Thomas Mullen - The Last Town on Earth

After drinking away a couple of years and living in and out of small town prisons, Rankle made a friend, a Wobbly by the name of Rubinski. When he heard Rankle’s sob story, he both empathized and told him the story was all too common. You think you’re the only bum’s dragged himself to the ends of the earth to find a job to feed your family and come home to find ‘em gone? You think you’re the only one to wonder if they was killed by Injuns or horse thieves, or maybe they found a richer man and ran off with him, or maybe they died of the cold in the snow? You think you’re the only one who’s played by the rules and still had everything taken from him? A thousand invisible and brokenhearted men walked alongside him, kicking their empty bottles and holding on to old love letters with blistered, work-weary fingers. Rankle applied for his red card that week and never drank again.

Rankle spent the next ten years following jobs in the Northwest and organizing for the Wobblies. He had been in Everett for the general strike, where his position made him a marked man. He’d been outnumbered by thugs and beaten up at the Beverly Park ambush, and was in the hospital recovering when the ferries had taken their ill-fated voyage, though he lost two friends that day. Tired of the violence and overwhelmed by the disappearance of more loved ones, he had parted ways with the Wobblies after that. He left Everett and bounced from job to job until he heard about what Charles Worthy was doing in Commonwealth.

After a brief silence, he saw a preoccupied look take hold of Rebecca. “Are you all right?”

She placed her cup on its saucer. “Worried.”

“Once the war’s over, the unions’ll be back.”

She smiled. “Not about that. About Philip. About the quarantine.”

Rankle felt a bit uncomfortable, stepping into a family situation. “He won a lot of guys’ respect, volunteering as a guard.”

“I’m not much interested in him winning respect. I think some men around here overvalue that.”

Rankle’s heavy eyebrows shifted in acquiescence. “If it helps to know, he does seem to be in good spirits around the mill,” he said. “And people like working with him. He’s a good kid. I keep my eye on him.” He felt another cough coming but stifled it with a sip of hot tea. He could feel the sweat at his hairline.

“Thank you. He is a good young man. That’s why I worry—about him and Laura.”

“I’ll say this: if I could raise a family in any town in America, it would be in Commonwealth.”

She looked down for a short while, her brows knit.

“I voted against the quarantine,” she finally said. “I think it’s wrong. I don’t think we should shut the world out, cut ourselves off.” She stared at her hands, folded into a tense knot.

It was the first time she had confided in him this way. But she felt herself becoming as cut off as she feared the town had become; she was telling him because she had to tell someone.

“Things will work out,” he told her after a silence. An expression as confident as it was simple.

She shook her head again. “I wish I had done more to stop it—” Her voice broke, her eyes watering.

After a moment’s hesitation, he reached out and put one of his massive hands atop hers, squeezing it a bit. His palm felt warm on Rebecca’s fingers.

She looked up at him. He was a handsome man, the sharp edges of his jawline and cheekbone intimidating, perhaps, but the calmness of those gray eyes more than compensating. Surely he could have remarried, Rebecca figured—he probably could have had his pick of wives, even in towns where available women were greatly outnumbered by loggers. She didn’t know if he had ever stopped mourning his family or if he had never stopped believing they were alive. Perhaps he had allowed himself to become married to a cause, first to the Wobblies and now to Commonwealth. If so, it was not a complete marriage, for Rebecca still sensed the loneliness inside him.

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