[The Lone Gunslinger, Chapter 2, The Long Run] [Inside the Dart] The inside of the Dart ship is an alien, mysterious thing, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I would never have imagined this morning when I woke on the farm I was a bound-orphan to that by evening I would be inside a space ship. I've only seen ships like this when they fly over the farm too high to make out any features. There are blinking lights, and solid lights and beeps, and the low hum of machines I couldn't even begin to guess their purpose. The Gunslinger is still outside talking with the other four Gunslingers that had been waiting, and I use the opportunity to explore the inside. The right wall is a bunk with straps haphazardly hanging over the sides and a blanket crumpled in the corner. There is clothing tossed around and a clutter of personal items tucked behind netting above the bunk. I think the Gunslinger must live inside his ship. His home is far more luxurious than my dirty straw bed in the unused horse stall of the barn on the farm--all this room just for one person is a staggering thought. The left wall is cabinets, shelves with more netting, a panel of blinking lights, and a Vid screen. I know what a Vid screen is; the man and woman on the farm have one, and I would sometimes sneak out of the barn and watch it through the window. We also had them at the small school the man and woman reluctantly sent me to, because the law made them. I can't help myself and push the button to turn on the Vid Screen, and it pops to life and I'm looking at some Vid-movie. I whip my head around to the ramp opening expecting the Gunslinger to be there and ready to yell at me. I can see him standing there; he glances at me but says nothing and continues his conversation with the other Gunslingers. I decide not to push my luck and turn the Vid-Screen back off. The center of the ship is a narrow space to walk up to the cockpit of the ship. I push myself up through a small hatch and look out the canopy and can see four other Dart Ships nearby. I'm smart enough not to push any buttons up here, but I do reach out and touch the... I don't know what it's called... the thing I assume steers the ship. I crawl back into the living quarters and walk to the ramp; I have to bend over slightly, the ceiling isn't very high. I notice that there are controls on the ceiling, and they seem to be built in the wrong direction, and there are rungs, sort of like a ladder, on the ceiling. My initial concern about riding in the ship was fading, and I was looking forward to riding in the ship and seeing what everything did. The Gunslingers were still talking, and I tried to listen in but none of what they said meant anything to me. "Largest drop in years." "Heavy losses during the war, they need replacements." "I hate drop duty, worst part of being assigned to Raunu." "Have you found out how many recruits will be accepted this year?" "I heard twenty-three of the two-hundred to be dropped." "You think that many will make it, there's never been more than six complete the run?" "Lets launch and get over to Raunu Major, I can't stand this planet." I know what Raunu Major is but never thought I'd ever go there. Raunu Major is the sister planet to Tarous Minor in the solar system and about seven times larger than my small farming world. The other Gunslingers walk off and my Gunslinger picks up my guns from the ramp where I put them. One minor mystery is solved as the Gunslinger drops my guns inside a cage, so that's what that was for, it's a gun rack. "Before you drop tomorrow, I'll make sure you have a full load of ammo," he says. "What's going to happen?" "I can only tell you the basics, not because I don't want to, I just don't know much more than my role in the drop." "How can you not know, you're a Gunslinger?" "I'm from the Gunslinger Teams; our initiation is The Long Walk," he explains, "but you are going to a different branch of The Order than me." The Gunslinger motions for me to lie on the bunk and I do. Then he fastens the straps over me and hands me a breathing mask. I have to wonder why I need a breathing mask; I would have thought there would be air inside the ship. "On The Long Walk we are in a team of five to protect each other, so we get no help, if we fail we fail together and die together." "Wait, what?" Alarmed, I push the mask away he was trying to fasten over my face. "I could die?" "Yes, you could die, we anticipate up to fifty-percent casualties," the Gunslinger holds the mask away, "but unlike The Long Walk, you can quit, and one of the ships will pick you up." "But I can still die?" "Yes, you will be hunted by very nasty beasties, but we give you a red hand-flare. The beastie hates fire, and it will hold them back until rescue arrives." "If I have the flare then how can I still die?" "All the young men chosen have proven to have a unique ability to survive in a hostile environment, as you have. But still, many of them will wait too long to pop the flare, or simply not see the beastie until it is too late." "This sounds crazy." "Perhaps, but if you make The Long Run, you will begin training to become the elite of the Gunslingers, and that's a reward that brings young men like yourself back year after year to try. Now, was my brother wrong about you, would you like to get off the ship?" I know there isn't a choice. Winter is coming, and I have no place to go, and the man and woman from the farm will be after me. I probably stand a better chance against whatever a beastie is. I wonder if the other boys willing to risk death are as desperate as I am. One chance, that's all I ever get. I'm starting to understand what that means. "He's not wrong; I'll do it." The Gunslinger pushes the mask back over my face and fastens it in place. "This mask isn't for breathing; I'm putting you into Slow Sleep. Raunu Major isn't far, but you need a good nights sleep, and you don't have weightless training, I don't want you throwing up all over my ship." [Into the tallgrass] I don't know what was in the mask, but I feel asleep and don't remember the trip to Raunu Major. I woke to the sound of wind roaring and the ship shaking violently; I think the ship is crashing. "Get up here," the Gunslinger shouts. I fumble with the straps but the ship is shaking so badly I'm having trouble with them, I do finally manage to get them off and I'm thrown off the bunk. I can see my guns are no longer in the cage but instead are now strapped to a small pack sitting on the floor. I turn around and crawl up to the cockpit; the canopy is partially open just enough to cause the roaring sound. I grab the Gunslinger's chair and kneel behind it and look outside; the sky is blue and clear, and I see hundreds of other Dart ships. I realize what the odd feeling in my stomach is--we are falling. The Dart ships are horizontal to ground, but they are all falling and leaving white trails above them as they fall, the kind of trail I would see on the farm when an aircraft flying high above passes. "Are we crashing?" I shout over the wind and shaking of the ship. I'm fairly certain the ship will break apart at any moment, and I'll fall to my death. I was cautious before about everything that was going to happen today, but the ship falling; now I'm terrified. I've always thought I was brave, I don't do stupid things, and I know when to be the meek bound-orphan with my head down, but never scared. I've never had a problem chasing down a rattlesnake on the farm, or sitting up all night to chase wolves and foxes away with nothing more than a big stick, but this... this is horrible. I want off this ship--right now. "This is the drop," shouts the Gunslinger. "I don't like it; I want to get off," I shout back. Another Dart ship screams past us on the left--close enough that I can see the terrified face of the boy kneeling behind his Gunslinger in the ship. "Don't worry, all you Lone Gunslingers are the same--hate flying," shouts the Gunslinger and the ship tips up on end and now we are diving straight down. "No idea why, but every one of you just doesn't like anything that flies." I scream. I'm not ashamed of it; I screamed. My feet are above me in the air as the ship races to the ground. I can see that all the other Dart ships are pointed down now and plunging to certain death. Then it got worse; the ship starts spinning around and tumbling end over end. I can't tell which way is up anymore. "I want off, I want off, I want off," I scream. "Give me a parachute." "We're almost on the ground, get back there and get your pack on," shouts the Gunslinger. "You're flare is on the outside of the pack, put it in your hand as soon as we are on the road. I'll drop the ramp and don't hesitate, run." I'm pressed up against the ceiling and the canopy and scratching frantically at the canopy trying to get out of this death machine. "The ramp will be facing the mountains, run to mountains, don't stop running." The Gunslinger reaches up with something, I think a wrench, and raps hard on my knuckles, and I let go of the rung I'm clinging to. I tumble back through the Dart ship until I smack hard into the ramp. The Ship continues its summersaults and then suddenly rights itself, and I'm heavy and being pressed against the floor; I can't move. I feel like I'm being crushed and wonder if we crashed, and I'm being crushed under the twisted wreckage--I can't breathe. Then just as suddenly the weight lifts off me, and the ramp is opening. The Gunslinger turns around in his chair and starts screaming. "Go go go!" I grab my pack and tumble down the ramp--and throw up. I look to my left and right; I'm on a dirt road, and the hundreds of Dart ships are sitting on the dirt road and I see other boys tumbling and crawling out of the ships. I can see Gunslingers waiting at the edge of the dirt road, and they are all yelling at the boy emerging from the Dart ship in front of them. I look up and see a Gunslinger screaming at me. "Get up you maggot," the Gunslinger yells at me and then he is grabbing me and dragging me to the edge of the road. I'm looking out over an endless prairie of tall grass, and I see the mountains, they must be twenty miles away at the least. "Damn worthless excuse of a recruit," the Gunslinger screams. "They scraped the bottom of the barrel to find you." The Gunslinger pulls me up and slings my pack over my back and then shoves the red flare into my hand. "You want to quit, you worthless splush?" the Gunslinger yells. "Pull the metal ring on top of the flare and you can go home and have hot chocolate." I don't know what a splush is, and I don't think I'm going to get hot chocolate if I go home. I shake my head; I just want to get away from this evil Gunslinger. The Gunslinger pushes me towards the tallgrass, "Run boy, run and don't stop running." I run--and I can see the other boys running into the tallgrass also. [A Horse for me] I stumbled into the prairie tallgrass, tripped, fell, crawled, got up, ran, and tripped again, and ran again. The hundreds of boys to my left and right also ran, and they all looked just as confused as I felt. We ran and nobody paid attention to each other, the ships had landed maybe one-hundred feet apart from each other on the road, so everyone had a wide path to run without worrying about the boy next to you. I think we ran the first mile or two without slowing down, the sounds of the Gunslingers standing on the road screaming to run fades away. The only thing I could hear was the tallgrass whipping against my legs. My lungs burned with the exhaustion of a nearly two-mile sprint, and I slowed to get my bearings. Other boys had the same idea, and I could see many slowing to a walk, so I walked as well. The prairie wasn't flat as I first thought, but dipped and rose in hills, and that is probably what saved me. I was standing at the top of one such hill and had a good line of sight of the prairie around me. Prairie tallgrass is a natural and wild plant and not as uniform in height as a planted field of wheat stalks, but also much the same when watching for predators. I've spent enough time in wheat fields searching for predators on the farm, and from the hill I stood on I could see predator trails. Predator trails are a darkening streak of a path leading across the field, or towards you, as the predator moves through the grass and pushes it down, creating a slightly darker trail behind the predator. I could see man lines of predator trails coming right towards us. The boy to my left was bent over with his hands on his knees. I tried to shout at him that a predator was coming right at him; he was in one of the dips between hills and couldn't see the predator. My shouts to warn him did no good; he just wasn't paying attention as he tried to catch his breath. I looked at the flare in my hand, even if I wanted to quit, it wouldn't help the boy to my left. I pulled the backpack off and untied my guns and shoved the red flare inside my pack. I wouldn't be able to run as fast with the gunbelt wrapped around me, but at least I would be armed and able to protect myself. The long rifle didn't look too difficult to use, and I could always use it as a club the way I used my stick on the farm when I was on predator patrol. I lifted the rifle and fired at the predator advancing on the boy. I don't think I hit the predator because it continued to advance. The boy looked at me in confusion, and I tried shouting and pointing at the predator. A moment later the boy disappeared under the tallgrass, and I heard a scream--the screaming didn't last long. I stood in shock; they were going to let us die out here. I looked back at the road, but there wasn't any help coming, not unless I used the flare. Taking my eyes off the predator trails to look back at the road was almost my death. I turned around just in time to see something moving through the tallgrass at me, and I lifted my rifle and emptied all my rounds at whatever it was. I don't know if I hit it, but it stopped moving. I could hear more screaming in the distance and then I saw flares being held up by boys to signal the Dart Ships. Dart Ships lifted off the road and rushed out to retrieve the boys that had popped their flares. Dozens upon dozens of predator trails were moving towards us now, and I realized with all of us standing in a zigzagged line for miles that this was a death zone. I needed to get away from the rest of the boys. I needed to run. I made a wide circle around whatever had been coming at me; I wasn't taking any chances. I knew I needed to reload my rifle, but getting out of the killing zone was my first priority. I ran from hill to hill and watched the predator trails carefully. The best route would take me diagonally away from the bulk of the boys in the center, though it wouldn't be a straight path towards the mountains. Several times a predator trail would veer towards me, and I had to keep changing directions to stay ahead of the predator. I could see other boys had come to the same conclusion that I had and were also running in the direction I was running. My legs were burning, but I didn't dare slow down, I don't know how I am going to be able to run twenty-miles. I was watching for more predators and chanced a look back in the direction of the main pack of boys. The sky was full of Dart Ships retrieving boys, and I wondered how many boys hadn't lit their flares in time or were able to fight off the predators. I imagined the worse and shuttered at the thought of how many bodies lay dead on this death prairie. I was so lost in thought thinking about the fate of the other boys that I never saw the fence. I ran into it at full speed and landed on my back; the wind knocked from my lungs. I lay there for several minutes trying to catch my wind before standing back up. The fence looked to be so out of place that I just stared at it for a minute before I climbed up on the fence to see what was on the other side. The tallgrass was cut, and the fence enclosed a corral full of... ...horses? The fence had red flares set on top of each post around the corral; the flares must have been what was keeping the predators from attacking the horses. The Gunslinger had said we would get some help, and I thought that help was just the rescue ships, but he also said he didn't know all the details. I think he would have told me if horses were being provided; he probably hadn't known. So, of course, I hadn't known to look for them. If I hadn't used my own judgment and changed directions to a safer route, I would never have found them. I had a little experience with horses, but not much, I would need a calmer gentle one. All the horses were saddled, and I chose a nice plain brown mare. She seemed glad to see me and nuzzled me with her nose. I would imagine she would be glad to see someone, she probably saw this corall as a death trap surrounded by predators and wanted to be anywhere but here. I led her over to a gate and pushed the gate open and guide her outside. I close the gate and make sure the latch is secure so the other horses will be safe, and then I mount up and give her a little kick. I had a horse now and from horseback I would be able to see the predators easier, and escape easier. My chances of making it to the mountains were greatly improved. [Breaking the Rules] Me and Horse head for the mountains but I see several other boys nearby and veer over towards the first one. I pull the horse up next to the running boy, and he stopped to stare at me, his jaw open in shock. "There're horses over there in a corall with red flares around it to protect them," I explain. "I think they are meant for us, I'll take you to get one if you want." The boy holds his hand up, and I pull him up with me. "Thanks, man, I don't think I could have run much further," he says. I drop the boy off at the corall, and he picks out a horse, but when I hold the gate open, he just thunders past and heads for the mountains. I shrug; at least he had said thanks. I search around and find seven more boys and take them to the corall, and not one of them waits for me or offers to help find more runners. I guess it doesn't matter, this whole test, I think it's a test... no, initiation, that's what the Gunslinger called it. Anyway, the whole thing is about surviving alone, but I know I did the right thing saving who I could. I don't see any more boys; they are either too far away, or there might only eight of us that made it this far. I see predator trail several more times and easily gallop away. The mountains are only maybe five-miles away now, and I see another predator trail. Horse easily outdistances the predator but then Horse stumbles, and I get down to check her legs--she's thrown a shoe, so I walk her. We get another mile or so, and I hear something in the tallgrass, the predator has caught up with us. If I try to ride Horse I could lame the poor beast and we would both die anyway, no sense in that. "Thanks for the ride girl," I say. "Now git!" I slap her on the rump, and she heads for the mountains. The predator was faster than I thought it was and leaps out of the tallgrass just as Horse escapes. I don't have time to fire, or maybe I just panic and didn't think to, and swing my rifle like a club. I get a good swing in and hit the creature in the head and it staggers off to the side, but the creature isn't done yet. The beast leaps again, and I pull my revolver and fire, but not before it gets a swipe at my leg. I limp a few feet away and aim again, but the creature doesn't get up. The beast is some kind of really big cat, brown and gray with darker brown stripes on its legs. I don't bother to wait around; the sun is low on the horizon and will be dark in another couple hours. Horse brought me a long way; the mountains are so close now. I limp towards the mountains, the wound on my leg hurts but isn't too bad, and I make it to a hill going up to where a line of trees mark the beginning of the mountains. The seven boys I helped are sitting next to their horses, and there is a Gunslinger standing next to each boy. I see one Gunslinger standing alone and walk up to him. "Congratulations, you have completed The Long Run," the Gunslinger says. "Looks like eight boys made it this year." I turn around and look back out at the death prairie and... "No, look," I say pointing. "There's another boy." "He won't make it," the Gunslinger says. The boy is less than a quarter-mile away, but I see six predator trails converging on him. I can see the boy is exhausted; there isn't anymore run left in him. The boy stumbles and falls. The Gunslinger is right; the boy won't make it. I throw my pack and rifle on the ground. "No, I won't let him die." I run back down the hill; my leg is hurting more now, but I don't care. I'm not letting anyone die if I can do something. I push the pain out of my head and sprint towards the boy and pull my revolver and start firing wildly in every direction. I reach the fallen boy and pull him up and put his arm over my shoulders. The beasts back off a little but start circling around us. We are surrounded. Then I hear the thunder of hooves and gunfire. The other seven boys are on their horses and rush in firing and chase the beasts away. I help the last boy walk the rest of the way up the hill while the boys on horseback cover us. I help the last boy sit and check his canteen; it's empty. I go over to my pack; there is still some water left, and I give it to him. The boys on horseback return to the Gunslingers I saw them with earlier and I wait to see what happens next. Another Gunslinger walks out from the shadow of the trees, and he is leading my horse. I'm glad Horse made it. The Gunslinger with my horse and the one that congratulated me walks over and stops in front of me. "I'll take the last boy," the Gunslinger that congratulated me says to the one with my horse. "Hero boy is going to be more trouble than I want to deal with." "I'll take Hero," The Gunslinger with my horse hands me the lead. "Welcome to The Lone Gunslingers, Hero. My name is Simon, grab your gear and bring your horse; she needs tending before you get to eat." "What?" I grab my pack and pull Horse along and catch up with Simon. "She's mine, to keep?" "Would you rather have a Dart Ship?" Simon asks. I didn't know there was a choice, but I know I don't ever want to get into a Dart Ship again if I don't have to. "Horse is fine," I say and follow Simon up into the mountains.