By his estimate, they were outside the haberdashery in the old town, where the lane turned to dirt and led up to the very edge of the quarry.
Donny heard the click of Gunner’s pistol, felt the chill of early morning cut into him.
“Briggs,” Gunner called ahead, his voice swallowed some by the wind. “Who’ve we got?”
Dunnitch miners, Donny guessed. Lads who drank too hard in the nightand got the notion they’d ease their boiling blood in Kenton, start their own uprising with naught but a couple of Union-issued guns.
These were fraught times indeed.
Soon, Kenton would wake. The early risers would pull back their curtains. Old Mrs. Earnest would open her haberdashery. Best they get this sorry business done before the whistle for first shift blew.
“You’ll never believe it,” Briggs replied, still a ways off. Donny thought the drag of their feet sounded labored. Surely the snow hadn’t piled so high in the night?
“Holy shit,” Scottie mumbled. Donny heard the clack of his rifle as it lifted to his shoulder. “You don’t fuckin’ say.”
Gunner had taken two paces in front. Hostility crackled through the air and raised gooseflesh. “Now just what business do you two have, walkin’ back in here, eh?” he growled, the words curled in fury.
Donny sighed. “If someone doesn’t tell me who the fuck it is, it’s a bullet apiece.”
A heavy body crumpled to the ground like it had been shot, crunching into the snow.
“Don’t shoot,” said a broken voice, as though the bearer hadn’t drawn a proper breath in days. “Please. Just listen to me.”
It was a voice that sent a shock through Donny, momentarily paralyzing him.
He lifted his own gun.
“You’d better speak quick, swank,” Gunner snarled. “I’ve been itchin’ to cut someone, and the Scribbler is first on my list.”
“Polly?” Otto said aloud, stumbling forward. “What happened to her?”
Theo. Polly. Here in Kenton Hill.
It couldn’t mean anything good that they were here.
“She’s been badly hurt—she needs bluff, please.”
“Then you’ve come all this way for nothin’,” Gunner said, no less menacing. “Don’t have a drop. Wouldn’t spare none on a traitor, either, now, would we?”
Beside Donny, Otto shuffled, as though battling the urge to go to Polly.
“She has a fever,” Theo continued in that breathless voice. “She’s been unconscious for hours now. Please. Help her.”
“You don’t look in no better shape,” Scottie said. “Looks like you’ve been through a war, lad.”
“Why should we help her?” Donny asked.
Gunner scoffed. “Over my dead body. Best we can do is put her down.”
“No,” said Otto. His breaths had shortened. “Please, Gun.”
“She’s the reason, Otto!”Gunner thundered, his mind already made. “She’s the reason we’re in this mess. They both are. These two and thatfuckin’earth Charmer.”
“I want to hear what she’s got to say,” Otto continued, his voice stronger now. “I don’t ask you for hardly anythin’, Gunner. Do I? But I’m askin’ for this. I want—Ineedto hear her explain how she could…” Here, emotion took hold. “How she could do it,” he finished.
Donny lifted his chin again. “Why should we help her?” he asked once more. He pictured the water Charmer reduced in the snow, the outline of him fading.
But Donny also remembered how he’d saved him and Patrick from the fire Charmers. How he’d washed out the entire square. They might all be dead if not for him.
