Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick Read Free Book Online Page A

his head.
    â€œDo you know why I came?” Wolff repeated.
    Still Sig said nothing.
    â€œI think you know. I think you do. I had some business to attend to with your father.”
    Sig took a deep breath, and once more felt that strange detachment from what he was saying, as if he were observing this little scene from above.
    â€œI’m very sorry your journey was wasted. But my father can’t help you anymore, and you’ve had your coffee. You’ll be needing to get back to Giron before dark. There’s a hotel. It’s quite good, I think. At the railway station.”

    He ran out of things to say, and Wolff stayed exactly where he was.
    â€œI don’t think you understand. Since your father is no longer with us, that makes you his heir.
    â€œThat means my business is with you.”

17
    Sun Day, after noon
    â€œY our father and I had a deal. We worked together. Back in Nome. We had a deal. An arrangement of sorts. It seems that he’d forgotten. He left, without saying good-bye. I came here to remind him of our arrangement.”
    He made it sound like a casual thing, a chat over a glass of beer maybe. It didn’t speak of ten years of what could only be an obsession.
    â€œI’m sorry,” said Sig. “I don’t know anything about it. I would help you if I could. I’m sure you can see. I was only little at the time. It was—”
    â€œTen years ago. Yes. I know. It has taken me a whole damned decade to find you, and now … he dies the day before I arrive. But I think you might be able to help me. You were only a little boy then, but I’m sure you remember me.”
    Sig didn’t.

    He could remember so little of his time in Nome. He could remember the cold, colder even than Giron, and he could remember the emptiness of the place. He could remember Front Street, but he couldn’t remember what their shack was like, just the odd scene, a moment here and there, frozen into his memory forever.
    He could remember his mother barely at all, not even her face, and they hadn’t had any photographs made that might now stimulate a recollection—of her gentle eyes perhaps, or the long, dark, wavy hair that Anna had inherited. No, nothing like that, but he could remember her as a feeling, a soft and warm feeling, making him safe and happy.
    He could hardly remember what his father was like in those days. He’d had more hair then though, and one of Sig’s few memories of Nome was of a particular habit of Einar’s.
    Sig remembered how he wore his hair, slicked back with oil, but only when he went to work. Every morning, he’d carefully stroke the oil into his hair so it was straight back and sleek as a raven’s wing. He said it was to make him look more businesslike when he was weighing people’s gold and paying out the dollars, so people took him more seriously. And every night he’d wash the oil out again in their little makeshift bathroom, so he looked like the father whom Anna and Sig knew and loved.
    Even now, if Sig smelled the right kind of oil, it would
remind him of that early year of his life spent in Nome.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Sig said. “I don’t remember you.”
    â€œNo?” asked Wolff, raising an eyebrow. “No, perhaps not. But I do need to end this business that I spoke of. You understand?”
    Wolff waited for some sort of reply, but didn’t get one.
    He shrugged, as if to say, “Never mind.”
    Wolff stood, and for a moment Sig thought he might be leaving, but he merely arched his back, so hard that Sig heard all his vertebrae clack and snap back into place.
    â€œDamn horse,” he said, then sat down again. “Never mind. You don’t remember me. But I’m sure your sister will. Now, when will she be home?”

18
    Sun Day, dusk
    â€œF ather never mentioned you,” Sig said. “Not to me, anyway. I don’t suppose Anna will be able to help you