Honeyville by Daisy Waugh

altered anything. ‘It’s only these past few weeks that things have gotten so bad. I’m sure as soon as the two sides can find agreement …’
    He shook his head. ‘They found a company man on the rail tracks outside Forbes camp last night. Shot dead.’ Somehow his hand had worked its way back to my breast. ‘Retaliation killing,’ he muttered. ‘It won’t be the last, either.’
    ‘Well, but—’
    ‘But … but – nothing,’ he said. ‘I just want you to be happy for me. Can you manage that? Please? ’
    ‘Of course I’m happy for you, William,’ I said. He looked relieved and grateful. As if he believed me! And then he climbed on top of me again, and he mumbled to the pillow above my head: ‘I bought a nice house in Denver. I wish you could see it … But I’ll see you right, baby. It’s a promise.’

6
    Since Lippiatt’s death the mood in town had soured, there was no doubt. Each evening, miners travelled in from the outlying camps to listen to Union men preaching, to be harried and beaten by the Baldwin-Felts detectives, and to harry and beat them back. Both sides stomped the streets, drinking and fighting, their heavy boots kicking up the dust, as if the town belonged only to them. The Union had an anthem, and intermittently the gathering miners would break into song, filling the streets with their bellowing voices. It was a song we would all, in Trinidad, become more than familiar with in the months to come. I wake with it sometimes, even now, playing in my head.
We are fighting for our rights, boys,
We are fighting for our homes …
    It was early afternoon, a day or two after William Paxton had told me he was moving to Denver, and I was still recovering – if not from the heartbreak of it, then from mortification at my self-delusion. In all the drama of the last attempt, I still hadn’t fetched my package from Carravalho’s Drugstore, and I was making my way there, ignoring the miners, the police and the Unionists, the baking heat and the wretched, constant thrum of promised, longed-for violence. It was the first time I had been along North Commercial since the murder, and I couldn’t help pausing at the spot where Lippiatt had fallen. In the dry summer, I noticed, faint stains of his blood still lingered. I was studying them, somewhat ghoulishly, when I heard Inez’s voice:
    ‘Oh! It’s you !’ she cried. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you!’
    I don’t think it occurred to her I would be anything but equally delighted to see her. And of course she was right. She looked young and fresh and full of hope, and so unlike the girls at Plum Street that I felt my heart lift. She said: ‘I wanted to come and find you days ago, but I didn’t know quite how … And now I’m on my way to the Union offices! What do you think about that ?’ She sounded triumphant. ‘For heck’s sake, don’t tell Aunt Philippa though. She’ll murder me …’ She looked down at her feet, at the stain of blood. ‘Not literally, of course,’ she added. ‘I should think Lawrence O’Neill will be quite shocked to see me. Don’t you think so?’
    I laughed. ‘He’ll have given up on you by now. I should think he’ll be astonished.’
    ‘I was lying low.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Had to, Dora. But it’s only been a week. Ten days. He can’t have forgotten me already. And if he says he has, I’ll know he is lying. He said he’d take me out to the camps. I’m fairly certain he promised me. So. Here I am. What do you think?’
    Again, I found myself laughing. ‘You’re a braver woman than I am,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t get into an automobile with a Union man if my life depended on it. And certainly not if he was threatening to take me out to the towns … It’s dangerous,’ I felt compelled to add. ‘You realize, don’t you?’ Despite all she had witnessed, and on the very spot we were standing, I don’t believe she ever really understood it. ‘The company guards are no less