Lost Nation: A Novel

by Jeffrey Lent

  If the girl was still at the tavern he had little hope for her. If it was still there it would only be because the militia had taken it as a headquarters, or as simple spoils. More likely they would’ve removed what rum they could transport and fired it along with all other buildings burned. If, somehow, they had left it untouched, it would be the end of Blood altogether. Regardless of the condition of his property there remained the deal Hutchinson had brokered with Emil Chase and the others, the deal violated in all ways but by the most narrow rendering.

  He stopped. He was halfway down the trail from the notch. What point to continue? He was ruined there. Could he even hope to sift in through the darkness to survey and, if anything remained at all, make off with any of it? What money he could carry would be good, if it wasn’t all with the girl, wherever she might be. Better would be his rifle, if that remained. The dog. And wherever he might go, the weather threatened—he could use his good boots and coat. All unlikely, all trivial.

  Better to turn and make his way back to Canada. Or over to Vermont, to Canaan. The storekeepers there had done considerable business with him—they would take a note to fill his needs. And then? Wherever he had to go.

  He stood thinking. Already the smokescreen over the valley was turned wine-colored from the angling sun. The day was failing.

  A prick of conscience. Prick of something. What of the girl? Supposing she was all right, how would she fare, abandoned by him. Well enough he guessed. If he vanished it might go rough for her but that would pass. And perhaps she had his money with her, wherever that was. The money would help, if she was able to hold onto it and he guessed it would be rough going indeed for her to part with it. He considered briefly the strange boy come hanging around. No, Blood thought. He was the wrong sort for Sally. He might be smitten but he was soft. Too tender to know the use of a whore. Too tender to forgive her otherwise. But Sally, he thought. Sally would be fine. In the run of things she would survive.

  But still he stood. And having considered everything he knew he would go ahead, down this trail and then over the rough land behind Back Lake and make his way quiet as a cutpurse down through the dark and discover what he could and take what was there to be taken. Even if it proved to be nothing more than a long night of woodsrunning and hiding from any seeking him, any lying awaiting him. He knew this was a possibility. But still to take away from the place the knowledge of what remained. To never second-guess himself. The worth of that was unassailable.

  Down he went into the twilight land.

  Cooper stood guard just within the barn door while Fletcher tried again to milk the cow and was swatted in the face with a shitty tail but brought back a full bucket to the house. There were fresh eggs. Once all were inside the door was barred and the rifles leaned against the table while they ate. Sally boiled a pot of new potatoes from the crane over the fire and they ate those broken open with butter and milk and salt, the fried eggs on top.

  Cooper said, “I can’t recall last I had a potato. They’re awful good.”

  Sally said, “We had a garden this summer. Food I never had before, most of it.”

  This modest statement brought home their circumstances, forgotten briefly by the pleasure of homely food. After a time Fletcher said, “So they lay blame with Blood mostly?”

  Cooper said, “I didn’t probe too hard. But his name was spoken. Nobody was neat yet in their thinking. And it’s mostly women and children, a handful of old men. I ain’t sure where all the rest was. I can’t imagine all the hardy men was arrested. At least some still off in the woods or scrapping with the militia boys I’d guess.” He paused and went on. “Sooner or later there’ll be some show up here. Looking for him or what they can scavenge in place of him, I’d think.”

  Fletcher stirred the last of the potato and milk broth together and lifted the plate and tipped it into his mouth. Set the plate down and said, “You think he’s still stuck there in Canada?”

  Cooper took up the pewter cup he’d brought from the tavern room. He was the only one drinking. He said, “I imagine he’s struck a deal of some kind. He might’ve set waiting for this girl to ride in to rescue him but when that didn’t happen I doubt he dropped his head in his hands and gave up.”

  “Sally,” Fletcher said. “Her name’s Sally.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then call her that. She idn’t this girl.”

  Sally said, “Cooper’s right. He wouldn’t just set there.”

  Fletcher said, “Maybe he ain’t got no choice.”

  Cooper lifted the little pewter cup and studied it. “Father,” he said. “Father always finds a choice, always has. Even when it seemed there was none left to him.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well brother. I wouldn’t faint from surprise he smacked up against the door and commenced pounding and hollering any moment now.”

  Fletcher looked at the door.

  Cooper drew his belt knife and smoothed the crumbs from the table-top and dug the blade with slow concentration and scribed the letters of his name deep into the wood. A wound, fresh and white. When he was done he leaned to blow off the shavings. Then stood and said, “That’s a start. Even if he never sees it.”

  Sally said, “I’m afeared. Afeared of all this.”

  Fletcher looked at her, then at his brother. He said, “So what’s next? He idn’t going to show up tonight. Those British hauled him out of here with a corpse. That’s not something he can just talk his way out of. Sally said he doesn’t even have money with him.”

  Cooper said, “So tomorrow we start again where we was this morning. We seek out that Dutchman. There wasn’t any news of him today up to the mill. I take that to mean he’s likely all right. We get horses if they can be got. And we go looking.” Then he took up the pewter cup and walked through into the tavern and Sally and Fletcher sat silent, not looking at each other.

  When Cooper returned Fletcher said, “Thanks but no. I don’t care for none.”

  “You did, you’d get it. I ain’t the host here.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “It’d feel strange. Drinking his rum as if it were mine.”

  Cooper studied the contents of his cup. Swallowed some of it. Then looked at his brother. He said, “That’s an odd scruple. It might be all you ever get from him.”

  Sally said, “We still got his money too. Don’t forget that. We got that sock full and there’s a bundle of paper money I ain’t touched yet.”

  Cooper looked at her. He drank a little.

  She thought I wish he’d stop pondering me like I was trouble. She said, “I got money of my own, too.”

  Cooper nodded. “Honest money.”

  She said, “I earned it, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I know you did.”

  Fletcher said, “Cooper. Leave her be.”

  Sally said, “It’s all right. He’s got the right to be mistrustful.”

  “Maybe.” Fletcher stood from the bench. “But I trust you. And you can trust me, too.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t say for sure about anything just now.”

  Fletcher was quiet a long pause. Then he dipped his head toward her. “Maybe you ain’t thought that through.” Then he said, “Excuse me.” And turned and went into the tavern. Cooper stood looking down at Sally. Then sat across from her. After a moment Fletcher came back with a taper and bent to light it from the one on the table and without looking at either of them went back into the tavern. There came a metallic ring as he dropped something and then quiet and after that the sound of rum filling a cup.

  Cooper said, “There. That’s the drink he needs.”

  “Tell the truth, I’m thinking I could use the same.”

  Cooper pushed his cup across to her. He said, “Why don’t you drink this.” Looking at her as if he knew what his brother had confessed earlier, something of her reaction as well. “Could be, he wants time with his thoughts.”

  She nodded. She said, “I’d
be happy he was to settle his thoughts a bit right now.” Then quickly added, “Could also be he’s leaving you and me a chance to come to terms.”

  “I got no problem with you.”

  Sally lifted his cup and drank. Set it back before him. “I don’t really care,” she told him. “If you like me or not. But you lying to me idn’t going to help any of us. I been honest with you. I been trying my best with Fletcher. Maybe—” she paused and took the cup back and drank and set it again before him—“maybe the time’s upon us, that you was honest about me.”

  Cooper took up the cup. Did not drink but turned it in his hands, the light revolving along the rim. Then looked at her and said, “I been fair with you. Honest enough.”

  It was hours after nightfall and bitter cold. The stars whitened the night, a spread of layers with some sporadic brighter glitterings. Blanched smoke rose straight toward the stars from the kitchen side of the center chimney. None at all from the tavern side. Time to time the smoke would break and fragment, then sparks would spew as someone pokered the fire and added logs.

  Blood crouched in a stand of big hemlock across from the tavern where Perry Stream ran under the bridge. His arms crossed, hands under his armpits, his fingers senseless as stone. Three times in the dense backcountry he’d passed the fire-rubble of burned houses and barns but skirted these, tempting as they were for warmth. There’d been no sign of any survivors of these disasters but he expected none; those not arrested or killed outright would be with neighbors or more likely down at the more populated territory along the First Lake, near the mill and tavern. What he feared was anyone lurking to watch for such as himself. Or himself especial. What cabins he passed still standing were dark but this did not indicate they were empty—indeed throughout the entire country Blood felt a drifting presence of alerted inflamed men. Only twice did he encounter any—or rather heard small bands along the trails afoot and both times he slid into the brush and they passed without detecting him. Both times the men silent, tramping with the weary sideways gait of men stripped to senseless motility by the events of the day, weapons over their shoulders at angles of exhaustion. Blood not breathing while they passed. Earlier, at the fade of day he’d found and uprooted a dead ironwood—slender trees that die standing—and snapped the trunk about a yard above the gnarl of root. So he had a club of sorts. Not much weapon and less desire to use it. Unless he’d no choice and then it would be fearsome in his hands. Or would’ve been before his hands grew so cold his fingers groped and clutched at odd angles.

  The tavern was all wrong. Not burnt and not abandoned and yet with no trade at all, certainly, if left standing by the militia, not the crowd of dispossessed incensed men he’d thought to expect. But not the girl alone either. Twice the figure of a man had come forth to stand and piss on the bare ground, even in the starlight the piss steaming in the cold. He could not say for sure if it was the same man or a number of men. Too tall to be Gandy, even if Gandy was so bold. There was no hint of Sally. Both times Blood could hear the solid thump as the door was barred.

  Swiftly he’d hiked up to the mill. He could smell the char before he saw the heaps of embers, what was left of the Cole cabin and the Chase house. The mill alone stood and he stopped in the roadside brush and could hear the voices from people gathered there, the survivors, women and children come in from their burnt-out homes, their men mostly gone in arrest. What Hutchinson had warned, and the viewed land revealed, this small huddle confirmed. A small group of men stood in the cold outside the closed mill doors and he saw the faint glimmer of starlight on metal but the men hunched together not so much on guard as in parley. Or yet stunned. He’d halted before they saw him, kept to the roadside and retreated to his grove opposite the tavern. The inexplicable tavern.

  If he were to hammer upon the door and was not admitted what then? Or, if opened, to what numbers? What weapons? At least his own if nothing more. Not counting his clumsy club. Silent he cursed the girl and then stopped—it was possible she was at Van Landt’s and the events of the day had forced them to wait. It was possible she’d taken his money and fled the country. He considered the hike up to Van Landt’s but discarded the notion. He would not walk so easily from what was his. It was also possible Sally was held within.

  Slowly he moved across the road, within the tree-shadow, and circled along the kitchen side away from the front. He could hear nothing but did not expect to through the log walls. Nor be heard, even the faint crunch of his boots in the mud-crusts of the yard. Except for the dog—Luther would hear that. So he stepped deliberate and eased alongside the wall and waited, hoping the dog would smell before hearing him. Even so, there was the chance of being given away. He could see the great hound rising and lifting his ears, tipping his nose toward the wall beyond which Blood crouched. So he waited but it was quiet. It was all not right. Luther, he decided, must be with Sally and so she must be gone.

  With this thought his anger organized. He took up position by the blind side of the door, where there would still be shadow from the firelight thrown out next the door was opened. Some bastard pissing away his rum. And squeezed his fists hard enough to feel the nails gouge his palms. Making pain was the best he could do to bring his hands to life. He stood then with the club held up against his chest and waited.

  It was a strange thing. To hope a man drank enough to need to piss. Blood thought. Whoever it was hadn’t yet thought of paying. Soon.

  Do stars move if watched? Can a planet be tracked against the deeper field? Blood clutched his club and kept his eyes to the shut door, as if his eyes could assist his ears. Gaze into a half-full bucket and what looks back? Peer into a well and what then? He waited.

  Somehow he missed the footsteps but heard the whisk of the bar being lifted and the thump as it was placed on end beside the door. He brought the club higher and the door opened and with an uneven caution the younger brother with the shaven face rocked in the jamb and stepped forward. Blood brought the club down, missing the proud young head but cracking hard against the side of his neck, collarbone, shoulder. The boy had his hands before the buttons of his flies and when Blood struck he lifted his hands as to seek something just beyond reach. Then gave a rending groan and heaved face first onto the frozen earth.

  Blood leaped into the doorway, his club up again. Sally sat at the table, looking at Blood. Then she spoke his name as a curse as she rose from the table. Once up she stood trembling, her fists up. Blood gazed on her, not sure if she feared his attack or was about to launch her own. Perhaps she did not know herself. No matter. Blood had been diverted.

  For at the same time the other youth, the older brother, spun from where he’d been standing fireside and snatched in a deadly smooth motion a long rifle leaned against the fireplace stones. Even as the boy was swinging and Blood saw the black eye of the muzzle grow as it came upon him, he was thinking, What was their name? As if it was the most important thing to know at the moment. The black eye flashed orange, the room convulsed and Blood was down. Then he heard the sound. There was no pain but he couldn’t move. It was almost peaceful. As if he’d been relieved of all duties and he considered that if he was not dead he might soon be. Sally ran toward him but not to him, instead flying over him as if he were not there—an encumbrance only, a log of felled wood perhaps. He saw the white passage of her legs under her skirts from a boundless distance and then, as if brought or left by her passing, pain rose over him and for a blessed moment, the first in years, he did not know where he was or why. And then truly knew. A crimson and black-bloodied tide. Blood himself the wrack spread on beach shingle after a storm.

  From outside, beyond his failing sight, he heard Sally beg to know if the boy was all right. From a strange distance Blood heard the boy respond, his voice striving to be measured, reasonable, and knew the boy was as concerned with her fear as with his own pain. Until that moment he hadn’t comprehended that Sally was gone from him.

  The boy said, “I’m struck down is all.” His voice a-flutter.r />
  Across the room the rifle was being reloaded, the slick swipe of ramrod driving home the charge a sound as pure a pain as if run into Blood. Into the hole in his right thigh where all pain spread from. Then footsteps.

  The boy with the beard stood over him and looked down, the muzzle of the long gun swinging back and forth inches from Blood’s chest. The boy said, “Have I killed you?”

  Blood thought about it. Looking up at that boy. He said, “I know you.”

  The boy nodded. “It’s Cooper.” A voice simple, unbearably full.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know now.” Hating his slippery falter, hearing some plea in it.

  Cooper’s face appeared fluid, an emotional teem. His voice cracked like a much younger boy. All he said was, “How you doing Father?”

  “Not so good just now. And yourself?”

  Cooper said, “I couldn’t say.”

  “Failure”—Blood paused to groan, a sound involuntary. Clenched his teeth, released them and continued—“failure’s hard to face. Be a man about it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s always harder to finish a botched job. But you’re set. Just don’t torture me with words is all.”

  The boy said, “I didn’t know who was coming through that door. I acted without forethought. But it wasn’t you I meant to shoot. I got no plans to kill you. This country is all gone crazy.”

  Blood groaned again. He said, “I hadn’t figured you to be soft.”

  Cooper stood a long moment, his face a puzzle. Then, understanding something, he leaned to place his rifle against the door. “Father—”

  Blood roared, a rejection absolute. His body pierced, fragmented with pain.

  Cooper stepped back, his face changing again. The puzzle adjusting again. He said, “All right. But all you got is a flesh wound, it looks to me. You don’t bleed from laziness, you’ll be fine.” He bent close, examining the wound, began to reach to touch it, then took his finger away. He said, “You don’t want help with that anyway, do you? Leastways not mine.”