>>5718998You press your tongue to the inside of your cheek, <span class="mu-i">“Alright…$300, that’s the rate.”</span> Whittier splutters wildly, <span class="mu-i">“The Lord himself could reach out and smite all the wickedness of this place and it would not be worth $300!”</span>
<span class="mu-i">“No need to blaspheme foreman, it’s only yer own relation that means so little to ye.”</span> you say, sending him into further apoplexy, <span class="mu-i">“Relation by marriage!,”</span> he exclaims, <span class="mu-i">“and I would have thought factors of survival would necessitate a more demure position from you!”</span> You arch your brow, <span class="mu-i">“What ‘factors’ might those be?”</span>, <span class="mu-i">“Yer impendin’ starvation for one! I know ye don’t got money, that Mary girl told as much.”</span>
God dammit woman. You try not to let the despair show on your face. You do not, in fact, have anything to your name aside from your effects and <span class="mu-s">Three Silver Dollars</span>. <span class="mu-i">“Alright,”</span> you say, <span class="mu-i">“We will table any talk of remuneration for now, until I know more of what I might be doin’ for ye,”</span> You shift yourself towards Whittier’s tent, <span class="mu-i">“You said there’s a witness left alive?” “Yessir, my deputy foreman, Anson Collier.”</span> He looks down at the ground, choosing his words carefully, <span class="mu-i">“He…is not in a good way mister, he came back just before dawn and I’ve kept him here in my tent since, so as not to spread any ill omen.”</span>
You take a moment to regard yourself, the old fear lumping your throat, the old tremors quaking your hands, the memories of being out in the dark and the cold, things passing before your eyes . Iridescent horrors, their breath, the texture of their fur, their skin, the dull shining of their teeth. A small voice sobs inside you, not again please, please never again, never. Whittier sees your face turn black and sober, he pulls the tent flap aside and you both walk in.
On the bed is the man, Collier, rank fear and sweat pouring off him, he stinks like urine and like one of <span class="mu-s">them</span>. Pale sick is pooled on the ground by his cot, fresh, and still dripping, drop by drop from his overhanging mouth onto the dirt floor. He’s crying, and for a moment you’re afraid he might set you off too, the tiny voice inside you keeps pace with his hiccups and the sounds of mucus bottled in his throat. Whittier picks up a bottle of laudanum, feeding it gently into Collier’s open mouth. <span class="mu-i">“Now, Anson, I’ve brought a man to see ye, tell him what ye told me, it’s alright now boy.”</span>
