Tucker’s Grove (25 page)

Danny wiped his eyes, nodding his head in a diagonal way, not knowing if the old man would interpret it as a yes or a no.

Mr. Rossa stood for a long time, inspecting Danny but also looking
uncomfortable. The old man opened his mouth several times, but he seemed reluctant to speak. “
Would you like to stay here a while?”
The farmer ran a finger slowly down his bearded chin, pursing his lips, as if trying to think of something that might inter
e
st a five-year-old boy. “
I was just going to look at some old books in my attic.”

Danny glanced up at the farmer, then past him at the ancient and spooky farmhouse. All the tears vanished, evaporated and forgotten, as his eyes lit up. “
Yeah!”

“
Come on, the
n.”
Mr. Rossa strode toward his porch door with a strange mixture of firmness and pride in his steps, as if he was more than just an old farmer.

He came down out of the desolate mountains, protected from the cold by his own immortality, carrying only his
beloved sword as a support. The path was winding and complex, the beginning of the long road his mission would require him to travel.

All those centuries ago, he had united the squabbling German principalities, fused them into an empire like Rome, and called it Holy. He crusaded against the Turks and sacrificed to his God. He would have won, but the Angel and the rushing waters of the r
i
ver had taken him too soon.

Despite seven centuries of slumber, it never occurred to Ba
r
barossa that he might have been forgotten.

The attic trapdoor groaned loudly, to Danny
’
s delight, as Mr. Rossa heaved it up and let it crash back to the attic floor. I
t seemed perfectly right to Danny that the old man had brought a candle with him, instead of a flashlight, to light their way.

“
Come on, now
—
be careful there!”
Mr. Rossa warned as the boy squeezed past him up the ladder.

Danny stared at the old, mysterious
objects in the attic: broken chairs, a dusty lamp, boxes filled with yellowed papers and other paraphernalia. Thick cobwebs gilded everything
—
Danny wo
n
dered how the spiders ever found enough food to survive up there; did they eat one another?

Mr. Rossa ma
de his way over to a box of books in the corner, dribbling globs of melted candlewax on the floorboards. He bent over the books, spilling his globe of light into the box. He squinted and ran his fingers over the cover of an old, hand-bound sheaf of parchm
e
nts.

“
Those books sure look old, Mister Rossa!”
The old man looked up quickly, as if Danny had stopped him from entering a reverie.

The farmer paged through a volume so brittle that his gentle fingers plunged through a page with a puff of dust. The han
d
wri
ting was old and faded, and illuminated with many stylized letters and illustrations, as if someone had painstakingly taken the time to make the documents beautiful for someone who could not read. “
These are in Latin anyway.”
His voice was almost a sigh,
a
nd he dropped to his knees in front of the box, shuffling among the parchments.

Danny fidgeted for a moment, losing interest in the books. He saw a painting hidden behind some piled, discarded clothes, but before he could look at it the old farmer interrup
ted him.

“
Do you have a hero, Danny?”
Mr. Rossa asked, slowly tur
n
ing from the books. His eyes were strange again.

Danny took sudden interest. “
Yeah! I like the Hulk. And Sp
i
derman.”
Mr. Rossa frowned in disappointment, releasing a sigh that rustled the st
rands of his once-scarlet, now-gray beard. Danny wondered what he had done wrong. “
Do you have a hero, Mister Rossa?”

He thought the old man was going to chuckle, but then the farmer forced his mouth into a wry smile, as if he knew som
e
thing Danny did not.
“
Do you know who Frederick Barbarossa is?”

“
Bobba Rossa? I know who Boba Fett is. He
’
s from Star Wars.”

Mr. Rossa sighed again. “
Barbarossa was the king of a vast land, called the Holy Roman Empire…
oh, eight hundred years ago. He had flaming red hair and
a long scarlet beard. And the people loved him very much, for he was a strong emperor who had united the land. But the Empire had its enemies
—
the Inf
i
dels. So Barbarossa gathered his army and marched out on great wars, called the Crusades. He led his armie
s to many victories, pushed into enemy territory farther than any other Crusade had gone
—
all the way to the land of the Infidels, in Asia Minor. Barbarossa would have destroyed the Infidels once and for all.”
The farmer smiled, and Danny listened carefull
y.

“
But then, one day he led the vanguard of his troops to a river, the Calycadnus River. It had been raining for days on end, and many of the men had died from fevers. The bank of the river was muck, and the water was gray and thick, swollen with mud. The
current was vicious.”

Mr. Rossa seemed to be looking right through Danny, as if the boy wasn
’
t there.

“
It was early afternoon. The troops had just eaten a meal of fresh food we
’
d taken from villages along the way. The ford of the river didn
’
t look passable
, but Barbarossa knew he needed to get his men across. They could never hope to take the prisoners along with them, so they killed the captives and threw the bodies into the current. The sky was heavy, and the rains were going to come again
—
Barbarossa kne
w
the army had to cross now.

“
The Emperor urged his horse forward, trusting in God to protect him. He would cross first, to show his men that it was safe, and then they would follow. The horse entered the river, afraid of the roaring water. The current suck
ed at the horse
’
s legs, but Barbarossa
—
all dressed in his war armor and strutting in his imperial glory
—
urged it onward. The water rose higher, until, near the center of the river, the animal was dancing on the slippery rocks of the channel, half swimming
and half walking.”
The old farmer seemed almost breathless, but he continued to talk quickly, in a low voice.

“
Some of the other soldiers entered the river, following their Emperor, struggling to keep control of the frightened horses. Others waited on the
bank, watching and praying. Barbarossa drew his shining sword and raised it high so that the others could see him.

“
Barbarossa
’
s horse stumbled, became wild as it tried to r
e
gain its footing. The Emperor was flung from his mount as he grabbed for the reins
. The horse thrashed and struggled, panic
k
ing, and was quickly drawn under, vanishing with the flow of mud and melted snow rushing down from the mountaintops. Barbarossa knew how to swim, but his heavy armor dragged him down under the powerful current. He
managed to keep a despe
r
ate grip on the hilt of his jeweled sword, as if that might save him. And then he vanished under the water, never to be seen again.”

“
Wow!”
Danny let the word slither from his mouth.

“
Now, a history book will say Barbarossa drowned
that day. But the people, the soldiers, they all said that no, maybe he didn
’
t die. Maybe the Emperor was still alive, sleeping in a cave somewhere up in the tall mountains of Asia Minor near the source of the Calycadnus River. He was a hero, so they buil
t
a legend around him…
and nobody ever lets legends die. They said Frederick Barbarossa lies sleeping beside a huge stone table somewhere deep within a holy cave; and one day, when his red beard has grown all the way around that table, he will wake up and s
a
ve the Holy Roman Empire from all its enemies.”

“
Gosh!”
Danny looked into the old man
’
s eyes. “
And your hero is Bobba Rossa?”

The farmer let a wry grin settle onto his face. “
No, Danny
—
I
am
Barbarossa.”

Danny
’
s eyes widened in astonishment, but then he nar
rowed his gaze; he tried to imitate the look on Dad
’
s face when Danny said an invisible monster had broken Mom
’
s lamp. “
Aww, you
’
re just kidding me!”

“
Am I?”
Mr. Rossa looked at him, but Danny couldn
’
t tell if the farmer
’
s grin was sly or smug. The old man
raised his ey
e
brows, waiting for Danny to challenge him further.

“
Well, how come you didn
’
t die in that river, then?”

“
I was a hero, Danny. Heroes never die.”
It was almost a sigh. “
We
’
re not allowed.”

Danny continued to look at the old man, not wanting to disb
e
lieve the story because that would make the world less interes
t
ing, not even really caring if it were not true. Mr. Rossa kept staring at his own fingers, as if amazed they had suddenly gotten so
old.

“
How come you
’
re not still sleeping in that cave? By the t
a
ble? And how did you get
here
to Tucker
’
s Grove, Wisconsin?”

“
You can
’
t sleep forever, Danny. Who
’
s to say that I didn
’
t wake up a century ago, and I
’
ve been around ever since? Nobody noticed
me, and nobody believed anyway.”

“
And did you save the Holy Roman Empire from all its en
e
mies?”

Mr. Rossa lowered his eyes. “
It was already dead when I woke up again. The boundaries were all different…
the people were all changed
—”

“
Did you even try?”

“
No.”
He searched for understanding in the boy
’
s eyes, but Danny felt only disappointment. “
I was just an ignorant king from the end of the Dark Ages. My solution to a problem was to gather up an army and charge into the fray with swords flashing. People don
’
t
do things that way anymore. How could I do a be
t
ter job than the modern leaders, the very least of whom is more educated
—
and with an extra eight hundred years of experience to draw upon
—
than the most brilliant people I ever knew in my day? I decided it wou
ld be better to leave the people with their legend, and their hope, rather than destroying both.”

Danny frowned. “
Well, do you at least go out and fight crooks and bad guys, like Spiderman does? Like all the superheroes do?”

“
Danny…”
The boy should have be
en impressed by Mr. Ro
s
sa
’
s patience, but he was not. “
The only reason we are heroes is because people make us into them. I
’
m still just a man inside
—
I can
’
t wave my hands and make all the evil go away.”

Danny stood up abruptly, uncomfortable. “
I gotta go.
My Mom
’
ll yell at me for being gone so long.”

Mr. Rossa scratched his beard, as if trying to preserve the threads of his confession. He picked up the candle and followed Danny down the ladder. The porch door squeaked as the farmer held it open for Danny.
“
Come back again
—
anytime!”