Cranby was torn between a sense of relief and fury. The news that Jackson was dead was source of some relief at not having to deal with his outbursts and misguided ambition, but he was also useful more often than not. While he respected Rodrigo’s abilities, he had not planned his elevation to be permanent. He found it useful to have a couple of strong-minded fellows competing for a single position. With Jackson out of the picture, Rodrigo had no real peers. Cranby would have to identify a worthy candidate and find a way to bring them along, unless some new arrival fit the mold.
Rodrigo’s explanation of Jackson’s death was not entirely satisfactory either. It sounded suspicious, as if he was hiding something. The fact he couldn’t account for the body or its possessions — these rascals picked over a corpse as thoroughly as a carrion-bird — didn’t wash either. Something was amiss, but he had no one he could reliably send to investigate. A hastily-dug and filled grave would be easy to find, but it could be anywhere. Any signs of a struggle would be impossible to find.
He rose from his chair and crossed the room for a draught of a restorative. As he pulled down a glass, he noticed the gap where one was missing and remembered the circumstances. He paused and looked over at the chair where Jackson had been sitting. Things could happen so quickly. He wondered what Jackson had thought when he had left that evening. Could he have imagined he would lie in an unmarked and lonely grave so soon? Not that any of these roughnecks were sentimental in the least. When the news got out, the taverns would be filled with roisterers and work would slow down, not out of mourning but because fully half the workers would be sleeping off an epic drunk.
He tossed off the drink and took stock. Rodrigo would be back in the morning to take charge of field operations. Cranby would need to be careful how much he shared. With just one set of ears, the danger of someone putting together some idea of his plans was much greater. It was better when he could divide the responsibility across two or more of them. They were unlikely to share anything, and if they did, they would lie. He knew that and so did they. He grinned at the thought of how the seeds of mistrust had flowered in such a useful way. They wouldn’t work together and so ended up working for him, more completely than they realized. He couldn’t have planned it, though sometimes he pretended he had.
But there was still the matter of Angstrom. Rodrigo had not located him, or at least had not indicated that he had. So he had returned without the information he had been sent for and had managed to kill a valuable, in some ways, operative. If there were alternatives, Cranby would find some some way to reprimand Rodrigo, but for now he had none. If there had been someone to take his place, he could push him back down to where he had been, a promising but unproven jack. Or if he really wanted to show his feelings, he could involve the law and get the Inspectors involved. It might burnish his own reputation as well. He was aware of the rumors he was an Inspector, and associating with them in a matter like this could be powerful. But the fact of the matter was, he didn’t want the Inspectors nosing around here at all. Not that he was doing anything illegal, but they were bad for business. They asked a lot of questions, especially of people who couldn’t be depended on to give the right answers. It sometimes took days or weeks to get things straightened when overly-honest and forthcoming field-hands felt like sharing their stories with uniformed types.
It didn’t help that they were largely incorruptible. For Cranby, coin was his first language and it always threw him off balance when he dealt with someone who didn’t speak it as he did. He much preferred the Army, with its more relaxed discipline and more worldly approach to things. He found it easier to hold their attention and for their part, they were happy to listen to someone explain things in a convivial setting, perhaps with some creature comforts that were hard to come by on patrol. Given the choice between that and trying to sort out from some shepherd or rock miner what was going on and who was doing what, it was no contest.
The Inspectors were less frequent visitors, coming only when summoned or sent. Something had to trigger their arrival and Cranby was very careful to ensure that nothing like that should happen. An unexplained death, a murder, would be the kind of thing that could get them involved. So the less said about Jackson’s disappearance, the better. He was off on a scouting mission or making a run as a courier. This last was a stretch, since hardship duties like that were for new hands or unproven ones. There were still risks to be run, and there were things out there that an unescorted traveler was powerless to resist.
Another drink, Cranby thought to himself. He needed, no, deserved it. He didn’t know what was happening but he didn’t like it, and it was his experience that if he didn’t like it, he didn’t have it. So it was past time to make things go according to his plans again.
Could he trust Rodrigo to keep his mouth shut? He was pretty certain he could, given the risks he would face if he talked about Jackson. If any of the other ambitious hands got the idea that promotion through assassination was a successful strategy, Rodrigo was a marked man. He stroked his chin as he mulled that over. An interesting, if inelegant solution, but also an escalation that could lead to chaos. Better keep things quiet.
He had better put Rodrigo somewhere he can be have limited contact, no chance to slip up, and little risk anyone will try to take his place by force. That would take some thought. He needed someone to keep an eye on the workings, which meant some communication, and he would need to travel between them, which entailed some solo travel. There were risks in both aspects of that.
Perhaps the best thing was to let him go about his tasks as if nothing had changed. If I take him off the workings, some will wonder why, what does it mean, Cranby thought to himself. No, it would be best if he does the job as he should, as Jackson did, and if something untoward happens, I’ll worry about that when the time comes.
Cranby realized that if someone did try to take Rodrigo’s place, that would remove the only other person who knew of his suspicions about Angstrom. And breaking that thread and any connection to him could only be good. But he could do nothing to encourage anyone. That would create still more entanglements. Rodrigo himself might summon the Inspectors, gambling that his unintentional — to hear him tell it — killing was of less importance than whatever Cranby was alleged to be up to. Not that anything could be proven, but he didn’t need them poking around. They took a high-minded attitude toward indentures and often inspected contracts and bond papers. That could get messy as sometimes the papers themselves were hard to find or worse, were traded or bargained with, something that wasn’t supposed to happen. The contract between the bondholder and the one in bond was supposed to remain unencumbered, but that didn’t always happen. There had been instances where the Inspectors had dissolved agreements made in the settlements that used agreements forged in the cities as currency. That was never popular, but nor was is common. And they were never persuaded to leave things alone.
Cranby had good reason to want to keep them out of his hair. There were far too many bonds and indentures in play and he, as luck would have it, claimed title to a lot of them. If someone were to break his hold on them, it would be very difficult to get anything done. At best, he would need to negotiate wages with people he had been accustomed to treat like property, and at worst he might be punished for engaging in the illicit trade. He shuddered. Either way, he stood to lose some money, perhaps a good-sized sum of money. And the rumors about his links to the Inspectors would be proven false, and Cranby had not gotten to his current position by squandering valuable links to power.