Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

His father placed the stone back in the sling, then looked at Colin. “So, let’s see if I remember how to sling at all. You’d better step back.”

Colin took a few quick steps backward, and his father began twirling the sling for an underhanded throw down the beach. The sling picked up speed, his father using his entire arm And then suddenly the strap with the knot snapped outward. The stone arched up, a black speck against the light blue of the sky, then fell and kicked up a plume of sand a significant distance away. Tom let out a yelp of laughter, then turned toward Colin. “Not where I was aiming, but…” He trailed off into a grin. “Now it’s your turn.”

Colin leaped forward.

His father tied the sling to his right arm, crossing the cords back and forth in a lattice pattern, then placed the knot in his hand, closing Colin’s fist with one hand and squeezing once before letting him go and stepping back. Held at his side, the sling nearly touched the sand; he was a full foot shorter than his father.

“Just spin it at first,” his father said. “Get a feel for it.”

Colin placed one of the water- smoothed stones from the beach into the pouch, then began twirling the sling, a thrill coursing up his arm and down into his chest, into his gut. He found himself smiling uncontrollably. The weight of the stone, the tension he could feel in the cords around his arm, thrummed in his body, and he began to spin the rock faster.

“Not so fast, Colin,” his father said, but Colin didn’t need the warning. He could feel the loss of control in his arm, could feel the swing becoming erratic.

He backed off, concentrating, until he regained control. He was using the underhand swing, as his father had done, and he could already feel the strain in his arm and shoulder, muscles he wasn’t used to using beginning to burn.

“When you’re ready, let the knot go.”

Colin waited, focusing on the rock. Then he let the knot loose.

He felt the sling jerk in his arm as the release cord snapped outward. A surge of adrenalin shuddered through his body, cold and warm at the same time And then the stone thudded into the sand not two feet from him, spitting up a spume that pattered back down with a hiss.

His father burst out laughing, and he flushed to the roots of his hair, his scalp prickling with the sensation.

He almost turned to run, but his father gasped, “Colin! Colin, wait!” Between chuckles, wiping the tears from his eyes, he clapped a hand to Colin’s shoulder and said, “Everyone does that the first time. You need to find where the release point is, that’s all. And how to change it so you can hit targets at different distances. It takes practice. Lots and lots of practice.” He passed over another stone. “Let’s try it again. If you work at it, you can learn to hit just about anything-rabbits, birds, deer. And if you build up your strength, you can even kill with it. But it won’t happen overnight.

“Do you think you can keep at it? Truly learn how to use it?”

He looked into his father’s eyes, saw the smile there, the pride, and behind it the worry. Worry for his mother, for him. Worry about Portstown and the Proprietor, about their survival here in the New World, on this new coast.

“Yes,” Colin said, his hand tightening on the sling’s knot. “Yes, I can learn it.”

And he meant it. He meant to practice until his arm ached, until he could hit anything within a hundred yards, accurately and repeatedly, standing still or moving.

And then he intended to use the sling on the Proprietor’s son.

He intended to hunt Walter down and make him pay.

Colin crouched down in the grass at the lip of a knoll, his head just above the waving stalks, the knot of his sling clutched in his right hand. The late summer sun beat down on the plains spread out around him, turning the grass gold. Spring had come and gone, most of summer as well. The heat had dried out the ground and the grain had ripened, the seed heads pattering lightly against Colin’s face as he stared down onto the flat land below.

Mounds of dirt pockmarked the ground in all directions, the entrances to the burrows beneath like black eyes. An occasional prairie dog poked its head up, chirruped briefly, before vanishing again. But they were relaxing, growing used to Colin’s presence. He’d arrived over an hour ago, had settled into position downwind of the burrows for the wait.

One of the prairie dogs slid out from its burrow and stood on its hind legs, nose twitching, tan fur blending into the grasses around it. It scanned the area, turning with quick shifts of its body. It chirruped, went down to all fours, and slid away from the entrance. Three more heads appeared in other burrows, surveying the area, and farther away two more slunk out of their protection into the sun. They called to each other, moving onto the plains warily, at least a third of them standing up and on guard while the rest foraged through the grasses. Clouds passed by, and in the breeze coming from the east Colin could smell a hint of coming rain. But he didn’t move. He waited, the prairie dogs edging farther and farther from their burrows. He’d learned the hard way that the little buggers were quick, that with a single chirp of warning from one of the guards all of them could vanish into safety beneath the earth in the blink of an eye.

One of the prairie dogs inched closer, picking through the grass with his nose and front feet. Colin focused in, clenched his hand around the knot of the sling. His breathing slowed as he watched. The bands of the sling tied around his forearm pressed into muscle as he raised his arm, as he began to gently twirl the stone already placed in the pouch. An overhead throw, because the distance was short.

And because he needed a killing blow.

The motion caught the prairie dog’s attention and it stilled, then lifted its head in one swift jerk. At the same instant, one of the guardians emitted a piercing chirp.

Every prairie dog in sight stood up, long bodies rigid, small front feet dangling over the soft lighter fur of their underbellies. All of them turned in his direction.

Colin swore and released the sling, cords snapping out, stone flung.

In puffs of dirt, every prairie dog vanished.

Except one.

Colin released his pent breath with a fierce whoop of triumph and wiped the sweat from his forehead, grinning so hard it hurt. Skidding down the incline, he crouched down next to the body of the prairie dog, noted the splash of blood and matted fur where the stone had struck its head. Exactly where he’d intended.

He sat back on his haunches and smiled. He’d been practicing for months, first on the beach, getting the feel for the sling, for distance, for accuracy. Blocks of driftwood served as targets, set at intervals down the sand, where they remained stationary, then thrown out into the ocean, where he could practice hitting a moving target as the wood bobbed and rocked in the waves. Hours of practice, begun as soon as his chores were finished.

His father had watched him on occasion, had come to throw with him when he could, when he wasn’t doing some menial labor in Portstown or helping someone in Lean-to. It had been his idea to send Colin and others out to the plains to hunt for rabbits and fowl and whatever else they could find in this new world that everyone had started to call New Andover. Others from Lean-to were sent down to the beaches to dig for clams or to catch the occasional large crab that had wandered up onto the sand. Still others were sent out in boats into the channel to fish.

Yet over half of those in Lean-to-mostly criminals and miscreants who’d chosen the New World over the Armory in Andover-were doing nothing except seething in discontent and squalor.