The roads were filling up as men walked to the mill, but conversations seemed especially muted. If people kept getting sick, it would be difficult for the mill to operate on its normal schedule. Charles was worried—the quarantine had already taken a financial toll on the mill, but if sickness limited production even after the quarantine ended, the mill would be in for hard times. He told himself not to worry. The mill had a massive amount of timber ready to ship, a backlog that had been steadily building. Even if they needed to slow down production for a week or two while the men fought illness, shipping out all that timber would pay immediate dividends. Because there was no bank in Commonwealth—something Charles hoped to remedy by persuading some Timber Falls bankers to open business in town—he had been unable to issue end-of-the-month checks to his workers. They had received IOUs that shamed Charles nearly as much as they irritated the men receiving them. Though everyone had known such IOUs were a possibility back when they had voted on the quarantine, the problem had seemed abstract at the time. With every passing day, however, it became more real.
Now that Commonwealth was infected, its residents were frightened and suspicious—people were no longer interested in communal sacrifice. Meals were becoming smaller and less frequent as everyone dug into the recesses of their pantries and cellars. Those men who owned cows or chickens as hedges against tough times were finding that the tough times had arrived, and each day someone heard the squeal of a neighbor slaying his animals.
Still, Charles refused to believe that the flu’s arrival meant the quarantine had been ineffective and should be ended. Commonwealth still wasn’t as ridden with the illness as Timber Falls and other towns seemed to be, so perhaps the sick people could still be isolated; perhaps the flu could be contained.
The entire town had worked too hard and had enjoyed too many successes to be defeated by something as meaningless as an illness. Charles had created a town that his children would be proud to inherit, a town where one day his grandchildren would grow up in peace and safety. He had not allowed his brothers to ruin it, he had not allowed competing interests in Timber Falls to undercut him, and he had not allowed the logistical challenges of starting a town in a distant land to disturb the tangibility of his dreams. The flu would not stop him.
But something did stop him on his morning walk to work: broken windows at Metzger’s General Store. Charles increased his pace until he reached the door, which was slightly ajar. Silence. He paused, wondering if an intruder was still inside. But then he heard a sound: a loud curse, in a voice he recognized but had never heard at such volume.
Charles stepped inside. Alfred Metzger stood in the middle aisle between bare shelves. Some flour and cornmeal had been spilled on the floor, amid empty boxes and torn sacks.
Metzger turned around when he heard Charles’s boot crunch on a shard of glass. Charles hadn’t seen him in days, not since Flora had taken sick and the doctor had recommended isolation. Metzger looked terrible: his hair was uncombed and his eyes were red, on the verge of tears. One of his boots was untied, laces trailing after him, and shirttails poked out from beneath his jacket.
“Look at this,” he said, his voice as empty as his ransacked store.
“This happened last night?”
Metzger shrugged. “I don’t know—I haven’t been here for two days. I didn’t have much left, but now I have nothing.”
First the community gardens and now this, Charles thought. Prior to the flu, there had been only two thefts in Commonwealth’s history, and both of the perpetrators had been expelled from the town. Now theft was becoming the norm, it seemed.
“Who would do this?” Metzger said almost to himself, his foot nudging aside an empty box.
Charles remembered that Metzger was potentially carrying the flu, and he felt an urge to remove the gauze mask from his pocket. But doing so would have felt like turning his back on Alfred. He let his hand fall to his pocket, but he couldn’t bring himself to move any further.
He saw the blood on Metzger’s shirt. “Are you hurt?” Charles asked.
Metzger gave him an utterly confused look.
Charles gestured to his shirt, and Metzger glanced down. When he looked up again, his face was unchanged, and Charles realized the look wasn’t confusion but shock. “Flora died last night. She couldn’t breathe.”
Charles felt a quiver in his gut. For the past few days he had known Flora’s life was in danger, but still he reeled from the news. “Alfred, I am so sorry.”
“And now this.” Metzger turned back to the empty shelves.
Charles wondered for no real reason if the two events had happened at the same time. Had Flora’s chair by the front desk been knocked over just as Doc Banes had tried sedating her? Had the store windows been shattered and the last of the food stolen just as the doctor, conceding defeat with his modern methods, had taken out his knives and tried to bleed the sickness out of her? Had the thieves concluded their work here, not even bothering to close the door, just as Flora issued her last breath?
“There’s nothing left,” Metzger said, sifting through the debris. “I barely have any food left in my own home.”
“If you want for anything, I’m sure your neighbors would help.”
Metzger shook his head. “Which neighbors would that be? The ones who stopped coming to visit when they heard Flora was sick? The ones who hold their breath when they walk past our home?”
Charles looked down.
“Open your eyes, Charles! My neighbors did this! No one is going to feed my daughter and me but me!”
“I will feed you. If there’s anything you lack, you know you can come to my home and we’ll share whatever we have. You know that.”
Metzger glared at him.
“I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t visit while Flora was ill, Alfred. I was only following the doctor’s instructions.” Charles realized how pathetic that sounded. “I’ll visit tonight, and anything that you need, I’ll pro—”
“I do not want your help,” Metzger spat. “You’ve done enough already. Calling a town meeting that panicked everyone. Locking down the town so people would have to rob me to feed their families. What’s the point in keeping the town closed if everyone’s sick anyway? This”—he gestured at the store—“would never have happened if people had been allowed to come and go as they pleased!”
Metzger was right, Charles realized. And that only underscored a more horrible truth: that the town, having quarantined itself for over two weeks now, was particularly ill equipped to deal with the flu’s onslaught. If the town hadn’t been closed all month, at least people’s pantries would have been filled when the illness hit. Now they had little left to eat and were weakened by meager diets. Perhaps the flu had been inevitable, in which case closing the town was the biggest mistake Charles had ever made.
More crackling of boots on broken glass caused Charles to turn around. Two more millworkers had walked into the store, slowly taking in the scene. Their eyes seemed too weary for surprise; they were merely saddened by the inevitability.
“Have mercy,” one of them said.
“We’ll get this cleaned up,” Charles said to them, feeling the need to show that things were under control. “Don’t worry, I’m sure—”
“Is everything gone?” the other man asked, completely ignoring Charles. “Ain’t there a storage room or a cellar or something?”
“That’s empty, too,” Metzger said.
Three more men had poked their heads in.
“There ain’t nothin’ left?” One man’s eerie calmness disappeared. “How can there be nothing—”
Charles held up his hands, hoping to calm the man, as well as those behind him, who were cursing. “Please,” Charles said. “We’ll set things right.”
“Who the hell did this?” a man in back yelled. The gathering was attracting an even larger crowd as men passed the store on their way to the mill. There were half a dozen millworkers inside now, with still more crowding the doorway behind them.
“I’m gonna kill the bastards that did this!” someone vowed.
“Forget killing ’em,” another man said. “Let’s just steal the food back.”
Charles wondered if he should call a meeting of the magistrates, launch an investigation. Whoever had stolen from the store and the community gardens likely had volumes of food. But the thought of searching house to house did not sit well with him. That would lead to more confrontations and conflicts, would turn Commonwealth into precisely the kind of police state he had abandoned during the Everett strike. He wondered if that transformation had happened already.
“What the hell are you so angry about, Mike?” a man with a long scar down his left cheek said with a sneer. “You got enough food at your place to feed an army.”
Heads turned.
“The hell I do!” said an older man with a thick black beard flecked by white hairs. “I ain’t got no more’n you!”
Even though a cold wind was blowing in through the broken windows, Charles felt sweat roll down his back.
“You’re the one with the two cows in his backyard,” someone else said to the man with the scar.
“Do you see, Charles?” Metzger said softly into Charles’s ear as they watched the millworkers’ argument intensify.
Charles finally saw a friendly face, that of Jarred Rankle shouldering his way in through the crowded doorway. Rankle interposed himself between the scarred man and the bearded man, who seemed on the verge of blows. Charles could see Rankle reasoning with them, and he envied his friend’s lack of hesitation at striding right up to men poised at the lip of violence.
Another man stepped away from the mob to approach Charles. “How can the store be out of food, Mr. Worthy? I’ve about run out myself.” He was young, barely older than Philip, and one of the newer workers at the mill.
“I’ll visit your house later today,” Charles promised, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You can tell me what you need then.” He hoped that this was reassurance enough, even though he wasn’t sure what he would be able to offer the man.
The man looked less than hopeful as he turned to leave.
“Let’s everybody get to work!” Rankle called out after clapping a few men on the back. “We don’t have time to be feeling sorry for ourselves. Let’s keep this mill going.”
The men were still grumbling, but Rankle seemed to have called their bluff: no one wanted to fight, no one wanted to riot. They just wanted things to be back to normal, and for now, hearing one of the town’s respected foremen insisting that things would indeed work out seemed to be enough. But it was clear that the men’s tensions would not be eased for long.
The workers began filing out, and Rankle walked against the tide toward Charles.
“This isn’t good, Charles,” he said quietly.
Charles nodded. “I know. We just need to press on as best we can. This can’t last long.” He saw a lack of conviction in Rankle’s gray eyes.
“I need to get to the storage building. I’m supposed to relieve Deacon this morning. I’ll come by your office after my shift’s over.” Rankle left, and Charles and Metzger were again the only people in the building. Charles closed the door, hoping to prevent another scene.
Metzger was standing behind the desk where his wife had always sat. Even if the shelves had been filled, the room would have felt empty without her. He leaned forward, his palms on the desk, his head hanging down as if he might collapse.
“Alfred,” Charles started, “I can’t pretend to know how you feel right now. If anything that’s happened is the result of my choices, then I will carry that regret with me to my dying day.” He paused. “In the meantime, you’re right: the quarantine should be called off. If you need to go to Timber Falls for food, you of course have my blessing. I’ll tell the guards they are no longer needed. And I’ll go to the banks on Monday to get what money I can. I only hope the stores in Timber Falls have opened back up.”
Metzger kept his head down through Charles’s speech.
“Rebecca and I will come over tonight, and if there’s anything we can do—”
“There is nothing you can do.” Metzger still would not look at him. “You are not welcome in my home.”
XVIII
Rankle was surprised to find Graham standing guard at the storage building. He’d thought Deacon had manned the night shift.
“Deacon looked tired,” Graham said. “I sent him home early.”
“He have the flu?”
“Naw, seemed okay. Just tired.”
“Anything happen last night?”
“Heard some wolves. First time this year.”
“Maybe you should get yourself to bed. Sleep the night off.”
“Sounds good to me.” Graham smiled.
“You cut yourself?” Rankle asked, gesturing at Graham’s right hand.
“Huh?” Graham looked down and saw that dried blood darkened the space between his thumb and forefinger, running down across his wrist. “Oh. Must have beat up my hands cutting firewood before I came over here. Getting clumsier in my old age, I guess.”
“Get to bed, old man.”
“’Night.”
“’Morning.”
Soon Rankle was joined by a short Pole named Wozniak, and half an hour later, Wozniak’s wife came by with a bowl of oatmeal and some water for the prisoner. Wozniak stayed outside, grasping his rifle, while Rankle laid his on the ground and went into the building with the prisoner’s breakfast.
He was met at the bottom of the stairs by the pile of chains. He dropped the bowl on the floor and spun around in case the soldier was hiding in a corner waiting to jump him. But the soldier wasn’t in the corner. He wasn’t anywhere in the building.
Philip knew something was wrong as soon as he walked into the office.
Still nervous about being confronted by angry millworkers, he’d taken a less traveled route to the mill and had arrived half an hour after Charles. When he walked in, he saw a doleful look in his father’s eyes, as if Charles had already had a long morning.
Philip sat down. “Are you all right, sir?”
“I just spoke with Mr. Metzger. His wife died last night.”
Philip felt hot, the blood rushing to his face. The room was very still. Even the mill beyond seemed quieter than usual, reluctant to shake off the night’s slumber. “Did he say if Elsie was sick?”
“He didn’t, so I assume she is well. As well as can be expected for someone who just lost her mother.”
“Maybe I should visit them later,” Philip said. “See if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea. I know it sounds like the right thing to do, but…they aren’t in the mood for visitors just yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
Philip suspected that Charles was prevaricating and simply didn’t want Philip in their house, didn’t want him to risk getting sick. He was beginning to hate his father’s fear, and wanted to say as much, but he could see in Charles’s eyes that this wasn’t the time to talk back.
“You should go to the foremen,” Charles said. “Doc Banes will be here shortly, and he’ll want an absentee report.”
Philip hurriedly walked out of the office. He needed some air, and he needed to obey Charles, but he couldn’t endure the look in the foremen’s eyes, not yet. So he stopped, frozen on the long plankway that overlooked the mill. He realized he was shaking. The saws seemed louder than usual, accusatory, sneering. He leaned over to steady himself, his hands on his knees and his back against the wall. He breathed. He hoped no one was looking at him but he figured someone must be, and still he stood there. Breathe. Soon he would stop shaking, and he would do his job, and he would write down the next list of the sick and dying.
Twenty-three more men unaccounted for. Philip returned to the office and added the new names to his master list, now two pages long.
He wanted to write another letter to Elsie, but he didn’t know what he could write that wouldn’t seem trivial. All
he’d written this morning were the names of more dying men, so the thought of conveying love or hope or sympathy with the same pencil seemed heretical.
“We should close the mill,” Doc Banes said to Charles after seeing the list. It was late morning and he had just walked in, hours later than the previous three days. The circles beneath his eyes seemed darker than usual, his eyes redder, his mood darker.
“Are you sure?” Charles asked.
“Charles, look at that list.” Banes’s voice was calm and sober, but extreme tension welled unmistakably beneath the surface. “At this rate, half the mill will be sick in two days. And it will be worse after that.”
There were already too many sick people to see in one day, Banes explained. Even when he did see people, there was little he could do. The reality was that the numbers were increasing steadily, and the only thing that might slow the progression of the epidemic was to insist that everyone stay home to avoid contagion.
Charles had not wanted to admit it had come to this, but he hadn’t seen what his friend had. Perhaps closing the mill was for the best—considering the near-violence at the general store, maybe the men needed a respite from the compounded stress of work and illness. After a few days of seclusion, everyone would remember why they had come to Commonwealth, why this town must succeed.
Or perhaps Charles was deluding himself.
“I was also thinking,” he said, feeling shattered, “that we should call off the quarantine. The guards haven’t been able to keep the flu out, so there doesn’t seem to be any reason to prevent people from coming and going as they choose.”
This statement was nearly impossible for Charles to make, even though he had said much the same thing to Metzger that morning. But Banes only nodded.
“Philip,” Charles said, “call in all the foremen.”
A few minutes after Philip had left, Rankle joined Charles and Doc Banes. He was breathless, and he had news—the soldier had escaped.
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