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That pride took some twists that Cutter didn’t expect in the months that followed. The incident with Jethro Lamall was the first of several in which he found himself speaking up against something he considered unfair. Eugene was never the problem. Once in a while, Simon was, but it was usually at John’s instigation.

John was the problem. Cutter was sure that if John were around more, most of the miners would quit. The fact that he wasn’t there for more than a week out of every four was some consolation to the havoc his presence wreaked. He had specific opinions on running the mines. Although Eugene had been running things well for some thirty-odd years, John was convinced he knew better. Inevitably he either wanted to work the men harder or pay them on a scale based on output. Even the younger men, who had strength and stamina on their side and could produce more than the older men, were against that. The older men were their fathers, their brothers, their friends.

Cutter wasn’t anyone’s brother or son. He had no family to support. He didn’t have to worry that if he angered John, retribution might take the form of punishment to people he loved. He didn’t have as much to lose as the others.

That was one of the reasons why he came to their defense. Another was the same defiance that had driven him so often in the past. He didn’t like John. He didn’t like being put down by John. Speaking up to him in front of the other miners brought a deep satisfaction, particularly when it had to do with justice, and especially when it had to do with something he was sure Eugene believed in, too. In an odd way, Cutter felt that he, more than Simon, was Eugene’s on-site representative at the mine.

The other miners came to feel that way too; increasingly they looked to Cutter when something went wrong. While he had no desire to be a hero and continued to keep to himself once he left the mine at the end of the day, he wasn’t adverse to championing the workers’ causes. It gave him a good feeling. It gave him a sense of power.

John didn’t like that much, which enhanced its appeal. Cutter began speaking up just to let John know that the other miners respected him. Simon respected him too—or respected the fact that the other miners looked to him for leadership—and occasionally left him in charge of things at the site. Since John was never around at those times, there was little joy in it for Cutter. He didn’t aspire to be a foreman. He didn’t like the idea of ordering the other men around. Whatever leadership potential he had he used in his silent battle with John. Power, in any other context, didn’t excite him.

“Daddy and John were arguing again today,” Pam told him one late-summer evening. Cutter had gone into town for a six-pack of beer and had found her sitting on the steps outside Leroy’s store. Unable to resist, he sat down beside her. “It was about you this time.”

“About me?” he said with a half-smile. She looked so serious, so grown-up, so adorable in a T-shirt and cut-off jeans, with her hair in a single long ponytail and her feet bare.

“Daddy was saying that you’ll be in charge of the mine someday. John didn’t think so.”

“No, I doubt he would. But he doesn’t have to worry. I don’t want to be in charge of the mine.”

Pam looked startled. “Why not? You’d be in charge of everyone. You’d get more money.”

“And more headaches.”

“Do you get headaches now?”

“No. But Simon does.”

“That’s because John makes him nervous.”

“John makes me nervous.”

“But you can fight him,” she urged with a touch of excitement. “Simon can’t. He’s too old. He senses a shift in power.”

Cutter was always amazed at Pam’s instincts when it came to the business. Nudging her side, he asked, “How do you know that?”

“I can see it.”

“Little girls aren’t supposed to see things like that. They’re supposed to be sweet and innocent.”

“For God’s sake, Cutter, I’m nearly thirteen.”

He grinned. “Hard to believe. Or not hard at all. Depends on how you look at it.” He held his head back and peered at her. “You’re gettin’ taller, all right.”

“Don’t talk down to me,” she said more soberly.

“But you are getting taller.”

“And older. And I see things. I do, Cutter. And you’re trying to change the subject.”

“What is the subject?”

“John. You could fight him, and Daddy would be on your side.”

“But John is his son,” Cutter said, all kidding forgotten. “It’s not my place to come between them that way.”

“Not even so you could get ahead at the mine?”

“I don’t want to get ahead at the mine. There are lots of other guys who want Simon’s job, and they’ve been working for Eugene a lot longer than me.”

“But Daddy likes you.”

Cutter knew that. Still, it didn’t change certain things.

“If you don’t want to be a foreman, what do you want to be?”

He rested his weight back on the heels of his hands and looked out across the street. “I don’t know.”

“Are you going to leave here and get a job in the city?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to work in the mine all your life?”

“I don’t know.”

“But don’t you dream things?”

“Not much,” he said. He didn’t dream of being rich or famous. He didn’t dream of being a boss and ordering people around. His life now was so much better than it had been before that he was pretty satisfied. Sometimes he dreamed of little things—a little more money, a little bigger house, maybe a car, maybe even a car with a stereo. He figured he’d have those things one day.

“I think you ought to come to work in Boston. That’s what Hillary’s doing. She just got a job working for the paper. It’s interesting, she says.”

Cutter knew Hillary Cox, just as he knew almost everyone in Timiny Cove. She’d been gone awhile, but word had a way of filtering back. “Hillary’s a writer. I’m not.”

“You could be. You read all the time.”

“Reading has nothing to do with writing.”

“We read
Lord of the Flies
in English class, by the way. I don’t think I liked it. It was pretty depressing.”

“It was supposed to be. It was supposed to be an example of what might happen if there wasn’t any order to things.” With deliberate nonchalance he asked, “What did your teacher say about it?” He liked it when Pam told him things like that. It made him think. Sometimes he even went back and reread a particular book after they had talked.

“Kind of what you did,” Pam said, “about order and rules and laws. She said the author was making a statement that there’s evil deep down inside us, but I’d never have done what Jack and Roger did.”

He nearly smiled at the appalled look on her face. But evil wasn’t a smiling matter. More than once he had wondered what he’d have done on that deserted island. “Are you sure? Not even if you were in the situation they were? Not even if you were lost and frightened and started imagining all sorts of things?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have.”

Cutter wasn’t so sure he could say the same. He’d have done almost anything to feel safer when he was younger. “Maybe that’s because you’re a girl,” he said a little distractedly.

“No.” She was about to elaborate when John drove up in his Thunderbird. Pam’s features immediately darkened. “What does he want?”

Cutter grew alert. He allowed himself to admire the car, a shiny blue convertible with the top up. As soon as John climbed out, though, looking perfect in cuffed khaki pants and a shirt with a little alligator on the front, his admiration died.

“I’m going inside,” Pam murmured. Very slowly she rose from the step where she’d been seated. She looked at John for an impertinent minute, then, with incredible dignity, Cutter thought, turned and walked into Leroy’s store.

“Did I disturb something?” John asked in a voice that was nearly as cold as his eyes.

Cutter was determined to be just as cool. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you two were sitting pretty close. What are you doing with my sister, Cutter?”

“Talking. Right here on Main Street where everyone can see.”

“You see her more than that. I know she goes to your place sometimes. Is that by invitation?”

Cutter didn’t bother to answer.

“If you’re hoping to use her to get something from my father, it won’t work.”

“I don’t need anything from your father.”

“You need a job.”

“I already have one.”

“At our discretion.”

“I do my work, and I do it well,” he challenged, beginning to burn inside. “Fire me for no reason, and you’ll have half of the others walking out on you.”

“I’ll have good reason if I find you diddling with my sister.”

The burning increased. “Why would I want to diddle with your sister when I have a damn sexy woman doin’ all the diddlin’ I want?”

“She’s not bad, Lenore isn’t,” John mused smugly.

Cutter couldn’t help himself. “She doesn’t think quite so highly of you.”

John’s smugness vanished. “Stay away from my sister, Cutter. You are aware that she’s a minor, aren’t you?”

“Minor? She’s a
little girl
.”

“No girl’s too little to fool around with, but if I were you, I’d watch it. You touch a hair on her head, and you’ll have me and half the lawmen in the state to answer to.”

Struggling to contain his anger, Cutter rose. He was nearly John’s height and every bit as strong, and while he didn’t have money and polish on his side, he had pride. “Pam is my friend, just like she’s a friend to everyone else in this town. And she’s Eugene’s daughter. I’d lay down my life to keep her safe.” But he couldn’t leave it at that. The demon inside wouldn’t let him. “The way I see it, she has more to fear from you than from me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the one with the brains. You figure it out.” He started off, but John caught his arm.

“You’re asking for trouble.”

Cutter gave the hand on his arm a long stare before raising his eyes to John’s. “I’m not askin’ for a thing ’cept that you leave me alone.” He shook his arm hard. John’s hand fell away.

“Stay away from Pam,” he growled.

Not trusting that he wouldn’t tell John to go to hell, Cutter strode off to where he’d left his motorcycle, climbed on, revved the engine—never more appreciating the power of the mama he’d bought the year before than at that moment—and, without a look back, left a strip of rubber and a trail of dust behind him.

He rode hard, barreling out of town well past his place. He pushed the cycle to its limits, roaring past the occasional car as though it were crawling, taking curves at a precarious tilt. Only after he came within inches of hitting a cottontail rabbit that was hopping across the street in ignorant bliss did he careen to a stop.

Parked on the side of the quiet highway, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let his fury settle. John was a bastard in every sense but the literal. He’d known that, but it didn’t help much in soothing the insult he felt.

He didn’t like John’s suggestion that he was fooling around with Pam, that he’d ever harm her. Mostly, he didn’t like the suggestion that he stay away from her, because, unless John was going around town telling everyone the same thing, it implied he wasn’t as good as the others. But Pam didn’t seek out the others the way she did him. She didn’t tell them the things she told him. If John knew half of those things he’d be furious.

That thought and the knowledge that John could threaten all he wanted and it wouldn’t matter made Cutter smile. If Pam wanted to come out to his place, she would. If she wanted to visit him at the mine, she’d do that, too. And if he saw her on Leroy’s steps, he was going to sit right down beside her.

He’d be damned if John would tell him what to do, especially when it came to Pam, and if John didn’t like it, that was his problem. He didn’t scare Cutter. After living on danger’s edge for so many of his early years, Cutter welcomed the challenge. Baiting him would be fun.

So, in hindsight, the confrontation on Leroy’s steps wasn’t so bad. Cutter’s only regret as he turned the cycle in an arc and headed for home was that he’d been distracted from buying the six-pack he’d originally wanted.

Chapter 8

W
HILE CUTTER HEADED HOME
, John drove Pam back to the big brick house. “Get your things together,” he instructed, feeling little affection and even less patience as he walked through the large front hall. “I want to be on the road to Boston in an hour.”

Pam followed him into the living room. “To Boston? But I thought we were staying all week.”

He heard her disappointment and wasn’t touched by it in the least. He didn’t care how she felt, especially after the snotty way she’d walked away from him with Cutter sitting right there watching.

“We’ve changed plans,” he said curtly. He reached for the tallest of the three sterling decanters that stood on the bar. “I want to be at the office in the morning.”

Pam came up from behind. Although she was growing taller, she still had the sweet look of childhood that never failed to annoy him. Sweet she might look, but she was not. She was too smart for her britches. “I thought Daddy wanted you here.”