The Gathering Read Online Free PDF Page A

blew from the inside, Alia's room.
    He took a deep breath and turned, walking towards the barracks.
    "Guilt is an ugly emotion," he thought.  

 
     
     
     
     
    5
     
The rustle of the breeze made the skin on Sam Hearst's skin prickle.   He looked up at the sky and the surrounding ruins of old Pasadena, the atheist village.   He felt uneasy and so did his horse and his dog, Madison.   He shook his head and smiled to himself.
    "Nerves," he said under his breath.
He had been looking forward to the Gathering.   Although Pasadena was only twenty miles from Lia Fail, Sam didn't get to go as often as he would have liked.   While the nineteen-year-old was capable of traveling by himself, he was often obligated to help his father, the president of Pasadena, which left little time to travel.
    "What are you looking at?"
    Sam jumped as his brother's voice filled the air.   Corey laughed.
    "Sorry."
    "Help me with this, would ya?"
    Corey wandered over to help his brother pack the horses.   He looked at Sam.
    "Are you okay?"
    Sam looked at him and nodded.
    "Yeah, I guess.   I just thought I felt something."
    "What?"
    "I don't know…something in the air, I guess."
    The breeze kicked up again and blew Sam and Corey's long ginger hair into their faces.  
    A large man with the same red hair stepped outside onto the porch of the old home.
    "You boys almost ready?   I want to get to the Gathering before nightfall."
    "It'll only take us a few hours, Dad," Corey yelled back.
    Larry Hearst looked out at his sons.
"Not if it takes you all day to load the wagon and pack the horses.   There are about three or four hundred of us traveling up the hill, Corey.   Maybe you should leave the packing to your brother and see if the others will be ready to go soon."
    A small smile began to cross Sam's face as he tried not to look at his younger brother.   Corey sighed and turned to his father.
    "How come I always have to run around and see if everyone is ready?"
    "Because I said so," Larry responded.
    He then went inside and closed the door.
    Corey threw up his arms.
    "Do you think things are any different in the other colonies?"
    Sam looked at Corey.   They were only two years apart but sometimes Corey seemed a lot younger to Sam.
    "You mean besides the obvious?"
    "Naw, just this kind of thing."
    "No, I don't think it's any different."
Sam finished putting food in a bag and placed it in the back of the wagon as two young men came towards the brothers.   They were Scott and Henry Forrester.   Scott had been Sam's best friend since kindergarten.   Scott was a strapping boy of nineteen, who intimidated even the biggest of men.   He was quiet, thoughtful and patient.   Henry, although also tall, was thin as a rail and prone to the grand gesturing of a diplomat, his most prized ambition.
    "Aren't you finished packing yet?" Henry quipped.
    "Not yet."
    "Is everyone else packed?" Corey asked.
    "Yeah," Henry answered.   "Almost."
    Corey turned to go tell his father that the others in their colony were ready to leave.
    "I didn't tell you to ask someone else.   I told you to go and see."
    Larry Hearst was again standing on the porch, an imposing figure.   He was fair-minded and understanding, but he took no time to indulge the frivolous.   Corey's shoulders slumped and he walked off.
Scott moved to help Sam pack and Henry smiled and walked towards Larry, who, seeing Henry coming, began to move back into the house.   Unfortunately for him, Henry caught up to him before he could enter the house, forcing Larry to take him inside.
    Sam laughed.
    "Your brother is determined to get my dad to recommend him for congressional status."
    "I know.   You'd think with the destruction of the old political system we wouldn't have the politicians of old, yet, I find myself related to a junior ladder climber."
Sam smiled.   Scott moved forward and threw another sack of food in the wagon and then leaned down to pet Madison.   He continued to scratch the