Max looked a little pale. I wouldn’t blame him if he hadn’t talked about this much. “He sold about two-thirds of the slaves to another mine, the ones perceived as less culpable. The other third—the ones he decided were the ringleaders—well, never left.” He coughed. “So. Uh, are you gonna be warm enough in that, or do you want my jacket?”
I just stood there, mouth hanging open. Fucking hell, how long had my boy been here? No doubt enough time to be haunted by the vengeful specters of all those dead slavesandtortured—twice.
I felt ill. Except he’d seen just as bad, if not worse. Had it done to him. It wasmewho’d seen nothing. Done nothing. Experienced nothing.
Iwas the liability, I reminded myself, as if that helped anything.
“And, oh yeah, one more thing,” Max added. “We’re splitting up.”
I moaned. “Do youwantto die? Have youseena movie?”
Max grinned a little as he stepped back into the surreal moonscape of the open pit, and I, after only a moment’s hesitation, followed. “I won’t die and neither will he, nor you. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Sure I can,” he replied. “I’m in business. Underpromise and overdeliver.”
“How exactly do you overdeliver on keeping us alive?”
“You’ll find out when it happens. Anyway, you’ve got a knife, a gun, and this.” He dug into the inner pocket of his leather jacket once again and pulled out a silver whistle on a cord.
I looked at it. “Rape whistle?”
“Your term, not mine. I have one, too. Three short blows if you get into trouble. Of course a gunshot will probably be another key indicator.”
My stomach flip-flopped.
“But in any case, we’ll meet back here in fifteen,” he concluded.
“But how? Max, I get lost in my own neighborhood sometimes. There are no signs or maps or?—”
“The way the slaves did it.”
“And that would be…?”
“By the stars. You can almost always see Polaris.” He pointed up, then down, kicking aside some more rubble. Curiously, I followed with my eyes. “And by the sound. The way the wind changes direction, picks up in some places, goes still in others. And by these pilings of ore they made. See? They used more of this yellow-green pyrite on the north side, more of the silver molybdenite on the south, and gradually replaced the colors as they went in either direction. Sometimes they’d arrange it in patterns and use other colors. Blue veins for a safe place, or red veins for a danger zone. To the overseers, it was the perfect camouflage.”
“How do you know all this?”
Max paused, his eyes flickering with a memory quickly extinguished. “An old friend.”
I nodded.
“Took me a long, long time to earn his trust. And before you ask what exactly happened to him… don’t.”
I shivered. Max handed me his jacket without another word and his flashlight, too, before producing another one and clicking it on. The beam of light cut through the darkness but faded after a few yards.
“That reminds me.”
He turned again, and I bit my lip.
“Did… did he ever thank you? You-know-who, I mean.” I looked down, scratching a line in the dirt with my shoe. “He’s kind of bad at that.”
“He is, and he did. Not that he owes me a thank you for the act ofnotbeing a scumbag. You don’t, either.”
I looked up again and smiled. “Well, thank you, anyway. For, you know, it all.” I bit my lip again, then went for it. “And, Max?”
“Yeah?”
