Xie takes granola and soy milk from the continental breakfast in the motel lobby. Leni looking longingly at a cherry Danish wrapped in plastic but Jo shakes her head: Devil, be gone. Jo’s hair done up in extra-stiff spikes. That’s a beautiful color, Karen says, admiring the deep green. Jo grins, elbowing Leni: This little chicken does all my dye jobs. Leni curtsies. Erik tucking their water bottles in a pack. They take a shuttle downtown, Xie’s eyes fixed to the window, looking for their stop. Is that it? Erik says as they step off the shuttle, a thin trickle of people turning into a half-empty square. Jo puts her hand on his shoulder. It’s that way. They go down two blocks, then turn around a corner and into a solid wall of bodies, an enormous crowd packing a boulevard headed by the capitol building. Karen exhales. Erik’s hand hovers at Xie’s back. Moving along the edges of the crowd Xie looks for E.A. shirts or stickers or patches but there are none. Prickle of uneasiness. I thought they organized this, he says. Jo looking straight ahead, little shake of her head, knowing something but it’s too late to ask what. Xie bakes quietly in his hoodie, the unseasonably hot spring day made even hotter by the number of bodies trying to push closer to what they assume is a stage at the front steps of the city hall. Erik’s jaw tight. Jo looking at her phone. So the speeches start at ten and then the march starts an hour after that. Lifting her head to scan for a place to sit or stand. A counterprotest crowd lines the sidewalks. COAL PUTS FOOD ON MY TABLE. WE SUPPORT JOBS FOR ALABAMA. SAVE A COAL MINER, KILL A TREE HUGGER. Leni snorts. Fucking CWA, she murmurs, and someone in the counterprotest catches her eye, as if hearing her, and she raises her middle finger. Erik gripping her wrist. Don’t. Already something unpleasant in the dry air; restlessness in the crowd, people only half listening to the speech from Greenpeace, talking among themselves, looking at their phones. Shouts from the street to the sidewalk and back. Police watching from horses, from barricades separating the groups. Full riot gear. Vans with cameras mounted on their roofs. Erik wipes his face with his hand. We stay together, he says. I mean it. Mute nods. They sit on a wall outside the post office, listening to a speaker call out the names of species threatened by mining. Karen scribbling on a piece of paper. Are you taking notes? Jo laughs. Karen makes a face. Jo, hush. The list is so long it takes the speaker five minutes to get through it. Xie trying to ignore the shifting in his stomach. Another speaker smiles at the CWA crowd. We don’t want to take your jobs or disrespect your need to provide for your families. We want to protect the vibrancy of this beautiful state and turn attention away from short-term economic goals and toward sustainable, efficient, and healthy options for all energy workers in Alabama and beyond.