Lost Nation (24 page)

“You think I do?”

Blood ignored this. “There is never enough, once it starts. No one side is just going to say quit. Already there are men talking that it should not’ve stopped where it did. That Hutchinson should’ve been finished there and then. As if he would be the end of it. But there is always another Hutchinson.”

“They will think again before riding back up here.”

“To be sure. They will at least reconsider their numbers. But you, Peter Chase, have only one head to lose.”

Chase colored. “I’m in your debt, Mister Blood.”

“No,” said Blood. “I assume no debts of that nature. It was not you I was saving anyway, but every man there. It could’ve been done by any one of you. If any had been thinking. That’s what I dislike about this business. Men cease to reason.”

Peter Chase said, “They came upon us with their intentions set. We would be less as men had we not acted.”

“I’ll not dispute that. But a critical point has been reached. Which is why I ask you to move your meeting to the mill. Let the men understand fully the gravity of what they choose, how they vote. What action they call for. When that is settled, then let them come drink.”

Chase said, “You’ll still see your profit then.”

Again Blood ignored him. Locked his lockbox, placed it on the shelf under the counter, returned the key to the small pouch under his blouse and stepped to take up his goad.

Chase studied him. Then said, “Where are you bound now?”

“The same place as you. To see how your brother is faring.”

“There is no love lost between the two of you.”

“Our relations are not the issue of my visit.”

“He will not like to see you now. Why not wait a day or two, until he’s recovered more? He’ll feel you’re there to witness his misery.”

Blood smiled at Peter Chase. “For his faults, your brother is a wiser man than you. He’ll understand I come to him from necessity.” He walked outside. Peter Chase followed and spoke from behind.

“And what could that be?”

Blood turned and called into the tavern. “Sally! Bolt the door until I return.” Then to Peter Chase. “If there is a time to end this before more men die, it’s now. I’ve no relish for the job but it seems I might be the one for it. If you know me at all, Peter Chase, you know I do my best to avoid meddling in the affairs of others. But it would be vile indeed if I were not to attempt peace. You were not the only man saved this afternoon.”

“You speak of Hutchinson.”

“And the others of his party as well.”

“Do you think Hutchinson will see things that way?”

“I could not say. The man will be angry. His pride is worse than his wounds and those wounds are considerable. There’s no way to know but to try.”

“There’s risk for you.”

“I know it. But if I go or stay, it’s still risk. Is how I see it.”

Peter Chase looked at him. Then said, “It’s your own hide you’re out to save, isn’t it?”

“Why yes. It is. But, if I save my own others will be saved as well. I go to make no deals.”

“And how are we supposed to know that?”

Blood gazed upon Peter Chase a long moment. Until Chase turned his defiant eyes away. Then Blood turned and began to walk up the road toward the mill. It was late afternoon and the birds in the underbrush were settling in to call forth the dusk upon the land. He heard the trudge of Peter Chase behind him. As he came up to the mill he saw a loon working the shallow water near the lake edge. The bird dived and Blood stopped to wait for it to come up, trying to guess where it would. Peter Chase passed him wordless and went into the mill.

The loon came up a far distance out in the lake, nowhere near the spot Blood had chosen. He shrugged. It was only a loon, not a portent. He walked on past the mill to the plank house with the gun-slits in the upper story. On this warm day they stood open. He wondered if they had ever been used for other than ventilation. Or if Emil Chase was just the sort of man to think farther ahead than others.

The front door was shut tight and he rapped hard upon it with his fist but did not call out. He saw no reason to announce himself.

He left before first light the following morning, riding Emil Chase’s bay gelding. Blood had not been horseback in years but the horse was well trained and the rhythm came back to Blood quickly, as if it had slept quiet in his muscles and bones and brain throughout those years. Once comfortable he briefly considered what else might lie hidden in a man to bloom forth once more. Then stopped that thinking and held steady focus to where he rode and what lay before him. The day was fair with some few high clouds that he guessed would draw together as the day went on and bring other, lower clouds after them. But for
now it was a mild day, the air just tasting of the edge of dampness. He could keep the horse at a steady trot as long as he could tolerate it. He felt strong, as if he’d never been out of the saddle. Still, he expected that once he stepped down, his legs would quiver from the unused muscles.

He rode along the Connecticut River as it wound west and then south out of the Indian Stream country. Once turned south the valley spread wide, the farms were large with broad meadows and stands of Canada corn and flax with men out working and he raised his hand to them and some few responded while most turned back to their work. So the word was flown out. It was nothing less than what he expected. There was also the possibility of meeting a party of militia riding north from Lancaster but while he did not discount this he doubted it—Blood knew enough of these matters to suspect it would take days to organize such a party. There would be officials of the state to be consulted. There would be writs for the judge to draw up. And perhaps most important would be the condition of the sheriff himself. Blood did not see Hutchinson as the sort to easily abrogate his own authority and hand it over to another.

He came down the valley where the land rose more steeply to the east, the great escarpments breaking through the spruce and hemlock and hardwoods to show the white shimmer of quartz outcroppings and the sun was overhead now, the thin clouds of morning burned back to a faint smudge on the horizon. Where a feeder brook ran down between birch and rock maple and there were no homesteads in sight he dismounted in the shade and led the horse to water at the brook and knelt himself to scoop water. From a cloth sack tied to the saddle he ate a piece of wheaten bread and brine-cured pork shoulder and then knelt and drank again. He stretched his legs and mounted the horse and went on.

He had no weapons with him. Not even the belt knife that he wore all other times. He would’ve brought the dog but thought himself better served to leave Luther with Sally. If anything were to happen to him, she would need the dog more than he. She had baked the bread he ate. She was learning her way around the kitchen.

A little past the noon hour he rode into Lancaster. There was a church spire and the belfry of the meetinghouse lofted against the sky. The houses were all frame and most were painted and surrounded with gardens and
flowers and the barns were the small barns of townspeople who needed only shelter for a horse or two, a milk cow, perhaps some chickens. The streets were broad and smooth and overhung with the lace-crowns of elms. There were cobbled walks. It had not been so many months that Blood had been in his raw country but he felt dislocated. As if he were in a place he had no business being. It was nerves he told himself.

He knew Hutchinson would not be at the meetinghouse and it was the last place he wished to inquire. He made his way toward the mercantile block and began to pass more people, on foot and riding, some driving carts pulled by horses or oxen. Some people looked at him but only with the mild curiosity of the stranger. He drew up the horse before an old woman coming from market with a basket of foodstuffs over one elbow. She wore a plain skirt and threadbare apron and a faded purple bonnet. He took off his hat and bid her a good day. She bent sideways to peer up at him.

“A day as good as can be hoped for,” she said. “Age is naught but a multitude of small deaths. If you can manage it, die quickly, young man.”

Blood smiled at her. He said, “Goodwife, a smart tongue is the product of a quick mind. You seem blessed to me.”

“You say that now. See how you feel when all is lost but your quick mind.”

“Aye. I know something of which you speak.”

She glared at him. He held his face still, meeting her eyes. After a moment she did not look away but said, “You did not stop me for wasted compliments. What’s it you seek?”

“I come after the high sheriff. He’d be at the meetinghouse?”

“Oh, a bad business that. He’ll not be able to help you today.”

“Is he ill?”

“He’s abed with grievous wounds. They say he’ll live but is in great agony.”

“This is bad news. I have urgent business. He’d want to see me if he can. What’s happened to him?”

“He was set upon by brigands in the far north, in the wild country. He was used most severely.”

“Is he at home?”

“He is.”

“I see. Is he conscious?”

“His moans are terrible to hear.”

“Then I must go to him. As I said, if he’s awake, he’ll want to see me.”

“Well, go then. Or carry my basket home for me.”

“I would if I could spare the time. But I need the sheriff. I must speak with him, only—”

“What is it?”

“I’ve only seen him at the meetinghouse.”

The woman pursed her lips at him. A dry shrunken grimace of distaste. As if he had revealed himself to her. She said, “A word of advice from one close to the grave. Don’t waste so much time buttering the sheriff. He’ll not stand it as gracefully as I. He lives two streets off the north side of the common. The third house on the left. If you can get past his wife and the militia boys, wish him well from me. The widow Colburn.”

“Thank you Mistress Colburn.”

“Get along,” she said. “You’ve used me up.”

He followed the directions of the widow woman even as he considered her words. He’d not counted on any militiamen attending the sheriff. It was not a good sign if they were so spooked as to post a guard at the man’s house. He considered the possibility there might be a man or two among them that had been present at the fight the day before but told himself it was unlikely; those men would be home resting. It would be other militiamen with the sheriff, likely only a pair or three for public show, was what he guessed. He could tie the horse elsewhere and scout on foot but turned away the thought. He was bound to be bold.

He was wrong. Before the house was a plank door set on sawhorses to make a table and plank benches with six or eight men seated there. On the table were the scattered leavings of a meal on pewter platters and the men were drinking from tankards. He pulled up the bay by the hitch rail that ran along the street and stepped down and tied the horse by the reins as the men watched him. Then one said, “Why, there’s one of em right now.”

They came upon him in a pack. They had been drinking beer and he let them bring him to the ground without a struggle although they pummeled and beat him with their fists. Once down some of them began
working his lower back with their boots and he felt the sharp flush of pain in his kidneys. Then that stopped as one crouched to tie his hands behind with a rawhide lacing drawn from a boot. They rolled him onto his stomach so his face was down in the packed dirt of the yard and he twisted his neck sideways to breathe. Then one sat on his head and two more on his back. Another leaned down and said, “You’re either the dumbest bastard or the bravest. Did you think you’d find the sheriff alone to finish what you failed at yesterday?”

Blood said, “I come to talk to him.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Hold on,” said another man, leaning close. “This is the one told them farmers to quit. Idn’t that you?”

Blood said, “That’s me.”

“He didn’t have a hand in it,” explained the veteran. “Except to call the mob off us when Mose was pinned down under his horse.”

The man beside his head said, looking at Blood, “If he could call em off like that, he had some authority all right. Is what I think.”

Blood said, “All I was, was the voice needed at the time. Not any of it was what anybody figured on.”

“It was quite the murderous bunch to not have figured on it.”

“They were prepared, it’s true. But I had no part save to walk in at the right time to stop things from going worse. For everybody.” And he craned his head up to meet the eye of the veteran.

“What do we do with him?” the first man asked.

“Thump the bejesus out of him and haul him over to the jail, is what I say,” said one of the men on his back.

“You can do it if you choose,” said Blood. “Even if I was a mind to, I couldn’t stop you. But, before you commence, why don’t one of you run ask the sheriff what he wants done with me. My name’s Blood.”

“You’re Blood?”

“I am.”

The man sitting on his head stepped off. “I heared about you,” he said.

Blood said. “I ain’t going anywhere you don’t want me to. But you might do yourselves a favor before you start in. See the sheriff, make sure he supports your plan.”

“You seem pretty damn sure of what he’ll want, Blood.”

“I got no idea how he’ll receive me. But I know this—it won’t be me he’s pissed with, you treat me a way he wouldn’t want.”

Mose Hutchinson was in a four-poster bed that had been set up in the sitting room on the first floor. He was upright in the bed, supported by pillows and bolsters. His bare chest was bound in tight strips of sheeting and his left leg lay outside the covers, a thick white grub of cedar splints and layers of taut wrappings. His shank and foot emerged, seeming small and dirty-white below the swaddle of bandage. Facing him, Blood realized he had watched the whole incident from the window beside the bed, that the sheriff had not intervened but waited to see what Blood could accomplish alone. He wondered at what point the sheriff might have called out, if things had gone badly. Then knew the sheriff would have remained silent if Blood had failed with his men. This did not alter Blood’s opinion of the man. That opinion still shaping.