The Price of Demand (Reintegration Edit 10)

A short time later, Altman tracked Waldon down. Before he could get a word out, the other man spoke. “Dolet, I need t’talk to you. The men, they’re growin’ fearful. It’s gettin’ hard t’get ‘em workin’.”

“I wish I could blame them. I wanted to talk to you too, out of earshot of the men. Waldon, there’s no luck involved here, bad or otherwise. The branch that came down earlier was cut. Someone’s causing this intentionally.”

Waldon grunted, surprise flickering across his eyes. “Cut? Yer sure about that?”

“As certain as can be. It was cut from the top, deep enough that it was bound to fall.”

“Clumsy way to arrange an accident if y’ask me. How’d ‘e know there’d be anyone ‘round for it t’land on?”

“That had crossed my mind too,” and it had. He’d been thinking about it the whole time he’d sought Waldon out. “It could be he had somehow set it up to fall when he wanted it to. I didn’t see any sign of a line on the fallen branch, but it could have been removed.”