Page 52 of By Any Means

August rolled his eyes. “But there is another thing you should ask your socialist, maybe to distract him? What he thinks about union thugs roughing up glassworks gaffers in broad daylight.”

“Laurie’s already asking questions— Now, wait a moment. The Local? You think my attack on 2nd St was related to your attending those meetings?”

He wondered: had Laurie considered that possibility?

“Of course it was,” August said. “It must have been. They thought I was you in the meetings and you were me in the glasshouse, and… they were meant to. I meant for them to think that. I put down your 2nd Street address as contact. It’s my fault you were attacked.”

“Oh.” What on earth would make the Local #68 want one gaffer—him—scared off or dead? “Well, that isn’t anything new, I suppose. You’re very good at being me. What were you saying or promoting?”

Laurie’s reasoning came back to him: “But if it was another gaffer, or a boy, but he doesn’t know you’re the boss, then why want his fellow gaffer dead?”

“It doesn’t matter⁠—”

“It absolutely does! Were you saying I was trying to organize Wright Glass? Because four men have died, and⁠—”

August came close and gripped Chary’s arms beneath the shoulder. It was almost, almost an embrace, except it was rough and angry. “It’s still my fault. This time, you were almost killed, body and soul. Not just your name. Sidney’s been giving me hell for it and I deserve it. He told me the bruising is bad, but I can see now it’s worse than that. Can I…?” He reached for Chary’s hat.

Chary flinched and jerked away, clutching his hat firm. “It isn’t so bad. And my name? Our names are our father’s name rehashed. Not even our own. You know I don’t give a damn about the name nor the inheritance. I’d give you it again if I had to. My life, too, if I could. More has been done to you from blame of me than anything you could ever do to me.”

“Short of murder,” August muttered. “Chary⁠—”

Father Newcomb came tromping around the corner of the church, unencumbered from his heavy vestments. He was on the path for the outhouse. He hadn’t seen them.

“Take the Caddy,” Chary said hastily, backing away. “Take it to town. Anywhere. I’ll walk home. Stay with Brasher in the cabin. Don’t come back to the house until I send word. Please, brother. No more risks.”

August scowled and, before Chary turned around, shoved back on his chauffeur’s cap of a disguise. He saluted and said: “Back to house arrest, then. Amen.”

17

LAURIE

Chary slept all Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday—excepting his usual morning mass. Laurie played his part of devoted lover, since there was nobody else to do so, making sure Chary rested and ate. Otherwise, he availed himself of the house’s turret library and also of Mrs. Simon’s excellent cooking. Cowboy butler Brasher gave away nothing and, so far as Laurie could tell, suspected nothing of Laurie, though he was certainly watchful. Ever-present.

August Wright was nowhere to be seen, apparently risking nothing, not even to check on his recovering brother. Laurie didn’t go looking. He didn’t want to blow his cover and spook the man from his hidey-hole cabin, so, except for a brief visit to the Berryfield post office, Laurie stayed at the house.

By Monday, he felt more restless, and Chary was awake by eleven, so under the guise of more tour, they took the wagon out to the barrens. Chary’s mansion stood a mile or so north of Berryfield, but the blueberry fields were detached from the estate proper and stretched even farther north where the road turned into nothing but sandy earth. Laurie recognized the boulder patch where he’d first sat and considered the potential of blueberries, and realized he hadn’t appreciated just how far he’d walked that day in March. It seemed farther now. Justified Chary’s concern he’d freeze himself in getting back. Of course, now it was July and hot under the deep blue sky; Chary was getting a sunburn over his bruising.

The job, he mused, would’ve been far easier if the man weren’t genuinely nice.

Due to the heat, the harvest was already done for the day, so the fields were mostly abandoned. A lone foreman in bib overalls and a Stetson wide-brim lingered in the distance, marking the lines for tomorrow’s harvest. Rows of purple-green blueberry bushes were delineated with twine and sticks, and footprints were everywhere in the sand, and wheel-marks too.

Chary left the horse to stand in the shade, and they laid out a picnic luncheon on a weedy patch by the evergreens’ edge.

“Who’s that walking the fields?” Laurie asked.

Chary squinted against the sun. Thanks to the comfrey, his bruise had flattened, the blood draining down as purplish-yellow sponge-paint into the hollow of his right eye. “Oh, Mr. Herbert. The foreman.” He waved, and the man returned the greeting, more curtly. “My brother hired him last year, straight off. This is his first harvest.”

Laurie’s focus sharpened. Chary was willing to talk about August.

“What did a party-boy Lothario know about hiring farmers?”

“Well, precisely.” Chary laughed ruefully. “But Mr. Herbert’s done all right. The yields vary, year by year, I suppose. It is a wild crop. Rhizomic. It fruits only biennially.”

“You don’t like him,” Laurie deduced. “Too provincial?”

To some, it had been as though Laurie had initially come to Gotham with straw in his teeth. His own accent served him well now when he had to deploy it, but it’d been a shock to realize just how much it had influenced even street brats against him.

“No,” Chary said carefully, lashes lowered. “He doesn’t like… me. As an embodiment. I told you, I’m out to the staff.”