by Jeffrey Lent
Blood watched him cross the room to hand one cup to the other boy who took it and held it on his knee with his fingers wrapped around it. The first boy sat and sipped and leaned to say something to the other. The other lifted his cup and drank and while he did his eyes landed square upon Blood a moment, then away and he turned and said something to the first boy. Blood was staggered by the look. Brief as it was it was a purity of hatred gathered and winnowed to a nugget. No man had ever looked at Blood quite so—there was no mistaking it. This was no general emotion but something pointed, specific, distilled. Blood took his eyes away from the bearded boy. And saw Sally look away from him and back toward the boys as if she’d seen something of all just transpired.
Blood went to where his tally book lay open and finished the page he’d been working and the figures did not match. He circled the lower one but did not re-add the columns. After a time he closed the book and snuffed the tallow stub between thumb and forefinger and took pause, was considering a drink even though it was early for him, when Sally rose to go around the counter to the fireplace. She pokered the fire level before adding a pair of logs. It was something most always done by one man or another, whichever among them felt some chill. When she finished Blood watched her turn to sweep the room, her eyes going across the two boys and the one with no beard was waiting for that look and grinned at her. The bearded boy ignored her. Sally did not respond but continued her spin and came back to her perch. She took up the cup Blood had set out for her and drank from it. To anyone but Blood she’d seem bored.
Peter Chase was across the counter from Blood, propped on his elbows, eyes upon some distant pale in the woodgrain of the countertop. Blood leaned. Just enough motion to edge shadow upon Chase’s gaze. He looked up at Blood.
Blood said, “You know those two boys against the wall? They ain’t been in before.”
Chase swung his eyes without moving his head, already knowing of whom Blood spoke. “They ain’t up to nothing. Couple boys from way downcountry come for a summer in the woods. Isaac Cole talked to em. The morning after you shot the savage it was. They come down off Magalloway Mountain and along the road by the mill. Just a couple of greenhorn boys was what Cole decided.”
“Where they pitched?”
Chase nodded. He said, “Don’t know. They’re well soaked but wet’s it been they could be near or not.”
Blood nodded. After a time he said, “They from downstate, you said.”
Peter Chase thought a moment. Then shook his head. “Further than that. Connecticut maybe. Massachusetts. One of them places. Half-baked city boys. All their gear was new, Cole said. There’s nothing to worry over with them two. They don’t know the first thing about Hutchinson nor any of his doings. Cole talked about it with Emil. Nothing for you to be concerned with, long as they put their bits down like anybody else. The way I see it, one morning soon they’re going to wake to a snow-squall and that’ll be the last we see of em. Boys on a summer lark. Maybe they chose a bad summer for it but that idn’t their fault.”
Blood considered Peter Chase a moment. Then said, “I guess.”
The boys sat on the bench, working slowly at the tin cups. The bench was a great comfort after three weeks of squatting or seated on rocks. Their wet clothes chafed and then warmed and steamed and fit again easy to their bodies. After half his drink Cooper sat back a little and slid one boot up to rest over the other knee. This allowed him to view more easily the room while providing the mild disguise of akimbo arms and legs, his chin lowered toward his chest. He’d unbound his brown hair and now it had dried and hung about his face, lank twists around his new beard. His beard was darker, in this dim light near black. He tasted the cup, set it on his knee and locked his fingers around the kneecap. He looked sideways at Fletcher who was bent forward a little at the waist. As if to leap or spring.
Cooper said, “How you doing.”
“All right.”
“You sure?”
“I’m all right. You?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I don’t quite know myself.”
“You look easy enough.”
“He’s been studying us.”
“Well. We’re strangers. You can’t make too much of it.”
“There idn’t nothing to make of it. It just feels queer is all.”
“I guess it would.”
“Don’t it for you?”
“Some. Mostly my own jitters I guess. It ain’t the same for me as you.”
“I guess so.”
“Listen,” Fletcher said. “There’s one thing he idn’t ever going to do with me. He idn’t ever going to look me in the face and see or guess who I am. I know that. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. It’s all right.”
Cooper ignored this. “You know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“I think I’m going up there and get another one of these drams.”
“I’ll go.”
“No. I want to. You ready for another?”
“You going to talk to him?”
Cooper stood. Reached for Fletcher’s cup. “My name’s Russell Barrett. I ain’t nobody to him.”
“You think up close he idn’t going to recognize you?”
Cooper said, “It idn’t my worry I should happen to remind him of anybody else. I’d like nothing more than to stir his dreams. Get something working under his skin.”
“All right.”
“Let go your cup. You got me standing here like I can’t make up my mind.”
“Shoot,” Fletcher said. “Sorry.” And let go.
Cooper grinned at him, the grin a little crooked. “Anybody asks, I’ll tell em my little brother idn’t sure of himself, it comes to hard drink.”
“Go on. Leave me be. Who’d ask anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Cooper said. “Maybe that girl keeps looking at you.”
The boy with the beard crossed the room and Blood made him wait while he ran a damp rag the length of the counter. Then wordless filled the cups and the boy paid for all four drams but when he held out the coin he did not drop it into Blood’s palm but kept it until Blood took it from his fingers. The boy the entire time watching him, this blank study unsettling Blood.
So when he was done with the boy he did not watch him return to his companion but went past Sally, telling her to tend to things as he passed, not waiting her response but went through the tavern and house to her room. Where he took the bar leaned against the wall behind her open door and carried it with him outside. He walked out beyond the barn and heaved the bar into the puckerbrush and stood a trice with his head tilted back to the sky. The rain had let up but the clouds were still low and thick, pushed on by a bitter wind, broken only in spots. He briefly saw the cluster of stars that he knew were called the Sisters by men of the sea but to him looked like a blind bright great eye. And then it was gone behind clouds. As if the eye had closed. There was something about the boys, both of them but particular the bearded one, that disturbed him. More than her interest? He could not say.
She waited half an hour after the boys had left and he gave her credit for that but the one man that approached her as the night grew long she turned away. Blood could not hear but saw the way the man looked at her and guessed her words were more bitter than called for. She slipped from her stool and without speaking to Blood left the tavern and went out into the night. A short time later came back in but did not return to the tavern. She had gone to her bed. Surely she noted the missing bar but did not come asking about it. So a couple hours later when the last of the men were gone he wiped the counter clean and locked the small lead cashbox, put the key back in the pouch he wore around his neck and laid fresh logs on the fires before he finally went to her door where he did not knock but went in, expecting her to be awake and she was.
He stood beside her bed in the pale firelight coming through the door and said, “Why’ve you locked me out?”
She said, “I can’t lock you out Blood. Ain’t you just proved tha
t?”
“I’ve not forced myself on you.”
“Not but once.”
He waited wordless. She was sitting up in the bed. Blankets tented over her shoulders. After a time he said, “Who was those two boys in here tonight?”
She said, “I never seen the two of them before.”
There wasn’t much she could be up to behind his back. He said, “You sure studied them pretty hard.”
Before she spoke he saw her soften a little. He thought Oh Jesus. She said, “I didn’t make no fool of myself.”
He understood something but again wasn’t sure what. He said, “Which one do you favor?”
She was quiet longer this time. Finally she said, “They’re just two men I ain’t seen before. I get tired of the same men all the time. I thought maybe they might take an interest in me, is all. In case you ain’t noticed, the work’s not been so good recent. Too much trouble on most men’s minds.”
He was silent.
After a time she said, “You been good to me. But whatever’s wrong with you. I can’t fix it Blood.”
His voice came rough and sudden, caught upon itself. “I never expected you could.”
He stood looking down at her. She looking up at him. Finally she said, “It’s awful late. You going to just stand there til dawn or you going to come in the bed?”
* * *
For three days it rained and froze, rained and froze, the sky pressed hard upon the earth. When it froze there was a crust of ice a boot would break through into thickened mud. Trees and lesser shrubs encased in ice, then stripped clean with the rain. When the ice came, mostly but not always at night, it would build on limbs and some would give way under the weight, the sound an anvil of broken glass. At dusk on the third day the rain stopped and sometime later the sky cleared and it grew very cold. Throughout this time the tavern was busy and Blood began to feel more at ease. Perhaps the string of events, the bad luck, had broken. He knew that time moved, men realigned and while a grudge or sense of blame did not disappear it could be tamped by more immediate desires—the need of a drink perhaps. A tumble with a girl. She had stopped barring him from her room but was also working and he thought this good. For both of them. Some balance had been regained. With the cold weather settling he began to believe the winter might bring quiet to the round of days. Blood was weary of adventure. Although daily he paused over what others might be about. Mose Hutchinson for one. But each day that passed quiet was one more day gone through and he guessed snowfall would put an end to the turmoil. At least slow things down. Save for the impoverished and restless trappers, he guessed he was the only one truly craving snow. Cool them all off was what he thought as he took the first tipple of rum for the evening.
The two boys had found a good place to camp—directed there by Gandy whom they’d met on the road—they climbed the rugged track running up Perry Stream and watched for the trail that broke off and led up to a marsh of old beaver ponds and pitched their sailcloth tent back under ancient hemlocks that broke the worst of the rain. They had dug down through layers of needles until they had dry ground within the tent. The first night, with the camp fresh, they’d hiked down to the tavern. For the remainder of the ice and rain storm they huddled, keeping warm and dry with the abundance of dead limbs low on the ancient hemlocks surrounding them. It wasn’t the weather that retained them so much as the quiet stun of how simple it had been to find him, which cast off like ill-recalled dreams the months of planning. They were suddenly marooned, not from the weather but an unexpected malaise. They didn’t know what to do next.
On the evening that it cleared the younger boy dug into his packbasket to come up with his one clean dry shirt and put it on and then his damp wool blanket-coat, this done in silence while the older one watched. Fletcher stood under the tent-fly near the hissing fire, looked back at his brother and said, “I’m going down there.”
“I’d thought I might be the first to talk to him.”
A short pause. Fletcher said, “Well. We just been setting here. Like neither one was in a tear about it. Also, to talk, evenings when he’s busy idn’t the best time. I’m tired of setting here. Thought I’d just get out of the chill. I got no great plans, otherwise.”
Cooper considered this. “I guessed as much. You want I should come along?”
“No. I believe I’d go alone. There idn’t no chance of his recognizing me.”
The older boy nodded and said, “You put on your clean shirt just to look good for him?”
Fletcher stood silent.
Cooper said, “It’s that girl, idn’t it?”
Fletcher looked at his brother and said, “I’m not sure just what it is. I get it figured out, I’ll let you know.” And turned and walked into the gathering dark.
So he stood before Blood and did not wait but spoke first.
“A measure of rum, if it please ye.”
“A measure, is it,” said Blood. “You’re a sailor, are you?”
Fletcher shook his head. Fingered a coin down on the greasy wood.
“You’re wet enough to’ve just come from the sea,” said Blood. “But there’s not a man here idn’t.”
Fletcher said, “It’ll pass.”
“A young man don’t mind the elements as much as the older, idn’t that so?” Blood had not yet moved to pour the dram.
Fletcher looked at the pitcher, then back at Blood. He said, “It’s a little damp.”
Blood reached and brought up a tin cup. He still did not move to fill it. “Where’s your partner? A night like this, he didn’t want to come warm himself?”
“He’s my brother. He didn’t care to make the tramp.”
“Your brother? You do favor one another.”
“Sometimes.”
Blood nodded as if he understood this. He said, “So how do you find the Indian Stream country? You two going to lay out pitches, make farms?”
“We ain’t decided.”
Blood nodded. He said, “My name’s Blood.”
Fletcher nodded. “I heard that.”
Blood waited. Fletcher looked again at the pitcher, at the coin on the counter. Blood waited a bit longer and poured from the pitcher into the cup and set it before Fletcher. Did not touch the coin.
Fletcher said, “I’m Fletcher Barrett.”
“And your brother, Fletcher Barrett?”
“Russell. He’s the older one.”
“I guessed so.”
“Do I get change from that or do we just wait and see if I drink it up?”
Blood shrugged. “Here on the counter or in your pocket, it’s your money until it’s gone.”
Fletcher took up his cup. He said, “I’ll trust you to keep tally.” And turned away.
He passed by the table, not too close but enough so Cole saw him and nodded a greeting. Fletcher went on and sat on a bench with his back to the fire so he could see the room. He watched the men playing cards. Time to time Cole glanced at him. Fletcher worked at the rum. The room was hot and he was soon flushed. He stood and set his cup on the bench and pulled his coat off and hung it on the set of pegs that ran one side of the mantelpiece stone. As he did this a heavyset man came into the tavern from the other side of the house. His face held a skim of sweat and his shirtfront was stuffed awry into his breeches. He nodded at Fletcher, took down a heavy hand-loomed woolen greatcoat and pulled it over his shoulders so it wrapped him like a cape, turned away and went out, leaving into the night. Fletcher sat again on the bench and saw Cole lean across the table to speak to the other sportsmen before rising to approach. As he came he was paused by Sally coming in from the house side. She looked at Fletcher and frowned and went right by him. Cole came up.
“I’d a bet this weather would’ve sent you two downcountry.”
“It idn’t so bad,” Fletcher said. “It’s turning.”
“I guess that means you ain’t stopped for a farewell. So where’d you two land?”
Fletcher told him.
“Why that’
s a pretty spot, idn’t it? I knew the old man trapped up there. I can’t recall his name at the moment but he trapped it right out. My it was fine. I don’t think he was there but two three years but pulled piles of fur. The spring it was finally done in he told me he was going across to Maine. Said it was the only other place on earth might be as good as that little bog. Beaver and mink and otter, not a trash fur in the lot. There’s still deer a-plenty for fresh meat. And trouts in the ponds. A man can get awful sick of trout but he sure won’t die.”
“It’s all right I guess. We’re keeping dry mostly. Them big hemlocks help.”
Cole nodded. “It’s a peculiar territory. This time a year you can’t tell. Could come off pretty for a couple weeks, could be a cold night and then more rain. Could be a foot of snow and hard frost by tomorrow evening.”
Fletcher nodded. “I heard that.”
Cole stood. “Some day perhaps I’ll walk up and see you and your brother.”
“That’d be fine. Can I ask a question?”
“A course so. But it don’t guarantee a answer. This country idn’t the best to be asking too many questions.”
“Do those floorboards got some kind of rot or is that bloodstain?”
Cole did not look away from Fletcher. He said, “A man was killed there a couple nights ago. Another died on account of it.”
Fletcher said, “Was that because of asking the wrong questions?”
“No,” Cole said.
He sat on the bench a time and then went back to Blood. Placed his empty cup on the counter and was silent. The coin was gone. Blood filled the cup and put it before him. Fletcher drank from it.
After a bit he said, “How much?”
“We’re square,” Blood said.
Fletcher looked at Sally settled on her stool. She had glanced as he came up, then looked away. He spoke to Blood. “How much for the girl?”
Blood rubbed his stubbled cheek. He said, “It’s a dollar for the girl. That’s what you pay me. Another four bits to her. If she’ll have you.”
Fletcher kept his eyes on Blood. “What do you mean, if she’ll have me. Idn’t she yours?”
