Page 59 of By Any Means

“—if you feel you owe a lifelong repentance toward me, then how the hell d’you think I might feel? Huh? You gave me your perfectly normal life to do what I wanted with, and I wasted it. Didn’t I.”

The lights clicked on in the windows behind them, throwing yellow glare; Mrs. Leonard with her workday’s last acts. August jerked away from the light.

“I don’t see it like that,” Chary said. “Not at all. Even if I were doing this for the sake of you—and I am not—have I not acted under my own power? As an adult? I was of age. You needed help, and I helped you. Can’t I take my own damned risks?”

“No!” August spat. “Not for me. Dammit, Chary.” The electric glow sliding down from the house’s windows still lit him in profile; despite the dark and the beard, Chary recognized his expression, though he’d never seen it before on him, not even when speaking what little he had of Tjofabier Raberding. Damp, raw-eyed fear.

August was scared? Why? Not for him, surely.

A backlit shadow came down from the front entrance, large and silent: Sidney Brasher.

“Can hear y’all clear down into the kitchens,” he said, in his quiet, non-butler-like drawl.

“No shit,” August muttered.

“And Mikhail sent his signal,” Brasher added. “Tulley’s on the mile back.”

“Jesus.” August put palms over his eyes. “I’ll go. God knows what Chary will sacrifice next if the world finds out about me.”

“I don’t care about the world; I care about Rab⁠—”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know,” August interrupted. “But the point’s the same. Stop sticking your neck out for me, Chary. I mean it.”

He didn’t wait for a response before melting back into the forest. Brasher stepped over his footprints with his own, methodically, diverting the path up toward the house.

He looked away as Chary swiped at his face.

19

THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY, INCORPORATED

RECEIVED at: 10:03 A.M. 22 JUL 1905

To: H. Sumner Appeal Building, Park Row

H: A FAVOR

INQ ASAP AFGWU LCL #68 BRKLN MTG USUAL TIME/PL? THKS IN ADV

ADDRESS 9 RIVER RD BERRYFIELD ME

-L

THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY, INCORPORATED

RECEIVED at: 6:34 P.M. 24 JUL 1905

TO: L. MOORE 9 RIVER RD

SAM FWD’D TO ME — WAS IN PHILLY FOR NAWSA — FLORENCE KELLEY! U OWE ME.

LCL 68 MEETS 7AM LAST FRI OF MO, WALHALLA TOP FLR.

H. SUMNER

“Yeeeess, Hiram,” Laurie murmured, and grinned. “Florence Kelley? Women suffrage? You little bastard, trying to make me jealous.” He scrawled back a response and handed it over to the operator.

One of the last things Irving Sawyer had informed on was that an unknown, bearded gaffer had been sporadically attending Local meetings. The man had been regarded with suspicion, Irving had said, because he had no references from other Locals, and the eventual consensus was that he couldn’t have been from any other glasshouse but Wright Glass. The bearded man hadn’t been let back.