... L & G Support the Miners!

You tie a damp bandanna around your nose and mouth and scrape your dry tongue against your teeth to clean it, and then blink your eyes until they focus and take a look at your compass. You start moving, it's going to be a long walk home.

He knew that lightning, ever since he was eight, he knew it, every branch, every twist and turn. The ripples trailing behind a little stick sticking out of the creek, they were similar, but not quite right, the forks in any pale barked tree, none of them matched that exact branching form that struck his friend, but oh lord, did he compare each one with it in his mind, his restless mind. The cracks between the cobblestones aren't quite right, but they echo it. His name is Dominic Swain, and until he meets his friend again in full middle age, he doesn't understand why that shape pursues him. And until he sees a certain ancient book, written in Latin, he never sees the shape quite right. But there, in dark ink, oh that shape is there exact.

The two of them had already found a old "piece of eight" , the coin scored through and cut in half, a bit of "pirate money" which had probably actually never seen a pirate, because this was nowhere near the coast, and people in the real eighteenth century were a million things besides that. But given they had gotten out of history class by waving some article about how "a local boy finds roman treasure with metal detector" under the teacher's nose it was good enough. It was enough attention to the right things to allow them both to be here instead of a classroom, with no shoes, and eachother's company, and cool river water flowing against the gravel and over their toes.

She was already drawing her knife from it's sheath, and as G handed her the nearest leather apron, the look she gave him had a little gratitude, maybe he made a little bit up for what was about to happen. He slipped into a leather coat and shaking, drew his own knife. Time to see what marks they would have after the next hour or so.