Chapter Sixty-One Donny
They arrived in Scurry after days aboard an overfull longboat, driven alternately by both Sam and Theo, the latter of whom stayed standing by sheer force of will.
In an unspoken agreement, Donny and Gunner minded Theo like wardens, but the boy seemed single-minded, determined only to reach Scurry as quickly as possible.
Donny shared his urgency. He’d picked the skin around his nails to shreds. The canals curved and turned inefficiently, rounding hills and mountains and other parishes. Pure torture. Tunnels, he thought, were far quicker.
But finally, on the third day, Gunner crowed as the empty docks of Scurry emerged. Scottie groaned in relief and cracked his neck. “May I never see a fuckin’ boat again,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Can’t stand the rockin, Don.”
“It’s a long walk home,” Donny answered. “Unless you plan on becomin’ a Scurry lad?”
“God, no,” Scottie grumbled. “You seein’ this shithole?”
“I’m blind, cockhead.”
“Kenton weren’t much better,” Tess intoned, having risen from the cabin. “Before your father took it over.”
Donny couldn’t see it, rearing up beyond the river, but he could smell it. Smoke and fumes and despondency. Even the river turned sluggishly, as though it, too, were weighed down by the smog.
“Anyone about, Gun?”
“Not a one,” he replied. Lighting a cigarette and passing Donny one. “What’s the plan?”
“Ain’t got one, truth be told,” Donny replied. “Scottie?”
“You don’t pay me for my thoughts.”
“Nor your looks,” Donny nodded.
“Lord,” Tess intoned. “Ain’t a single wit between you.” Her boots clopped over the deck, and she hammered on the cabin door. “Charmer,” she beckoned, voice full of splinters and something else. Something desperate. “Get out here.”
Theo came on lead feet. His was moving the way soldiers marched on their last legs.
“Rise and shine, gorgeous,” Gunner said.
“You’re gonna create a diversion,” Tess told him.
Theo’s voice was brittle. “Why?”
There was the sound of someone’s hand—Tess’s, most likely—cuffing a skull.
“Wake up, boy. Use your head. A ragtag bunch of strangers creepin’ through in the middle of the bloody afternoon.
We’ve got no idea where we’re goin’, and we need time to look around.
You can put your swank bullshit to good use. ”
“How?” Theo asked, relenting quickly. There wasn’t any point arguing when it came to Tess Colson.
“There’ll be a standpipe somewhere, probably a few, with a town this size,” Tess said. “The river will pump water to ’em. Burst the tops off ’em. Let ’em flood.”
“How do you know they’ll have standpipes?” Scottie asked curiously.
“This ain’t Kenton,” Tess responded. “No runnin’ water. Just a river and some wells.”
The boat bounced off the sandbags and ground along the pier. They each stumbled dangerously over the deck.
“Fuck me, Sam!” Donny near shouted.
“Missed it by an inch,” the kid said.
“I thought you called yourself a practiced driver?”
“Had plenty of practice,” Sam said defensively. “Me Dad taught me himself—’round the Kenton canals, at least.”
“Just throw us the rope,” Gunner grumbled. “And stay with the boat, you hear me? Anyone comes knockin’, you scamper off without us.”
The slope to Scurry was covered in sludge, and they stayed low to it, Donny holding on to Gunner’s belt loop like they were kids, sneaking through the streets after dark, looking for trouble.
Scottie had taken Tess’s arm, and still, she seemed to struggle to keep up.
Her breaths were too harsh, too labored. She coughed often.
Donny felt a shudder of fear pass through him with every rattle of her chest.
At the edge of town, Gunner turned. “Right, swank,” he said to Theo. “You see that pipe in the middle of the lane?”
“Yes?”
A silence, and then, “You need an invitation, Teddy? Fire in the hole.”
Theo sighed, but there was a loud crack, and the spray of water, volumes of it shooting skyward.
Within moments, they heard the pounding of feet. Donny heard the shouts as those nearest tried to temper the geyser, calling for a wrench, a spanner.
“That ought to do it,” Gunner said. “Fine work, Teddy.”
They traveled quickly through the parish, over sodden ground that moved underfoot. When they passed a standpipe, Theo blew it up, and they moved on as the residents came from their houses, suspicion in their shouts.
“Where the fuck are we goin’?” Donny asked, once it seemed they’d made a dozen turns, blown a dozen standpipes. “We ain’t got a single fuckin’ clue where Patty’d be.”
“Shit,” Gunner said, and he struck Donny in the chest, hurtling him backward into a brick wall.
“Coppers?” Donny asked.
“A fleet of ’em,” said Scottie. They remained still and silent as feet thundered by, and Donny felt a familiar panic rise.
He didn’t know this place, didn’t know if he faced east or west. If the walls of this alley were an arm’s-width apart or closing in.
He had the sensation that the world was turning too fast, that soon he’d find himself hanging upside down, falling.
Feet approached.
They each turned toward the threat.
“Patty?” Scottie said.
“Goddamn,” a gut-deep voice replied. A voice Donny thought he’d recognize with his head in a canal. A voice that immediately righted the world and held back the walls.
And he thought he might buckle right there, let his knees hit the filthy ground.
Instead, he clawed toward the supernova of gold now erupting, that shining specter. “Pat?” he said. Arms caught his shoulders firmly, shook him.
“Fuck me,” Patrick breathed.
And then he pulled Donny to his chest so tightly that their ribs rebounded off each other, and Patrick’s hands pounded at shoulder blades.
Donny laughed. Felt relief seep from his eyes.
Patrick held him at arm’s length again, mussed up his hair and slapped his cheek. “You fuckin’ cryin’, Donny?”
Donny took Patrick’s coat lapels in his hands and shook him. “You ruddy bastard,” he laughed. “We thought those swanks must’ve put your head on a pike!”
“Worse,” Patrick said. “They put me in the House.”
Patrick released him, but Donny only dropped his hand to Patrick’s elbow, pinching his sleeve like he had when he was a kid. He only let go of Patrick as he caught Gunner up in another back-slapping hug. “Good to see you alive, Gun.”
“Stealin’ my words, brother,” Gunner grunted, the emotion clear in his voice. “Fuckin’ hell, it’s good to see you.”
There hadn’t been another time in life when they three had been apart so long. Donny felt something that had been constricting his chest pull free.
“Ma?” Patrick said next. The sound of two bodies colliding again, their mother’s breath escaping in a whimper. “What the hell are you doin’ out here?”
“Standin’ in a fuckin’ alley with coppers a few feet away,” Tess said tearily. “Take us to the hole you’ve been hidin’ in, son. Before we’re shot, if you please.”
Patrick sighed. “Don’t cry, Ma.”
There was a sniff and the swipe of a hand, and then Tess said, “Where’s your father and the girl?”
“Waitin’ round the corner,” Patrick said. “We thought you might be swanks.”
Donny registered the sort of grim silence only his mother could exude. “Let’s get some walls around us,” she said. “There’s a few things we need to discuss.”
Donny didn’t release Patrick’s sleeve. He let his brother guide him down the alley and around a corner, where their footsteps echoed off the tight brick walls and water dripped from eaves discordantly.
There came a voice he hadn’t heard in more than two years. A voice he revered more than God’s.
“Donny boy” it said fondly.
Donny remembered a thousand mornings greeted just like that, a warm voice beckoning, making him promises for a future that hadn’t yet arrived and screwing together broken parts.
“Dad?” he said, shakily.