1269_UgliesFreeBook

UGLIES 213
up and over the gnarled trees, following the barely visible
track below into dense forest. David rode low in the canopy,
gracefully avoiding branches and vines as if this were a
familiar slalom course. Tally noticed that, like his shoes, his
clothes were all handmade. City clothing only used seams
and stitching for decoration, but David’s jacket seemed to
be cut together from a dozen patches of leather, all different
shades and shapes. Its patchwork appearance reminded her
of Frankenstein’s monster, which led to a terrible thought.
What if it were made of real leather, like in the olden
days? Skins.
She shuddered. He couldn’t be wearing a bunch of
dead animals. They weren’t savages here. And she had to
admit that the coat fit him well, the leather following the
line of his shoulders like an old friend. And it fended off the
whips of branches better than her microfiber dorm jacket.
David slowed as they came into a clearing, and Tally saw
that they had reached a wall of solid rock. “That’s weird,” she
said. The railroad track seemed to plunge straight into the
mountain, disappearing into a pile of boulders.
“The Rusties were serious about straight lines,” David
said. “When they built rails, they didn’t like to go around
stuff.”
“So they just went through?”
David nodded. “Yeah. This used to be a tunnel, cut
right into the mountain. It must have collapsed sometime
after the Rusty panic.”