Their territory had grown, but they still had the same number of people. In the fiercely contested Broken Mining District, that was an invitation for others to come after them.
Joan fell back on the skills she had learned as a traveling merchant: adapt quickly to the local rules. She had the foreman pick a few laborers to serve as enforcers.
Mountainside Ravine had even fewer laborers than the Fire Dragon Gang, just thirty-nine. The operation was nearly half the size, too.
Years of digging in dark mine tunnels had left most of the laborers with one ailment or another, so Joan lowered her standards. They only had to lift a fifty-pound basket of coal over their heads and hold it there for three seconds.
That was not too hard for men who earned their living through physical labor. Apart from a few who were simply too weak, twenty-two qualified.
Joan kept her promise and made them enforcers, freeing them from hell. Then she told the laborers who looked ready to despair not to cry, and repeated the improvements to their treatment she had announced not long ago.
"Really?"
The laborers' feelings came together in a single question.
Nothing won people over like proof. Joan told the foreman—no, the deputy gang leader now—to unload the food from the cart.
The gang members who had fled had taken everything they could carry. All they had left behind was the coal mined over the past few days. Fortunately, Joan had come prepared.
"Don't worry. You'll have another chance when the Fire Dragon Gang recruits more people."
Joan pressed her lips together as she watched the laborers thank her profusely. A few words from her had changed their lives forever... Whose husbands were they? Whose sons? Whose fathers?
She was beginning to understand