Lost Nation (12 page)

Burt said, “I don’t know. You’re the ones know this country. Just go track em I guess.”

Chase spoke up. “You’d as well track air boy.”

Chase’s farmer brother Peter was back in the group. One of the men who had gone to recover Simon Crane. He said, “Still it might not be a bad idear to make up some patrols and move around the backcountry a little bit. If those devils are lingering it might persuade em to move along.”

Burt said, “We can’t just go on about our business with them out there somewheres.”

Emil Chase spoke to his brother. “You can disregard your rowen if you want. One excuse is good as another.” Then he turned to Burt and said, “Son, they ain’t after you.”

“What makes you so sure who they might be after next?”

“Well I can’t say. But I can tell you twas you they wanted they already would’ve plucked you.”

Men laughed, short uncomfortable snorting. Emil Chase put his hat on his head and turned to face the full group. He said, “Go on and patrol if it makes you feel any better. I’ll stay put myself. But tomorrow morning I intend to ride to that cabin and see the man is buried. What remains of him at least. And I want men to go with me but none so rum-soaked as to mistake it for a lark. Don’t none of you offer now but whoever’s at the mill come six-thirty I’ll count on to ride with me.”

Cole said, “I’ll be there.”

“I know it.”

Then came a cry from the man standing just inside the door watching both the proceedings and the bonfire as well. He took up his musket and jumped outside the door. There came a warning cry from him, commanding someone to stop. A shot. Then another cry from him, something inchoate then choked off. The men scrambled for their weapons and the room emptied. Only Blood and Emil Chase stood still. There were more cries from outside and then an aggregated sound, a groaning gasp from the group. Blood looked at the miller. Emil Chase had again removed his hat as if knowing there would be no quick departure this evening. Perhaps it was his way of readying himself. Blood took up Gandy’s unfinished cup and took a swallow from it, his first of the night. As the men came slow back through the door in a tight clump. Inside they stepped apart, to reveal as well as gain what distance they could.

It was the Deacon. His ankles were hobbled with rawhide, not bound but short enough so he could only shuffle forward, each footstep one that came to a harsh halt and jerked both his knees. He was upright but barely, with clotted blood dried down his face from his lidless rolling eyes and his mouth was sewn shut, a rough job done with an awl and deer sinew. Behind his lips his jaw was clenched tight so the muscles of his cheeks and jawline leaped and twitched and from low in his throat came a sound as a kitten mewling. His elbows were lashed to his sides and his hands were before him. From him came the smell of a keen and utter corruption.

His hands were bound by the wrists to a dense wet ball also wrapped in lacings, tied so his wrists lay either side of the mass. Despite this his fingers gripped hard the thick pelt of hair as if the object were sacred or valuable. As if he had any choice.

What he gripped and offered to the men around him was what was left of the head of Wilson.

Sally began to scream.

Blood cleared the room. He came around the counter and went first to the Deacon and touched the man’s forehead and spoke to him, his fingers and words stroking. Gazing into the sightless eyes. Then without taking his eyes from the Deacon spoke in a low voice and ordered all out. The men milled, some drinking hard at their cups. Blood looked around and spoke sharp, “Get to your families.” As if released from thrall the men surged and checked their weapons and conferred amongst themselves and left. From beyond the open door Blood could hear them talking where they gathered in the last light of the bonfire and he stepped around the Deacon and went and closed the door and dropped the heavy bar in place. Other than the Deacon the only man left in the room was Emil Chase. Blood ignored him. But neither did he request his departure.

He went to Sally and took her by the arm and when she would not move, still perched on the stool, still keening, he wrapped his arms around her and picked her up and carried her through the other door to the house-side into her own room where he set her on her bed and lighted a candle and stood on tiptoe to close and bolt her window and
then turned back to her and told her to stay where she was. When she clutched at his arm and would not free him he did not struggle with her but instead spoke the dog’s name and the hound came into the room and stood before the bed gazing upon them. Blood pointed at the bedcovers and said, “Up,” and the dog made a graceful leap onto the bed and circled once and settled with his back against the now sobbing girl. In such a way that she might hunch over him and wrap her arms around him and he would be as solid to her as any thing on earth. Blood left them there and went back through the house to the tavern.

The Deacon stood where Blood had left him. Emil Chase had likewise not moved. Blood glanced at him and Chase looked away.

Blood went behind the counter for an empty powder keg and his whetted belt knife. He stood before the Deacon with the powder keg caught between his knees and cut free Wilson’s head. Which dropped into the keg with a wet slop. He took the keg and considered it and then placed it up on the counter. The smell was high and he didn’t want it in the house but he could not bring himself to just set it outside. Then he went back to the Deacon and knelt and started cutting at the hobbles and worked his way up until all that was left was the fine hard sinew stitching through the man’s lips. Here he paused and went and whetted his knife once more and returned. With his free hand gripped hard the man’s jaw and tilted the dreadful head back and slid just the point of the blade behind each sinew and sliced them open. He made no effort to pull the cut strings free. Blood dippered water from a bucket and held it up to the man’s mouth and let him drink a small amount and then took the water from him, dashing out what was left in the dipper onto the floor. Back to the counter where he filled a cup of rum and came back and again held the man’s jaw tilted up and forced the rum down his throat. The Deacon choked and swallowed and choked again and then came his first clear groan, the sound of rock cleaving. Blood set the cup away and took up a clean rag and wet it to wash as best he could the man’s face. Just dabbing the crusts of blood-tears. Immediately fresh blood began to ooze from his cut-open eyes. The Deacon lifted his arms and groped for Blood and Blood held him and the man clutched Blood a moment, then sagged and went down onto the floor. Lying rolling, crying out. Blood looked at Emil Chase and again Chase looked away from him. Blood looked down at the Deacon
who was now thrashing, his knees drawn up to his chest in pain and his arms wrapped around his head.

Blood said, “We can try to talk to him but he won’t be able to tell us anything useful. Likely not even where whoever it was waylaid him. Or how many it was or what they looked like. But we can try.”

Chase did not look at Blood but said, “Have mercy on him.”

Blood stepped to the woodpile before the fireplace and lifted a club of firewood. He hefted it and passed it one hand to the other and then turned it around for balance until he held it just right. Then crossed back over the room and straddled the Deacon and bent forward and timed the twitching rolling and brought the club down softly square on the back of his head. The Deacon stopped mid-roll and shuddered once, then fell back face up on the floor and did not move. His chest rose and fell but that was all. Blood got a fresh rag soaked in water and laid it still wet across the now-blind eyes. He went behind the counter once more to wash his hands and face and stood a long moment considering the powder keg set on the counter. It had a dire stink. He couldn’t see what to do with it just then, so left it where it was. He poured out a cup of rum and went to the bench by the dying fire, sat heavy upon it and drank from the cup. Finally looking at Emil Chase who had watched wordless throughout.

Emil Chase was Blood’s age or a few years younger. There were a few older men in the Indian Stream country—some farmers, some trappers—but Chase was the senior man of the community. Not so much from age or his considerable physical condition as from his nature and his enterprise. There was not a man but Blood not indebted to Chase. Chase was practical, thrifty, hard-working, sober—near everything that Blood was but also held the simple belief that he was a whole man. While Blood knew otherwise of himself. Still, each recognized the other as adversary, opponent, as the one man in this place who, save by chance or accident, might destroy the other if either chose. So far they had deferred any confrontation by the neat method of avoidance. What business passed between them had been one-sided and Blood paid in hard cash for those services he required of the mill. So far, then, they were even by virtue of distance.

Chase spoke first. “This is a mess.”

“It’s not pretty, is it. But the worst of it is this poor feller lying here.”

“You discount the Indians?”

“Well I wouldn’t know. But the whole thing has a private feel to it. It makes sense that they wasn’t the ones killed Wilson, that it was Crane did that. And if the savages was cronies with Wilson it makes sense they went after Crane.”

“And the business with this poor soul here?” Chase indicated the Deacon.

“That’s the problem. The most likely hope is they was sick of his rant and thought he’d make the ideal courier to send the rest of Wilson.”

Chase said, “How would we know em anyhow? It’s not like any of us ever laid eyes on em. Except maybe that little bantam trapper that hauls rum for you. But if he had seen em I don’t imagine he’d announce it, do you?”

“I can’t see what benefit would be for him to do that.”

Chase said. “The greater problem I see is there’s near a hundred men will be talking about this. Word’s bound to spread south. Trappers or no, it’d be just the thing Mose Hutchinson could be waiting for as excuse to come up here.”

“That the Coos County sheriff?”

“That’s him,” Chase said. “Down to Lancaster.”

“Frankly, Mister Chase, I don’t see the difficulty. It’s a clear-cut thing. Some piddly sheriff wants to poke his nose into it, let him, I say.”

“You ain’t got nothing to hide, do you Mister Blood?”

Blood looked level at Chase. “Not one thing.” Then he added, “I gather some do though. It’s best if all keep their mouths shut. Now, I think you set that young feller Burt straight and likely others got the message too. Beyond that, what can you do?”

Chase walked to the fireplace and spat in the cold ashes. He turned and said, “I ain’t sure.” Then he approached Blood, coming close. “What do you intend to do about this feller here?” Again indicating the Deacon who lay in some awful twitching sleep.

Blood said, “Let him spend the night on my floor.”

“That’s it?”

Blood said, “What else is there? How he’s going to live with himself is not for me to scrutinize. I couldn’t make the first guess.”

Chase nodded. He directed his gaze toward the powder keg and said, “You were to scoop some cold ash from the hearth to cover up that feller’s head it wouldn’t stench so bad.”

Blood said, “He’s been through enough. I don’t intend to pare any more of his dignity from him by shoveling cold ash over him.”

“I can’t see it would make any difference to him now.”

“It would to me.”

“You’re a peculiar man.”

Blood drank from his cup. Remained silent.

Chase sighed. Then said, “I’ve heard tales about you.”

“That Gandy gets around, doesn’t he.”

“Seems to me, you’d be craving to be left alone by Mose Hutchinson as any other man.”

“I’ve nothing to fear from any man.”

“And your Lord?”

“I’m still living.”

“I see.”

“Perhaps you do.”

“Whatever else, that girl you got here is a minor child.”

“That sheriff’s got plenty of that in his own backyard I’d bet. He doesn’t have to come all the way up here after any of her.”

“That was not my point.”

“I force her to take no man. Nor any man to go with her.”

“Does that make it right?”

“Now, we’re not going to talk about what’s right.”

“Why’s that? Whatever you are, you’re an educated man. That’s plain as the nose on my face. How did you get educated so far beyond right or wrong?”

Blood sighed. “You’re plenty curious, yourself.”

Chase shook his head. “I don’t like what you or her do down here. But there’s women who feel even stronger about it.”

“There always are.”

“It’s them could make the trouble for you, is what I’m trying to tell you.”

“So it’s most always been.”

“That’s not the way I hear it.”

“I was claiming no innocence.” Blood drank again and said, “What those women don’t understand—those well-intentioned goodwives—is this girl here is living some kind of lovely life compared to where she came from. It may look debased from where they’re setting, I can see that. Especially the ones know their own men come down here for perhaps more than a toddy of rum. Even those that don’t cavort with the girl surely carry her home in their heads. But what I’m telling you is this—you can keep it to yourself or do your best to explain it to your wife or any other that asks—Sally is happier than she’s ever been in her life. Or ever would’ve been, I hadn’t come along.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“There are places in this world where a body just starts out flat and goes lower and lower. There are places that don’t have any doors, no ways out. You understand what I’m telling you?”

Chase was hushed a long moment. Then very quiet said, “I guess you’d know.”

Blood made a delicate near invisible nod.

They stood silent a time. It was very late. Somewhere up the valley a cock crowed, an hour, perhaps two, ere first light. Blood thought to himself that as long as he had a cow he should get a few chickens. He could eat a fresh egg or two. Yolk with toast. Of a sudden, he was tired. Wearied right through.

When it was clear Blood would say nothing more Chase turned his hat over in his hands and put it on and said, “Well. Tomorrow is a long day.”