by Jeffrey Lent
Blood was breathless, his chest hammered. He wished he could sit but knew he must remain standing. He would learn what he might and then there was his final job. Blood recognized the easy tone of Cooper’s voice. It was his own—the one he would employ to lead a man on. Blood suffered. He said, “No.” Shit he sounded feeble. He roused. “I’ve spoke plain to you. Do the same.”
Cooper said, “The first was Great-grandfather. Who encouraged us to go. Who said it was well past time someone hunted you down. Who, I realize just now, is probably the only one knows enough, not just the details but knows life, enough to do the sums and understands, much as can be, how you think. Do you agree?”
Blood was quiet, his teeth set so his jaw ached. He dreaded what was coming. He simply nodded.
Cooper stretched his arms before him, then swung one leg over the other knee and crossed his arms over his chest. Blood watched this transformation as if watching himself. Understanding the boy had concluded the situation was in his hands. Blood waited.
Cooper said, “The other who urged us along was Sarah Alice.”
“No,” said Blood, his voice drained from him.
“Why yes. When we visited her and told her our plans she was pleased. She wanted us to find you.”
“How can that be?” His voice stronger, cautious of the trap.
“Well,” Cooper said. “She’s well settled. Married to the son of Samuel Phelps. You may recall him—he owns the forges and now a foundry that we do business with. She has children, two little girls. Elizabeth and Susan. You’re a grandfather, Father.”
“She denies my actions.” It was not a question.
“Ah,” Cooper considered this. “I could not use those words. She told us another story.”
“What other?”
“Of how you went missing. No one could find you. She told how all the relatives tried to console her, both sides of the family, Marshes and Bolleses all but how she could look at them and see their own sorrow and what was worse, pity for her. The pity that she might well be an orphan. All she had was me and I guess that gave her something to cling to, an obligation she could take as her own.”
Cooper paused, as if to allow Blood to ponder these events missing from his own account. Blood would not have it. He said, “She has chosen to forget. She has chosen to deny and so to live. Well enough.”
“Father.”
“What? There is no point disputing with me. Certainly, she would not have revealed the truth to you. Her little brother.” He corrected himself. “Her brothers. Setting off to find me.”
“Father.”
“What?” Blood was recovering, growing angry.
Cooper said, “She invited you to visit. She fears the toll your hard life has taken on you. She hoped to restore you. Even to offer you a home as you grew older.”
Blood cried, “No. How could she? To look upon me, even once.”
Fletcher said, “I was there, too.” His voice almost genial.
Blood could only shake his head.
Cooper said, “Father.”
Blood looked at him.
Cooper said, “When word came that you were alive, that you’d taken passage to New York, Great-grandfather thought to check the house. And found it in shambles. Each room disturbed and objects destroyed throughout. But that was all.”
Blood stepped forward, closer to his sons.
He said, “What are you telling me? What game are you playing?”
His voice quiet, Cooper said, “None. But that afternoon, after you saw their bodies and ran from the house, when you disappeared before the services, before the burials, when, according to you, you went off on a bad drunk, that very day Aunt Peg and Uncle Proctor took both Sarah Alice and myself to their home. Father, do you hear me?”
Blood gazed upon him.
After a time, not so long perhaps, Cooper gently said, “There was nobody there. The night you went to the house. It was empty. We were already gone.”
Blood stood blinking down upon his sons. A strange blurred focus. Cooper dropped his head and took it in his hands. Fletcher continued to study Blood, then looked away as if he could not witness this moment.
Of Blood. Unpinned. A stillness of mind so complete he heard his own heart beat. Then—for the briefest of instants he understood—there was grace bountiful in the world. An illumination golden as the day and more solid than any nightmare, destroying all possible conjures of his mind. He was … he was … he did not know—soaring? Stretched clean before God—hope purity mercy glimpsed.
Reach?
Then the vertigo—his shell threatened collapse. The temptation to sag to the ground immense. The lost years the idiot stain the wrack of himself—the fragile wheel of his life nothing but waste. A spin of frenzy, drain, loss. Lost, all lost …
But. He was quit. Not done. He commanded his body to compose, to settle. End this trembling. He was not done. Work, he commanded again.
He would go on, because he must. And to do this he needed movement. So he did what he always did, which was to address base needs. He turned smoothly from the boys and forced the leg to swing along. He made his way to the cup just tossed down and bent for it, the index finger in the loop of handle all the victory needed, proceeding to the bucket where he drank cups of water, still cool. He realized not that great a time had passed since Sally had brought it from the brook. For once, slowed time was what he needed. Grace?
He moved a few steps away from the fire, away from Sally, closer to the boys. Almost under the hemlocks, the faint shade chosen for the great hump of boulder he could lean against, not sitting but not standing. Almost at rest. His mind was clearing, there was much before him, with little promise of rest. All he’d learned he’d mull in the days ahead. If there were days ahead.
Perhaps it was his movement, but both Cooper and Fletcher had come to their feet, all three suspended. Blood scrutinized the others: Cooper’s face a perfect mask; Fletcher’s strained, leaping with passion. While he would not deviate from his path, Blood resolved to offer the boy something, some kind words before this was done. Which in his mind was imminent.
He said, “This country is rupturing. The invasion, the burnings, the arrests of men was only the beginning. For reasons that don’t concern you, I feel confident to be an object of retaliation. So. I will leave you presently, return to the tavern and sometime this night, before dawn, I will slip through the backtrails and be gone. I’ll take nothing to hinder me and will go afoot. I can go off trails altogether if I feel the need. My travel will be slow but any looking for me will be hindered by absolutely no key as to which way I go.
“As for you three, decamp now. Loosen your horses so they may graze and water while you organize. Travel light. Leave behind the fine gear; take weapons, simple blankets. Do not go south along the river—it’s the first place any would look. You’ll do as you choose I know but let the old man betray a whisker of wisdom. Go west into Vermont or better northwest into Canada and travel one day farther than you think you need before coming back into the States. Then go south. If you’re intent on New Bedford ride in New York until you can cross into Massachusetts. Go now. Riding in daylight, rough and fast, you’ll be near safe by nightfall. And you’re young. Ride on through the night.”
He was done. But for one question and farewell. He paused, knowing he had to.
He’d expected Cooper but it was Fletcher. He was direct. “Ride with us. There is nothing at the tavern you need. We have arms enough. The girl can double-up.”
“No.” Blood said. “You have horses so you can go swift. But horses require roads. The three of you, if you were to be questioned, could make the argument you were saving the girl from me. Make up a story—you’ve done it before. But even if I wanted, my leg would not stand the pounding horses deliver. I’m best alone in the woods.”
Swiftly he stepped to Fletcher. He reached and touched the boy’s cheek. He said, “I’m proud to have met you. Perhaps, some years from now, you’ll see me again. I’m
well pleased that, to use your words, you are in this world, Fletcher Bolles.” And before the boy could respond, Blood stepped back a little and reached again, this time the boy’s good shoulder and gave a small shove. “Get out there now. Loosen those horses. Go.”
Blood turned from him to Cooper. Blood went close but did not touch him. He said, “You had a message for me, you said. From Greatgrandfather. I’d know it now.”
Cooper stood a moment, then shook his head. “I won’t leave you with that.”
Blood said, “Recall. I know the man well. I expect no words of sympathy or affection. In fact would not believe them. But you return to New Bedford and he asks, you won’t be able to lie.”
Cooper pondered this. Blood waited. The horses were out free and Blood scanned them. Horses well up to the job. It was time to leave these boys. With the girl. He looked back to Cooper and saw his son was ready.
Cooper said, “He said to tell you, were you to return to New Bedford, he’d strangle you with his own hands. If it was his last act.” He dropped his gaze.
Blood was silent. No matter the statement was close to what he expected—the old man had long since comprehended the waste of Blood’s life, an unforgivable transgression.
So Blood said the only thing he could. “When you see him tell him perhaps I’ll visit his grave.”
Blood was swift. He took the boy’s hand, clasped hard with his own, then set him free. Blood swung away, caught up his goad where it rested and struck for the trail.
Behind him he heard Cooper call out. “Father.”
Blood went on.
“Micajah Bolles.”
Blood turned. Cooper silent, raised one hand palm out. A salute and farewell at once.
Blood returned the gesture. As he did he saw Sally looking after him, her face hurt that he had nothing for her. But he could not. So Blood trudged hard away from them, not looking back. Engrossed now with the moist dangerous rock-and-moss descent.
The three at the camp engaged in brief dispute over departing, with no conclusion beyond Sally threatening to saddle her horse and ride out then and there. Cooper damped her fast; the decision did not rest with her. So she walked away from them out into the marsh to one of the far pools where in the pure afternoon light she undressed and swiftly waded into the water to wash herself. Both boys watched as she sank into the water, out of sight as the marsh grass hid her. After a long moment of silence Fletcher finally turned to his brother and said, “He made it clear he didn’t want us in it. That he wants us gone.”
Cooper said, “What he wants is not what matters. What matters is what we do.”
Fletcher said, “I suppose.” He paused, glanced toward the invisible pool and looked back at his bother. “Goddamn it, Cooper,” he said.
Cooper said. “It was your own heart that hurt you. Not me.”
Fletcher looked at him and said, “Well. Easy for you to see it that way.” He said, “But Cooper. What he thought all these years. What a thing to live inside a man.”
Cooper nodded silent agreement. Then he said, “Sarah Alice must never know.”
“We can tell the story such that it won’t be a lie.”
“Yes. It’s what we leave out.” Cooper paused and went on. “It’s the same with Father now—it’s not what he wants that’s important. How we proceed, is what we’ll live with.”
Fletcher was quiet a long time. Then he said, “To never wonder if he got out as he planned.”
“That’s right. To know one way or another.”
They stood like that, each sagged with the exhaustive night and day fallen fully upon them. For all their differences, both stood together. As they always had.
After a time Fletcher looked again to the marsh, Cooper following his gaze. Sally was lying on the bank of the pool, drying in the warmth. Distance the only discretion she appeared to need or desire.
Fletcher said, “We best have a plan before she gets here.”
Cooper said, “Sally won’t like it. But we get ourselves ready and set tight for the night, first light we can scout quiet to see if he got off. Or if we got to help. Nothing would please me more than finding that tavern empty. But I got to see it with my own eyes.”
Fletcher nodded. All the agreement needed.
Blood was in a bad way. At the moment his wounded leg had the upper hand. Several times going down the trail he had to stop and sit perched on a boulder or fallen log, his leg stretched straight before him and his upper body slumped forward over it, his hands tight to the goad to keep himself upright. When he walked the leg felt mushy and when he sat the pain was liquid throughout him, as a radius general and indistinct from the leg. As if it had held up long enough and now was demanding his attention. Blood not altogether unhappy with this—it concentrated his mind. That stumblebum brain. Straight ahead he told himself.
When he finally left the torture of the brook trail he moved easier, the track beside Perry Stream more traveled, broader. The sun was overhead and the air even through the overgrowth of boughs and limbs was becoming softer to presage a mellow early autumn afternoon. This combination bolstered him sufficient so when next he stopped he waited until the worst of the spasms passed, then working slowly got his boots and breeches off and crept down the stream bank to sit waist-deep in the water. There were frills of ice along the edge and capping river rocks but the water was a soothing shock. Cold enough to stiffen his muscles if he stayed too long, it neatly and effectively took the pain away, swirling it off downstream. Where it might coil some moments around the unlucky greedy Gandy. A river of the dead, Blood thought. But I won’t be one of them. He scrabbled up the bank and got his breeches on. Cold and numb from the waist down, he chose to walk barefoot, carrying the boots.
Once out on the main road before the tavern he paused. In the damp-packed surface of the road ran a set of tracks, the broad furrows of heavy wagon wheels, the matched steps of heavy horses, the shod hooves leaving depressions twice the size of his spread hand. For the second time in as many days he worked his way in the roadside brush until he could spy the stout freight wagon with bare hoops pulled up before the mill. Men were moving about, around the wagon. He recognized them as the ones taken by the New Hampshire militia. They began to drift off, in pairs and groups, some assisting others, most upright but moving with the slowed gait of men sore and used. Blood retreated down the road.
At the tavern he cut an entire haunch from Gandy’s bear and, inside with the door barred, worked some time to get a fire built up, the haunch seeping blood onto the table. He needed a strong bank of coals to roast the meat properly and he intended to do that, thinking he would eat from it for a couple of days. He needed to eat, and he’d need to carry food with him. He set a pot of potatoes to boil over the high fire. Also the kettle as he removed the cloth from his wound and cut strips for new bandage. It might be the last clean dressing for several days.
All this activity undertaken with the blurred erratic energy of a man imitating one going neatly about the business of survival. His mind overcome with the great truth just learned. He was unclear what it meant—save for the vast mess of waste behind him. That contemplation was for another day. Time to time the temptation to sit slumped or lie down was almost overpowering and the man that worked to save himself was a man unsure just who that self was—this a deadly stupor and he knew it. So on he trudged. He craved rum and would not allow it.
By late afternoon he was turning the spitted bear haunch every half hour over the coals and the grease from the meat each time he turned it bathed the meat in a caul of sheen that ran down and spatted angry bursts in the coals. The smell of the roasting meat reassurance of strengthening to come.
He stood in the open door while Emil Chase drove the freight wagon past, loaded mostly with family and what few household items they had been able to rescue. The wagon now with a canvas cover stretched over the bowed uprights. Chase and his wife and eldest girl sat on the open seat and not one of them so much as glanced over to where he st
ood. Blood watched them go down the road. Headed he did not know where nor care. Most likely the western prairies. Blood guessed the deed to the mill had been signed over to Hutchinson, not as bond but as outright purchase of freedom. At the back of the wagon a young girl of five or six leaned peering over the backboard and she waved at him. Blood lifted his hand. Behind the wagon a milk cow trotted at the end of her tether, her udder swinging side to side. Not his cow—not that he cared.
There was a fresh load of angry men in the country. And he knew Mose Hutchinson was not done with him. From the look of the men off the wagon it seemed probable it would be a few days before they grouped enough. And Blood did not care for that slender margin—those same men might be tired and worn and have great cares and undertakings ahead of them. But they had spent a week confined as well as the long rough ride home. Plenty of time for plans and schemes. Blood thought I’m weary of all this. Indeed. The hour was upon him.
There she was. The grime and anger all washed away in her slow floating paddling around the clear-tea water of the pool—she could not swim but the water wasn’t deep and she had no panic of it—using her hands to scrub herself in slow motions, the motions softened by the water and exactly what she thought a lover’s hands should feel like although none had yet, but in that time it seemed her body was in a place it belonged. Her anger had frothed high and then worked itself off into the water as if her hands pushed it clear. Now she lay out in the sun with only mild regret and a sensation of near sadness.
Regret that she’d been so swift to leave the camp as to not think to bring clean clothing for after bathing—those she lay atop she was done with. It wasn’t even a question of washing out the grass and mud stains. They would be left here. And so her return to the camp and the boys would be brazenly naked.
