Free Chase by Jessie Haas

saw the printed numbers. He’d never held one bill of this size, let alone—he rifled through them—four, five, six, se—no, that was a folded piece of paper.
    Did he have it, then? He’d been sure that whatever itwas had been left under Dennis’s stairs. He started to unfold it.
    His hands shook.
    That stopped him. He sat for a while staring at the folded sheet. The letters might as well be Chinese—upside down, backward, bleeding through the cheap paper. What could it be? A letter? Orders? Worth the lives of six men—Sleepers? Intended victims? Maybe also the life of one boy, if he made the right bargain.
    In which case he should read it.
    Or he shouldn’t.
    He already knew more about the Sleepers than most people, growing up at Murray’s. But what he knew was put together from shreds that wouldn’t seem like evidence to anyone else. Shreds were safe. Shreds could be denied. This—
    He folded the bills around the paper, stuffed the roll into his pocket. Think about this. He already knew one thing he couldn’t forget. Maybe he’d better keep it that way.
    The paper made him think of Margaret. After his mother’s death she’d taken him on, watched over him in her way. It used to embarrass Phin, being singled out by her with men like Plume watching. She’d known that. Itamused her. She’s no fool, his mother used to say, and now he wondered: had her attention saved his life? Was that why Plume hadn’t shot him?
    Saved him only to doom him twenty minutes later.
    Plume spoke abruptly; Phin adjusted his ears to catch him mid-sentence: “—unnerstand is killin’.”
    His voice was slurred and struggling; a man at the head-on-table stage, driven to tell all he knew before oblivion took hold. “All through the strike—‘don’ do nothin’, no violence,’ they said. An’ we held our fire. An’ what happened? They broke the union, an’ now we’ve…got…nothin’.”
    Phin touched the money in his pocket. Not exactly. But many did have nothing. All summer families had scoured the woods for mushrooms and berries, leaving the land bare and beaten seeming. After that, the sound of the breaker had meant defeat, but also life.
    â€œYou’re working again,” Fraser said.
    â€œTwenty-six percent pay cut! An’ they’re closin’ shafts. Every—every job they cut…b’longs to an Irish. Tell me that’s right. Tell a kid he can’t eat tonight ’cause Pop came from…from Ireland. He don’t care! He’s a kid; he’s here. Wants to eat. So what are you going to do? Let it keep on like that?”
    â€œNo,” Fraser said after a bit. “Got to fight, I guess. But who? It’s not just one man—it’s a kingdom.”
    â€œMachine,” Plume said. “Put in an Irishman, turn the crank. Out drops a dollar. So who—who d’you fight? You fight—everybody. Fight the whole—whole place. Startin’…with…that kid.”
    â€œHe’s just a kid,” Fraser said. “He’s here.”
    Phin’s heart skipped in his throat. He drew his legs under him, ready to dive out the door—
    â€œWants to eat,” Fraser went on, and Phin realized he was quoting Plume’s words back to him, pulling the cat’s tail again. Next would come the quarrel, then the soothing.
    But there was no response. After a while Fraser said, “Sweet dreams, pal! And now what?”
    There was a restless note in his voice. The stallion got up with a thump and scrape. “Nay then,” Fraser said. “Let’s think a bit.”
    Phin leaned back in his corner. He felt more uneasy with Plume unconscious than he had with both enemies wide awake. Plume and Fraser had canceled each other out. Now there was only Fraser—whoever he was. Whatever he wanted.
    Get off now, the train seemed to say. Get