“You’ve kidnapped us.”
“I haven’t kidnapped you. We found you on the road. You would’ve starved to death if we hadn’t picked you up.”
“Is that why your men chased us and hunted us down?”
The pirate frowned and stopped petting the dogs. “You ran from them.”
“Because they were pirates.”
“What do you know about pirates?”
I considered his question. Everything I knew about pirates, I had learned in school. They were dangerous, lawless men, who would do anything to steal water, including killing and maiming. But it was true that I had never met a real pirate, and didn’t know anyone who had.
“Pirates steal water,” said Will, “water that’s meant for other people.”
The pirate laughed, deep and rich. His hair bounced on his shoulders like something alive. “Governments steal water,” he said, “water that doesn’t belong to them.”
Will stared at the pirate but didn’t say anything else. Water belonged to whoever drilled or refined it, and pirates certainly did neither. They took the water collected through the hard work of others.
“So now what are you going to do with us?” I asked.
“What should I do?” asked the pirate.
“Let us go.”
“Can’t do that, little sister. How will you get home? It’s dangerous out there for children.”
Of course the pirate was right. There was nothing but rocks and sand between here and home. Even if we could get back across the border now, we could never walk hundreds of kilometers without water. And even if we could, bandits or coyotes would surely get to us. We were trapped with bad men in a foreign republic. I bit my lip to stop myself from crying again.
“We’re not children,” said Will, annoyed.
I expected the pirate to laugh, as shakers usually did when kids insisted they were grown up. But instead he did something strange. He raised his head and looked off into the distance as if he could see something there. “No,” he said. “Of course not.”
“Will you let us go, then?”
The pirate returned his gaze to Will, and then he did laugh. “Do I look like a fool? Let you run straight to the army?”
“We won’t. We promise!” said Will.
“A boy’s promise. That’s pretty.”
“It’s worth more than a pirate’s.”
“You have a lot to learn about pirates.”
I knew what Will was thinking: The farther we went, the harder it would be to get home. The harder it was to get home, the less likely we were to ever see our parents again—traveling with pirates, no less, who knew where or how far? Twenty-four hours ago we had a plan to rescue Kai. Now we needed rescuing.
“We’re looking for a boy,” said the pirate. “About your age.”
“A boy?” repeated Will.
“A boy and his father—a driller.”
I opened my mouth, but quickly shut it.
Kai, I thought. They’re looking for Kai.
CHAPTER 8
The pirate was called Ulysses. He said he was named after an ancient warrior, but I had never heard that tale. I thought of him instead as the king of the pirates. Like a king he rode tall and proud at the wheel in the first truck. He insisted the pirates had no king; they didn’t even have a leader. They were wanderers who went wherever the winds and water took them.
“Why do they follow you, then?” I asked.
“They’re free not to. They follow me because they want to.”
“That still makes you the leader.”
“Are we free not to follow you?” asked Will. He sat pressed up against the door. Ulysses was driving, and I was in the middle. The two dogs—Cheetah and Pooch—sat in a small compartment behind us. Cheetah (or maybe it was Pooch) kept poking her head over the divider and sniffing my face. Although the dogs had frightened me when they first tracked us, up close they seemed like large furry dolls that would rather sleep, lick, and sniff than bite. In fact, I knew, dogs had been pets until feeding them made their masters hungry.
“You’re children. Children don’t have choices.”
“That’s just what shakers always say.”
“They say it because it’s true.”
I had no idea where we were, except I knew we were traveling north again. The pirates seemed to know what they were doing, because their caravan moved fast—as fast as the broken roads allowed. I counted ten vehicles: three pickups, two jeeps, four tanker cars, and a converted fire truck the pirates used for pumping water. Somewhere overhead, the helicopter followed.
“Do you have children?” I asked.
The pirate was silent for a moment. “No,” he said finally.
“Are you married?” asked Will.
“Yes,” said Ulysses.
“Where’s your wife, then?” I asked.
“You ask a lot of questions,” said Ulysses.
I waited for him to say something else, but he did not, so I decided to stay silent as well. I peered out the window over Will’s shoulder. Minnesota did not look any different than home. The landscape was brown and dry, and there were broken buildings and cracked roads everywhere. No people; no signs of life. If there was more water here, you certainly couldn’t see it from the ground. Minnesota kept its riches well-hidden.
The trucks rumbled northward. I nudged Will, but he ignored me. I occupied myself instead by scanning the horizon for clouds. The sky, however, was perfectly blue, and every time I thought I saw a wisp of moisture, it turned out to be a trick of the eye, sunlight glancing off dust.
I wondered what our father was doing right now. Had he gone to the army to report our disappearance? Had he told our mother? In her fragile state, the news could make her worse. But surely she would notice our absence. The more I thought about it, the more I became sick with anxiety—not for myself, but for my parents. In the front of the truck, I felt strangely secure with Ulysses driving, although I knew I should be frightened. But when I thought of my parents—alone and worried—I was seized with panic. I reached for Will’s hand, and though he was pretending to be asleep against the door, he twined his fingers with mine and held tight.
We spent the night in the truck with the dogs. Ulysses said it was too dangerous to sleep in the tents. I didn’t think pirates were afraid of anything, but he explained that Minnesota was one of the few places where wild animals still roamed freely. They were aggressive and hungry and would think nothing of eating a couple of children if they could. Although it was cold in the truck and grew colder as the night deepened, Ulysses had plenty of blankets. In the darkest part of the night, he started the engine and warmed the truck with the heater. The rumble of the engine and the warm circulating air soon made me drowsy, and I fell back asleep.
In the morning I awoke with my head against Ulysses’s shoulder. For a moment, before I was fully awake, I could swear he was watching me. But when I opened my eyes, he was looking straight ahead.
“Where are we going?” I asked, rubbing my forehead with the palm of one hand. I was embarrassed to have fallen asleep on him and didn’t want him to think I had noticed.
“You’ll know when we get there,” said the pirate.
“How do you know where you’re going?” I asked.
“A pirate’s intuition,” said Ulysses. When he smiled the creases around his mouth looked like deep crags. He shook off his blankets and opened the door of the truck. “You stay here,” he commanded.
I watched him walk to the closest truck, his broad shoulders swaying as if he were carrying a weight, one leg dragging slightly, the dogs at his side. He had told us pirates didn’t fight except when forced to; they preferred to use stealth and cunning. But most of the pirates I had seen were crossed with scars, missing fingers, and crooked or bent limbs. For men who didn’t like to fight, they were well-bruised and battle-worn.
“They’re taking us farther north,” I said.
“I know,” said Will.
“Why are they following Kai?”