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“Yes.”
“How long have you worked here?”
Daniele frowned, confused. “Uh, I don’t know.”
“You work very hard, don’t you?”
“Yes, I’m strong.”
“I see that.” Gaetano weighed the load, a whopping forty-one kilograms, then made the necessary notations in the ledger. Daniele seemed to take it as his cue to go, picking up the load by looping the strap overhis right shoulder and lifting it from the knees, showing why the right sides of the boys’ bodies were overdeveloped. He staggered from the weigh station with his basket, heading for the loading area at the kiln.
Gaetano spotted anothercarusuheading toward the weigh station, maybe eight years old. The boy hunched from the weight of the load, with the same awful pallor and disfigured form. Thecarususet the load on the metal plate.
“What’s your name, son?” Gaetano asked, delaying the notation that would cue the boy’s departure.
“Agostino,” thecarusuanswered, and Gaetano’s ears pricked up at the familiar accent.
“Are you from Palermo?”
Agostino hesitated. “Uh, yes. I think so, I don’t know for sure.”
“Your accent is from Palermo, like mine. Don’t I sound like you? I can hear the difference, can you?”
Agostino nodded shyly. “Yes, I say words wrong. There are a fewcarusilike me, who say our words wrong. They tease us.”
Gaetano’s mind raced. It seemed strange that poor parents from Palermo would send a boy to a mine out here. “How did you get here?”
Agostino shrugged his lopsided shoulders. “Signor Tonelli brought me, I think?”
Gaetano blinked, putting it together. If Tonelli had kidnapped Dante, then maybe he had kidnapped these boys, too.
“Signore, aren’t you going to weigh my load?”
“Oh yes.” Gaetano glanced at the scale, which read forty-eight kilograms, then made his notations. He didn’t delay because Tonelli could be watching from the office. Agostino shouldered his load, then trudged on his way.
Anothercarusuwas already approaching. Gaetano quickly tore a page from the back of the ledger, then wrote the names of the boys he had seen so far, underlining Agostino.
The afternoon wore on, andcarusibrought up basket after basket,going back down the same shaft as soon as they had unloaded the ore. Gaetano elicited conversations from each boy, seeing some more than once. He wanted to learn as much as possible about them, as well as hear their accents.
The sun finally began to dip, and Gaetano pulled out his list of names, skimmed them, and analyzed the results. He had met all thirtycarusi, but only twenty-three of them were from Mussomeli. Seven of thecarusihad Palermo accents, including Agostino. They confirmed they were from Palermo and that Tonelli had brought them to the mine.
Gaetano’s heart lifted. He had heard about so many kidnappings while he had been in prison, and he may have just solved them. Tonelli must have kidnapped the boys from wealthyPalermitani, hid them in the madhouse with Renzo, and brought them here to work with the local boys.
Gaetano couldn’t wait to tell Dante.
They had to rescue thecarusi.
Constantino emerged from the mineshaft,covered with sulfur dust and carrying an oil lamp. He walked tiredly to the weigh station, setting down the lamp. “Have the others come back from Don Bruno’s yet?”
“No, it’s been quiet.”
“They’re usually back by now. We need to run the night shift.”
“There’s a night shift?”
“Yes. It’s cooler. The pickers prefer it.” Constantino wiped his watery, red eyes on his arm. “Something’s wrong. I’d better go to Don Bruno’s and see what’s going on. Tell Tonelli when he wakes up. He always sleeps all day after he goes to town, since he spends the night in a brothel.”
“Okay.” Gaetano masked a surge of excitement. “What about Dante?”
