Taking pity on the young man, Jake explained. “There’s no such thing as a left- or right-handed wrench.”
Shawn had played a similar trick on Jake a few days before by nailing a wooden toolbox to the subflooring and asking him to retrieve it.
“Damn it, Shawn,” he’d said, immediately knowing why he couldn’t budge the box from the floor. “You need to get that off the floor before someone hurts themselves.”
Shawn just laughed.
A short time later, Shawn had forgotten all about his joke and tripped over the same box. Aside from a bruise on his knee and some slivers in his hand from the subflooring, Shawn was unhurt, and the rest of them got to have a good laugh at the prankster for a change.
This morning though, Jake was feeling the weight of the tool belt he wore, and his mood had turned grumpy.
“Damn this belt,” he complained while adjusting the heavy leather around his hips. He heard snickering behind him, and when he glanced over his shoulder, he was surprised to see Trevor laughing with Shawn, when the boy usually avoided the man.
Jake’s suspicion tingling—and feeling idiotic for not checking sooner—he dug through the pockets of his belt.
“What the hell?” he mumbled as he pulled handfuls of pebbles from two rear pockets half-full of the small stones secretly piled into them.
Shawn, the kids, and several other workers laughed uproariously when Jake discovered their shenanigans.
“Not cool,” Jake said. The glare he leveled on a clearly unrepentant Shawn conveyed his unhappiness, but he couldn’t entirely blame his friend.
I should’ve guessed what he was up to hours ago.
The siblings seemed a little unnerved by his reaction. He glanced at Kara, her face frozen in an uncertain smile somewhere between laughing and fear of his anger. He gave her a playful wink that made her and her brother giggle again. Then he tossed aside his obvious irritation and laughed at his own expense.
He considered Shawn a friend, and despite his clowning, the easy camaraderie they shared gave Jake a sense of belonging he hadn’t experienced since he lost Bret. The conflicting mix of emotions Jake still harbored for his old friend thundered inside him whenever he thought of Bret, but, as always, he could not deny how much he still missed the man he called his brother.
As Jake’s comfort level on the ranch grew, he became more sociable at meals, during which the others often inundated him with questions.
“How do you get the cows to breed?” one younger man had asked curiously a few nights before as they gathered around him in the dining hall.
A few chuckles rounded the table, and Jake smiled.
“There used to be a whole process that didn’t involve the two animals being anywhere near each other,” he explained and provided a brief description of artificial insemination. At first, he was a little unnerved by all their attention being so focused on him, but as he got into the conversation, he forgot all about his unease.
“Things are more natural now,” he continued. “The way it was before everything got so scientific and complicated. Of course, this life can be more frustrating too, backbreaking at times, but it’s still worth the effort.”
“What do you know about chickens?” a guard inquired as she joined them at the table.
“They’re good fried with a side of mashed potatoes,” one of the other cowboys joked, and a half-smile tugged at Jake’s lips as another twitter of laughter sounded around the table.
“Not a whole lot,” Jake admitted somewhat warily once the chuckling died down, and the young woman—who had thrown a glare at the male speaker—turned back to him with an expectant but friendly look on her face. Though Jake’s anxiety bloomed to life with her direct gaze, he refused to let it show. “But ask away and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Each day, they queried him on something new, everything from raising crops to caring for cattle, and Jake did his best to give them the information they sought.
Most of the people living there were unfamiliar with ranching life. Like Shawn, many came from cities or suburbs and had to learn how to survive in the wild during the wars. Thousands headed into the hills to escape the bombs and destruction. Some returned to the ruins of their homes once the hostilities dwindled and some semblance of civilizations started anew, only to discover things had changed.
During the war, women discovered a new ability that science and the media labeled “hysterical-strength.” This change was created in secret by a global genetics project that gave women bursts of unnatural strength during times of stress, particularly fear. The strength it awarded them only lasted until the need to protect themselves abated. The upside was they could individually contend with a male opponent in physical skirmishes for short bursts and longer if they worked in groups. The downside was that it could take up to thirty seconds or more to take effect, leaving them vulnerable for those few seconds.
By the time the global conflict ended, the male population had dwindled to precarious levels. When the less-depleted female populace took control, they treated the men no better than slaves.
The men fought back.
They lost.
That second war—known as the Sex War—turned men into nothing more than chattel to be bought and sold and used. Some ran back to the mountains to endure the harsh life of backwoods living once again. Until Raiders hunted them down and dragged them back to the Auction Hall.
That’s what happened to Jake, sold at auction like an animal to Darla Cain, who took pleasure in ensuring he—and all her other slaves—never forgot his place or who owned his body, if not his soul. He tried not to dwell on his story. He tried not to remember what living under Darla’s thumb was like and would be like again when—or if—he returned.
In the few weeks that he had been living on Monica’s ranch, he’d begun to feel like a man again, a man regaining control of his
