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Hastily, trying to get ahead of the inevitable shutdown, he said, “Then Harry, teach me how to cook. Teach me a trade, like the one you got. I’m smart enough to learn it. ”
“Smart enough, I reckon. But not careful enough. ” He took another swipe at his glowing, overheated face, then wiped his own body’s grease on the brown canvas overcoat he wore to keep his clothes covered. “You’d send yourself sky high with your first batch. ”
“No, I wouldn’t. Harry, I’m begging you, I don’t have noplace to go, and I don’t have anyone waiting for me, or looking out for me. I need for you to teach me. ” Nervously, his eyes skittered across the apparatuses and gloves, the tables, the charts, and the supply boxes. Something jumped out at him—something he should’ve noticed sooner, but hadn’t. “You’re expanding shop here, aren’t you? This is more sap than I’ve ever seen you work. ”
Harry’s eyes darkened. Rector couldn’t imagine what he’d said to make things worse than they already were.
“Yes, I’ve been busy. There’s a war going on, remember? It’s all I can do to keep up with demand back East. ”
“And that’s all the more reason you need a … an apprentice. Or a helper, or something. Harry, please. ”
“If I liked you any less or trusted you any better, I might consider it. But neither of them things are true, so I’ve got to tell you no. You don’t want to be part of this right now, Wreck. Things are getting hot back East, and…” He faltered and stopped, like there was something else he meant to say, but he couldn’t figure out how to add it.
“That stupid war’s been happening longer than I been alive. It’ll peter out one of these days, don’t you think?”
Harry shook his head. “It might. But right now, let’s pray it’s not replaced with something even worse. ”
“What’s worse than war? And why would we have a war out here, on this coast? That don’t make any sense. ”
With a grim chuckle, the older man stood up straighter, and quickly checked a simmering beaker. “It’s a shame you have to ask. Maybe you’ll go inside the wall sometime, and you won’t wonder anymore. ”
He stepped away from the cluttered table, revealing a still much larger than his old system. A vast network of tubes, tubs, and valves stretched almost to the ceiling. Another foot, and it’d jut up through the tinplate roof.
“Maybe I’ll do that. Maybe I’ll go inside the wall,” Rector said as if he hadn’t been planning it anyway. “But it looks to me like you need help. That’s a mighty big kit you’ve got there. ”
“I don’t need help, and you don’t know what you’re
asking. You want to stay here with me, maybe sleep out in one of the side houses? You want to take up a place in the war that’s coming? I don’t think you do, boy. ”
“What are you talking about? The war stops at the river, don’t it?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Harry said. “Things are getting uncomfortable for fellows like me, you understand?”
“No, I don’t. ”
“There are plenty of men out here, much closer to home, who want a piece of what we’re doing. Especially since business has boomed so big. ” Rector wanted to jump in and ask again, Why? but Harry was too fast for him. “Yaozu’s no dummy, but he’s only one man. Half the dealers and distributors on the West Coast are thinking about coming up here and taking the operation away from him. ”
“You think that could happen?”
Halfway under his breath, he said, “It’s happening already. ” Then he bent over a wooden crate stacked on the floor with others of its kind, looking for something. “They’re already coming, already circling like sharks. It won’t be long before I have to head inside the wall myself, much as I don’t like the prospect of it. I’m not defenseless, but I’ll be outdone by the kind of men coming up from Mexico, California, and the Oregon Territory. ”
“How do you know they’re coming, Harry? Who tells you anything, except me and maybe Bishop? And he’s inside the wall. He don’t know nothing. ”
Harry looked back at Rector with a chilly, unhappy frown clamped down on his face. “I hear things. I heard the thunder last week—did you? It wasn’t natural. ”
“You’re going ’round the bend, old man. ”
“Maybe, but soon the last of us here—the last of us original makers, I mean—will need a fortress. ”
“You could do worse than Seattle,” Rector noted.
“I agree, but the thought of a life spent in a gas mask doesn’t agree with me much. I may have to find some other line of work. ”
“You could go east, if that’s where the demand is. ”
Harry found whatever he was fishing for. His knees popped when he stood back up to his full height. “True. Inside the wall with the rotters and gas, or back East into the war. If it weren’t for shitty options, I’d have no options at all. Anyway, here,” he said, offering up a very small packet.
Rector tried to keep his eyes from lighting up. He tried to stop himself from gliding across the rough-hewn floors and snatching the small fold of waxed paper right out of Harry’s outstretched hands. But there he was, eager as a dog at the prospect of a bone. Some small part of him had the grace to be embarrassed.
