Aaron soon found out why Jason had apologized to him. Jonathan Bolt was drunk, and loud. (Well, now Aaron knew where Jason got that from.) He was moody, too, going from friendly to furious.

The men in the saloon reacted (or not) to his pronouncements with boos or laughter, and sometimes both.

"We'll go upstairs," Aaron muttered to Mack.

"Aye."

Jonathan saw them mounting the stairs and announced their presence. "There they are! The men who are stealing my boys from me, the way Death stole my wife. I brought them here, for safety when Grief had driven us from our home, and these men, one who has been my friend for years, they are prying them away from me. Dinna let them do this. It is not right. Dinna work for them. Have nothing to do."

(Also where Jason had learned his speechifying, Aaron thought.)

"Jon, you're daft," Mack said calmly. "As well as drunk. You told me to keep an eye on your boys while I was working on a job that you found for me. How else was I to watch 'em? When ya wake with the pounding head tomorrow suppertime, think on that for awhile."

Jonathan Bolt raised a glass to his old friend, and refilled it from a bottle. (Aaron hoped it was the cheap stuff Lottie had tried gifting him with his first night here. That'd give anyone an all-day blackout followed by a massive headache.)

He turned back to Aaron and they went on to Aaron's room. It wouldn't be the first time they'd used the bed as a desk to spread paperwork out on.

"You're expecting considerably less work tomorrow. Why?" Aaron asked.

Mack paused. "For one thing, the work we'll be doing Some of those in here tonight will not show up. Even knowing Jon is drinking and that he's not – stable, when it comes to family, they'll not be wanting to get on the wrong side of him. He's ver' much a someone here, although tis my thinking Jason will take over that if Jon doesn't pull himself together. Even for those who show up, what happened today –" Mack shook his head. "It will make the men tense, worried; looking for another something to happen, and that will slow the work."

"Morale," Aaron said. "Yes, I've seen that happen a few times."

"You seem young to have seen overmuch."

"You'd be surprised."

Mack nodded, and left for the night.

Aaron was amused when Mack stopped and had a drink with Mr. Bolt, who was by now nearly weeping, before heading to his own home. With Mr. MacKenzie.

The three younger Bolts were on their porch as Aaron headed for his job site in the morning. Josh was standing near the edge, his schoolbooks resting on a railing as he ate a ham-and-biscuit sandwich. Jason was sitting in a chair with one arm wrapped around Jeremy on his lap, and a coffee mug in his other hand. Jeremy was leaned against Jason's chest, his face turned away from the road. Even to Aaron's inexperienced eye, the boy looked unhappy and almost ill.

Aaron nodded to the three of them, Jason nodded back, Jeremy buried his face deeper in Jason's front, and Joshua took up his books and stepped off the porch.

"Have a good day, Mr. Stempel," Joshua said, very quietly, as he passed.

"You, too," Aaron said, and kept going.

Jason sighed as Aaron went on and watched him out of sight. He wished he was working, but with how Da had been yesterday–. No, it was out of the question.

Jeremy stirred and looked up at him. The boy had had a bad night, as he usually did after these upsets.

Jason held his coffee up to Jeremy's mouth.

Jeremy swallowed, sighed, and pillowed his head back against his brother, closing his eyes, at last, into a sound sleep.

Jason propped his feet up on the porch rail, leaned back, and followed suit. This was more comfortable than the many nights he'd propped his feet up just on the seat of another chair. His last thought was a rueful gratitude that Jeremy wasn't a fragile baby anymore.

Mack had been right in his assessment of the crew's morale. Even worse, there was a lot of infighting between groups and families. Was that new problem because, with the building framed, they were working at closer quarters inside now?

If so, that was a problem easily enough solved. He sent half the crew to his other site to get started on his house.

It was a long day, and the first one he was glad to see come to an end.

"I hope tomorrow goes better. I'd really like to start installing the equipment."

"That would be a good thing," Mack agreed. "Maybe they'll work harder if they see the means to a job being installed."

"Maybe we won't have a town leader telling the men not to work for me."

"They all showed up, didn't they?"

"To squabble, not to work. They can do that on their own time."

"You lost your peacemaker. You didn't know that, did you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." But he did. He meant Jason Bolt, and Aaron didn't know why or when or how he'd come to that conclusion. All that jibber-jabber, going from team to team with his jokes and queries and fast talk.

MacKenzie looked at him keenly. "I'll leave you to figure it out. We'll plan on working tomorrow the same as today, I think. Do you have a problem with that?"

"I hope we'll get more work done."

"I'm thinking we will. Are you ready to go?"

"I think I'll stay awhile, but you go ahead. I'll see you in the morning."

"Yessir, Mr. Stempel." His tone was respectful enough, but Aaron felt like the man was amused. What was so funny?

It didn't matter.

Aaron wandered around his new and empty building, seeing in his mind how the machinery would fit together; how it would all work together. He realized he had only a vague idea of how it would sound, once everything was working. He had better familiarize himself with that. It could give him an edge on things going wrong.

It probably wouldn't hurt to see how their equipment was put together, too, just in case he'd missed something in his planning or misunderstood something in his understanding.

Yes, that would be a wise thing to do before installing anything. He should have done that on his way to this forlorn place. God knew how many sawmills of various sizes he had passed on his journey north.

Damnit.