“No, Kowi, don’t tell me to relax. Because I’m pretty sure I just heard you say you were turning these two innocent guys … kids … out into the streets that you know very well are full of cannibals.” Paci was fuming, spittle flying from his mouth, all the veins in his neck standing out.

“It’s not like that …,” Kowi started to explain but Paci cut him off.

“Yeah. It is like that. And pretending otherwise doesn’t change the facts, much as you might like it to.” Paci looked at me. “You see, Bryn. This is what happens when you have dictators in charge. The power goes to their heads and they can’t see any farther than the ends of their own fucking noses.”

“Paci, you’re outta line,” warned Trip, lowering the gun to his side. “You’d better just shut the hell up now and go home.”

“Fuck you, Trip. You too, Jeremy.” He shot Trip’s sidekick a glare, noticing like me that he’d moved over to stand by his chief. “You don’t tell me what to do. If this tribe is about sending innocents to be slaughtered, I’m no longer interested.”

“Paci!” I gasped. “You can’t mean that!” My mind was whirling with the cascade of shit that was flowing down over all of us, ready to drown us in awfulness.

Paci turned on me. “You don’t speak for me either, Bryn. In case you haven’t noticed, I do what I want, when I want.”

My heart felt like it was breaking into several pieces. I was so confused I didn’t know what to do or say.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” mocked Coli from behind Kowi.

I nearly jumped out of my skin with my anger. It didn’t matter that Paci had just slapped me down too; he was my friend, and as far as I could see, one of the few people in this miserable swamp who had a real heart and wasn’t afraid to share it. I leapt at her, intending to go right through her boyfriend since he was in my way.

Kowi grabbed me around the middle and bear-hugged me. I didn’t want to hurt him, but he left me no choice. I jabbed him in his injured gut and then kneed him in the nuts when he let go of me to grab for his abdomen.

He slid to the floor of the hut at my feet and I reached over him, grabbing a fistful of Coli’s hair and pulling her to me, putting her in a tight head lock with my other arm. I twisted my body around hard, ignoring the pain in my leg, and presented her head to Paci.

“Apologize, you miserable bitch!”

“Screw … you!” yelled Coli from under my arm, grunting as she tried to reach up and get a hold of me.

I squeezed her neck harder, cutting off her air for a few seconds. “I’ll give you a friggin stroke, Coli. I don’t give a shit if Trip shoots me. I snap your neck on the way down if he does, I promise.”

I was trembling with the rage and anger and sadness that had overwhelmed me with this horrible situation. These people who I’d respected and thrown my lot in with had let me down in a monumental way. My home had dissolved into thin air, and I’d been totally unprepared for it.

“Last chance, ho-bag. Apologize to Paci or become a bad memory for everyone here.”

Kowi moaned from the ground. “Do it, Coli. You were wrong.”

“What?! She shrieked. “But, Kowi?! …”

“Do it!” he yelled, lifting his face. It was beet red with pain and anger. “Just fucking do it, Coli.”

“Fine,” she said, pushing on my waist. “Let me go.”

I released her and jumped back, ready for her to go after me.

She threw her long, tangled hair back out of her face and fixed first me and then Paci with a stare so full of hatred, I was almost surprised it hadn’t been physically painful for us.

“Paci,” she said in a low, eerily controlled voice, “I’m sorry.” She turned to me, her voice going even lower and taking on a slight growl. “Bryn, I’m not sorry. And if you ever touch me like that again, I’ll gut you like a fucking fish.”

I took a step towards her and matched her, tone for tone, threat for threat. “You come near me with a knife, a gun, or anything else I decide looks like a weapon, and I will end you, you crazy whacknut bitch.”

We stared at each other for a few tense seconds before Paci intervened. He stepped up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, gently pulling me back away from her. I never let my eyes break their stare with hers, though. Eventually she turned away and stalked off, leaving the rest of us in her angry wake.

Fohi came up on my left side, whispering, “Don’t ever turn your back on that viper, Bryn. I’m serious.”

I nodded, silently thanking him for both his support and his warning. I glanced over at Peter to see him standing off to the side looking stricken, tears coursing down his face. He held Buster high up in his arms, squeezing him like a security blanket, burying his nose in his fur. Even Buster seemed to appreciate how serious this moment was. He wasn’t trying to lick anyone and his eyes looked sad, moving from me to Kowi and back again.

“Bryn … can we talk about this?” said Kowi.

“Sure,” I said, crossing my arms so I wouldn’t slap him. “Are you reconsidering your decision?”

“No. I just want to explain my rationale to you. And to them,” he said, nodding at Jamal and Ronald.

The twins were standing so close together, they looked connected at the hip. I could picture them as little boys, being excluded from a group of kids, left on their own and rejected. It was awful and painful to see. I couldn’t let this happen. They’d be killed.

“Go ahead. But nothing you say will make it okay in my mind that you’re sending them out.”

Kowi stood slowly, holding his gut with one hand and resting his other on his thigh. “We can’t afford two more mouths to feed.”

“Bull. I know you have livestock and crops.”

“Yes, but they’re enough for us and a few more maybe. But not them.”

“Why? What do you have against them in particular?” I was so confused, and all Kowi was doing was confusing me more.

“They aren’t injured kids we rescued. They aren’t one of our tribe.”

“Neither am I or Peter or Bodo.”

“But you had something special to offer us. They don’t.”

“They can work. They can make bread or make rugs. Whatever.”

“It’s not enough. Anyone can work. They need to bring us something we can’t provide on our own to be of value enough to spare food and clothes for them.”

I looked at Jamal and Ronald, a question in my eyes; but they just shook their heads. I guess it was too much to hope that one of them was a Nobel-Prize-winning scientist who could cure the common cold or cancer for us.

“Regardless,” I argued, “they’re human beings. You can’t stand here and send them to be executed and eaten - and not necessarily in that order. It’s … it’s inhumane!”

“We have to make hard decisions out here in our world … in Kahayatle. That’s why I’m chief, because I can make those decisions that affect all these people, even when it pains me to do it.” Kowi’s face looked miserable. He honestly seemed to be in as much pain over it as I was, but that didn’t make it forgivable.

I gritted my teeth hard, forcing the tears to stay away. I was so angry, I was sure they’d come out accompanied by crazed shrieks like those heard at mental institutions from the truly tortured.

Life had been very unfair to all of us, but up until now, I’d found ways to make it fair or to even the score. But today, in this moment, I felt like we were being dealt a hand that didn’t need to be played - the very definition of unfair. And regardless of what Kowi said or did, I was going to do the right thing. Because if my dad had taught me nothing else, he’d taught me that no matter how hard it could be, it was always the right thing to stand up for kids who couldn’t do it for themselves.

I shrugged, taking on a casual air. “Fine. I guess we’ll be on our way tomorrow, then.”

“We?” said Peter weakly.

I turned to him. “Yeah. We. And that doesn’t have to include you, if you don’t want it to. No hard feelings.” I nodded once at him, hoping he’d realize I was expressing my understanding of his need to be safe and to work things out with Trip. Just because Trip was a dick who’d just threatened to kill me, it didn’t need to mean Peter would miss out on his cuddles. Love was too hard to find in this world to walk away from it, even if it meant choosing between friends.

Peter sighed.

“Peter?” said Trip, sounding almost vulnerable.

Everyone turned to look at him, expressions of surprise and confusion on their faces.

Even Peter looked a little shocked, but only for a moment. He narrowed his eyes, a mutinous expression coming over his face. He looked away from Trip and right at me, saying, “You bet your sweet buns we includes me.” He bounced Buster up and down twice. “Come on, Buster. Time to go pack.” He picked his way delicately over the roots on the ground, motioning for Jamal and Ronald to follow him. “Come on, boys. Let’s hit the hay. We have a big day ahead of us.”

I shook my head in disappointment at Kowi and Trip one last time. “Sorry it had to come to this.”

I walked away, leaving Paci standing there fuming at his chief, and the entire crowd of Miccosukee and Creek kids in stunned silence.

Chapter Four

I GOT BACK TO THE hut and found Peter there, crying while he packed our backpacks. I walked over and pulled him away from his task, putting my arms around him and rubbing his back. I was crying now too, and Buster was leaning against our shins, trying to get as close to us as he could. If dogs could cry, he would be doing it now with us.

“I am so sorry, Peter. You don’t have to go. Please stay.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said through his tears. “I go where you go. There’s no question.”

I pulled back away from him, wiping my nose with the heel and then the back of my hand. “It’s safe here. And you have friends here now, too. And … well, you know. Just stay. It won’t hurt my feelings. I’ll feel better knowing you’re good.”

He shook his head firmly. “Who wants to stay with a bunch of fucktards who don’t know awesome when they see it?”

I coughed up a laugh. “Peter!”

“What?” he said calmly.

I frowned through the laughter and the tears. “Now look at you. You’re saying bad words. Everything’s going to shit around us.”

We both smiled at each other, our chins quivering.

“You have snot running down your nose,” said Peter.

“So do you. And it’s not attractive,” I said, wiping my nose on my forearm.

Peter sighed heavily, disengaging himself from my loose embrace. “Well, I’m going to finish packing whatever I can here, and then I’ll go see what I can do about getting us some dried beef for the road.”

“Good. I’ll …” I looked around me, at a loss for what I could do to prepare us to leave our home. “I’ll sit down and contemplate the lint in my belly button.”

“Excellent plan,” said Peter, picking up cans of beans and looking at the labels. “Do me a favor and ask your belly button if it has any ideas for where we should go tomorrow.”

“Will do,” I said, looking over at the sleeping area. Jamal and Ronald were staring at us with worried expressions on their faces. “No,” I said to them as I joined them, “I haven’t lost my mind. We’re just joking around to let off steam. We’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“Or eighty,” said Peter from the other room.

“Or eighty,” I repeated softly.

“Listen, Bryn … you guys don’t need to do this,” said Ronald. “This is your home. You stay and we’ll just go and leave everyone alone.”