Chapter 11: The Vote

The Association's black van pulled into the pit yard at eight fifty on Monday morning.

Two officers in gray coats got out of it with a folder.

Seok-hyun stood at the lamp house door with his bandaged hands in his pockets, and the five hunters stood behind him in a row.

The yard had filled in the night.

Thirty or forty townspeople stood along the fence in their good coats, miners' widows and old men with oxygen bottles.

A woman had brought a thermos for the officers, which they declined.

"Gwon Seok-hyun," the older officer said, and read from the folder.

"By order of the Director of the Hunter Association, you are to be collected for assessment at Chuncheon."

"I have a council vote at ten," Seok-hyun said.

"The writ is for nine."

"It's for nine unless the inspector of record endorses it," said Da-hae, from the doorway.

Both officers turned.

She had her windbreaker zipped to the chin and her badge on the outside, and she held a single printed page in front of her.

"Article 40," she said. "No writ of collection runs against the owner of a registered dungeon without the endorsement of the inspector of record."

"I am the inspector of record."

"Inspector Jo, the Director's office has given us a direct instruction."

"Then the Director's office can find an inspector who'll sign it." She did not lift her voice.

"I'll endorse at noon, if the owner is still in Taebaek."

The younger officer looked at the older.

The older looked at the crowd along the fence, the old men with their tubes and the women in their coats.

He took out his phone.

It was a short call, and when he put it away he did not meet her eyes.

"Noon," he said. "We'll wait in the van."

The crowd breathed out.

Seok-hyun felt Da-hae's hand brush the back of his, once, in the doorway.

She was shaking too, he noticed; she only held it better.

"You've ended your career," he said quietly.

"I've ended a version of it." She put the page back in her case. "Go and win your vote."

The Taebaek City Council met in a low brick building behind the old station.

The chamber had nine seats in a horseshoe and a public gallery for sixty.

Today a hundred and ten people stood in the aisles.

Seok-hyun counted without meaning to.

On the left, in the first rows, were Daewon's people.

Seon in his camel coat, three lawyers with laptops, a young woman setting up a projector.

A stack of printed brochures with a gold lion on the cover.

On the right were the old miners in the suits they had worn to the last funeral.

The chair, a heavy man with a gavel, called the order of business, and the first item was the Black Gold Park.

The video ran for four minutes.

It showed a hotel, a museum with a glass roof, a cable car to the mountain.

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