Claiming Dependents

Winona was a town of drifters: victims of copper lure. Promise weighted empty pockets, and eager miners bent to find— the only export was excess labor—and failure, work’s fruition, occupied more homes than not. Paternal nature kept our families close enough for resistance, too close for protection. Winona became a town of blasted, barren drifts that led to hope at deeper stopes. We stalked copper’s sheen, persistent, tapped its cold scent, its bitter wealth, for an instant. Until quiet. So quiet we could hear copper creep. Predator, again, was prey. Another hunt, another loss, another cost we could not afford, yet paid. Like a coroner, the trammer came, and we raised the dead from dark levels of earth, from shafts and collars, into cold light. What hope claimed could not be returned, so we drifted.