The Last Town on Earth: A Novel by Thomas Mullen

Author:Thomas Mullen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Influenza, Washington (State), Community life, Medical, Fiction, Historical, Influenza - Washington (State), Ethics, General, Morality
ISBN: 9781400065202
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2006-08-28T10:00:00+00:00

XV

The mill hummed beneath them and around them as they stood in Charles’s office. There weren’t enough chairs to seat them all, so they stood, the small room quickly growing warm.

Charles had called an emergency meeting of the town’s magistrates, the men who had been appointed to oversee any disputes in the town. There were a dozen in total, but they were short a few, the jacks stationed too far from the mill to be called in on short notice. It was only an hour after the confrontation. There were ten people in the room and the open doorway, among them Banes, Rankle, and Graham, who had sent someone else to stand watch with Mo so he could attend.

Rebecca was the only woman in the room. She had seen Charles and Mo hurrying into town moments ago through the school’s windows, right as she was dismissing her charges for the day. Although she was not a magistrate, she wasn’t about to be told to wait outside, not by Charles or anyone else foolish enough to try.

“A German spy?” she said incredulously after Charles had relayed Miller’s story to everyone in the room.

“That’s what they said,” Charles replied.

“If there’d been some kinda fight at the camp, that might explain why all these soldiers keep wandering out here,” someone said. “Maybe they were on the run from somebody?”

“I thought of that, too,” Charles said pensively. “But if that was the case, wouldn’t the second soldier have told us all that? He said there was a naval accident, that he was shipwrecked.”

“Maybe spies set off a bomb on the boat,” Banes said. “We haven’t exactly interrogated the soldier as to what happened. Did Miller say specifically how the men had been killed?”

Charles shook his head.

“We need to find out who this soldier is,” Rebecca said. She was standing in the middle of the crowd, not by Charles’s side. Rebecca felt particularly on edge, her jaw muscles tight, her limbs ready to lash out. “And we need to get Philip away from him.”

Charles held up a hand as if to calm her. Everyone else shifted on their feet. Most avoided looking at either husband or wife, not wanting to take sides. But Rankle glanced at Charles, then met Rebecca’s eyes. She had not spoken with him since the night she unburdened herself, confessing that she did not agree with her husband. His eyes looked sympathetic.

“I’m not inclined to believe anything Miller says,” Rankle said.

“Do you know him?” Charles asked.

“I know of him.” Rankle explained that Miller, though a resident of Timber Falls, had come to the aid of his fellow business leaders in Everett during the strike, when Rankle was with the Wobblies. The strikers had added Miller to their list of foes, as he had lent money and forgiven debts to some of the mill owners during their troubles, had rallied support for the Commercial Club and spoken out against agitators and reds.

“I don’t see why they would lie about this,” Charles said.

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