My bitch growls when he moves. Nótt: named for the Norse mistress of the night. She has taken a liking to the greasy little man, sniffs his crotch like it is made of bacon. He nearly drops his coin.

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I have been at it for six days now. Each morning, I get up before dawn and saddle the horse. Each evening, a supper with Mother, pale and fretting, in her eyes a question she’s afraid to ask. We have a simple relationship, Mother and I. We have replaced emotion with economics. Recently we have added crime to the ties of debt and blood.

“Are you assisting the magistrate’s search?” Mother asks the second morning I set off.

“No. I have my own ideas.”

“You have found a trace then?”

“Perhaps.”

“Please. Be careful,” she says and for a moment I think she means for myself. I look at her, my breakfast in my throat, hoping, dreading that she will force a talk.

But she says nothing further.

As I ride off her hand brushes the saddlebag bulging by my thigh.

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I never thought they might be hiding down the mine. But that’s where Nótt leads me, once she puts her nose to the narrow bridleway where the strangers have been sighted. The colliers stop in their tracks when I enter the work yard. The smell of snow is in the air, but nothing has fallen yet. The sky sits low against the hills. It would make a wonderful painting, Nótt crouching, long tail cocked, her ears pressed high against her head. I ride over to the pit shaft, watch it spit up a cage. A union, forming down the bottom of this hole. Talking revolution through mouthfuls of bread and dripping. All you’d need to do is cut the cable. Trap them like rats. Grandfather is right. This is a world of idiots. I wait until Nótt has emptied her bladder and then we turn, back to the bridleway. They must have left before dawn. Six hours head start. But I have a horse.

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They split up once they reached the train depot. It takes me a while to establish this. The men here are close-mouthed, suspicious. But no pauper can resist gold.

They remember a boy with a bandage, of course. He travelled with a girl. Heading south I am told. London-way. Cooped up with a wagonload of chickens, and some fellow cutthroats, heading home.

It’s the other boy no one can tell me about. Not until I find a man who spoke to him, the boss of a racket selling passenger tickets to freight trains. He has a band of degenerates on staff who will break your legs if you think you can catch a ride for free.

We talk at length. An enterprising man. He reminds me of my grandfather. Affable, given to whimsy. Happiest when making a profit without breaking a sweat.