The Miscreant (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

Garran bent forward, twisted the wooden spigot to top off his cup, and leaned back against the still’s worm box. He sipped the clear spirit and grimaced as it burned a trail down his throat and set his stomach afire. Garran was a youth of average height, build, and looks, but he excelled at leading his peers. Unfortunately, he most often led them straight into trouble.

“Shouldn’t we be back at the work site?” Matt asked. “I’m pretty sure our lunch break was over an hour ago."

Matt was Garran’s best friend and had been since birth. Few ever left Wooder’s Bend just like few people ever moved there. It was an isolated town deep in the southern forests of Anatolia. There was little to do in Wooder’s Bend except hew down trees, drink, and chase girls.

Garran pulled a tobacco twist from his vest pocket, lit it from the fire blazing beneath the copper still, and drew the caustic smoke into his lungs. “They won’t miss us. If they do, we’ll just tell them we were working the western line.”

“What if they check?”

“So what? It’s not as if the trees are going anywhere. We’ll cut them down tomorrow.”

“Not if old man Finney catches us poaching off his still again. He swore he was gonna kill us next time.”

Garran gave a dismissive wave of his hand, leaving a swirl of bluish smoke hanging in the air. “Finney wouldn’t know what end of a sword was dangerous. He’s the biggest drunk in town, and that’s saying something. The man would probably be the richest if he didn’t drink the bulk of his inventory.”

A crossbow bolt thudded into the worm tank inches from Garran’s head. Both boys jumped to their feet and searched for the source of danger. Fifty yards down the hill, Finney struggled to cock the old, but still lethal, crossbow for a second shot.

“Holy crap!” Matt shouted. “He’s gonna kill us!”

Garran grabbed his reaping blade, a sickle-like tool with a heavier blade and longer, stouter haft, and sank the tempered steel point into the worm tank. The powerful alcohol poured from the wound and trickled downhill. Taking a long drag on his tobacco twist, Garran pitched the burning ember ahead of the heavy rivulet.

“Garran, come on!”

Garran ducked and grinned as another quarrel sped past and stuck in the ground between him and Matt who was already fleeing up the hill. Garran chased after Matt, laughing at the expletives old man Finney hurled at them. The brewer’s curses and Garran’s laughter redoubled when the leaking alcohol touched the smoldering embers of the discarded tobacco twist, traced a fiery line back to the still, and exploded quite dramatically.

The two youths crested the top of the hill and sprinted down the back slope toward their current work site. It was a long run, and both boys were ready to collapse by the time they heard the hacking of dozens of axes and the working of huge saws felling the massive trees. Finally reaching their job site, Matt and Garran braced their hands on their knees and gasped in lungfuls of air. Matt glanced at Garran and both started laughing uproariously.

“Finney wouldn’t know what end is dangerous,” Matt mocked. “Thunk! You should have seen the look on your face!”

“My face? You look like you almost pissed yourself. You screeched like your sister when she caught me peeking through a crack in the outhouse wall.”

“You were spying on my sister? That is so wrong.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

“I thought it was your mom.”

Matt reached down, grabbed a branch, and swung it at Garran’s head. Garran intercepted the half-hearted attack with his reaping blade and kicked him in the crotch.

“Aha, parry! Nut crusher!”

Matt dropped to the ground holding his abused groin and moaned. “You prick!”

“I know, right? Come on, we better get to work before they check on us and find out we haven’t done squat all day.”

Matt extended a hand. “You’re a monster, you know that?”

Garran grabbed Matt’s hand and hauled him to his feet. “Yep.”

Dozens of felled trees lay along the ground, chopped down over the course of the last few days before the lumberjacks moved to another location nearby. Garran used his reaping blade to strip the boughs and smaller branches before Matt hacked the stouter limbs from the trunk with his axe. Engrossed in their work once more, neither young man heard their foreman approach until he shouted at them.

“Where the hell have you two delinquents been?”

“Sir, in all fairness, Matt is the delinquent whilst I am but an impressionable, naïve youth often swept up in the vortex of his turpitude.” Garran narrowly ducked the large piece of bark Matt hurled at his head.

Bryn Salman pursed his lips, glared at Garran, and repeated, “Where have you two dipshits been?”

Matt snapped his mouth shut as Garran spoke. “Sir, Matt and I spotted mountain lion tracks while we were taking our lunch and thought it wise to track them. We feared it might work up the courage to take one of the mules.”

“Uh huh. Those tracks didn’t happen to lead you anywhere near Finney’s still, did they?”

“In a case of pure happenstance, they did. In fact, the varmint nearly got the jump on us and made us his snack, but I shouted and threatened it with my reaping blade and drove it off. We nearly lost our lives defending this work camp, but such is the level of our dedication. Matt even peed himself just a little.” Garran bent toward Matt. “If you look closely, you can still see a bit of a wet spot on the front of his trousers.” 

“Boy, if you were any more full of shit you’d be an outhouse. The only reason I put up with your shenanigans is because I haven’t figured out how to teach raccoons to do your job, but that courtesy has about reached its end. You best shape up, or you might find yourself laboring on the king’s road. Maybe then you’ll learn to appreciate the work you do here.”

Mr. Salman left and returned to the primary work site. Matt waited for him to vanish around a bend in the trail before confronting Garran.

“Two questions. Why did I have to pee my pants, and why are we still friends?”

“I had to make the story plausible, and to do that I kept it as close to what really happened as I could. That’s the heart of a good lie.” He bent down and pointed at Matt’s crotch. “Look, you can see the wet spot.”

Matt bent down and looked. “Where?”

“Right there.” Garran backhanded Matt in the groin.

Matt fell to his knees, once again holding his undignified injury. “Ow! Can you at least hit the other one and balance it out?”

“As to your second question, I assume it is the same reason why the girls are drawn to me: lack of better options. Get up. We better get back to work before your lying about gets us both fired.”

Matt regained his feet, flung a stone at Garran as he stood, and grabbed his axe. “He’s serious about working the king’s road.”

Garran dismissed Matt’s warning with a scoff. “Only an idiot would sign on with that group.”

“You might not have a choice. Most people working it are indentured.”

“Yeah, but those are criminals. I might get myself in some trouble now and then, but nothing to put me in prison and sent to a work camp building the Fool’s Road.”

Matt shook his head. “I heard it’s gotten really bad, that bandits have been attacking the camps and killing the crews. They don’t have enough prisoners, so they are indenturing other people like vagrants and those who can’t pay their taxes. I even heard the king passed an edict that allows parents to contract their teenaged children to work the camps in exchange for a stipend.”

“That’s ridiculous! That’s slavery, and slavery is illegal. Not even the king can bring that back by decree.”

“I guess he found a loophole.”

“He better not try it with me, or I’ll pull his head through it and cinch it around his fat neck.”

Matt laughed. “Yeah, Garran the king-slaying woodsman.”

“Laugh all you like, I’m not going to be a woodsman all my life. I’m destined for far greater things.”

“Like what?”

“Next on my list of accomplishments is Claire Alessi if you must know.”

“She’s still sniffing around? Why, I thought she was betrothed to that jerk in Westhill?”

Garran shrugged. “She’s not married yet, and when you got it you got it.”

“If her father finds out, you’re really gonna get it. He might be just a small-town mayor, but out here, he may as well be the king himself.”

“Hey, it’s the father’s responsibility to keep his daughter’s knickers on. It’s mine to take them off. I can’t help it if women throw themselves at me.”

“When did it become plural?”

“Three weeks ago with Ada Penders.”

“Get out of here! All the way?”

Garran grinned from ear to ear. “Yup. I think that’s why Claire is so keen on me now. She heard of my prowess.”

Matt shoved Garran’s shoulder. “You dip your brush in an inkwell one time and you think you got prowess.”

“One time is all it takes. That’s something you virgins wouldn’t know about.”

“One time is all it takes to become a father. That’s something even us virgins know.”

“Hmm, you’re right. Maybe I best start dipping my brush into the paint can instead of the inkwell.”

Matt doubled over laughing. “You ain’t got that much prowess. I guarantee it!”

The two managed to get some work done before the sun dropped behind the trees. As daylight waned, the boys packed up their tools and made the walk into town. The trek home took nearly an hour, and darkness had set in by the time they arrived. Matt said goodbye to his friend and turned down the lane to his house. Garran paused on his doorstep and listened before opening the door wide enough to poke his head through. He jerked his head back out, narrowly avoiding the clay mug and the spray of shards when it disintegrated against the doorjamb.

“Get in here, you little prick!” Garran’s stepfather shouted.

“Dwight, please, let’s just talk to him,” his mother pleaded.

“You been talking to him for sixteen years and it ain’t worked. Now it’s the time for an asswhooping.”

“Dwight, stop it!”

“Don’t tell me what to do, woman!”

Garran peered back through the door and saw his mother holding onto Dwight’s arm which was gripping another mug. Doubtful her tenuous grip would stop the drunken man’s tirade if he did decide to renew his attack, Garran stepped into the house knowing that if his stepfather could not beat him he would take his anger out on his mother.

Giving her husband a quick glance, Nina asked, “What happened up at Finney’s place today?”

Garran shrugged. “I don’t know. I was at the work site all day.”

“You lying little bastard! You and Bruno’s kid were filching from his still again. Then you blew the damn thing up! He saw you!”

“Finney is a drunk, blind in one eye, and can’t see worth a damn out the other. It coulda been two bears eating his mash and he wouldn’t know the difference.”

“He heard your friend shout your name!”

“He’s half deaf too! You want to put me on trial, fine. Let him prove it was me.”

Dwight gritted his teeth. “There ain’t gonna be no trial. We all know it was you and your friend. I already found the money you keep hid beneath the floorboards of your room and gave it to him, and you still owe me a lot more on account of what I paid to set it right.”

“You had no right to take my money!” Garran raged, now matching Dwight’s fury.

“I took responsibility for you when I married your mother. There ain’t a lot of men who’d take a woman with a bastard boy, and you ain’t never showed me one bit of gratitude! I’m gonna teach you some responsibility if I gotta beat it into you!”

“You took us in? This is our house! My father built this house. Without us, you’d probably be drunk in a gutter somewhere instead of drunk beneath a good roof and passed out in a warm bed!”

Nina pleaded, “Garran, stop! Don’t get him riled up even more.”

“I’m a drunk now, am I? I guess you’d know all about that coming from the ill-begotten union of a drunk and a slut! No wonder you’re nothing but a little thief and a liar. I know you been filching my whiskey and topping it back off with water!”

“That’s not true!”

“You gonna lie right to my face and say you ain’t been taking from my bottle?”

“No, I’m saying it wasn’t water I used to refill it!”

Dwight’s face went from red to a deep purple. “You sick little bastard!”

“Piss drinker!”

Dwight reached behind him with his free hand, grabbed the half-empty bottle of urine-diluted whiskey, and flung it at Garran.

“Dwight, no!” Nina shrieked.

Distracted by his mother’s shout, the bottle clipped Garran on the head and opened a gash above his left eye. He dropped his reaping blade and stumbled, wiping and blinking away the blood pouring down his face and into his eye.

“Dwight, stop, please!” Nina begged.

The man shoved her to the floor and lunged for his stepson. With his good eye, Garran spotted Dwight coming for him, hooked the leg of a stool with his foot, and flipped it into Dwight’s path. The inebriated man tumbled over the stool and crashed to the ground in front of him. Garran began kicking at Dwight’s head and ribs. Dwight took several solid blows before trapping Garran’s foot between his arm and side.