“And if it’s not that man, then it’s another just the same. Some bastard with dirty hands and a trail of sin to his name. If he’s got the coppers under his belt like he says he does, then we need him.”
Nina shook her head, perhaps in disbelief at Patrick, perhaps at the inevitability of the disaster she was sure would come. “Fine,” she said, quietly seething. “Fine.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVENNINA
The men drank into the afternoon, and then the evening, in a nauseating display of masculinity. There seemed to be a contest to see who could outdrink the other—the men from Kenton Hill, or the ones in Scurry. By nightfall, most of them were falling off their stools. More unneeded, restless miners had come to fill the empty spaces, and Harland demanded free beer for them all.
I could have retreated upstairs and spared myself this scene. This was the same drinking hole my father had sat in. These faces were the same gnarled second-shift men, stomping and seething and seeking out bluff. They slurped at their free lager and threw vitriol at the barman when he lagged—a man who himself seemed moments away from knotting his noose.
I stayed and endured it, because there was no sleep to be found on the floor above while Harland lurked below. I would stir and pace and imagine what words were being exchanged between him and Patrick. What deals were being made. I couldn’t stand to think of Harland banding his arm over Patrick’s shoulder, of Patrick shaking his hand in camaraderie.
Harland Seymour had fed my father every dose of bluff. He’d pocketed our coin, watching his own sister try to fill the gaps with sewing and laundering. He’d see my mother in church with bruises on her jaw and still take her husband’s money on the next shift.
Patrick seemed strangely balanced for the amount of pints he’d pulled.John, too. I wondered if they’d found a way to water it down. Careful observation led me to believe they were tipping half their drinks into the Scurry men’s undefended glasses. It was quick-handed. Blink and you’d miss it. Anyone glancing would see a couple of drunks, sloshing liquor over their rims. But their eyes were too steady, while Harland’s turned glassy and reeling. Patrick and John affected the posture and talk of the inebriated quite convincingly. The Scurry men wilted, but Patrick and John kept their seats. They traded covert glances with one another and took stock of these men who would soon delve into the earth with them.
Patrick looked at me most often, though. And he grew more and more agitated with each passing hour. Twice, he’d urged me to go upstairs, and twice I’d denied him. “I’ll leave when you do,” I said.
I’d succumbed to my own drinks. The beer was tasteless. I had a mouth coated in venom and it dulled the flavor. With every sip I grew more tempestuous. What right did Harland have, remaining fit and well in Scurry while my mother rotted in an unmarked grave, and my father faded between his four walls? A witless, overgrown bastard, flouncing through this town as though he were its ruler. He barked laughter into the air and shoved one of his men off a stool, puce-faced and pulsing with barely suppressed violence. Lord, but I wanted Patrick to take out his legs.
But Patrick only laughed at his jokes, warned me away with silent glances. Harland crowed and scratched his balls and beat his chest. He spat on the floor and asked the barman for a woman good for cleaning it. He mimed, crudely, what he would do to such a woman if she were to materialize.
I downed the last dregs of my pint and stood from my corner, feeling full and lopsided. Equal parts hate and beer, just like a miner. I let all that blood and loathing in my head tip me forward in Harland’s direction.
I didn’t see Patrick stand as well.
He intercepted my warpath before I could collide with Harland, and I bounced off the wall of his chest.“Uh, uh,”he said, blocking my view. I blinked stupidly at the buttons of his shirt. He took the glass from my hand,and until then, I hadn’t been aware I was clutching it like a weapon. “And just what are you gonna do with that, eh?”
I glared up at him. “I think I could get in a few good hits.”
Patrick’s frown faded into bemusement. “You think?”
“Iknow.”
“Three beers, and she thinks she can take on a pub full of miners,” Patrick scrubbed his face. “Nina, please. Go to bed.”
“Don’t fuckin’ tell me what to do.” I tried to skirt around him.
“Woman, I’mbeggin’you—”
“Hey!” I shouted to Harland’s back. He was singing uproariously with the rest of his crew. A Scurry limerick about a beggar and a prostitute. He didn’t notice my braying. “Harland! You hawkin’ piece of scum—”
Patrick’s arm closed around my waist like a vise, and I was immediately lifted off my feet. The room blurred, faces passing, my feet kicking. Seconds later, I was in the stairwell. The noise had dulled.
“Always promised I’d throw you over my shoulder, didn’t I?” Patrick said, and without further warning he hefted me just so, my view now upside-down, his arm banded around the backs of my thighs. I kicked to no avail, pushed at his back. “Put me down!”
“So you can scamper off and pick a fight?” he asked.
“Someone ought to,” I spat. “He has it fuckin’ comin’.”
“He does, but didn’t I tell you I’d do the fightin’?” I heard him kick open a door. “You can put that Scurry tongue away.”
I found myself flopping gracelessly atop a bed. The springs squeaked.
“You’re defendin’him?” I spat, trying to get up. The room was distending. Beer retraced its path from gut to throat.
Patrick caged me in, kneeling on the floor at my feet, an arm either side of me. His chest pressed against my kneecaps. No escape. “He don’t need defendin’,” Patrick said. “But if you slug him and he retaliates, I’ll be defendin’you, and a brawl ain’t what we need.” He was far closer than I’d bargained for. Blue eyes, fans of lashes, the sharp line of his brow.
I tried to look menacing. “I don’t need you todefend me.” I swiped at hisarm, but with startling speed, he caught my wrist. “Don’t mean I won’t do it anyway,” he said. “I’d cave in his head, and we’d be run out of town. We’ve got to keep the peace.”
