodded. “We wash their hands, and they wash ours.”
“Is it illegal to steal water if they don’t arrest you?” I asked.
“Not if you pay them enough.” The pirate smiled widely, big gaps where his teeth should be.
Perhaps this was the way things worked in the shaker world. The rules only applied to people who couldn’t afford different rules. If you had money, you had choices—like pirates crossing the border freely, or Kai not attending school, or the WABs drinking clean water. If you didn’t, you had only chances.
The talking stopped, and then the truck’s engine growled to life. The other vehicles joined in, and soon we were moving. I could hear the helicopter overhead again.
“Where are you taking us?”
“Only he knows for sure,” the pirate said.
“He? Who?”
But the pirate was silent, and from the glare Will gave me, I knew it was best not to keep asking questions.
We drove for another hour until the sun had completely set. My bottom ached, and my neck was stiff and sore. Will had fallen asleep against my thigh. He awoke with a start when the truck honked loudly three times, followed by two short taps. After a moment an air horn responded with the same sequence. The truck lurched forward, and the sound against the tires was smoother and quieter. After a few minutes, the truck slowed, then stopped again.
“Where are we?”
“Sanctuary,” said the pirate.
The men hopped out of the back of the truck and left us inside. I could hear motors shutting down all around and men greeting each other loudly. I tried to stand, but the plastene cuffs the pirates had placed around my ankles made it impossible. I fell and started to cry.
Will put one arm around me. “Shh,” he murmured. “It’s all right.”
“They’re going to kill us,” I choked out.
“If they were going to kill us, they would have done it already. They could have left us by the side of the road instead of bringing us all the way up here.”
I had to admit it would have been easy enough to shoot us and leave us in the road. Pirates did it all the time. “Then why are we here?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s wait and see. We must have something they want.”
I tried to imagine what the pirates might want, but I couldn’t. We weren’t rich, and we had no water. If the pirates hoped for a ransom, our father barely had enough money for our mother’s medicine. He would give them everything, but it wouldn’t be enough. Thinking about it only made me cry harder.
“Don’t cry, Vera,” said Will. He smoothed my hair against the side of my face, outlining a brown parenthesis against my cheek.
“I wish we were home.”
“We will go home. I promise.”
“I wish we had told the Guard. I’d rather be in jail than here.”
Will took a deep breath. “We’re hundreds of kilometers from Illinowa. We have to see what the pirates have planned. We need to stay calm, watch, and wait. We’ll have our chance.”
Of course Will was right again. But I realized clearly for the first time how desperate our plight was. It had been foolish to think we could rescue Kai. Now, wherever he was, it couldn’t be worse than being held captive by pirates. Even cannibals were more trustworthy.
Before I could let my fears completely overwhelm me, the doors on the back of the truck burst open, and two new pirates came inside.
“You two,” said one of the men, as if there might be two other children in the back of the truck. “Come with me.”
Will lifted a leg to show him it was cuffed. The pirate growled, then stomped out. In a moment he returned with wire cutters. “Worthless,” he said. Then he snipped clean through our restraints.
We stumbled out of the back of the truck and into a night lit by torches and halo-lights. I blinked and nearly keeled over, but Will caught me. The pirate took me by the other arm, and he marched us across a dirt lot toward a cinder-block building. There were about a half-dozen trucks parked in a circle alongside some heavy machinery. The helicopter had landed nearby. Smoke still trailed from its exhaust, and its blades spun lazily. Men watched as we crossed the lot—dark men, disheveled and dirty. A dog barked, and I instinctively gripped the pirate’s hand, then let go. Although I was trembling inside, I made up my mind to refuse to let the pirate know. I held up my head and strode purposefully forward.
The man rapped once on a steel door at the front of the cinder-block building. In a moment the door opened, and he pushed us inside. The dimly lit room was darker than the night, and my eyes were momentarily blind. I could make out a few candles and then soft fabrics hanging from the walls. Music played quietly—acoustic instruments from an earlier era. Even as my eyes adjusted, however, my brain could not. Curtains, candles, and music were the last things I expected from pirates, and they were a stark contrast from the concrete exterior.
“What kind of children walk the open road?” asked a deep voice from the shadows.
“We weren’t walking,” said Will. “We had our pedicycles.”
“Didn’t get you very far, did they?”
The voice belonged to a man about our father’s age and height. He wore black boots, a gray sweatshirt, and black canvas pants that fit tightly at his waist. He had longish hair, a thick beard, and a tattoo of a small bird on the side of his neck. His nails were clean, and he wore a single yellow band on his left ring finger. His hands were stroking the fur on the heads of two golden-brown dogs.
I stepped back instinctively, but the dogs remained still. “Are you going to kill us?” I asked.
“Kill you? Why would I kill you?”