He flung the hatchet down viciously, into the rocks at his feet, breathing heavily with resentment and challenge. “I demand the respect to which I’m entitled.”

“Look,” Prentiss said.

He pointed to the group just then going past them. A sixteen-year-old girl was bent almost double under the weight of the pole she was carrying, her once pretty face flushed and sweating. Behind her two twelve-year-old boys were dragging a still larger pole. Behind them came several small children, each of them carrying as many of the pointed stakes as he or she could walk under, no matter if it was only one. All of them were trying to hurry, to accomplish as much as possible, and no one was complaining even though they were already staggering with weariness.

“So you think you’re entitled to more respect?” Prentiss asked. “Those kids would work harder if you were giving them orders from under the shade of a tree⁠—is that what you want?”