Valknut: The Binding by Marie Loughin Read Free Book Online Page A

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chagrin. “You lousy piker! I hadn’t thought of those dirty finks in
months. If it weren’t fer them, I’d be workin’ reg’lar hours,
makin’ love to Maggie every night — “
    “And raisin’ a handful of brats, probably
none of ’em your own. Any woman that would have you couldn’t be too
particular.”
    Angus scowled and cracked his knuckles. He
could do it by tensing his fingers and curling them into a fist one
at a time. It was a favorite trick of his, and it gave Red the
willies. Angus grinned when Red winced. “As if any woman’d let you
in her bed, ya scraggly, ol’ flea-bitten drifter.”
    “I am what I am. And same for you.” Red
plucked a blade of grass and nibbled at the white end. “You
wouldn’t have stayed with Maggie more’n another week before a
train’d choo choo into town, spoutin’ steam, and you’d follow its
whistle like a dog.”
    Angus scowled and picked at a callus on his
thumb. He was a big man, younger than Red. Where Red was rangy,
sun-baked, and topped with fading red hair, Angus was tall,
broad-shouldered, and covered with dark, wiry hair. Red liked to
tease him, saying that if it weren’t for his sun-burned nose,
someone might take him for a bear and shoot him. Red liked to tease
Angus about everything, but this time he feared he had gone too
far. Angus loved trains, but he loved his woman more. Between the
Pinkertons and the Depression, he couldn’t support her or the child
in her belly. Not if he stayed in Homestead. So he found work where
he could and sent his paycheck home.
    Red opened his mouth to apologize, but heard
the crunch of heavy boots on scree. He scrambled to his feet and
saw the other workers already laboring to clear the debris from the
blast. A burly, red-faced man was coming toward them.
    “Heads up, now,” Red said. “Here comes the
Bossman.”
    The look on the straw boss’s face made Red
wish he had stayed hidden behind the outcropping. The yelling
started when the straw boss was still twenty yards away. He was
wild-eyed and raving by the time he stood before Red.
    “What kind of lunatic are you?” Spit flew and
his thick arms flapped like the wings of a disturbed chicken. “If
you get your lice-ridden carcass blown to smithereens, then I’ve
got to use Anderson over there—” he jerked a thumb at a slow,
wall-eyed man working nearby, “—to set the charges, and he’s likely
to bring the whole mountain down. From now on, your fuses better be
regulation length, or I’ll tan your hide and wear you as boots. You
got that?”
    Without stopping for air, he turned on Angus.
“Why are you sitting on that fat ass of yours? Company says the
road in this pass has got to be ready by 1894. That leaves us less
than four months. If that track isn’t down before snow flies, I’ll
send you out in your long johns with nothing but a garden spade to
keep the pass clear.”
    Red and Angus fidgeted, waiting for him to
wind down.
    “Now get your flatulent asses into that gap
and drive some steel,” the Bossman finished. “If you set the charge
right, you’ll take out that knuckle of rock and leave a nice, solid
shelf wide enough to run track on.”
    Red grabbed his kit and hurried to the
protrusion of rock before the Bossman could remember something he’d
forgotten to say. Angus followed, carrying a hammer and a steel
rod.
    “Damn, Red. I know layin’ track in this here
butt-crack of the Big Horns ain’t so great, but it keeps the food
comin’ and keeps us outta them workhouses.” Angus paused while Red
figured where to set the charge. Red chalked an X on the stone and
set one end of the steel rod on the mark. Angus raised his sledge
hammer and added, “Just lay off the jokes fer a bit, okay?”
    “Sure, Angus.” Red flinched when the heavy
iron struck the rod. “I never argue with the man swingin’ the
hammer.”
    When the hole was deep enough, Angus pulled
the rod and ran for shelter behind a ridge. Red joined him after
setting the