Chapter 6: The Burn Barrel

We went to the mill the back way, down the creek bed, with Jorgen between us and the moon behind a cloud.

Soren led, soundless as smoke, and I kept my hand on the back of his belt so I wouldn't lose him.

"Tell me again where the barrel is," I whispered.

"Behind the planer shed," Jorgen said. "Past the log deck. There's one sodium light."

"Cameras?"

"Dead since spring. He never fixes anything he doesn't have to."

The sawmill sat black against the hill with its chimney and its lumber stacks and its long open sheds.

The planer shed stood at the far end, and the burn barrel stood behind it, rusted, with a flat lid on top.

Two men were already there.

They had a hand truck and a flashlight, and one of them was dragging the barrel toward the dolly by its rim.

"Stay out of the way," I said to Soren, very quietly.

"Greta."

"I'll take the left. You take my back. Not in front of me."

His breath hitched.

I knew what it cost him.

"Back," he said. "Yes."

I picked up a shovel handle from the pile by the shed door and walked into the light.

"Evening," I said.

The men whirled.

I knew the taller one, a stacker from the lumber yard who used to bag my father's groceries.

"Put it down," I said. "Slowly."

"Orrin said no one," he said, hoarse. "He said..."

"I don't care what he said."

The other man swung the flashlight at my head.

I ducked under it, drove the shovel handle into his gut, and swept his feet.

He hit the gravel with a grunt.

The tall man lunged for me.

Soren was suddenly at my shoulder, not in front of me, with his hand closed on the man's collar.

"Don't," said Soren, calm.

He lifted him a full foot off the ground.

The stacker made a high thin noise.

"Put him down," I said.

Soren set him down.

Both men ran.

The tall one threw something over his shoulder as he went.

It was a burning wad of rag, and it landed inside the open door of the planer shed.

The sawdust caught with a soft whump.

"Soren!" I said. "The barrel!"

He was already moving.

He tore the lid off the barrel with one hand, and the smell of old wet paper and burnt ink rolled out.

I reached in with both arms.

The pages at the bottom had gone to pulp and the ones above were brittle, crumbling and black along their edges.

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