surrounded him.
A dozen men sat at drafting tables, heads bent over plans and notebooks spread before them.
“What is it?” said one at a large desk near the back.
“I’m here to start work,” Nathan said.
“Name?” The man opened a ledger on his desk, began searching with a stained finger.
“McReaken,” he said, and this time it came out more naturally than it had with the boarding house woman.
“Yeah, you’re on the list. You were supposed to be here yesterday. You have trouble with the train?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re not the first. These yokels are congenitally incapable of running anything on time.”
Another man came in behind Nathan, brushed his way past him. “First of the concrete trucks just showed up, Mr. Maufrais,” he said.
Maufrais took his watch from his pocket, scowled. “I hope that they had a nice, relaxing breakfast.” He picked up the telephone, dialed. “Jack? Yeah, your concrete is here. Yeah, well. Just be glad that they showed up. Yeah.” He turned back to Nathan. “There’ll be a load of paperwork to fill out. I’m out of carbons until the supply truck shows up tomorrow, though, so you’ve got a reprieve until then.” The telephone rang again, and Maufrais answered it.
Nathan glanced around the room. Neat rows of men at desks with heads down over their work. A handful of slide rules hung along a sideboard at the end of the room. In Memphis, the men had christened their slide rules with names like Excalibur and Equation Slayer, or else had strode about the office with them sometimes slung low through their belts like pistols. Looking about the room, Nathan saw no playfulness here.
Maufrais hung up the telephone and regarded Nathan again, this time more thoroughly, starting with his dusty shoes and traveling up to his crooked tie knot.
“You understand that this position is probationary?” he said.
“I understood that was a possibility,” Nathan said. “Obviously, I had hoped—”
“It is more than a possibility. It’s a fact of the position. The probationary period will last ninety days. At the end of that time, you will either be offered a permanent position on the team, or else be asked to leave in order to make space for another candidate. There are occasionally special circumstances which may arise that can entitle a candidate to additional probationary time, but those are rare, so I wouldn’t really consider that an option.”
“Ninety days? I hadn’t realized that the timeframe would be so short.”
“Ninety days is generally sufficient.”
Three months, Nathan thought. All that he’d done, all that it had cost him to stand here, traded for three months at a chance. He frowned and Maufrais’ eyebrows rose.
“Do I take it you don’t want the job?” he asked.
“I do want the job,” Nathan said. “It’s only—”
“This is not an ordinary organization, and as such we expect the employees we take on to rise above the ordinary level. A probationary period helps us guarantee that. It’s been the paradox of working in this rural area: we’re awash in unskilled labor. They’re literally lining up at our gate, whereas obtaining skilled workers, the engineering class and above, has been more of a challenge. What tells us best is the work. We have found that paper credentials can be exaggerated.” At this, Nathan felt his stomach clench.
Maufrais beckoned, and a tall, gangly man in somber wool stood and joined them.
“This is Mr. Fitzsimmons,” Maufrais said. Nathan extended his hand, and Fitzsimmons’ grasp was cool. “Where shall we put him, John?”
Fitzsimmons looked out over the room then spoke in a low voice. “I was thinking, perhaps, Robinson?”
Maufrais consulted his ledger. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking as well.” He retrieved a form from his top drawer and began filling it in. When he was finished, he called out, “Mr. Robinson? If you please, sir.”
Robinson rose and approached the desk. He glanced nervously among the three men. “Yes, sir?”
“Thank you for your efforts, but your services are no longer needed.” He proffered the form at Robinson. “Take this to bookkeeping and they’ll settle up for any pay you have coming.”
“But, Mr. Maufrais,” Robinson said. “Please.” He made no move to accept the paper.
Maufrais placed the slip on the edge of his desk. He glanced at Nathan as if surprised to find him still standing there.
“Clark?” Maufrais said. “How about you take Mr. McReaken on a short tour? Show him the site.”
A young, blonde man stood and went to get his jacket from the peg near the door. He gestured at Nathan, who remained at the front desk.
Maufrais directed himself to Nathan. “Focus on your work and all will be fine, Mr. McReaken. You will work, we will observe, and I think you’ll come to find we’ll know you very well. We’ll have your place sorted out by the time you return.”
Nathan joined Clark at the door, glancing back. Fitzsimmons was standing at Robinson’s shoulder.
“Come on now, Rich,” Fitzsimmons said. “You’re getting a letter and good pay. You can’t afford to leave here with a bad reference, can you?”
“Let’s go,” Clark said impatiently, and they went out.
The sun was hot against the face of the building, but it was good to be out in the light.
“It won’t do you any good to get yourself on his bad side,” Clark said. “When Maufrais says jump, it doesn’t pay to dawdle.” The young man looked to be twenty and went hatless, and his blonde hair was slicked back with pomade. In the morning sun, it shone as he turned to talk.
“That man, Robinson? Are they really firing him?”
Clark frowned at the question. “What did it look like?” he asked. “His time was just about up anyway. I guess Maufrais figured he didn’t need him any more now that you’d arrived.”
“Is that how it is, one man gets ejected when the next arrives?”
“Not always, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t happened before.”
“Doesn’t make me feel so good about my first day, booting someone out the door.”
Clark squinted at him in the full sun. “It’s not so great, but do you have other options?”
Nathan thought about it. “No,” he said.
“Then come on. They’ll be expecting us back before too long.”
They made their way down the cut earth of the hillside along a path that switched back on itself as it descended the steep bank. Near
