The Broken Lands (31 page)

“The reason I ask,” Sam said, “is that Hawks claimed they needed to remove you, then take the city, then replace you with creatures loyal to them. Could you replace the missing ones before they do? Even temporarily?”

Susannah frowned. “You know, I don't know the answer to that. There must be a way to create new stewards. Otherwise, you're right—
he
wouldn't be able to do it.”

“If it had ever been done before,” Sam pointed out, “you would have that story inside you somewhere, wouldn't you?”

She looked up. “Yes.” Then her expression sharpened. “But it will take me some time. There are a lot of tales to sift through.”

“You'd best get going, then, I guess.” Jin patted her shoulder and stood up. “We'll worry about buying you the time.”

S
UNSET REDDENED
the water to the west as Sam and Jin wound their way through the people setting out blankets and chairs on the lawn in preparation for the evening's fireworks. They got a few stares, but by and large the crowd was only concerned with finding the best places to sit.

Despite the vague guilt she had about being out there rather than up in the hotel suite, Jin felt a tiny glow of satisfaction. The audience was far bigger than the night before. Word of her Atlantis must have circulated among the guests all day.

She and Sam ducked through the ornamental trees and crossed the space between the piers. Closer to the water, she could see two familiar figures setting up rows of rockets and squibs. Jin resisted the urge to call out and wish them good luck. They'd demand to know why she wasn't hidden away someplace safe, and she didn't feel like arguing about it.

They crossed behind the far pier, passed the second row of potted trees, and found themselves on the same deserted stretch of beach where they had danced by the light of her chemical bonfire.

Sam sat in the sand with his back against the driftwood trunk. “How are you feeling?”

She turned, surprised. “Fine.”

He was looking at her with concern in his eyes. They were so very green—the kind of green that was almost impossible to replicate in the sky. “I figured you'd be worried. About your uncle and Mr. Burns.”

“Oh.” She sat a short distance away and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I am, but I suppose I believe Uncle Liao.” She put a hand to the back of her neck, touched the stickiness of the red grease pencil he had used to draw the talisman. “I don't know why I should, but somehow it makes sense to me.”

“That thing he drew on you. The paper he made me drink. Does it feel—should we feel different, somehow?”

She had been trying to figure that out herself. “I'm not sure.”

“Because the symbol looked a lot—to me, at least—like the one on the banner in one of the corners of your uncle's tent.”

Jin pictured the flags Liao always hung up after they raised the laboratory. “It might be, now that I think about it.” She started with a sudden realization. “In the carriage, when you were telling me about seeing the two men lurking around the wagon, you said they couldn't go into that tent, didn't you?”

“Yeah. You think it was because of that symbol?”

“I'm not sure. The talismans are supposed to give protection, but I always figured that was more like a tradition than anything real.” She rubbed the scarlet pigment between her fingers, and wondered.

They sat in silence for a moment or two and watched the sun fall below the western horizon. It occurred to Jin that just because she didn't like talking about her past didn't mean that other people felt the same way. “Would you like to tell me about your father?” she asked hesitantly.

Sam had been staring up at the first few stars. Now he looked at her for a moment. Then he shrugged. “I don't want to bore you.”

Which wasn't quite the same as a no, Jin realized. “I think I would like to hear. But only if you want to tell.” The look he gave her was dubious, but not evasive. “Really,” she added.

“He worked on the bridge,” Sam said. “When the caissons for the towers were still being sunk.”

“What is a
caisson
?”

“It's what they used for the foundations of the towers. They were boxes without bottoms, kind of like diving bells, only the size of a city block and made out of pine and iron and oakum.” Sam held his hand out, palm down and cupped into a sort of bell shape.

“They built the towers bit by bit on the top of the boxes, which weighted them down and sent them to the bottom. Then they took compressed air and filled the boxes, which drove out the water. Then a crew went down into the box through an air lock and started digging out the floor while another crew piled stone for the tower on top, and little by little, the caissons sank deeper. The crew inside kept digging until they reached bedrock, so the foundations would sit on solid ground. Then, when they had them where they wanted them, they filled the caissons with cement and the foundations were done.”

“So your dad was on the crew digging out the floor?”

Sam nodded. “He worked in the Brooklyn caisson until it was done, then he went to work on the New York caisson. Right up until he died.”

“Oh.” Sam had never said his father was dead, of course, but somehow Jin felt she ought to have figured out that much before now. Playing cards on the waterfront probably wasn't something kids with proper families did, even here, so close to New York. “I'm sorry, I didn't—”

“No, it's okay. I don't mind. It's nice to talk about him.” Sam stretched out his legs and looked across the water. “The air pressure gets higher, the deeper you go, and the New York tower had to be sent really deep into the riverbed. On the Brooklyn side they only had to sink it down forty-five feet or so. On the New York side, they had to sink it almost twice as far.” He shrugged again. “People were getting sick the whole time, of course. Everybody knew spending time under pressure wasn't good for you, but usually it just meant some pain for a few hours. The men in charge were very careful, and nobody died working on the Brooklyn side, or even for a long time on the other one. It was when they hit around seventy feet, that's when my dad started feeling sick.” He paused. “You really want to hear about this?”

She nodded. “If you want to tell me. Only if you want.”

“Well, you told me your story.” Sam folded his arms. “They call the caisson disease the Grecian bends, or sometimes just
the bends
for short. For Dad, it started with cramps in his legs after he'd come up. He said working in the caisson was bizarre and frightening sometimes, but the pain didn't happen until after he was back on the surface. When it did, he said it hurt like some giant was tearing him apart at the joints.” He shuddered. “I saw it come on, once. I would meet him in a saloon off Fulton Street when he would come back across to Brooklyn after work.”

“Your dad met you in a saloon every day?” Jin asked. “How old were you?”

“I guess by then I was almost thirteen, although we'd been meeting there since I was eight or nine, all the way back when Dad started working on the first caisson. My usual was a glass of milk.” He gave her a little smile. “Dad wasn't a big drinker. The doctor had all kinds of rules for keeping healthy under pressure, and he didn't like the men to drink, but they all did. Every one of them believed a shot of whiskey would do more to help them recover at the end of the day than any of the coffee and bunk rest the doctor prescribed. And that saloon was as good a place to meet as any. A friend of Dad's tended the bar there. He used to pay me a nickel a week to clean up while I waited. Then one day Dad just . . .”

He frowned. “I remember his face going gray, like lead, before he started throwing up. By the time he fell over, he was sweating like I'd never seen a man sweat. Huge cold drops all over. He said something, but I didn't understand what it was. Then he started screaming. Someone went for a doctor, and the doctor knocked him out with morphine.

“We got him back to the house where we were rooming,” Sam continued, his voice going a little dull, “and everybody told me he'd be fine in a few hours. The doctor said the pain had to run its course, so it was best that he just sleep through it. But then a few hours after that he went into convulsions, and an hour later he was dead.”

“That's terrible,” Jin said quietly. But Sam had a faraway look, and she wasn't sure that he heard her.

“I'd learned some card games from the men Dad worked with.” He smiled dimly. “Cards, and a pretty good collection of German and Irish curses to go along with the Italian ones I knew. A couple years ago, a kid from the tenements, a fellow I played cards with a lot, told me he was going to Coney Island. He'd worked on the engines that they're using now to spin the cables up until he got hurt, and he figured Coney was a good place to try next. I mean, lots of fellows are out of work in Brooklyn, just like everywhere. But
here
—well, Constantine knows how to sail, plus we figured there were hotels like this one being built that would need waiters and cooks and shoeshine boys, there were restaurants that would pay you to dig clams on the beach, there was talk about racetracks and Tammany Hall hacks who would pay a kid a dollar to carry picnic baskets for them. Dad was gone, and my mother had been gone since . . . I think she died when I was three or four, so there was really no reason not to pick up and give this place a try. Plus I basically only survived that first year without Dad because of what Constantine taught me about cards. So we came here together.”

He rubbed his face hard. “My dad made two twenty-five a day in the caisson just to die in the most unbelievable pain imaginable, so this place sounded pretty good to me. And here I am. I will say this, I live a lot better than we did in Brooklyn, although I'm not sure how Dad would feel about the way I do it.”

“You play games with people who want to play games, in a town by the sea.”

“It sounds nice when you say it that way, but you left out the part where I take their money. So many folks are out of work, and the ones who aren't are having wages cut, or are on strike to keep their wages from being cut. . . . It feels like the wrong time to be living off people who really don't have money to be gambling with.”

Jin watched him as he stared out at the water. “I think your father would be glad that you make a living that doesn't require you to work in pain,” she said quietly. “And he might point out that you aren't stealing money from those people. They want to play, so they're choosing to take the risk.”

“My dad was never in pain while he worked,” Sam said quietly. “You saw the towers, Jin. When this bridge is finished, it's going to be one of the great wonders of the world. And my dad gave his life for it. His blood's in that bridge. That
means
something.” He shook his head. “I'm proud of him, that's all. I'd like to believe he'd be proud of me, but even if I manage to do more good than evil in the world, it isn't likely I'll have anything to show for it. Not like
that
.” His face was solemn, but his eyes glittered with pride for his father's accomplishment.

“It really is beautiful,” Jin said at last. “The bridge. It's a thing of wonder, you're right.”

He scratched his head. “You know, Constantine would make a good . . . whatever you call what Susannah is,” he mused. “The friend who brought me out here. You'll never meet another kid who feels so responsible for so many people. And his blood's in that bridge, too. That's where he got injured.” Sam sat thoughtfully for a moment, then turned back to her with a smile. “Your turn.”

“To do what?”

“Tell me something. But something that makes you happy this time.”

“Oh.” She thought for a moment, then announced, “I can tell where I am in the country based on what kind of hotcakes they have for breakfast.” Sam burst into laughter, which made Jin smile, too. “Last year at a display we did in Chicago a man accidentally set a lady's bustle on fire with a handheld sparkler,” she added, just to see Sam laugh some more. “Her backside went up in flames faster than a pile of hay, thanks to all the horsehair in her dress. That was pretty good entertainment.”

This time he laughed with his head thrown back and his eyes squeezed shut, and Jin watched, delighted.

She told him about seeing the lines of prairie schooners, the covered wagons carrying settlers out West, each time Fata Morgana crossed the great open spaces of the middle country. She told him about those vast wide lands, the tall grasses that undulated across them like waves on the sea, the skies so big they seemed as endless as the ocean itself. And as she spoke, other recollections came back to her like lost treasures that had been waiting in her memory to be found again and shared.

“Have you ever played Go?” she asked when she couldn't think of anything else to say.

Still smiling, Sam shook his head. “Don't know it.”

“It's an old, old game. Uncle Liao taught me. It's not a card game, but you might like it.”

“Want to teach me sometime?”

“Yes.”

The smile was gone from his face now, and he was looking at her with such seriousness in those green eyes that her heart sped up, thudding in her throat. “Jin,” he began, his voice just a little uneven. But before he could say another word, a white light shot into the sky overhead, cutting through the air with a whine.

Jin turned to follow its progress until it disappeared, grateful for the distraction. A second later the deepening dark burst into golden brilliance.

She smiled. Gold, shining in the night for her, a gentle hello from Uncle Liao.

“You'll hurt your neck, twisting it like that,” Sam said quietly. “Come sit here.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Then Jin rose, crossed the small space between them, and sat. She felt his eyes on her the entire way.