Chapter Fifty-Six Patrick
They walked back to the pub in broad daylight.
A risk, certainly, though they’d not yet passed a copper. A blessing. He supposed with the terranium in such short supply, there wasn’t much need for them. Likely they were holed up somewhere, waiting out the winter and keeping their boots clean.
Scurry moved with a sort of lethargy not found in Kenton Hill. The Crafters went about their business with invisible millstones tied to their ankles, kicking through the slush.
A church bell rang. In Kenton, they’d repurposed them. It must be Sunday.
Nina’s eyes lifted to the steeple in the distance and held. He wanted to ask why she was smiling but thought better of it.
Back to the hovel and its bar, past a skeletal dog tied to a standpipe growling at them as they went by. John would charm the bartender into giving over names. They’d make their careful plans from there.
They would have to tread lightly, send notes of an ambiguous nature while they felt out the potential in these Scurry miners. Likely, it would take days to confirm a decent crew. Their one good fortune was that Shop was miles behind. No signs yet of his approach.
But that window was closing. Any day, a train would come clattering through the hills.
For now, though, there were no coppers, no infantry, and the townspeople kept their heads down and minded their own. Patrick thought it all seemed rather too easy.
John opened the door to the pub ahead of them and stepped inside. Patrick let Nina in before him, then he followed, pulling his cap off and shaking out his wet hair.
The door was pushed closed behind him. A lock slid into place.
A miner’s shiver, arriving too late.
He looked up slowly.
The bar wasn’t as vacant as it had been the night before. Now, there was a man on every stool. A weapon on every man. All of them turned in the direction of Patrick, Nina, and John.
Spitting tobacco hit the pots, barely touched lager turned stale.
A man larger than the rest sat closest, his legs resting on the table, boots clad with mud.
He had a bulbous forehead, two missing teeth, and a thick brown mustache.
The others sat back from him as though they guarded his flanks, like a resting pack.
Patrick’s chest tightened. An ambush.
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket as he stepped forward. Made it look like he only meant to approach John for a light as he stepped in front of Nina.
He held his hand out, and his father slapped a matchbox into it.
Patrick lit the stub, then shook out the flame.
“Boys,” he said, releasing a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
The pack leader let loose a groan and pulled his feet off the table. “Now that’s funny, ain’t it?” he asked his men. “ ’Cause we was waitin’ to ask you the very same.” He stood, and Patrick saw that he was taller than even him, than Gunner.
Patrick clicked his tongue. It wasn’t clear yet if he recognized any of them. “Visitin’,” he said simply.
“Seein’ the sights, eh?” the man said. “Strollin’ through the mines, I hear.”
So then, the mines were guarded. Just not by the coppers. He recalled the glint he’d seen on the hill. “Scurry mines are famed,” he said. “Thought we’d take a gander.”
“I’ll bet,” the man said darkly. He had a voice like gravel. “Lookin’ for some stray terranium, were you?” he said.
“Somethin’ of the sort.”
The man glanced over his shoulder. “Search ’em.”
Two men came to shove hands into their pockets and feel along their sleeves. “Ah, this one’s got a tender touch,” John said, chuckling. The miner with his hand entrenched in John’s back pocket withdrew quickly, grimacing.
Patrick balanced the cigarette between his teeth and held his hands out to the side. “Pulls out too quick, though.”
John barked a laugh. This was a performance they’d perfected.
When they got to Nina, Patrick resisted the urge to knock them flat.
But it wouldn’t serve to show his hand like that, so he grit his teeth.
“Nothin’,” one of the young lads mumbled, then retreated.
“You’re as unlucky as the rest of us, then,” said the man Patrick wagered was once a foreman.
He’d fit the shoes proper—imposing, head full of gas, stature like a block of flats.
A puffed up, cock-swinging boor of a man, strong-arming the pack.
Gunner would have him on his arse in the space between two breaths.
“You can hop the next train back to your own parish, now,” he said to Patrick. “Stick to your own holes. Don’t see none of us bent over to welcome you into ours, do ya?”
So then, he didn’t recognize them. Patrick grinned. “What’s your name?” he asked.
He lifted his chin. “Kicker.”
“That ain’t your real name.”
“It’s the only one you’re gettin’.”
“His name is Harland Seymore,” Nina said, clear as a bell. Patrick groaned internally.
Patrick felt her step to his side so that her face was visible, and he felt the stern exteriors of several men buckle. They shifted in their seats. Chuckled low.
There was a slow whistle from the man named Harland Seymore. “Well, well,” he leered. “And who’s that there? Hard to see your face in the dark, darlin’. I didn’t father no bastards by yeh, did I?”
It was met by snorts and hoots.
Nina stepped farther into the glow.
Harland’s face turned from mocking to incredulous.
A name formed on the man’s lips, the rounding of the letters all wrong. “Rose?” he murmured, brow pinched.
No putting the genie back in the bottle now. And no point, if this man was in fact the foreman they sought. “Close,” Patrick said. “Have another go.”
Harland’s eyes swept warily to Patrick and away. “Not the kid?” His eyes widened at Nina.
Nina inhaled deeply. “Hello, Uncle,” she said.
Harland Seymour flinched like he’d been stung by a hornet. For several moments, he simply sealed his great jaw back together, considering Nina from afar while his men grew wary. “Your pa says you went off to swank city,” he said.
“I did,” Nina replied.
Harland chewed on that a little longer. “Never believed him, if I’m honest. Thought he probably gave you to some orphanage in the west.”
It was Nina’s turn to sneer now. “Would’ve been the only good thing he ever did.”
“She looks right like her, Kicker, don’t she?” said some faceless miner. He shut up immediately with one look from Harland.
He addressed Nina with a guarded expression. “Thought yourself too good for the likes of us, eh? Just like your ma.”
Nina started forward like she might slug him. Patrick took her wrist in his hand as she passed. “What choice did she have?” Nina spat at him. “What help did you lend her?”
Nina’s uncle grunted good-naturedly. “We all got our problems, missy. The moment she married Fletcher, she became someone else’s.”
Nina stared furiously at him for several moments. Then she turned to Patrick and said under her breath, “You can’t trust him.”
“Wait a minute,” John interceded, stepping forward. “Perhaps we ought to let the men talk, eh? Temper all this hot blood?”
Patrick took his gun from his coat and checked the barrel. “Say that again for me, Dad.”
His eyes slid to his father, whose hands came up. “All right, Pat,” he said. “You know what I meant.”
But Patrick’s attention was already on Nina’s long-lost uncle. “You’re a foreman, I presume?”
“And you’re trespassin’,” said Harland.
“I’m acquirin’,” Patrick corrected.
“Oh, are ya?” Harland chortled and his men followed—a flock of mockingbirds. “A man here on business, then?”
Patrick nodded once. “Of a sensitive nature.”
Harland shook his head in amusement. “Go on then, give us your pitch. Must be no good if it’s brought you all the way out here.”
Patrick sighed and brought the gun into view. It remained clutched at his side, but the effect was immediate. Harland’s face morphed into something menacing. Two of his men stood.
“Haven’t decided yet if I should bother. The lady here says I can’t trust you.” He watched Harland’s eyes flicker to her. “And she ain’t hardly ever wrong.”
“Don’t even know yet what it is you’re trustin’ me with, do I?” Harland said. “You got a swingin’ dick on you, kid. Pullin’ guns in this parish?” He tsked, pulling a bent cigarette from his pocket and straightening it with his fingers. “Sizin’ me up like I’m some fuckin’ tart.”
Three of his men suddenly produced their own handguns. They pointed them directly at Patrick.
Predictable, Patrick thought. Gas heads were always the predictable sort.
“Why don’t you tell us what’s brought you to old Scurry,” Harland continued. “I’m certain it ain’t the family reunion.”
Patrick felt Nina watching him, silently pleading, and he hoped she understood that this was only a game. Only the flex and jostle of business, nothing more.
“My name is Patrick Colson,” he said. “This is my father, John, chairman of the Miners Union.”
There was a beat of silence, and then a bark of laughter from Harland. He nodded at John. “Don’t seem like it,” he said.
John shrugged. “These old bones ain’t gonna hold out forever,” he said. “Gotta let the young lads take their place.”
Harland shook his head. “Colson, eh?” he said. “Heard about you in the paper.”
“Don’t believe everythin’ you hear,” Patrick said. “Tell your men to put their fuckin’ guns away. Lord knows they ain’t got a single bullet between ’em.”
The men balked, confirming his suspicions. They looked to Harland for instruction.
A deadly smile slid onto their foreman’s face. “Put ’em down, then,” he said, and the guns lowered. “You ain’t daft, boy. I’ll give you that.”
“Are you men sworn to the good cause?” Patrick asked.
Harland lifted his arms. “We’re diggers, ain’t we?”
“Don’t make you Union.”
Harland’s smile slipped. “You heard of a man named Jericho Burgess?”
Patrick faltered. He couldn’t fathom the question. “Can’t say I have.”
“Ah, well, young Jericho were a devoted Union man. A good miner, too,” Harland said, something rearing up between the words.
Harland didn’t say more, and Patrick knew better than to try and fill the silence. Better to let the oaf turn the cards over himself.