“Mind stating your business, son?” He tossed the paper onto the cushion. “Or have you not found your w-w-words yet?”
Ignoring that, Thor made a quick tally even as two more men edged into the room. Seven total. Peter stood in the doorway still. Overwhelmed, Thor stared at Peter’s oversized boots, recalling the way Haakon had shouted down from the rafters, gun poised on the tall youth. Though these men weren’t clad in cloaks and hoods, and though they were unarmed at the moment, standing here alone, Thor tried not to wish for his brothers.
Fear. It was the purpose behind everything the Sorrels did. He felt it now, swarming around him. The very reason he’d come on his own; these men would feel no threat. He meant not to risk anything for his brothers over this.
Thor fetched his notepad from his pocket. His business was with Peter, so he flipped to a blank page to inform the general. He held over the notebook, and after a few moments, Jed stepped forward to take it. Thor could have moved closer but wasn’t feeling that generous just now. After studying the message, Jed passed it to a man in a sweat-stained shirt beside him.
Each man eyed it in turn, some so quickly they probably couldn’t read. A few stole wary looks Thor’s way, as if believing the nonsense that his lack of voice truly was a spirit needing to be loosed. Rubbish that, but if it kept them at a distance, he wasn’t about to mention as much.
The book reached Peter, who scanned the missive. A hint of uncertainty slipped unguarded through his eyes. The book reaching him again, Thor flipped to the proposition he’d drafted up and handed it back. Peter took a moment to read, then gave it to Jed.
All of a sudden Peter pointed to one of the men, guiding Thor’s attention that way. Thor looked to the man who must have spoken—Harlan Sorrel. One of Jed’s own sons and Peter’s very father. Every angle of his face was tight with the focus of family pride and such bloodlust that the air was colder just looking at him. Harlan smelled of white whiskey. One hundred proof and charcoal mellowed. The only kind of moonshine Thor had ever taken a liking to.
He slammed aside the memory the moment it hit him.
“We heard rumor that you stopped makin’ your drink. That so?”
Thor nodded.
A different man spoke. This one as old as Jed, perhaps. His head was bald, but his thick arms belied his age. “Got anything left in that barn’a yers?”
Thor ran a hand over his mouth but didn’t respond. They knew as well as he did that there was a hearty stash left. The Sorrels kept a keen watch on everything in these parts.
“How much? For everything? We’ll take it off your hands at the right price.”
Everything? Thor had at least a hundred quarts of table cider left. Double that amount of his finer two-year batch. His three-year brew was still in barrels, but if he jarred it, that proof would be worth nearly two dollars a quart. If his quick tallies were correct, the cidery still housed about five hundred dollars’ worth of product. Well beyond what he and his brothers owed on the lease. Thor tugged at his beard.
Men threw words his way—some excited, others agitated. All seemed to be wondering the same thing. Why was he holding on to it?
The room stilled when a woman stepped in. She toted a tray with full cups of coffee and some kind of baked sweet. Her menfolk eyed her as if surprised by her sudden presence.
Thor didn’t like the way she was looking at him. Not for his sake, but for hers. With a subtle yet sure motion, she set down the tray, tipping her head just enough for her yellow hair to slide from her pale neck. Purple bruises speckled her skin. The way Peter’s nostrils flared, eyes tightening with a pained sadness, Thor would bet everything that it was his mother, confirmed in the way that Harlan’s gaze went hard as steel. The woman straightened slowly, deliberately, and shot a fierce look around the room that Thor feared she’d regret.
A demand for help if he’d ever seen one.
She wasn’t going to harbor any of their secrets, that was clear.
Thor swallowed both a sour taste and a rising anger and stepped aside for the woman to slip from the room easier. Peter offered the notebook back over. Thor took it. He almost signed to Peter for an answer but caught himself. He waited, instead, for what the young man would say.
Thor had a hunch the Sorrels would like one of their own on the inside. For some strange reason it seemed a risk worth taking.
Firm conversation tramped around the room, and Thor was torn between trying to follow along and inching aside for a child who was pressing past his leg toward the tray. It was the same girl from the yard. She squeezed by and reached for a piece of sweet bread. One of the men moved to stop her, but Jed shoved the tray nearer, allowing the child a portion.
At a tap on his shoulder, Thor looked over to see Peter wanting to speak.
“When does the harvest start?” The words were a struggle to understand with Peter’s split lip badly done.
Thor held up his thumb and two fingers, then moved his hand back to show it had begun a few days ago. The lad seemed to grasp that.
“I’ll be there,” Peter said.
A curious look flitted through Jed’s icy-blue eyes, and Thor pinned it to memory to try and make sense of later. More than ready to leave, Thor stepped back but caught the gaze of the thick-armed man as he did.
“And the liquor?” the man asked.
Thor glanced to the girl who crouched beneath the windowsill, the sun bright on her small form. She nibbled her bread, nose scrunched with delight. She smiled up at Thor as if it was due to his presence that she’d gotten her treat. Did she bear bruises as the other women did?
But blazes, that liquor was valuable.
Now that he’d had more time to put thought to it, he’d yet to factor in the ’88 and ’89 blackberry wine aging in oak casks. He had four barrels from each year, bringing the value of what he had in the cidery to nearly a grand.
And the debt was a burden he was tired of bearing.
To sell it all in one shot. So clean and easy. Freeing.
His conscience waging its own war, Thor watched the girl even as he thought of the others under this roof. The men waited, all seeming hinged on what his decision would be. On whether or not his cider would continue to fuel their fire.
Thor scribbled his answer. He ripped out the paper and handed it over. Jed read and crumpled it. He threw the wad at the wall and motioned for his men to see Thor out. Because the liquor . . . it wasn’t for sale.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Peter came just after sunup. The whole farmyard stilled as he walked onto it. Even Grete’s tail ceased its wagging, Thor noticed. The Sorrel glanced first to Aven and Fay, who were oiling the gears of the apple scratter, then to the door that Peter and his kin had once kicked in. Last of all to Al and the other dark-skinned boys who were pulling on picking bags. Al’s hands stilled as he spotted the newcomer.
Thor had warned them that Peter was coming, and while Al had confessed to not knowing the identities of the masked men who had pistol-whipped him, something about the wary way Peter glanced at him said enough. A soul-heavy look if Thor ever saw one.
Thor shook Peter’s hand, then stepped aside for Jorgan to explain how the operation worked. Peter nodded as he listened—the bruises beneath his eyes had softened to a yellowing, but the scratches across his cheekbone were rougher, as if struggling to heal.