The sun was near the horizon, painting the western sky a washed-out shade of purple. Soon the sun will rise above the horizon and crest the Rocky Waste peaks, bleaching the sky colorless before it slowly blues.

Malo forces himself out of his sleeping bag, he gages he slept for around nine hours. Lately he seems to need more and more sleep. What he could really use now is some food. He’ll have to wait for his hosts to make breakfast, he’s almost out of dried cavi.

“Chloe, forage... If you want. The trees are sparse and anemic and the brush looks dead; there can’t be much to hunt.”

Chloe takes off into the brush without hesitation.

Malo breaks down his camp by rolling up his sleeping bag.

He wanders towards the “line switch crew” camp to see if they’re up, yet. To his surprise they were up and silently preparing for their day. Cole Dust was sitting at the base of the telegraph pole wearing headphones and holding a pencil to a pad of paper, waiting.

Rusty and Viper were collecting the cans from last night’s dinner for some project.

Whiskers was rekindling last night’s fire to start breakfast.

Silver, Big Inu, and Cinder were sitting in the same spots as last night, quietly waiting for the day to begin.

“Here’s the last of my dried cavi. I expected to be in Bearupper by now so I don’t have much left.”

Big Inu chimed in, “You had a lot of bags strapped to your inu, don’t you have any other food?”

“Actually, I do. I’ll be right back.”

Returning he has a sack of kibble and sits next to Big Inu, opens the bag and grabs a small handful and tosses them in his mouth and starts chewing.

Big Inu scoops up a handful and starts gobbling it down. Between mouthfuls, “This is pretty good, what is it?”

“Avi flavored, I think. I have a hard time differentiating the avi and cavi flavors sometimes. There’s a vegi-flavor mix that’s really good but Chloe ate that first this trip.”

“You rich kids are crazy, you feed this stuff to your inu?”

“She prefers the dried cavi to her kibble, but I can’t always feed her that,” finished talking, Malo eats another small handful of kibbles and waits.

It starts as a snicker from Silver, soon Whiskers is chuckling quietly with sideways glances at Big Inu obliviously eating inu kibble.

Viper sees the situation and figures it out fast and whispers something to Rusty, they both start laughing.

Cole Dust puts down his paper pad and hollers, “Quiet down, I won’t hear a thing with y’all’s caterwauling. What’s so funny, that’s got you all in stitches?”

Silver can’t help but be the one to answer, “His lordship Malo is over here with Big Inu and the two of them are sharing a morning snack. It’s inu kibble! Big Inu is eating inu kibble, avi flavored we think.”

Abruptly standing, Big Inu is about to throw the kibble in his hand into the fire when he thinks about it for a second and sits back down and resumes eating.

Malo smiling says, “I’ve been snacking on this stuff since I was nine years old, it’s not bad in a pinch. If all I had was beans twice a day, this would definitely be a welcome change.”

Malo offers the bag to Silver.

Silver takes the bag and dubiously extracts a single kibble and pops it in his mouth before he can think about it. He chews it a few times and swallows.

“That ain’t bad,” and grabs a large handful before tossing the sack to Whiskers.

Before long they’re all sitting around waiting for the morning beans with Malo’s remaining cavi to heat up and passing the sack of kibble around.

After they’ve finished eating Malo has to ask Viper something, “Is that what I think it is on your hip?”

Viper pulls open his jacket to reveal the pistol holstered there, “You mean this, it’s one of those pistols that have been coming up out of the Badlands.”

“Bang-up! I heard about those; I didn’t think I’d ever get to see one. Can you demonstrate it for me?”

Viper unholsters the weapon and points it at Malo’s head.

Malo feels no threat of potential energy but knows this isn’t a good position to be in, “Could you not point that at my face?”

“Sorry, I forget myself sometimes.”

Silver interrupts, “Viper thought he was being funny. He has a dark sense of humor and is irritable of late but that should be expected from a shooter whose about to be made obsolete.”

“No, I won’t, any stupid-face can fling rocks. It takes a sharp eye to be a shooter. I’ll become just as deadly with a pistol as I am with a stone bullet.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Malo wants to make peace, “I agree with Viper. I hear those fire a lead bullet in a straight line. It will take the same skill to hit a target with a pistol as someone with the gift and a stone bullet. I really would like to see a demonstration.”

Rusty joins them and pulls open his jacket to reveal his pistol, “You’re in luck that’s what we’ve been collecting these cans for. We’re about to do some target practice.”

“Let’s go right now,” Malo stands but Rusty and Viper don’t move until Silver gives them an approving nod.

After the three head away from camp to put a berm in the form of a small hill between them and the rest, Whiskers quietly says, “Don’t let them get too attached or they’ll hesitate when it’s time to take him out.”

“Nah, not those two killers, they’ll be laughing while cutting off his fingers.”

Using a branch bridging two similar sized rocks, Viper balances eight used bean cans atop it.

Rusty waits for Viper to return before unholstering his pistol and handing it to Malo.

Malo knows it’s dangerous but not how to use it and holds it in his palm.

“Go ahead and pretend to shoot, it’s not loaded.”

“I don’t know how it works; I was hoping you’d show me. You see I’m a runt and we’re not born with a knowledge inheritance.”

Rusty looks at Malo like he’s seeing him again for the first time. He reacknowledges the size disparity, his obvious youth in spite of his appearance. Now after learning this man doesn’t have the basic knowledge shared by all of humankind, he feels revulsion as he questions Malo’s humanity. Then remembering him and Big Inu sharing a bag of inu kibble, he realizes Malo is just another misfit like the rest of them.

“Hold it by the handle but keep your trigger finger out of the trigger guard.”

Malo pieces together which parts he’s referring to through inference.

Seeing the boy is getting the hang-off it, Rusty continues, “Use your other hand to push the part that’s barrel shaped to the left.”

Malo uses his off hand and pushes the cylinder until it opens.

“See those empty chambers, that’s where the ammunition goes,” Rusty then hands Malo six bullets.

“Push one of these into each of those chambers; this side first,” while showing Malo the end with the lead slug.

Malo loads each of the bullets into a chamber, then waits for the next step.

“Go ahead and push the cylinder back into place.”

Click, the cylinder snaps into the firing position.

“That’s it. Now all you have to do is point and pull the trigger.”

Malo reverses the gun and awkwardly points it at the ground and tries to hand it back to Rusty.

Rusty refuses, “No, no, I want to see you fire it. Go ahead and take aim at a can and pull the trigger.”

Malo skeptically repositions the pistol in his hand and inserts his index finger into the trigger guard and rests it on the trigger.

“Go ahead, take aim at a can and gently squeeze the trigger.”

Malo does as Rusty instructed but nothing happens. The trigger doesn’t move, “I’m trying but the trigger won’t move. How hard do I have to squeeze?”

Rusty was curious if the story about the knowledge inheritance was fake, he figures the boy would have turned off the safety and tried to kill the two of them if he had the chance. That’s what Rusty would do in his place.

Viper was thinking the same and was ready to blast a rock through Malo’s head if he aimed that pistol anywhere but down range.

Rusty wryly says, “Oh my mistake, I forgot to tell you to turn off the safety… See that little switch on the left side above the trigger guard; flip it down.”

Malo turns the pistol sideways and sees the little switch in question and slides it down. Picks the can on the far left and takes aim. He slowly squeezes the trigger and the weapon fires.

Malo flinches, the bullet misses. Nobody is surprised.

Rusty assures Malo, “Not bad, you only missed by a little to the right and high. Try it again.”

Malo takes aim and squeezes off another. He misses again.

“Try again, you have four more bullets.”

Malo feels a little more relaxed at having fired the weapon twice and knowing he has four more chances. He takes a meditative breath and relaxes. He doesn’t overthink what he’s doing and looks down range at his target. Squeezing the trigger again; the bean can jumps off the branch and flips in the air.

“Not bad for a beginner,” compliments Rusty.

Viper sneers, “That’s just beginner’s luck. I bet he can’t do it again.”

Malo flips the safety up, “I bet you’re right. Thanks for the lesson, that was fun. I hope to get a chance to do this again sometime.”

Malo holds the pistol out, flat on his open palm and returns it to Rusty.

Rusty notices that for someone who’s never handled a pistol before, Malo has a lot of good habits, “You know how to handle a pistol better than most people I’ve met that have inherited firearm safety protocols, how is that?”

Malo didn’t realize he was doing anything right or wrong but knows where this is coming from, “This has come up before. Not having a knowledge inheritance means I have to think things through more thoroughly than you do. It makes me cautious around dangerous things. You on the other hand, take it for granted that you know everything you need to know and may trivialize potential danger because you learned everything at once and with equal weight.

“That’s what I think anyways. I handled the pistol the way I did because I don’t trust safety measures to be foolproof and was trying to avoid pointing the dangerous end at anyone the way Viper did earlier.”

Viper glowers, “If you’re looking for an apology…”

Malo interrupts, “Nope, none required or wanted. You were just messing around and I’m sure yours wasn’t loaded and had its safety on too.

“If you two don’t mind, can I watch you shoot for a while?”

Viper looks quizzically to Rusty who speaks for the both of them, “I don’t see why not. Just know, we have a job to do later and we can’t have you underfoot and in the way.”

“I’ll be halfway to Bearupper before the train arrives,” Malo lies.

The two shooters spend the next hour showing off for their new audience of one. Soon after, Malo was joined by Whiskers, Big Inu, and Cinder. The shooting duo switched between their pistols and inborn ability to propel rocks at high velocities, knocking cans off the branch and out of the air. Sometimes one at a time and others in groups.

The most impressive trick was having Big Inu, Cinder, and Whiskers each throw a can and having Viper put a single lead shot through all three cans. The coordinated throwing was almost as impressive as the shot.

“Great throw guys, you lined them up perfectly. Viper, that was an incredible display of poise, patience, and performance; the three Ps before perfection or so my old sword master used to say. Malo spread the praise heavily in the hopes they would change their mind about taking him hostage.

He’s also conflicted on what to do about the train robbery. They brought two heavy carts, if they were robbing the passengers those wouldn’t be necessary. As it’s only cargo should he stand aside? That’s what Master Paras taught him in their ethics class. Defenders are not law enforcement or sheriffs, if they were they’d be too busy with petty problems and not be ready for the big ones.

Is train robbery a big problem? That would depend on what’s being stolen and who it’s being stolen from. There’s only one way to find out, Malo will allow himself to be kidnaped.