Mahlia sighed. “Don’t feel so bad. Half-man teeth are what got my friend Mouse into trouble, too. It ain’t your fault.” She grabbed the one boy’s shotgun. Fiddled with it until she had it open. Checked the load.

“Take the rifle,” Tool advised. “The kick will be worse with the shotgun. You won’t be able to control it.”

Mahlia looked from one weapon to the other. “That little licebiter carries it. Why can’t I?”

“He has practice, and two hands.”

Mahlia looked from the rifle to the shotgun she held in her hand. “But I can’t miss with this.”

“If you’re close enough. Your stump will make it difficult to control.”

“I’ll brace.”

Tool shrugged.

Mahlia took the shotgun anyway. Stood up, hefting it and smiling. Damn, it felt good to hold a weapon. Not just some machete that you could never get close enough to show what for. She couldn’t ring-fight a soldier boy, but she could blow his head off just fine.

The gun felt solid in her hand, reassuring. Powerful. She could stand tall with a weapon like this.

No wonder soldier boys had so much damn swagger. With a gun under your arm, you walked tall. If she’d had a gun when the soldier boys caught her the first time, everything would have been different.

All her life she’d been ducking and running, always rabbiting, while the coywolv did all the hunting. But with this big old gun, she could stand tall.

The weapon was heavy, but she suddenly felt light, as if the weight of all of her past had suddenly fallen off, like a concrete block, tumbling away.

She grinned at the weapon in her hand. Yeah. She liked this gun, all right.

“Brace it against your shoulder when you fire,” Tool said. “The kick will bruise you.”

“It’ll kill, though,” she said. “It’ll kill good.”

“Resist the urge to think that weapon makes you strong.”

“It sure don’t make me weak.”

“Weaker than you think,” Tool said. “Resist its swagger.”

“I don’t swagger.”

“Everyone swaggers with a gun. Look at it.”

“What about it?”

Mahlia looked down. It seemed fine. Looked clean. In good condition. Ready.

“It gives you confidence.” Tool shook the boys under his arms. “It gave these two confidence as well. And look at them now. From a position of strength to an asset of their enemy, and all it took was confidence. The swagger a gun gives when you’re following some harmless crippled girl into the jungle.”

Tool suddenly snarled. “Now look at it, again!”

Mahlia startled at the force of Tool’s words. She looked down at the shotgun. “I am! I am!”

Scrapes and scratches. Heavy black barrel. A wooden stock that had been carved by hand and hammered back on to the main mechanism.