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LTs ran for a scraggly pine, leaping for its outstretched limbs. He swung his legs up over the branch and began to climb.
    The men treated him like target practice and riddled him with bullets. When the LT fell, his body sailing through twenty feet of air, he landed hard atop his head. There was no mistaking the sickening sound of his neck snapping in two.
    Only two were left: the boy with the missing eye, and Cannon, standing by his side, shielding him from further bullets.
    The men seemed intent on prolonging the moment, orbiting the two LTs in ever-closing circles. The heaviest of the group reached into a back compartment and pulled out a jug. They passed it around, each taking deep gulps from whatever homemade brew it contained. Only when the sun settled behind the far ridge did the shooters put away the jug to finish off the LTs.
    But when one of them lifted his rifle, Cannon cocked his arm as though making that familiar throw from third to first and gunned a rock forward. It hit the rifleist square in the face. Blood gushed from his nose like a fountain.
    While his two companions looked on in a drunken stupor, Cannon raced forward, kicked the wounded man off the ATV, and hopped on himself. He picked up his injured friend, and the two of them went zipping across the pasture, wind sailing through their hair.
    When the two other shooters finally understood what was happening, they began to fire wildly. The alcohol made them too unsteady to get off a decent shot.
    Cannon and the wounded LT inched closer to the far edge of the valley. They were going to make it. It took everything in my power to refrain from cheering.
    I had forgotten about the Man in Orange.
    He gave his head a weary shake, and uncrossed his arms. Removing his rifle from its scabbard, he placed Cannon squarely in his sights. From a distance of half a mile he pulled the trigger. Smoke plumed from the barrel; the crack of the rifle shot followed a full second later.
    The bullet struck Cannon in the back of the head and both LTs went flying.
    By the time the other two men raced forward—now no more than ten yards from their quarry—Cannonhad pushed himself to a standing position and round after round landed in his abdomen, his arms, his legs.
    He remained standing longer than any human could under such circumstances. He refused to be brought down. Finally, a bullet exploded in his face and he flew backward, landing hard on the ground. This time he did not move.
    The Man in Orange joined the others. When he was a couple of feet away, he finished off Cannon and the other LT himself. We could see the bodies quiver with each shot.
    The shooters made their way to Cannon’s corpse. One of the men posed with the body as though it were big game he’d brought down on safari. His friend snapped a picture—the camera flash a miniature lightning strike.
    When the four ATVs rode out of the valley, their sport completed, they left behind the corpses of six Less Thans, each only a year older than me.
    Then the red pickup returned, jostling to a stop when it reached a corpse. The two Brown Shirts went to the body and swung it back and forth until they had enough momentum to fling it into the truck’s bed. Thud! They drove to the next bodies and repeated the process— thud! thud! —their movements weary and nonchalant. As if they’d done this a hundred times.
    When all six dead LTs were loaded in the back, thetruck bounced back the way it’d come, its red taillights shining like devil’s eyes before disappearing into the darkness.
    Just like that the valley returned to its peaceful self.
    â€œWho were they?” Flush demanded as Cat led us back to camp.
    â€œHunters,” Cat said.
    â€œBut why’d they do that?”
    â€œâ€™Cause you’re a bunch of Less Thans.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re not only less than normal, you’re less than