Chase by Jessie Haas Page B

Tobacco juice kept you from coughing, made the juices flow. Man enough to work, man enough to chew—that was the idea.
    Phin had tried it. It made him puke. It made everyone puke until they got the hang of it, but Phin quit and Jimmy kept on, and that was the difference between Phin Chase and Jimmy Lundy. Jimmy, in Phin’s place, would—
    Would what? Phin opened his eyes. What could Jimmy do that he wasn’t doing? Traveling with his enemy like this, even Jimmy Lundy would lay low, wait his chance to get away.
    So he was doing all right, maybe. He turned the tobacco in his fingers.
    Makes the juices flow.
    He licked it, gingerly. Springs and fountains opened in the back of his mouth and he nearly gagged. He swallowed, swallowed again—
    â€œSlowing down?” Fraser. The voices were suddenly clearer.
    â€œWe’re never there yet!” Plume said. The train came to a slow, sighing stop. The quiet was astonishing. Then she began to creep backward.
    â€œAh,” Fraser said. “They’re pulling onto a spur to let another train pass. Aye, lad, get up!”
    The stallion’s hooves scraped and thudded on the floor. Then Phin heard Fraser walking him in a circle, giving him the chance to stretch his legs. To Plume he said, “So they took you off to fight, you were saying, and you just a lad?”
    â€œMade a man of me!” Plume sounded bitter.
    Fraser said, “I don’t know what it made of me.”
    â€œConscripted?”
    â€œVolunteered.” Fraser laughed shortly. “Hard to imagine when you’ve got to the other end of it, but there’s no fathoming the notions in a boy’s head. So I’m only a little surprised at that murder back there. I know what boys are capable of.”
    â€œWhen I get through with him,” Plume said, “that boy won’t be capable of anything.”
    Every atom in Phin’s body went still.
    â€œSaw him around the stable,” Fraser said after a pause.“Quiet, good with the horses—well, this one liked him, and he doesn’t take to many.” The horse had stopped moving; he started it walking again. “And yet he killed a man—do you believe that?”
    Phin heard the sound of Plume’s deep-drawn breath. “Engelbreit drove men he shouldn’t drive and fired men he shouldn’t fire.”
    â€œThis lad won’t have killed him for that,” Fraser said. “He was never—”
    Plume interrupted him, in a voice that shook with fury. “I don’t make war on kids. She knows that. I meant for him to run. But when I catch him now, kid or no kid—I’ll cut his throat.”

11
W ATER
    T he approaching train shrieked. The horse dropped manure, and Fraser said, “Step away from the door and I’ll kick these out. We’ll have a pleasanter ride.”
    There were scuffing sounds. Fraser went on. “You’ll not be content to just take back your property, then? Or turn the boy over to the law?”
    â€œNo.” Plume’s voice steadied, vibrant with anger. “If I’m the kind of man she says, I’ll be that man. Double that man. I’ve held myself to a standard—well, what good did that do me when she won’t even—”
    The other train shrieked again, passing close, buffeting their car with wind and drowning Plume’s words. ButPhin didn’t need to hear more. He could see the scene, the smoke and lamplight and Margaret on her stool nursing that slow first whiskey. Did they tell of the killing first, brag of their strange mercy, not killing but framing him, letting him run? Or did Margaret start it, asking if Plume had gotten his wallet, she gave it to Phin Chase to leave here?
    However it started, it ended with the eagles tearing at each other. Margaret must have flown out bitterly at Plume in front of everyone. She might not care about Engelbreit, but she was fond of Phin and she’d loved his