The Bully Boys

PUFFIN BOOKS

The Bully Boys

Eric Walters has written many children's novels including, most recently,
The Hydrofoil Mystery and Trapped in Ice
, which won the Silver Birch Award, was nominated for both the Ruth Schwartz and Geoffrey Bilson Awards and was a Canadian Children's Book Centre Choice. He lives in Mississauga with his wife and their three children.

THE

B
ULLY
 

B
OYS
 

E
RIC
W
ALTERS

puffin books

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m4v 3b2

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London w8 5tz, England

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published in Viking by Penguin Books Canada Limited, 2000

Published in Penguin Books, 2001

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Copyright © Eric Walters, 2000

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada

canadian cataloguing in publication data

Walters, Eric, 1957–

The bully boys

isbn 0-14-028806-6

1. FitzGibbon, James, 1780–1863 – Juvenile fiction.

2. Beaver Dams (Thorold, Ont.), Battle of, 1813 – Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

ps8595.a598b84    2001    jc813'.54   c00-932487-9

pz7.w17129bu     2001

Visit Penguin Canada's website at
www.penguin.ca

This novel is dedicated to James FitzGibbon.

Without his bravery and daring there

would not have been a Canada.

THE

B
ULLY
 

B
OYS
 

CHAPTER ONE

JULY 1813

P
IIIINNNGGG
! the bell rang out as I opened the door to the general store. I stepped inside, and it called out again as I closed the door behind me.

I was amazed by what I saw. Once the store had been overflowing with an assortment of dry goods. Then, little by little, the items had started to leave the shelves, not to be replaced. Now there were mainly empty spaces.

“Hello!” I called out. There was no answer and no sign of anybody. I walked between the empty shelves toward the counter at the rear of the store.

“Hello!” I shouted again.

The curtain at the back parted and old Mr. McCann pushed through.

“Who's there!” he growled, waving his cane in the air.

“It's just me, Mr. McCann,” I answered.

“Thomas?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

He stopped, smiled and pulled his spectacles out of his pocket.

“Sorry, I thought it might be soldiers.”

There were over three thousand American soldiers stationed at Fort George near our village of Queenston. They'd streamed across the Niagara River that spring, forcing the badly outnumbered Canadian and British troops to retreat and abandon this part of Canadian soil—at least for now. Mostly the Americans stayed inside the walls of the fort and left us alone, but sometimes they'd sent patrols through the countryside and villages from here to Niagara Falls.

“It's good to see you, son,” old man McCann said as he slowly made his way across the floor.

I couldn't believe how much he'd aged in the few weeks since the Americans had taken over the fort. My Ma had said it was from both the work and the worry—work around the store now that he was left on his own to run things, and worry about where his son was fighting and what he was doing now.

I understood the worry. I was worried about my Pa. He was with the militia, along with my uncle, whose family farmed the parcel of land next to ours. Most all of the men from the area, including Mr. McCann's son, had volunteered to fight alongside the British redcoats. They were part of the force that had had to retreat when the Americans came. I'd heard, but I didn't know for sure, that they had all been pulled back to Stoney Creek, or maybe to Burlington Bay. Of course those were all rumours and didn't mean much of anything. My Ma said that sometimes rumours are true and
sometimes they're deliberately started to try and fool the enemy, so I shouldn't believe much of what I heard.

If I'd been a year older . . . or maybe two . . . I wouldn't have needed to guess because I'd have been right there beside them. It didn't seem fair that just because I was only fourteen I wasn't allowed to join. I was as big as a lot of those men—bigger than some—and I could shoot straighter than almost anybody around these parts. But I was stuck on the farm, missing out on the adventure. Instead of helping to drive those Americans back across the border I was driving a plough horse back and forth across the fields.

It was strange with Pa gone. But I guess no stranger than it was for any of the farms up and down the Niagara. All the men were gone. All that was left were women and old men like Mr. McCann and children . . . and of course a few like me who weren't children but still weren't thought of as men.

Of course now, with both my Pa and uncle gone away, I had to work the farm like I was a grown man. I'd never worked so hard in my life. It wasn't that I minded hard work—growing up on a farm you get used to it. Me, my cousin who was twelve, and my thirteen-year-old brother, who was nearly as big as me, did everything that needed to be done on both farms. My little sister Sarah helped too, mainly by caring for the twins so Ma could do other things. As hard as I worked, Ma and Auntie Lizzie worked harder. Ma was working when I got up in the morning and still at it when I turned in for the night.

“How's your family doing, laddie?” Mr. McCann asked.

“Everybody's fine.”

“Aye, that's good to hear.”

“And how are things here?” I asked hesitantly.

“We're getting by as best we can. But I'm a mite long in the tooth to be doing this job now. What with my daughter-in-law so busy with the children and the new baby, there isn't much choice but to have me work, now is there?”

“I guess not,” I answered.

Old Mr. McCann was the one who'd started up the store in the beginning, long, long before I was born, even before my Pa and his brother had settled their claims. When I was really small he was always behind the counter working. But after his son took over, a few years ago, Mr. McCann didn't have to do much more than putter around and help.

“So what brings you to the store this morning, Thomas?”

“We need a few things,” I said pulling a list out from my pocket. “But there . . . there . . . isn't much . . .”

“Pretty empty isn't it?” he asked.

I nodded. It didn't feel right to take anything when there was so little left.

“Not much is arriving these days, and what I get is taken by those darn American soldiers.”

“They buy their supplies from you?” I asked in amazement. No wonder his shelves were so empty.

“Ha! Steal is what they do! They just come in and take what they want. Some of them throw down a few coins, not near worth what they take, and then leave again.”

“I'm sorry . . . I'm sure we can get by . . . I'll just tell my Ma that there weren't any—”

“You'll tell your mother nothing,” he interrupted, taking the list from my hand. “You'll just give her what she asked for.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” He paused and gave me a smile. “I have some things put away. I'll be back in a while.” He limped off through the curtain to the storeroom, leaving me alone.

I walked over to the counter. The glass jars that used to hold sticks of candy were empty. Those peppermint sticks always made our trips to the store so special. Even when money was scarce there was always a halfpence to buy a piece of candy each for me and my brothers and sisters—and a piece for Pa, too. Ma always kidded Pa about his sweet tooth.

Piiiiinnnggg!

I wondered who was coming in. Maybe it was somebody I knew. I turned around quickly . . . and saw the blue uniform of an American soldier! Before the door could close a second soldier came in behind him. They both looked dirty and dusty. All of a sudden, I didn't feel so brave. I moved slightly off to the side so a bank of the shelves hid them from my view—and me from theirs.

“Ain't much here, is there?” I heard the tall one say loudly.

“Darn near empty,” the other replied. He was shorter and more heavy-set.

Silently I shifted farther over so I was even more sheltered behind the shelves.

“Here, I think we have some of the things you want!” Mr. McCann sang out as he came back into the store.

“How do you know what we might need, old man?” the first man asked.

Mr. McCann stopped dead in his tracks, too stunned to answer. His arms were filled with some of the items on my list.

“Let's have a look!” the shorter man called out as they quickly moved to his side.

I shifted again to stay out of their line of sight, crouching down behind a barrel full of axe handles.

“Hey, what do you think you're doing?” Mr. McCann demanded as the taller one grabbed him and the other took the supplies from his arms.

“Be quiet, old man, or else!”

I wanted to rush out and help him, but what could I do? There were two of them, both armed, their rifles slung over their backs.

“Looks like there's some good things here . . . things that aren't on the shelves.”

“The old coot has some supplies he isn't putting out. Probably got them squirrelled away in the back. Show me where you got these from!”

“I've not got any—”

“Don't go lying to us, old man!” the shorter man yelled. Still holding Mr. McCann by the arm he started to force him toward the curtain. “You look out here while I check around back!” he called over his shoulder as he pushed through to the storeroom and dragged Mr. McCann after him.

What was he going to do to Mr. McCann? And what was going to happen to me when the other soldier found me hiding? Maybe I could get to the door and slip out.

Piiiiinnnggg!

My heart jumped up into my mouth. I couldn't see the door from where I was crouched. Was it another American soldier? Was I in more trouble? A large man ran through the door, a blur of grey, and rushed over to the soldier at the counter. The American pulled his musket off his back and started to aim at the onrushing man, who grabbed the gun before it could be levelled at him.