Well of Sorrows Read Online Free PDF Page A

remember how to sling at all. You’d better step back.”
    Colin took a few quick steps backward, and his father began twirling the sling for an underhanded throw down the beach. The sling picked up speed, his father using his entire arm—
    And then suddenly the strap with the knot snapped outward. The stone arched up, a black speck against the light blue of the sky, then fell and kicked up a plume of sand a significant distance away. Tom let out a yelp of laughter, then turned toward Colin. “Not where I was aiming, but . . .” He trailed off into a grin. “Now it’s your turn.”
    Colin leaped forward.
    His father tied the sling to his right arm, crossing the cords back and forth in a lattice pattern, then placed the knot in his hand, closing Colin’s fist with one hand and squeezing once before letting him go and stepping back. Held at his side, the sling nearly touched the sand; he was a full foot shorter than his father.
    “Just spin it at first,” his father said. “Get a feel for it.”
    Colin placed one of the water-smoothed stones from the beach into the pouch, then began twirling the sling, a thrill coursing up his arm and down into his chest, into his gut. He found himself smiling uncontrollably. The weight of the stone, the tension he could feel in the cords around his arm, thrummed in his body, and he began to spin the rock faster.
    “Not so fast, Colin,” his father said, but Colin didn’t need the warning. He could feel the loss of control in his arm, could feel the swing becoming erratic.
    He backed off, concentrating, until he regained control. He was using the underhand swing, as his father had done, and he could already feel the strain in his arm and shoulder, muscles he wasn’t used to using beginning to burn.
    “When you’re ready, let the knot go.”
    Colin waited, focusing on the rock. Then he let the knot loose. He felt the sling jerk in his arm as the release cord snapped outward. A surge of adrenalin shuddered through his body, cold and warm at the same time—
    And then the stone thudded into the sand not two feet from him, spitting up a spume that pattered back down with a hiss.
    His father burst out laughing, and he flushed to the roots of his hair, his scalp prickling with the sensation.
    He almost turned to run, but his father gasped, “Colin! Colin, wait!” Between chuckles, wiping the tears from his eyes, he clapped a hand to Colin’s shoulder and said, “Everyone does that the first time. You need to find where the release point is, that’s all. And how to change it so you can hit targets at different distances. It takes practice. Lots and lots of practice.” He passed over another stone. “Let’s try it again. If you work at it, you can learn to hit just about anything—rabbits, birds, deer. And if you build up your strength, you can even kill with it. But it won’t happen overnight.
    “Do you think you can keep at it? Truly learn how to use it?” He looked into his father’s eyes, saw the smile there, the pride, and behind it the worry. Worry for his mother, for him. Worry about Portstown and the Proprietor, about their survival here in the New World, on this new coast.
    “Yes,” Colin said, his hand tightening on the sling’s knot. “Yes, I can learn it.”
    And he meant it. He meant to practice until his arm ached, until he could hit anything within a hundred yards, accurately and repeatedly, standing still or moving.
    And then he intended to use the sling on the Proprietor’s son. He intended to hunt Walter down and make him pay.

2

    OLIN CROUCHED DOWN IN THE GRASS at the lip of a knoll, his head just above the waving stalks, the knot of his sling clutched in his right hand. The late summer sun beat down on the plains spread out around him, turning the grass gold. Spring had come and gone, most of summer as well. The heat had dried out the ground and the grain had ripened, the seed heads pattering lightly against Colin’s face as he stared down onto the