by Paul Boor
“I suspected as much.”
“‘Mr. Wilson.’ That’s all he’d tell me about the man. Did you find what Thomas Chubb knows?”
“Damn him, no,” Nicolas said, giving the table a thump with a balled fist. “Thomas disappeared after Old Jack’s funeral. He seems to sense when I’m coming with questions. The word at Stillman’s Inn is that he’s back in Buffalo.”
Nicolas asked himself, Where do boys sneak off to in the spring? The answer came easy. Once the snow begins to melt and the rivers run wild, packs of young boys wander the upper reaches of the Black River. Above Town Lake, the river becomes a racing torrent, a perfect place to launch cans, bottles, and wooden ships for a wild ride to Forestport, and to sift for treasure in the debris washed from the upriver lumber camps and cottages.
The trail that ran along the north bank of the Black River was rougher going than Nicolas remembered it as a child. Piles of debris left by the spring torrent blocked the way. Slushy snow made the going slow. Last summer’s dead brambles tore at his trousers.
Boys were scattered along the riverbank, lounging on the melting snow, fighting, peering at the standing waves of rushing brown water. Nicolas recognized no one until he came on Samuel, Little Jacky Casler’s friend, who was shot-putting heavy rocks from the bank into a deep pool. Samuel said he’d seen Knox. They’d been playing together on the trestle just minutes before.
The trestle loomed just upriver. Nicolas saw a lone figure sitting on the railroad ties where the track was still over land, where a boy could easily climb down if he heard a train whistle or felt a rumble. It was Knox, his legs dangling.
Nicolas walked closer and called, “Knox! Jump down!”
“It’s you?”
“Yes, it’s me, the boss on the lake. Jump down now. We need to talk.”
“I ain’t gotta do nothing just ’cause you say so, mister.”
As if to prove his point, Knox stood and strode down the tracks toward the far bank.
“Come on, son. Come back and jump down. Train’ll be coming along anytime.” Knox swaggered further out; this boy had no fear. “Remember, Knox, I’m the one holding your pay. If your uncle comes for you and I refuse to pay . . . if I tell him you didn’t work hard enough, or you—”
Knox stopped and turned. “I don’t gotta,” he shouted back.
Nicolas nodded and held up a hand. “No, you don’t, that’s true. But Old Jack would’ve wanted you to collect your rightful pay. It would only be fair, and Jack was a stickler on fairness.”
Knox spun around and walked back a few steps.
“Come on down.”
He slipped off the trestle, dropping ten feet to the packed pine-needle trail. He was a thin, gawky boy, but he’d had his growth spurt so his eyes were level to Nicolas’s shoulders as they faced off. He jutted out his chin. Sinewy stretches of muscle ran through his neck.
“Whaddaya want, anyway?”
“I need to ask you a few things, that’s all. I came out here so we’d be alone. Nobody around. You understand? We can talk.”
“About what?”
“Where’d you come from, Knox?”
The boy’s eyes darted to the woods. “Up north. Way up north, like I told that Abigail lady.”
“Look, son, there’s got to be something you want. Is it money?” Nicolas watched the boy fidget from foot to foot. “You worked hard on the ice, didn’t you? When your uncle comes for you, maybe I can have a talk with him. You should get some of that money for yourself.”
The boy’s eyes shifted back to Nicolas. “He’d never do that. Besides, I don’t need to tell you nothin’, ’cause you can’t boss me around. You’re not the real boss man.”
“So who is the real boss man?”
“I ain’t tellin’.”
Nicolas shifted from foot to foot, took a few steps closer and looked up. “Look, maybe Abigail and I . . . maybe we can figure how you could stay on here.” Nicolas saw a light in the boy’s eyes, a subtle twitch of his head. “Where were you born, Knox? Just tell me that much.”
“In a hospital.”
“A hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“My mother needed an operation, see? They had to cut her open so’s I could get born, but then she up and died. I don’t remember any of it, anyhow. It’s just what they told me.”
“Who told you?”
“My stepmom, when I was little.”
“Where was the hospital?”
“Poughkeepsie.”
“You lived with your stepmom.”
“Yeah, but she caught the grippe. By then my old man drunk himself to death. He was dead a year already when my stepmom got sick and they took her away to the hospital, seein’ as she couldn’t breathe.”
“So they sent you to an orphanage.”
“Nope. I was on my own. Then, on account of . . . on account of I got caught behind the counter at the soda shop, they put me in the Home for Wayward Boys.”
“For stealing?”
“When the stupid old man wasn’t looking I’d go quick to the cash register and pull a bill out from the high side.”
“The big bills.”
“Old fool. He left the drawer open for the taking.” Knox reached in his pants pocket and came out with a corncob pipe. “Got tobacco?” he asked.
“All I have’s a panatela.”
Nicolas pulled the cigar from his jacket and handed it over. Knox smiled and pocketed his pipe. “Thanks.” He struck a match on a rock and lit the cigar’s tip. Leaning against the tarred beam of the trestle, he gave a few perfunctory puffs till the cigar tip glowed.
“How old were you when you went to the home?” Nicolas asked.
“Ten. Last year, when I was eleven, the men come to get me. They don’t take boys too young. You gotta be big enough to work. When Mr. Wilson come, I jumped at the chance to get out. Like he told me, I just call him ‘uncle,’ and I was out.”
“So your uncle’s name is Wilson.”
“They’re all Mr. Wilson. A few call themselves Mr. Smith. They don’t have no real names.”
“Was he from Poughkeepsie?”
“Buffalo. A big city like that, there’s lots of rich folks, see, and they’ll make ya rich like them if you’re one of the lucky ones, like me.”
“But they stick you in a work crew. That won’t make you rich.”
Knox gave it a moment’s thought. “Yeah, the crews are horseshit work, for sure. But not me. Uh-uh. They said I was special. After one more turn on a work crew, they’re gonna make me a foreman. Then I’ll have my own crew, I’ll be in on it. No more factories and horseshit work for me.”
“Work on Upper Spy is horseshit work.”
“Yeah.” Knox gave a nod and flashed a grin. “But I kinda liked it.”
“You were good on the ice, Knox. Old Jack thought you were good, too. He told me so.” Nicolas saw something flicker across the boy’s face at the mention of Old Jack. “You could work it next winter for us, Knox. You’d replace Old Jack. We have summer work, too. If I talk with Abigail, you could start right away.”
“Nah, they’ll be coming for me. One more work crew and Mr. Wilson’ll make me a foreman.”
“Where do these work crews go?”
“All over. Big cities, mostly. Factories.”
“Does anybody ever escape?”
“Uh-uh. They’ll beat ya. They’ll kill ya.”
Nicolas shook his head, feigned disbelief. “Nah.”
“I mean it, mister. If somebody tries to run away, they’ll get ’im. We all know it. They make an example. You hear different things, but I heard they slit yer throat, or strangle ya. That’s what I heard.”
“How many like you?”
“I got no idea. The girls go off one by one, quick. Ones I knew all went to Chicago. But the boys go off in work crews. They sent one bunch of boys to Chicago, too, to the yards, musta been twenty. Lots go to the garnet mines here in New York. I was in a crew of s
ix headed to the tanneries in Gloversville, but then the boss man had this idea to try the lumber mill in your town, so I says, ‘I’ll go,’ ’cause I heard them tanning chemicals make you sick.”
“That’s when Abigail hired you on.”
Knox chuckled. “Yeah, so’s I could do your horseshit work.” He stepped away from the trestle and studied the cigar in his hand, more like a middle-aged man than a twelve-year-old. “It wasn’t so bad on the lake. At least it’s upstate. I’d hate if they sent me out west or somewhere. I’d die working in that heat.”
“It’s not bad on the lake. Walk back toward the village with me, Knox. Just a little ways. I’ll tell you about what needs to get done over the summer. It takes preparation to harvest ice. There’s plenty of work.”
“Horseshit work?”
“Some of it.”
“Nah, I made a deal with them. See, I’m getting special treatment when I go back, when the boss man comes to get me.”
“You want to be like Old Jack, don’t you?” Knox gave a faint nod. “Old Jack never shied away from honest work, and he never needed any special treatment. I bet you don’t either, not from people like them.”
46
The Boss Man
Nicolas heard the pounding of the black stallion’s hooves when Abigail was still a block down the hill. He’d already thrown open the screen door and stood on the porch, jacket in hand, when she drew the horse up. Horse and rider were both winded. Abigail’s eyes were wide with excitement.
“He came for Knox,” she called from the saddle. “The man who brought him.”
“Where’s he now?”
“I put him off, said I hadn’t seen Knox and he’d have to wait. I told him I’d send word to him where he’s staying, at the Butterfield House. His name’s Wilson. Ernest Wilson.”
“Best get word to Old Jack’s granddaughter in Boonville, Abby. She needs to keep that boy out of sight.” Nicolas pulled on the jacket. “I’m on my way to this Mr. Wilson.”
The small, simply appointed lobby of the Butterfield House was deserted. An Oriental settee faced the fireplace, where a large moose head hung. It was a warm spring day; the snowbanks were melting fast and the fireplace had gone cold. Nicolas sent the desk clerk to Ernest Wilson’s room with a message, then took a chair at the japanned writing table near the window. The dark velvet drapes covering the nearest lobby window had been parted, allowing a patch of morning sun to warm the writing table.
A pleasantly plump, well-dressed gentleman around Nicolas’s age, with reddish side beards, came down the stairs into the hotel lobby. “I take it you’re Van Horne,” he said, extending his hand when Nicolas stood. “The name’s Wilson. I’m here for Knox, to collect the boy’s wages and so forth. Where’s the boy?”
“Please, have a seat. I need a word with you.”
Wilson frowned and cleared his throat. “If it won’t take long,” he said, sitting. “We need to be on our way.”
“You see, Mr. Wilson, I’m afraid I’ve advised the boy to stay put until we straighten out this situation.”
“Situation?” Wilson straightened and crossed his arms tight around him. His face hardened. “This boy’s ‘situation,’ as you say, is that he’s an unruly sort of fellow, a delinquent despite all my trying to keep him in line. That about sums it up.”
Nicolas tried to sharpen his senses and concentrate. He needed to study this man. Wilson was so ordinary, so bland looking. A common brownish tweed jacket; no hat; a rounded, pale face with no distinctive features. He could’ve been a member of some agency, perhaps a bonds-and-futures man, or someone trading in assurances. On a closer look, though, well hidden beneath Wilson’s thick side beards lay a raggedy, well-healed scar a good six inches in length. Also, there was a thin scar above the left eyebrow. Any one of a hundred common mishaps could’ve caused such lesions. A fall from a horse, a field accident, a tumble as a child in a haymow where a sharp tool lay submerged. Or something more sinister.
Wilson’s face relaxed. He chuckled and gave a faint smile. “The boy’s my nephew, you see. An orphan, so I feel a certain responsibility for his delinquency.”
“You’re from up north, I heard.”
“Yes.”
“Washington County, was it?”
“What does it matter? Did you get some work out of him?”
“Indeed we did. He turned out fine, working the ice.”
“That’s what counts, eh? And you know, Van Horne, I have several nephews willing to work, and work hard. Should you need to add to your crew, you might consider us. Now, if I can just collect the remainder of the boy’s wages, and the boy, we’ll be on our way.”
Nicolas leveled his gaze. Wilson returned it across the table. “Sir, I saw fit to pay the boy those wages directly,” Nicolas said, fighting to keep his tone steady. “He deserves the wages and, no offense, but I wondered if the boy would ever see their benefit.”
“The rascal told you something?”
“I spoke with him, yes.”
“Where’s he at?”
“Safely tucked away.”
“Listen, Van Horne, I’ve a right to the boy. He’s family, so cough him up.”
“Afraid not. The boy stays. I’m taking a personal interest in the lad.”
Wilson’s face reddened, the cheek scar suddenly more obvious. “You’ll regret this, sir.” He sighed and pushed back his chair. “In any case, there’s plenty more fish for the kettle. I’m just as happy to quit your little burg.” Wilson rose and made for the stairs as quickly as he’d appeared. As he grasped the first newel, he hesitated and turned. “You realize, Van Horne, the boy’s legally mine. There may be repercussions to this.”
“I assure you, we’ve totally competent lawyers hereabouts.”
The edges of Wilson’s mouth ticked up in a malevolent smile. “Oh, I was thinking of something far, far more serious, I assure you. There’s a fellow in your town named Chubb. Ask him, why don’t you. Ask him about repercussions.”
His heart pounding, Nicolas kept to the shadows on Main Street until he saw a carriage carrying Wilson toward the bridge. He then took a horse from Abby’s stable to the railway station, where a discreet enquiry revealed that the “gentleman” with whom Nicolas claimed he “had business” had purchased passage to Buffalo, as Nicolas suspected. Wilson was headed south and west, not north.
So he’d seen one of them—these men who took boys prisoner. Nicolas was nonplussed by what a gentlemanly appearance the fellow presented. Nothing special, a regular gent, reasonably dressed and so forth. The scars were the only things setting Wilson apart.
One other distinctive feature Nicolas observed, or perhaps imagined. When Wilson had climbed the stairs to leave, a ring flashed on the gent’s left hand. It was something like a club or fraternity ring. A large sapphire glinted in the spring sunlight. Laid over the stone was a delicate gold filigree that looked awfully similar to the spidery cypher Nicolas had grown to abhor, the brand seared into the flesh of boys, both dead and alive.
47
The Undertaker
After slogging through the mud and slush to check nearly every barroom in Forestport—there were six—Nicolas found Thomas Chubb in the Antlers Inn. In Nicolas’s mind the Antlers Inn, a dank, musty, poor man’s drinking establishment, was not Thomas’s type of haunt. It was a real hellhole. The local undertaker, one of the richest men in town, had stooped low. Thomas looked somehow smaller, too, sagging onto the top of a small table near the window, far from the noisy crowd at the bar, staring over his whiskey at the muddy street and the dirty, melting snowbank just outside the window.
“I saw you coming,” he said.
Nicolas dragged a rickety chair to the table and pulled a grim face.
“I stashed another for you,” the undertaker said, forcing a smile. “In my mausoleum. An old woman from the sanitarium. Send Adam, and we’ll get her to the icehouse. Thank God you’ve got it filled, eh?”
“I’m not here to discuss business, T
homas. And don’t try to look surprised. You’ve been dodging me, and you need to tell me what’s going on. Something pernicious is afoot; tell me what you know.”
“I can’t, Nicolas.”
“Yes, you can and you will. Who’s this Mr. Wilson?”
The smile quickly disappeared from Thomas’s face. “You of all people understand about a secret, Van Horne. Sometimes, they’re very necessary in certain business arrangements.”
“Who are these men?”
“They’re businessmen like you or I, that’s all.”
Nicolas’s thoughts went to Abby and her disgust with her father, with his business. He’d be better off without Thomas Chubb. He had depended on the man for too long.
Nicolas pushed his chair back and stood over the undertaker. “Business? Business?”
The place went quiet. He grabbed Thomas by his lapels, brought his face close, and whispered, “Those boys were murdered, Thomas. Murdered,” he hissed. “Tell me who these men are.”
“I . . . I can’t say. They’ll kill me if I tell, Nicolas. They’ll kill me.”
Van Horne saw the naked fear in the undertaker’s eyes. He let go and stalked out.
48
Mud Season
Nicolas struggled to sit upright on the warm leather of the couch in his study. He cracked open an eye, shook his head, massaged the stubble on his chin.
Outside, mud season bore down on the village. The ice had gone out from the northernmost lakes, and the last raft of logs had crushed its way to the mill. In the village, rivulets of snowmelt ran through the streets, leaving only mud. Mud was everywhere—slick clods of it clung to every boot. Spring had come promising summer and sunshine, but for weeks all it offered was mud.
Nothing was going well. The morning after Thomas Chubb had refused to tell Nicolas anything of substance at the Antlers Inn, the undertaker left town “on business.” That same morning, Abigail came to the house with more bad news. Knox had disappeared.
