Free Forager (9781771275606) by Ron Scheer Page A

missing
daughter.”
    Sawyer’s simple response left Kurt silent for a moment.
“Isn’t looking after the mayor’s family part of your job?”
    Kurt’s hard, narrow eyes and locked jaw said more about his
anger than the lame, “Mind your own business,” he eventually
voiced.
    A moment later, Kurt noticed the homemade batteries and the
lights attached to them. “You looking to get more jolts, Dillon? I
don’t think the mayor would approve of you having so many
bulbs.”
    Before I could tell him they weren’t mine, Kurt swept his hand
across the table. Cups, nails, wires, bulbs, and salt water flew
everywhere.
    “ Pick it up. Pick it up now.” It was Sawyer. He hadn’t raised
his voice, but there was pure menace in it.
    With his back to Sawyer, the fool had the nerve to ask, “Why
should I?”
    I knew why, even if it would take Kurt a bit longer to find
the answer. Sawyer had pointed a large revolver at the back of
Kurt’s head. Sawyer didn’t say anything, but the unmistakable sound
of the hammer being cocked back on the pistol echoed through my
RV.
    Kurt took a quick look behind him, saw the pistol, and got
straight to work cleaning up.
    Sawyer said, “Except for the cups, everything you found so
offensive was mine, and the mayor has already seen it. You can
leave. I need to speak to Dillon—alone.”
    After Kurt scampered out, I securely shut the door behind him.
I wished for Sawyer’s nerve. Nothing fazed the man. No problem was
too big. I began to hope he’d be stuck in my trailer a while. There
were many things he could teach me, maybe even ways to deal with
Josh and Jason.
    Sawyer smiled and slowly eased the hammer to its resting
position. “I really don’t like enforcers. They’re too full of
themselves. That one really made me wish this gun actually worked.”
Sawyer turned his head to look out the window, wincing as the
movement put pressure on his injured leg. Apparently satisfied, he
turned back to me and said, “I can’t forage. Not with this hole in
my leg. Dillon, I want you to fulfill the mayor’s request. I want
you to find that alternator.”
     
     
     

Chapter
Eight
     
    Sawyer’s words sent an electric current into my veins. My
heart raced. My hands shook. It was next to
impossible to stay still. I hadn’t even known I wanted this until the words
were spoken.
    The furnished house came to mind. If Chane hadn’t been
missing, I’d have spent several hours looking at everything. Now, a
Forager was telling me that not only was it okay, it was
necessary.
    Thinking of Chane made me realize that as much as I wanted to,
I couldn’t leave. The excitement faded, and the cold weight that
had settled into my stomach on hearing she was missing grew deeper.
“Chane has to be found. I can’t run off and go searching the
countryside for a combine. Besides, there’s no way the mayor will
approve, not with his daughter missing.”
    “ Have you ever seen what happens to a town when it fails to
meet the governor’s quotas?” Sawyer asked.
    I shook my head. I hadn’t been further out of town than the
farthest field. I’d never even seen another town.
    “ The governor sends in an elite group of enforcers. These
enforcers work the people hard, too hard. Every person in town, and
not just adults, is given a specific job. Those jobs have
deadlines. Fail to do the job or meet the deadline and face
execution or banishment. Not many choose execution. Those that are
banished rarely live out the season. The ones that
survive…”
    “ Become Scavengers,” I finished.
    Sawyer nodded. “It’s all about the numbers. The governor has
his own quotas to fill. The only way he can do that is to make sure
towns like this one produce their share. There are places where the
enforcers drove the people so hard they gave up. As a group, they
left their tools and belongings behind and fled to the countryside.
It could happen here. That’s why it’s so important to keep that
combine running.”
    Sawyer’s