In the distance, I saw an old rickety bridge across the Potomac River. It would have been an easier conveyance for a crossing. However, no matter what, I had to get over the C&O Canal first before I could do anything.
The canal towpath was between me and the canal. There was no way I was going to be able to wade the canal. I had to take the bridge over the lock to either get down to Boteler’s Ford or go to the rickety bridge to cross the Potomac River.
In the early morning light, I could see a boat entering the lock headed north. There was a team of two mules on the towpath that was harnessed to pull the boat through the lock. If I could get across the lock bridge during the interchange unopposed, I would be able to walk down to the river bank and take my pick of ways to cross over to Shepherdstown.
I walked out of the woods and headed toward the lock bridge.
I only had 21st century money and didn’t know if there was a fee for crossing the bridge. I now wished I had relieved the drunk of his few coins.
My clothes stank of whiskey so I put a little stagger in my step, which wasn’t so hard due to the pungent smell. I was a little inebriated just from whiffing the aroma of my coat. I approached the team of mules that was hitched in a single file harness with a teamster who sat on the first mule. He was urging the team down the towpath. The mules’ harness had a large rope that was attached to the boat. They were pulling the boat into the lock. Since the process was both tricky and dangerous, the teamster’s attention was on trying to fit the boat in the lock without doing damage to the sides plus stopping the boat without busting the upstream gate.
I walked, make that staggered, past the teamster, who at a quick glance appeared to be a roughhewn youth of about fifteen. He snickered as I stumbled past and then as the whiskey aroma hit his nostrils said, “Got any left?”
I answered, “Nope”, and continued to the lock bridge.
There was a man operating the closing mechanism for the lock’s upstream gate. The gates, located at each end of the lock, were configured like a draw bridge, except they were placed horizontally at the ends of the lock. The lock bridge was a part of the upstream gate. Since this gate was closing, the bridge’s two halves were coming together to provide a platform for crossing over the top of the lock to the Potomac River bank. The boat was finally secured in the lock and the lockkeeper closed both gates. I walked quickly toward the lock bridge.
The person who had closed the lock’s upstream gate barred my way. He pulled himself up to his full height. He was a larger version of the teamster. He mouthed off, “Whar ya think yar goin?” He finished his challenge with curled lips that settled into a sneer, which revealed two missing front teeth on his upper row of teeth and three on his lower row. He was stout and two inches taller than me. He must have weighed 150 pounds, but it looked as if it were all muscle.
I pulled down my hat so my face was hard to see. “Ova ta tha ottah side of tha rivah”, I replied in my deepest southern accent.
“Ya gonna have ta pay toll for that thar privilege,” he spouted with a pleased smirk on his face.
I bent down as if to put my hand in a pants pocket, brought the flat of my palm up toward his face from a couch and said, “Well herah tis.” My movement was a complete surprise, and although my palm barely touched his chin, he jerked his head and therefore his upper torso backward so violently that he became airborne. He flailed his arms to gain purchase with Mother Earth to no avail. For a split second, his body was about two feet above and parallel to the bridge. His head and shoulders were the first body parts to greet the wooden floor of the bridge. The rough landing completely obliterated his opposition to my escape plan. I felt for a pulse in his neck just to make sure I hadn’t sent him to the Other Side. His heart was still beating.
I figured it was time to vacate the area as quickly as possible. I didn’t know how long the lockkeeper would be out or if anyone had seen our little tussle, so I quickly crossed over the bridge and, deciding on the Boteler Ford crossing, walked down to the Potomac’s eastern shore. I plummeted south along the bank hoping to discover Boteler’s Ford.
I lurched along for about four hundred yards in a stupor with my head down looking for any hindrance to my passage. The sun had come up and a few feet of scattered fog had gathered on the river. For some reason, I stopped and looked across the river. There stood an old mill. From some of the descriptions I had read about the ford and the old mill that used to be on the Virginia side, I knew this was Boteler’s Ford.
The river was down, and even though foggy, I could hear water rushing over rocks. I took off my brogans and socks, tied the brogans together with their laces, flung them over my shoulder and walked down into the river. The water acted as an elixir as it came up to my shins. The cool liquid had a calming effect on my body and being.
After several moments of enjoying the refreshing feeling, I began to gingerly walk across the river, testing each step for anything sharp.
About half way across I happened to look up river and saw something black in the water swimming toward me through the morning mist. It was a snake! I had just enough time to yell, really I screamed, and tried to run to the other side. As the snake slithered past my left leg on its way down river, my feet lost their tentative grip on the slick river bottom and went out from under me. I fell backwards with another yell. This time it really was a yell.
Well, I did two out of the three things you are supposed to do in a martial arts fall. I spread my arms out in a 45-degree angle and slapped them downward to break my fall. I also rolled my head toward my chest to keep my head from hitting the river bottom. However, I didn’t relax my body and the water wasn’t very deep where I fell, so it didn’t provide much of a cushion. Subsequently, when my body simultaneously hit the rocky river bottom and I slapped my hands down to break my fall, my body suffered a severe jolt that felt like a surge of electricity from my hands to my shoulders and then down to my back. I almost passed out.
A few minutes later I finally gained some semblance of cognizance and I took an inventory of my body. My palms hurt and tingled, my shoulders were sore, my back ached and my neck was strained from bending it toward my chest and holding it there when I hit the river bottom.
I finally relaxed and really didn’t care what that snake did next. I just let the water wash over me. The river water felt good. I looked to my left and my hat had come off, but it was caught on a wooden stake sticking straight up out of the water. I splashed over to it on my hands and knees and plucked it off its binding pole. Then I laid back down in the soothing Potomac. My brogans were on the bottom of the river, but my socks I could see in the distance drifting down stream. I had been holding them in my hand, but must have let them go when I fell.
I could feel the water soak into the homemade bandage I had wrapped around the dog bite. The wound was starting to hurt. I pulled my coat sleeve back to view the bite. It was really on my forearm just above my left wrist. I let the water soak the bandage. Then I gently removed it from my arm and kept the injured arm under the water until it began to sting. After a while, it quit stinging and just ached intermittently.
I stayed in the prone position in the river for a few more moments and let the soothing water flow over me. I finally got up on my knees, picked up my brogans and stood trembling on wobbly legs. As the water began to drip off my clothes into the river, I swear it made a brown dirty stain heading down stream.
The seriousness of my situation fell on me like an avalanche. I had to get to a place where I could sleep. I had to get new clothes. I had to get food. I had to get out of this river. The perils I faced precipitated another panic attack. My whole being took on a fight or flight urgency. I lurched toward the river bank.
About five feet from Old Dominion’s shore my body began to go numb and I started to lose consciousness. I fell forward with half of me in the water and half of me on the bank. I looked up and with blurry eyes saw the mill I had spotted from the Maryland side of the river.
And that�
��s when I blacked out.
Chapter 4
The Dark Mage’s Log: Axeylon 5: Galaxy Date: 16314
Agent Jarlene stood at attention before Lord Dendaras, who sat on his throne, which was situated on a six-foot dais. “What did you find at the scene, Agent?” He questioned.
“I found Watcher Jarreal in a state of severe trauma.” She answered.
“What did you do?” He continued.
“I put Jarreal in the conveyance vehicle and brought him back to home base,” she said.
“You did nothing else?” demanded Lord Dendaras.
“No, Sire,” she conveyed.
“Why not?” he challenged.
“The Watcher was in a critical state and the dawn was coming soon. I thought it best if I investigated after I had transferred Jarreal.”
“That is an unacceptable explanation for your cause of action.” Lord Dendaras bellowed. “Undoubtedly the human you were supposed to eradicate has had interchange with ‘Earth 3’ personnel by now and thus changed our calculations for the future. He needed to be exterminated quickly to salvage the situation. Your bungling of this affair is deplorable. You will present yourself to the Lower Dungeon for sentence.”
Agent Jarlene bowed her head and said, “I plead for mercy Sire.”
“We will see if that is available after the first round of punishment,” he declared.
Agent Jarlene let out a sigh, bowed lower, clicked her heels, about faced, and left the throne room.
Lord Dendaras observed the back of the uniform. There were no stains. There was no fear in her.
I woke to someone shouting, “Ovah herah, Papa. He’s bad hurt.”
Apparently, someone came to the speaker’s summons because a moment later I felt myself being pulled out of the water. Then I blacked out again.
When I woke up, I was in a small bed. I tried, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I drifted off into a fitful sleep.
Much later, it seemed, I woke to a faint breeze blowing over my face. The one window in the room was open. There wasn’t any glass in the window. There were just two large shutters hinged with homemade pieces of leather that opened inward and rested flush with the inside wall. I heard birds singing, insects chirping and the flow of a river as a background melody.
I stirred and sat up. I discovered I was in a bed with a blanket over me. When I moved, the bed made weird sounds. I swung my feet out of bed and put them on the floor. I pulled back the blanket and found I was naked as a jaybird. I kept the blanket pulled around me and took inventory of my situation. My arm felt funny.
I pulled the blanket back to look at my left arm. There was a lump of some unknown substance tied to my left wrist with a long slender cloth.
I untied the cloth with my right hand and my teeth. A piece of green material fell out in my lap. It had been tied to my wrist where the dog had bitten me.
I looked at my wrist. It was still lacerated, but the cuts were starting to close and scab over. I picked up the green glob and examined it. I swear it looked like moss that grows on the north side of trees. I remembered an old John Wayne movie in which the doctor used tree moss to keep a wound from getting infected. The thing I remember most from this type of medicinal cure was not to scratch the wound when it started to heal.
Once I understood my body was on the mend, I began taking inventory of my surroundings.
The room must have measured about twelve feet by twelve feet. There were wooden pegs in the far wall with clothes hung on them. They looked like the pants, bracers and coat I had purloined in Maryland. Brogans were on the floor below the clothes. My modern underwear, hat and mutilated T-shirt were draped over my coat.
In the corner was a small table with a stool under it and a candleholder on top with a half-burnt candle.
I got to my feet and again heard a weird sound from the bed. I felt very unsteady. I was light-headed and had to sit down. Again, the bed made an unaccustomed sound. After a few moments, I stood up and again a funny sound emanated from the bed. Once I felt more stable, I knelt down on my knees and, dropping my head almost to the floor, looked under the bed. I don’t know what I expected, but what I saw was a very long rope that started at the head of the bed and looped across the bed, back and forth until it reached the foot of the bed. Suddenly it dawned on me. I had been lying in a rope bed. Instead of slats to keep the mattress in the bed frame, a rope was used. I had slept on one of these types of beds years ago. I fondly remembered the noises that occurred whenever I made a movement of any kind.
I was able to stand without feeling nauseous. I dropped the blanket and stumbled toward the clothes pegs over a squeaky plank floor. I had just reached the pegs when the door opened and a young woman said, “Well, it’s ‘bout time ya got up.”
My mouth dropped open as I looked at her. She looked familiar. She must have been the one who had been yelling for help as she tried to pull me out of the river just before I passed out.
I stood there with my mouth wide open and she started to laugh. I looked down and realized that I had dropped the blanket when I meandered toward the clothes. I was standing before her buck naked.
I beat a hasty retreat to the bed, grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around me. She just continued to laugh. Whether it was my predicament or my manly endowment, I couldn’t be sure. She just said, “Food’s ready when ya want it. Bettah get dressed afore ya come in tho.” She turned and pulled the door to as she left the room snickering.
During my dressing process, I know I turned every shade of red thinking about what had just happened. However, the delicious aromas from the next room negated much of my embarrassment. After fumbling for what seemed like an hour, I finally got my bracers affixed to my trousers. Then I donned my 21st century underwear, slipped on my shirt, put on the trousers and, tucking the shirt in my trousers, buttoned up the trouser fly.
All the clothes that had been so filthy were now clean and sweet smelling.
I slipped the bracers over my shoulders and, as I was buttoning the top button of my shirt, rubbed the back of my hands against my neck. I felt whiskers. I quickly ran my hands over my face. I had a good four days’ growth of beard. I needed a shave. So, I filed that information away for future reference.
I saw the hat I had almost lost in the Potomac on one of the pegs. I retrieved it and took a big whiff of the crown portion. I turned up my nose. It still had a gamey reek, but not as bad as it did on the Maryland side of the river. I replaced it on its peg. Lastly, I slipped on my brogans, sans socks, and tied the battered laces gently so as not to require adding another knot to the multitude already in place.
At long last, I opened the door and entered the next room.
This room was larger. It measured probably about fifteen by twenty feet. A large wooden rectangular table was situated in one side of the room with benches along its sides and arm chairs at both ends of the table. In the opposite corner of the room was a fireplace located on an outside wall with three iron rods affixed to the left side of the fireplace at different heights. The rods were on swivels that allowed them to be swung over the fire so that pots, small cans or buckets with bent half-moon metal handles could be hung on them for boiling food. There was also a large grate on the bottom of the fireplace floor that allowed skillets to be placed for cooking.
The young woman was spooning out eggs from a skillet into a metal plate when I entered the room. She looked up, chuckled, and motioned with her head toward the table. I walked over to the table bench closest to the wall, sat down, and leaned back against the wall. I felt rested, but not up to full strength. I watched her as she continued to spoon out victuals on the plate from a skillet, a Dutch oven and one of the cans hanging from a rod. How did I know her?
These thoughts were suddenly chased away by the wonderful aroma of country cooking. I didn’t know I was hungry. In fact, I discovered I was ravenous. My stomach let out a deep-seated growl that I camouflaged with a cough.
The young woman w
alked forward with what I would call a “truck driver’s plate” full of food. There were three eggs, sunny side up, two biscuits with what looked like sausage gravy and a thick ham steak.
She put the plate in front of me and said, “tha knives and tines are in tha cabinet,” and motioned with her head to a six-foot tall wooden cupboard in the corner at the other side of the room.
I jumped up and walked quickly forward. I instigated an assault of the lower drawers until I found a knife and tine (her word for fork) that suited me. I traipsed to the table in a jiffy and dug into the food.
She brought over two steaming cups of coffee in tin mugs and placed them on the table. She pushed one toward me. Then she sat down on the bench opposite me, drank her coffee and watched me eat.
I literally attacked the food. I ate like a man who hadn’t had a decent meal in years. After a while, she said, “Ya shore do use yar knife and tines queerly.” I stopped with a fork full of ham about halfway to my mouth. It had caught me completely by surprise. You might say it was a slap in the face. It brought home to me how arrogantly I was treating this woman. She and her family had taken me in, nursed me back to health, and I hadn’t even thanked her.
I sheepishly put down the fork full of ham on my plate and, ducking my head in shame, stammered, “I apologize for my crude manners. I must seem like a vagabond to ya. I haven’t even thanked ya for saving my life. Please accept my deepest and sincere thanks for all ya done for me. Ma’am, I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
An awkward silence ensued. I was so embarrassed by my selfishness that I couldn’t look her in the face. I know I turned red from ear to ear.
She kept her gaze on me and then said, “Apology accepted.” Then she added without a judgmental tone to her voice, “Ya might want to know that ya was out about a day. And ya know something else that’s different about ya? Ya speech is Southern sounding, but not from this part of tha South. Whar ya from?”
Assassins of History- Transference Page 5
