Page 28 of I'll Be There
Romeo and Pete headed off down the trail toward the naval yard.
Micah had moved away from him, as if he might be by himself.
Conner folded the map, put it in his back pocket. Now he just felt stupid. Super idea, meeting here. But his brain had conjured no other ideas, and frankly, he’d feared Blue simply hanging up.
He wandered over to a blacksmith and watched a demonstration, searching the crowd. A few kids kneeled at the front as the smith heated metal in a fire, then hammered it flat on an anvil, sparks flying. He moved away and watched a cooper stretch a piece of metal around a cask head, talking to an interested group of blue-hairs.
At the infirmary, a man displayed the medicines and surgical tools of the time. He held up a jar of leeches to a couple of ten-year-old girls. “And you know what we use these for?”
Conner left, walking out into the sunshine. Checked his watch. Ten minutes after the hour.
He spotted Micah standing near the outfits building.
“Excuse me, sir?”
He turned, and one of the girls was handing him a map, not unlike the one he’d stuck in his pocket. “You dropped this.”
His hand went to his back pocket. “Um, no—”
“Oh,” she said. “The lady at the hospital said it was yours. I told her I’d give it to you.”
“What lady?”
She turned, searching. “Oh. She’s gone...”
“Yeah, that’s mine,” he said and took the map. “Thanks.”
He opened it and found a building icon circled in blue pen.
The fur stores. He walked across the square and stood at the entrance of the building. Sable, raccoon, fox, rabbit, and even bear fur hung from the rafters, drying, in display. The place bore the redolence of dust, tanning oil, and leather.
But not a living soul.
He glanced at the map.
Turned to go.
A woman stood in front of him. Short black hair, pale blue-green eyes. She wore a sleeveless tank top, a pair of jeans, and Cons, a satchel over her shoulder. “Come with me.”
Not daring to glance around to check on Micah—he didn’t need to—Conner followed her around the building to the back, an unpopulated area near the eastern wall. A fort flag fluttered overhead. They stood in the shadow of another building, the sign reading Powder Magazine.
Apropos.
“You look like him,” she said bluntly without preamble. “Except he had darker hair. But the same nose, the same jaw. And you give off the same vibe—wary, as if you’re used to getting hurt.” She pursed her lips. “I won’t hurt you, if you don’t hurt me.”
He stared at her. Gave her a quick nod. “You’re Blue?”
“My name’s actually Harmony, but your brother, he called me Blue, so...”
“Tell me how you know Justin.”
She was younger than he’d imagined, small boned, and not a little edgy as she ran her hands up her bare arms. “He saved my life.”
That, of course, he could believe. But, “How?”
She wiped her hand across her cheek. “I just can’t believe he’s dead—I mean, I knew that...well, he was trying to keep me safe by not contacting me, but...” She closed her eyes. Took a breath. “Okay. Yes.” She swallowed, met Conner’s eyes. “I wasn’t part of the group—Kayle O’Brien, the leader, and some of his guys used to come into the Lucky Seven—it’s a bar my parents owned. I sometimes waited on them, and Kayle liked me. I didn’t know what he was into until our bar got raided—torched by the FBI. I was in the back, trapped, and Justin—he rescued me. And then suddenly I was in the SOF, traveling with them, being absorbed into their group. They called themselvespatriots, but really they were anarchists. Protesters, but also gun runners, and occasionally I’d hear something about domestic terrorism.”
All this Conner knew about the SOF—at least from his own research. “Justin wasn’t really one of them,” he said, testing the waters.
