Lost Nation: A Novel

by Jeffrey Lent

  Blood said, “We can try to talk to him but he won’t be able to tell us anything useful. Likely not even where whoever it was waylaid him. Or how many it was or what they looked like. But we can try.”

  Chase did not look at Blood but said, “Have mercy on him.”

  Blood stepped to the woodpile before the fireplace and lifted a club of firewood. He hefted it and passed it one hand to the other and then turned it around for balance until he held it just right. Then crossed back over the room and straddled the Deacon and bent forward and timed the twitching rolling and brought the club down softly square on the back of his head. The Deacon stopped mid-roll and shuddered once, then fell back face up on the floor and did not move. His chest rose and fell but that was all. Blood got a fresh rag soaked in water and laid it still wet across the now-blind eyes. He went behind the counter once more to wash his hands and face and stood a long moment considering the powder keg set on the counter. It had a dire stink. He couldn’t see what to do with it just then, so left it where it was. He poured out a cup of rum and went to the bench by the dying fire, sat heavy upon it and drank from the cup. Finally looking at Emil Chase who had watched wordless throughout.

  Emil Chase was Blood’s age or a few years younger. There were a few older men in the Indian Stream country—some farmers, some trappers—but Chase was the senior man of the community. Not so much from age or his considerable physical condition as from his nature and his enterprise. There was not a man but Blood not indebted to Chase. Chase was practical, thrifty, hard-working, sober—near everything that Blood was but also held the simple belief that he was a whole man. While Blood knew otherwise of himself. Still, each recognized the other as adversary, opponent, as the one man in this place who, save by chance or accident, might destroy the other if either chose. So far they had deferred any confrontation by the neat method of avoidance. What business passed between them had been one-sided and Blood paid in hard cash for those services he required of the mill. So far, then, they were even by virtue of distance.

  Chase spoke first. “This is a mess.”

  “It’s not pretty, is it. But the worst of it is this poor feller lying here.”

  “You discount the Indians?”

  “Well I wouldn’t know. But the whole thing has a private feel to it. It makes sense that they wasn’t the ones killed Wilson, that it was Crane did that. And if the savages was cronies with Wilson it makes sense they went after Crane.”

  “And the business with this poor soul here?” Chase indicated the Deacon.

  “That’s the problem. The most likely hope is they was sick of his rant and thought he’d make the ideal courier to send the rest of Wilson.”

  Chase said, “How would we know em anyhow? It’s not like any of us ever laid eyes on em. Except maybe that little bantam trapper that hauls rum for you. But if he had seen em I don’t imagine he’d announce it, do you?”

  “I can’t see what benefit would be for him to do that.”

  Chase said. “The greater problem I see is there’s near a hundred men will be talking about this. Word’s bound to spread south. Trappers or no, it’d be just the thing Mose Hutchinson could be waiting for as excuse to come up here.”

  “That the Coos County sheriff?”

  “That’s him,” Chase said. “Down to Lancaster.”

  “Frankly, Mister Chase, I don’t see the difficulty. It’s a clear-cut thing. Some piddly sheriff wants to poke his nose into it, let him, I say.”

  “You ain’t got nothing to hide, do you Mister Blood?”

  Blood looked level at Chase. “Not one thing.” Then he added, “I gather some do though. It’s best if all keep their mouths shut. Now, I think you set that young feller Burt straight and likely others got the message too. Beyond that, what can you do?”

  Chase walked to the fireplace and spat in the cold ashes. He turned and said, “I ain’t sure.” Then he approached Blood, coming close. “What do you intend to do about this feller here?” Again indicating the Deacon who lay in some awful twitching sleep.

  Blood said, “Let him spend the night on my floor.”

  “That’s it?”

  Blood said, “What else is there? How he’s going to live with himself is not for me to scrutinize. I couldn’t make the first guess.”

  Chase nodded. He directed his gaze toward the powder keg and said, “You were to scoop some cold ash from the hearth to cover up that feller’s head it wouldn’t stench so bad.”

  Blood said, “He’s been through enough. I don’t intend to pare any more of his dignity from him by shoveling cold ash over him.”

  “I can’t see it would make any difference to him now.”

  “It would to me.”

  “You’re a peculiar man.”

  Blood drank from his cup. Remained silent.

  Chase sighed. Then said, “I’ve heard tales about you.”

  “That Gandy gets around, doesn’t he.”

  “Seems to me, you’d be craving to be left alone by Mose Hutchinson as any other man.”

  “I’ve nothing to fear from any man.”

  “And your Lord?”

  “I’m still living.”

  “I see.”

  “Perhaps you do.”

  “Whatever else, that girl you got here is a minor child.”

  “That sheriff’s got plenty of that in his own backyard I’d bet. He doesn’t have to come all the way up here after any of her.”

  “That was not my point.”

  “I force her to take no man. Nor any man to go with her.”

  “Does that make it right?”

  “Now, we’re not going to talk about what’s right.”

  “Why’s that? Whatever you are, you’re an educated man. That’s plain as the nose on my face. How did you get educated so far beyond right or wrong?”

  Blood sighed. “You’re plenty curious, yourself.”

  Chase shook his head. “I don’t like what you or her do down here. But there’s women who feel even stronger about it.”

  “There always are.”

  “It’s them could make the trouble for you, is what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “So it’s most always been.”

  “That’s not the way I hear it.”

  “I was claiming no innocence.” Blood drank again and said, “What those women don’t understand—those well-intentioned goodwives—is this girl here is living some kind of lovely life compared to where she came from. It may look debased from where they’re setting, I can see that. Especially the ones know their own men come down here for perhaps more than a toddy of rum. Even those that don’t cavort with the girl surely carry her home in their heads. But what I’m telling you is this—you can keep it to yourself or do your best to explain it to your wife or any other that asks—Sally is happier than she’s ever been in her life. Or ever would’ve been, I hadn’t come along.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “There are places in this world where a body just starts out flat and goes lower and lower. There are places that don’t have any doors, no ways out. You understand what I’m telling you?”

  Chase was hushed a long moment. Then very quiet said, “I guess you’d know.”

  Blood made a delicate near invisible nod.

  They stood silent a time. It was very late. Somewhere up the valley a cock crowed, an hour, perhaps two, ere first light. Blood thought to himself that as long as he had a cow he should get a few chickens. He could eat a fresh egg or two. Yolk with toast. Of a sudden, he was tired. Wearied right through.

  When it was clear Blood would say nothing more Chase turned his hat over in his hands and put it on and said, “Well. Tomorrow is a long day.”

  “Today.”

  “What?”

  “It’s already today.”

  Chase nodded. “I guess that’s right. Ain’t it always, somehow?”

  Blood said, “It’s all right with me.”

  Blood slept a scant time and had been awa
ke less than an hour when Chase and three other men on horseback arrived: his brother Peter Chase and Isaac Cole and young John Burt, who did not look as if he’d slept at all. None of the party were rested, and they had the edgy tempered look of men unhappy but bent on their work. When Blood carried out the powder keg with Wilson’s head the horses snorted and thrashed in the road, backing and sidestepping. They tried to rig a sling of ropes to carry the keg slung between two of the horses but one or the other would spook sideways when brought close upon the load. Finally Peter Chase whipped his horse up and raced to the mill and came back towing a hand sled. They lashed the keg to that and the party went up the road finally with the freight some distance behind, the keg a small squat lonely burden centered on the sled. Blood stood out in the road watching them go, recalling that other morning when Wilson’s head went the other way atop a similar sled.

  It was only when he went back inside that he realized the Deacon had left while Blood slept. There was no sign of him but the wet bloody rag left on the floor. And the cut-away rawhide lacings. Blood built a fire even though it was a warm day already and burned the debris and then heated water in a kettle suspended from the crane and used old sacking to scrub the room. Walls, the plank bar and finally the floor. When he was done he opened the door to let in fresh air to help dry and purify the room. He built the fire high and then let it die. No men came for their morning rum and he expected none, would’ve turned away any so bold. He went out and dug some potatoes to boil for breakfast and started them cooking.

  He was milking the cow when he heard Sally scream. He tipped over the milk bucket getting off the stool and ran for the house. She was sitting upright in bed with the blanket wrapped around her, her head down, rocking back and forth. Her screams had stopped but she was sobbing, her delicate shoulders wracking in hard shudders. The dog Luther lay on the bed against her thigh, his head lifted sideways to gaze upon her, his eyes deep and sad as any creature’s could be. Blood knelt on the flimsy mattress and held her by the arms and talked to her until she would look at him. Once she finally lifted her head she turned her ruined eyes full upon him. Her face was bloated, her nose running, her hair wet where she’d sweated before waking. She’d had a bad dream. Her arms locked Blood’s neck, her head sank so her cheek was flat against his chest and she would not let him go. He knelt like that holding her, patting her back a long time. One of his feet fell asleep and he felt the needles of pain, waiting for it to cramp but still he held her. There was nothing else he could do. He put his nose against her hair, smelling her. She smelled like someone he knew.

  * * *

  At midday Emil Chase rode up alone and called Blood out into the yard. There had been no one come by all morning and now with the noontime upon them Blood had begun to wonder how long this might go on. It was not so much that he was losing money but he understood men fell in and out of habits and he worried now how many might leave this particular habit be, how many might have considered the entire episode to reflect someway upon them personally. So when Chase called him out he did what he would not otherwise have done. He went out to meet him.

  The horse was lathered from its morning’s work, having glimpsed and smelt things no horse should. Chase sat the saddle a little heavily but command radiated down his arms as if his hands themselves gripped the bit, with the reins mere extensions. He did not attempt to keep the horse stationary but let it pivot and swirl and thus controlled it even as it spent itself.

  Chase did not greet Blood but spoke. “The cabin was burnt to flinders when we got there. Still smoking and somewhat of a fire remained but the house was gone. It was the heathens’ doing all right—there was an owl wing and three raven feathers bound up together hanging from a nearby tree. Out where you couldn’t miss em. We got no idea if they took Wilson’s body out of there or burnt him with the rest of it. But the way them fellers described Wilson it’s my bet the savages left him right where he was. It’s got the men all worked up, those savages around as recent as last night. There’s no telling where they are or what they’re up to next. If they valued Wilson so much as to do Crane the way they did they might feel they’re not done with the rest of us yet. There’s men called for a meeting at the mill this afternoon to divide themselves up into patrols and elect officers and such.”

  “What’d you do with the head?”

  Chase looked at him as the horse swung away and rode the horse around in a circle to face Blood again. His hat was jammed on his head, over his ears. Blood guessed he’d had some hard riding.

  “His head? I’ll tell you what we did with his head. My brother and I stretched it out between us on a pair of ropes and set it down in the middle of what was left of the cabin. We pushed up the rest of the half-burned timbers and threw what remained of their woodpile on and got the whole thing going again. That young John Burt was stalking around with his musket, peering off left and right and swiveling around quick to check his back. Then, when the fire caught and started up good again you could smell that head burning and he threw down his gun and bent over puking. We got him onto his horse and rode out of there. So I’m afraid your keg is gone, Mister Blood.”

  Blood said, “I wouldn’t have wanted it back anyhow.” Chase was angered over more than his recounting, the anger seeming to gain as he spoke. It appeared he blamed Blood for all that had occurred. As if Blood’s enterprise was seeping over the surrounding countryside and the endeavoring inhabitants, their modest aspirations, perhaps mocking their efforts—Blood’s gains the very sweat and festered blisters of their labor. Blood was mildly provoked, but also ambivalent. He had no wish to be drawn into some other’s vision of himself.

  Then Chase said, “You shouldn’t ever have done that poor idiot the way you did. Humiliated him that way. I hold you as much to blame as what those heathens did to him.”

  Blood stepped close and caught the noseband of the bridle and spoke to the horse in a low tone, soothing chanted monosyllables. Then looked up at Chase and said, “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “Just what every other man, woman, and child’s been talking about. How you brought that girl out here in the road before a crowd of men and humbled that poor fool, that holy idiot, that man whom nobody knew where he came from or what happened to soften his brain the way it was. But was tolerated because he was all those things, and you knew it too. You had to’ve known it or you never would’ve done what you did. In some ways it wouldn’t have been as bad if he’d been an eleven-year-old boy. In some ways it was worse.”

  Blood ran a hand up the horse’s head over the crest between the ears and the horse dropped his head so Blood could look square at Chase. “I leave every man to his own opinion. Of myself and my doings. But I won’t tolerate being accosted directly. As far as what I did with that fool they call the Deacon it was only what part of him wanted. If it had been any other man saying the things he was I would not have been so thoughtful.”

  “Are you threatening me, Mister Blood?”

  “Why no,” Blood said mildly. “I’ve got no need, that I see.”

  Chase said, “You’re a confident man, Blood. That can be dangerous, taken too far.”

  “I’m not dangerous to any man,” Blood said, “that leaves me be.”

  Emil Chase spat to the side. He said, “Well the Deacon won’t be bothering you no more. We came back from the trapper’s cabin and found him floating facedown in the pool below the millrace. So it’s two events this afternoon, the mustering and a burial. I don’t know which will be first. The burial I expect. He’s awful to look at.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Blood said. “But not surprised. He’s better off.”

  “None of em should’ve died the way they did. But there is no promise as to one’s own end. Still, three’s a lot of men in gruesome death, such a short time.”

  Blood said nothing.

  Chase said, “Release the horse. I’ve things to attend. I don’t expect we’ll see you for the burial or the mustering, either one.”


  Blood held onto the bridle. He said, “I didn’t have anything but pity for the feller, regardless of how you see it. I’ll surely walk up to see him laid in the ground. But no, you’re right—that mustering business just sounds like so much play to me.”

  “You might feel different, those savages choose to come after you next.”

  Blood recalled the wild man eating his peas. He let go of the bridle and stepped back, still looking at Chase. He said, “Anybody wants to come after me, I expect I’ll be ready for them my own self. I look to no others for help.”

  Chase said, “That’s the right attitude for this country.” His voice shivery with contempt.

  “Why yes,” said Blood. “This and all others. But I’ll walk up there and help bury that man. I’ll be along as soon as I wash myself.”

  “Do as you choose,” Chase said. “Just leave your whore to home. There’s decent women and children will be there.”

  He jerked back on the reins and brought the horse’s head around and let the horse circle hard upon Blood once in the road. Blood did not move. Chase backhanded the reins against the horse’s neck and they went furious up the road toward the mill. Blood watched them go, the churn of dust thrown up screening all but a sense of man and beast. Beyond that he could see the waters of the lake, black and shimmering under the noonday sun. Then he turned and walked to the house for the bucket and went down to the stream after fresh water. Coming back he paused by the garden. There remained half a row of English peas. Pods filling. Near ready. He thought to have them for supper. Better eat them young and sweet than not at all.