There was always the possibility. And when he was honest about it, he knew that it was more than a possibility; it was a likelihood. The chances of his being right about the manuscript, its author, its possible origins, were small. Yet he’d never given up believing, despite having no concrete evidence to support his claim. Now that he had a chance to establish proof, he found his resolve wavering, and it all came down to one simple truth: he didn’t want to be wrong.

As he always did when he found himself uneasy about his work, he took up the manuscript. Just holding it, he felt himself calming, his doubts ebbing away. It was the manuscript that gave him hope. He took strength from it the way he might take heat from a fire to drive away a chill. It was the source of everything, at least everything that mattered to him at that moment. He opened it and let the story soothe him.

“Come on,” Tom said. “Let’s get us some beer.”

Charlie opened his mouth to decline the invitation, but found himself saying, “All right.”

Tom clapped him on the shoulder and steered him up the street to the bar, which was full of men exactly like themselves. Their shift over, they’d gathered to talk, as if all day their minds had been under the control of the canneries and only now were their thoughts and words their own.

Tom drank one whole beer before he spoke again. When he did it was to say, “Give me another.” Charlie, still nursing his first, wrapped his hand around the cold bottle and wished he’d said no to Tom.

“I think I’ll just head home,” he said.

Tom shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “It’s not right to let a friend get drunk by hisself. Next thing you know, I’ll be making a visit to the cathouse and spending all my money on one of them girls. It’s your duty to stop me, Charlie.”

“Those girls’d take one smell of you and send you packing,” said a man to their right. “Not enough silver in your pocket to make a girl put up with that.”

“Say!” cried Tom. “Who are you to talk? You stink just as high as I do!”

“Didn’t say I didn’t,” said the man. “Just said.”

“Well, you best unsay it fore I pop you one,” Tom said. “No man tells me I stink too much for some cathouse girl.”

The man was bigger than Tom by at least a head and a half, an Irishman by the look of him. He fixed Tom with one dark eye and grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth. “You want to fight me, Tiny?” he said.

“Damn right I do!” Tom said.

The man stood up. “All right then,” he said. “Why don’t we just step—”

Before he could finish, Tom hit him on the chin. The man fell back, caught by the man behind him. He hung there in the fellow’s arms for a second, looking surprised, then let out a roar like a bull when the brand touches his flank.