Bull and Jones had
suspended hunting for three days to help with the planting. With
the hard work done, and Forest and Jelly minding the crops, the
brothers now sat under heavy forest cover waiting for game. Bull
had followed his nose, pointing out rabbit and pheasant runs that
ran to a small pool of spring water, fed by the same underground
river that fed the creek.
"Gathering spot,
see? Just have to wait a while."
The brothers sat
on the moss-covered remains of a concrete foundation. Jones
crouched on one side of it and picked dirt from his fingernails
with his smaller knife. Bull sat on a piece of birch bark to keep
out the damp. The tops of three of the foundation's walls were just
barely visible through the mulch and forest debris. Bull could see
that the house had been a large one. He stood and walked into the
middle of the structure, crouched down and used a stick to dig down
into the earth.
"You ever think of
the orchard?" Jones asked.
"Sure," said Bull,
not looking up.
"Santa's sure
seems happier. She never used to sing at the orchard and her
cooking is a lot better than it used to be. Funny that. I don't
ever remember her cooking tasting this good. Wonder what
happened?"
"No more Ma."
Without Ma looming
over her, telling her what to do all the time, Santa had relaxed
and become more confident, humming to herself or to Mixer as she
did her chores. At the farm, she was able to experiment and was
always consulting Jelly on the best herbs to use. Bull was usually
pragmatic when it came to food. He had to eat but he didn’t think
about what he was eating or whether he enjoyed it or not. Now he
looked forward to meal times.
"Do you miss
it?"
"The orchard?
Sure, I guess."
"You guess?"
"Well," Bull said
slowly, standing back up "I like hunting but I miss the apples. But
here, it's our work, not someone else's. What we do is for us, not
for him."
Jones nodded. His
brother, he knew, had no fond memories of the Landlord. None of
them did but Bull's anger towards him was palpable. He was getting
red in the face just talking about him.
"Did something
happen with you and him?"
"No."
Bull had never
told Jones or anyone else what he knew about the Landlord. The
stink of it had been all over him. The first time it had happened
Ma had seen Bull wrinkle his nose when he came in for supper that
night. Over dinner she'd caught his eye and almost imperceptibly
shaken her head at him. He'd never told his father. What could Pa
do against the Landlord? The orchard and everything on it,
including them, was his.
A tendril of a
smell reached Bull's nostril and he held up a finger to his lips to
alert Jones. As the odour coalesced in his brain, he raised his
index and middle fingers above either side of his head to indicate
two rabbits. He pointed.
No matter how
often Bull and Jones went hunting together, Bull could never
pinpoint the exact moment when Jones moved. He was there one second
then gone and back all within moments, two dead hares, necks
broken, dangling from his hands.
___
There wasn’t much
Forest and Jelly could do so soon after planting. It was a waiting
game. They harvested the edible weeds that came up in the field and
some, like the purslane, dandelions and widow’s weed, Jelly dug out
and transplanted into the herb garden, which she’d set up at the
back of the barn.
In the heat of the
afternoon Forest and Jelly would read in the barn. They’d found
several thread-bound booklets of varying sizes in a small box. The
booklets were filled with lists of plants and numbers: Hay 75B /
Corn: 163/B/ac. Onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips,
pumpkins, half a dozen other squash varieties and a dozen other
vegetables and legumes all had numbers listed beside them. Fruits
were listed in separate booklets: pearl apples, strawberries,
raspberries, blackberries, frews and choke cherries. The far column
listed the weather for the day. August 5: 98C, humid. Heavy rain
(+5"). If the records were accurate there was even more potential
on this farm than they’d originally thought.
While Jelly was
engrossed in the booklets, Forest found one with a hard cover and
thick, cream-coloured pages. He sounded out the title in his head:
The Complete Deloran County Law. He flipped through the pages and
stopped randomly.
It shall be the
Law of the Deloran County, he read, that if any Property owner,
upon his or her death, has not designated said Property to an Heir
or Heirs, in Writing or in the Company of an Authorized Witness,
whomsoever of the persons currently residing on said Property and
who has reached the Legal Age, shall be given all rights and
privileges to said Property.
He brought the
book with him to the dinner table that night. After they’d eaten,
he read it out loud.
"What does it
mean?" Narrow asked.
"It means," said
Forest, "that if Porkchop is twenty or older when Pater dies and
we’re still here, she’ll get the farm."
"Nothing’s going
to happen to Pater. He’s a tough old man," she said.
"But what if Pater
died tomorrow?" Jelly asked. "He’s been sick once already."
"We’d be right
back where we started," said Jones.
"It’s not the same
this time," Porkchop said. "No one knows we’re here."
"The Constable
knows," said Titania. She studied her sister closely; Porkchop
hadn’t told them about PC Pierre inheriting the farm.
Porkchop looked up
at her sharply. Had she overheard her and the Constable that
night?
"He won’t say
anything."
"How can you be so
sure?"
Titania saw her
sister blush.
___
Marvellous said
little as Hap told her all about his children and his wife, how he
had first come to the orchard and what he knew of the Landlord.
What he told her didn’t change her own plans but, she realized, she
now had something more than herself to fight for. If she reunited
Hap with his children then she would have a real family; something
she’d never had before.
Her mother had
been kicked out of Mrs. Nibbs’s bawdy house once it was obvious
that she was too far along in her pregnancy to abort; Marvellous
was born in a shack near the Andrastyne wharf. There her mother had
made a living for the two of them, entertaining the sailors and
less affluent businessmen who couldn’t afford Mrs. Nibbs.
Her mother was not
a stupid woman but had never been trained to do anything other than
to be a whore. She made up for it in so many ways. She taught her
daughter to read using the Deloran County Law book she had stolen
from Mrs. Nibbs and whatever other reading material she could find.
She taught her what she knew of plants and how to use them; how to
fix things and how to fish. She taught her to gamble and, when
Marvellous was nine and got her first period, what herbs would
lessen menstrual pain and which would prevent pregnancy.
Her mother talked
often about her son, Hap, and about Marvellous’ father, whom she'd
said was a wealthy landowner from Battery. Marvellous remembered
the love she heard in her mother’s voice for one; the hatred for
the other. When she died of pneumonia, Marvellous was sent to a
labour camp in the south to pick lemons and limes.
When she turned
twenty and left the camp Marvellous travelled up and down the
coast, always managing to find work on farms and in lumber camps.
She saved her money and made her plans: how she would travel to
Battery and trick her father into giving her his land. Kill him if
necessary.
"The best way to
survive this world," her mother had told her, "is to own property.
If you have property you have a future."
The moment she’d
seen the Landlord at the docks she knew it was the man her mother
had told her about. He hadn’t recognized her; there was no reason
why he should have. He’d never seen Marvellous; didn’t even know
her name. He knew of her, in a vague way, but had never for a
moment considered that he was her father.
Years before, on
one of his trips to Andrastyne he’d stopped for a few days and had,
as always, taken in the pleasantries at the local brothel. He
hadn’t been to town in several months and was disappointed when
Mrs. Nibbs told him why his favourite whore was no longer in
service.
"Pity," he said.
"Oh well, a whore getting pregnant, not exactly a surprise."
"Damn right,
honey. I tell my girls to be careful, but there’re always one or
two sluts who don’t listen."
Marvellous’ first
step in her plan had been to return to Andrastyne, the closest port
to Battery. Travelling by ship was faster but more expensive and
she used up most of her savings jumping from ship to ship,
travelling north up the coast.
She got stuck in
Murray’s Arm just outside Andrastyne. She sewed the last of her
money inside her jacket along with the paper she’d been given when
she left the camp that proved her age, and some of her rarer
spices.
In a shrimp shack
uphill from the dock, Marvellous had watched the storm clouds roll
in. The rain fell in huge drops and the waves crashed against the
shore and against the boats moored at the dock. Many would be left
badly damaged and unseaworthy for weeks.
The door to the
café banged open and a man with a ragged beard came in, dragging
five men in irons behind him. He ordered them to sit down then
banged on the counter for service. The old man who ran the
restaurant stepped out from the kitchen.
"Six coffees," the
man said. "And what kind of sandwiches do you have?"
"Only chicory
coffee, I’m afraid," said the old man. "I have shrimp rolls or fish
sandwiches."
"Gimme six of the
sandwiches."
"Mr. Gaines. I —
"
"Make it five," he
said, spinning around to face the man on the bench who’d spoken.
"Didn’t I tell you to shut up?"
"No actually, you
didn’t."
"Well I’m telling
you now. Fuckin’ picker. More trouble than you’re worth. Be happy
once I get to Andrastyne and you stop stinking up my ship."
The man called
Gaines lit a cigarette. The old man was setting up the coffee mugs
on the counter and wrinkled his nose but didn’t say anything.
"You’re going to
Andrastyne?" Marvellous asked.
"What’s it to you,
girlie?" Gaines said, finally noticing her sitting at a table in
the corner.
"I’m looking for
work. Heard there may be something in Andrastyne. I’m heading
there."
"Good for
you."
"Is there room on
your ship?"
Gaines blew smoke
at her.
"For you, girlie,"
he said, looking her up and down, "I’ll make room."
The weather
cleared by the next morning and they sailed for Andrastyne.
Marvellous bartered cooking and cleaning skills to pay for her
outgoing passage. Leering, Gaines said he would collect the rest of
his payment later. The crew complained about the spices that
Marvellous used in their food but always cleaned their plates. Once
they’d eaten, she served the shackled men the leftovers and ate
with them.
They were, one of
them told her, free labourers but Gaines had stolen all their money
and possessions and was going to sell them in Andrastyne. They had
no documents, no papers, no way of proving that they were free
men.
"Those labour
auctions can be rough," said one of the men one night. "I used to
work in Curiz. You get sold to the wrong landlord and your life
turns to hell. I've seen it."
"Shouldn’t be too
bad in Andrastyne," said another. "It’s all fruit trees and little
farms around there."
"Doesn’t matter
what the work is," said the first man. "Landlords can be nasty
wherever they’re from."
"Who’s the
landlord in Andrastyne?" asked the third.
"No landlord
there. It’s a city. They have a council," said the fourth. "Nearest
landlord to it is from Deloran County, just west of there. I grew
up in Port Abram and I used to pick pearl apples in the fall as a
teenager. In my day the landlord was a man called Baker but I heard
he died a long time ago. No idea who it is now."
Deloran County.
Battery was in Deloran County, Marvellous thought. This could be
easier than I thought. A local man with orchard experience,
however, was competition. All the other men being put up for sale
were general labourers with no experience with fruit trees.
She took a small
envelope from her jacket and slipped its contents into the man’s
stew the next night. An hour later he began to complain of stomach
cramps. In the morning they found him dead in his bunk. The crew
threw him overboard.
The crew began to
complain to Gaines about Marvellous. She made them feel strange but
they couldn’t explain why. Gaines called them a bunch of sissies
but to shut them up he shackled Marvellous with the remaining four
labourers.
"I went through
your stuff," said Gaines as he pocketed the key. "You ain’t got no
money. Just a bunch of bags filled with spices and who knows what
else? I threw it overboard. You’re trouble. I’ll sell you with this
lot."
___
Eventually, Hap
ran out of stories to tell and he got up and left the kitchen for a
while. Marvellous heard him sniffling and sobbing quietly just
outside the door. The rain had stopped and the night sky was clear
and star filled and fresh cool air poured into the kitchen.
Marvellous closed her eyes and turned her face toward the
breeze.
When she opened
them again Hap was coming in and closing the door behind him.
"Leave it open,"
she said.
He propped it open
with an empty cider jug and sat in front of the door with his back
against a support post and his legs stretched out.
"Hap, I’ve been
thinking. The kids are probably in a camp. It’d be a place to
start. You must know some of the camps around here."