The Wolf Tree (24 page)

Gigi sat up in his seat excitedly. “Yeah. Haven’t you heard? Everybody’s going. People from all over the country, maybe all over the world. I hope my ma and sister will come out to work for the Expo. It’s a fair, see? A World’s Fair. They’ve had them in wonderful places like London and Paris, but now they’re putting one here, in America.”

“Where?” Ray asked.

“I don’t know.” Gigi shrugged. “Who cares? Anywhere’s better than here.”

“So, what’ll your father and brothers and the other workers do there?” Ray asked.

“I guess help set up the display. They say there’s a whole building just for what the mill’s been making. Lots of people will want to see it.”

Ray looked anxiously at Redfeather and Marisol.

“But what have they been making at the mill?” Ray asked. “What will the display be?”

“That’s what’s strange,” Gigi said, puzzling his face up. “I can’t figure out what they build. When we were in
Pittsburgh, Papa and my brothers worked in a steel mill, but that’s not exactly what they do here. I see it when I’m delivering messages. It’s a lot of metal parts. They’re building all these huge bits of machinery, but Papa’s never heard what it’s all for. They assemble and store it somewhere else, underground.”

Ray leaned forward. “Here! Under the mill?”

Redfeather leaned over to Ray. “You don’t think …”

Ray spoke in a low voice, “It must be! The Gog built this mill to hide his Machine as it’s being built. It’s here! And we have to find out where they’re sending it.”

“What are you talking about?” Gigi asked.

“Gigi,” Ray said, looking urgently at the boy. “We need your help.”

“For what?”

Ray let his eyes fall to the dried corpse of the cat. He rose and took out his knife, kneeling before the cat and poking at it.

Marisol wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What are you doing?”

Ray held up a small bone. “A good charm. It’ll need this.” Then he looked at Gigi. “We’re going to sneak into the mill.”

15
THE MILL

R
AY CROUCHED WITH THE OTHERS ON A HILL
overlooking the mill. This close, it was even more ominous with its rumble and cacophony, its massive towers, spewed smoke, flames, and shadows.

“That fence is too tall to climb,” Ray said.

“We could do it,” Redfeather said. “But there’d be no way to keep from being noticed. Look at those guards.”

Hundreds of people moved around the city of tents. Some were going to work in the mill. Others pushed carts from one building to the next, while still others ate meals by cook fires. Moving among them and patrolling the interior edge of the fence were men carrying rifles—men wearing bowler hats and black suits.

Ray turned to Gigi. “Is there just the one entrance?”

“The one leading to town,” he replied. “And the train
tracks. But there’s a gate they keep locked until the train comes. Why do you want to go in there anyway? I thought you were performers.”

Ray exchanged a glance with Marisol. “We were. Once. It’s too much to explain, but we’re trying to find out what’s creating this Darkness. We think there’s a machine hidden in the mill that’s causing it.”

Gigi looked puzzled. “A machine can’t cause darkness.”

“Makes as much sense as a tree causing it …,” Marisol muttered. Redfeather scowled.

“Can you take us in with you?” Ray asked Gigi. “Would that put you at any risk?”

“Nobody would notice you.” He looked at Marisol and Redfeather. “But
they
might stand out. I haven’t seen any Indians in the mill.”

“She’s not an Indian,” Redfeather said.

Marisol opened her mouth to argue, but with a look from Ray changed her mind. “We can wait for you here,” Marisol said. “You can always send B’hoy to us if you have trouble.”

“Not like you’d be able to help much once I’m inside,” Ray said, studying the dozens and dozens of Bowlers. And those were only the ones on duty outside. Surely there were more inside the buildings. If the Gog was dead, then who were they working for?

He asked Gigi, “Do you know who owns the mill?”

“I’ve never seen him. Everybody answers to Mister Muggeridge. But he sends the telegrams to someone else.”

“You’ve never seen the name?”

“I’m not crazy. I don’t read them.”

“But are they sealed?”

“No.” Gigi looked nervous as he read the expression on Ray’s, Marisol’s, and Redfeather’s faces. “I don’t want to get in any trouble.”

“It’s okay,” Ray assured him. “You’ve done so much already to help us. Can you just get me inside the gate? Then I’ll be able to explore on my own.”

“Without getting noticed,” Redfeather said.

“Of course,” Ray said, pulling out the toby from beneath his shirt. “I wish I had agar-agar.”

“What’s that?” Redfeather asked.

Ray opened the toby. “A type of powdered seaweed. Keeps you from being noticed. Almost as good as being invisible.”

“Are you sure about this, Ray?” Marisol pleaded. “What if someone who saw you earlier recognizes you?”

Ray took the cat bone from the toby and held it up. “They won’t. But I’ll need someone’s clothes. Someone who works in the mill.”

“There’s extra clothes in our tent,” Gigi said. “Papa and my brothers are all working now. You could borrow them.”

“Good,” Ray said. “I just have to keep from being noticed until we get to your tent. If something happens to me in there …” He raised his eyebrows, not sure what to tell Marisol and Redfeather to do.

“Just be safe.” Marisol put her hand on top of Ray’s.

He nodded and turned to Gigi. “All right, let’s go.”

Ray followed Gigi down to the town. They snuck between two of the buildings to merge with the crowd moving
along the main street. Ray pulled his hat low over his eyes and kept his head down. They reached the gate leading to the mill. Four Bowlers stood guard, lazily watching the people moving in and out.

Once they were past, Ray beckoned to B’hoy with his thoughts to stay close by. B’hoy scoffed. He had almost been shot once today trying to help him. Ray thanked him for his bravery, and B’hoy called Ray something unpleasant. But Ray soon saw the black shadow of the crow glide down to perch on the fence, turning his head back and forth with annoyance.

The eerie orange half-light fell over the yard and the tops of tents. Ray and Gigi moved into the crowded lane winding through the tent camp. Many of the workers wore denim smock coats or leather aprons to protect their clothing from the machinery. That’s what he’d have to borrow from Gigi’s tent.

Ray realized with surprise that a little girl was walking in front of him. He looked around. Many of the workers were children. He asked Gigi about them. “They’re called the ‘wispies,’” Gigi explained. “They’ve got no parents or family watching over them. I’ve seen them getting off the trains. Where they come from, I have no idea.”

Ray watched a pair of thin boys pass, their ashen faces rawboned, a frail look in their eyes. They walked with the strange affected movements all the people of Omphalosa had. These could have been the Shuckstack kids, Ray thought with a shudder. This must have been where Grevol was taking them. Sally could have been one of these wispies. And if
things had worked out differently, Ray might have been one of them too.

“It’s just up here, ahead a bit further,” Gigi said, pointing.

A voice boomed, “Boy!” and a hand reached out to clutch Gigi. Ray instinctively swiveled to defend Gigi, but two things stopped him: the brusque way Gigi shook his head at Ray, and the fact that the man was a Bowler.

Ray turned back with his head ducked to keep walking as if he were not with Gigi. When he got a few steps away, he slipped between a pair of tents to look back. The Bowler wore a neat, dark suit, a black waistcoat, and the distinctive round hat.

“Mister Muggeridge sent me to find you.” The Bowler nudged Gigi forward. “Get on to his office right away. He’s got a message for you to take.”

Gigi hustled through the crowds, giving Ray a cautious glance. “Third tent on the left,” Gigi mouthed as he walked past him.

Ray kept his eyes on his feet until the Bowler had moved on. Ashen-skinned workers parted as the Bowler walked down the lane. Third tent on the left. Ray walked across the lane until he reached the simple canvas tent.

“Hello,” Ray said. “Anyone in here?” He pushed open the flap and peered inside. There were five cots, a couple of trunks, and a chipped basin with a shaving mirror and a razor. Otherwise the quarters were sparse. Ray opened the lid of a trunk and found a stained smock. He threw it on and took out the cat’s bone. Holding it, he held up the shaving mirror from the basin. The gray face in the mirror was not
his, but a young man’s with a long nose and wide-set eyes. Ray guessed it must be one of Gigi’s brothers’. Hopefully they wouldn’t run into each other.

Clutching the bone, Ray slipped back out onto the lane.

Two enormous brick factories crowned with smokestacks loomed above smaller wooden offices and storage buildings. Beyond was a long warehouse, with a loading platform for the trains. Hundreds of people moved in, out, and around the buildings. Adopting the stiff, dull gait of the other workers, he went through the wide doors of the first brick factory.

Inside, the heat blasted him. But worse was the noise. It was unearthly, and Ray had to fight the urge to cover his ears. Whistles shrieked. Vents hissed with steam. Men beat hammers and dragged heavy carts. And beneath the grates, screeches, and clatters bellowed a deep, skull-jarring rumble.

Ray made his way through the maze of machinery with as much purposefulness as he could show. The walkways were packed with soot-faced men, women, and children of a dozen different nationalities. Ray had to squeeze, duck, and occasionally graze moving machinery and flaming furnaces to let others get by.

After wandering for a while, Ray was not sure he had investigated the entire building, as each place within seemed like any other. Half the time, he felt lost. This was clearly not where the Machine was being stored. He found an exit and stepped back outside to a corridor between the immense buildings. The cold air felt refreshing after the sweltering factory floor.

Again Ray walked, mixing in with the crowd of workers
between the buildings. A voice behind him caught his attention: “… attacked Gatch in the street earlier. This boy and two Indians …” Instinctively, Ray turned. A woman was talking to a group of other workers. Grateful for the cat’s bone, Ray quickly moved on.

Ahead, workers on foot stopped as men drove a small train of carts along a track from one building to the next. Loaded with partially constructed pieces of machinery, the carts went through a large doorway into the building on Ray’s right, into a warehouse.

He reached the doorway and looked inside. A pair of Bowlers had stepped aside for the cart-train, and Ray kept his gaze low and casual. It was a cavernous space, full of echoing clanks and clatters. Workers shouted as they busily moved about. The cart-train reached a point midfloor and began descending down a ramp into a tunnel.

A tunnel!

He watched Bowlers from the doorway, waiting for a chance to slip past. One of the Bowlers was saying to the other, “… being that I’m going with Muggeridge.”

“Where are you going already?” the other agent asked. The men had their backs to Ray and it was hard to hear them over the noise. Ray leaned closer, getting his head far enough around the doorway to listen better.

The agent shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t know. But I’m sure I’ll meet back up with you in Chicago.”

“I positively can’t get there soon enough,” the other said. “Am I ever ready to go! Just a few more days and then operations will be shut down here and we’ll …” The agent began
to turn his head as he spoke, and Ray stepped back quickly away from the doorway.

As he did, a man accidentally knocked into Ray and he fell to his knees. The bone skittered from his hand and was kicked away by another man’s boot, landing at a woman’s feet. As Ray rose to rush for the bone, the woman picked it up. It was the woman who had been telling the others about the attack on Gatch.

Her eyes widened as she saw Ray. “That’s him! He’s one of them devils!”