Mending Horses (2 page)

He'd never imagined freedom would feel this way, that he'd be hesitant to meet a blacksmith's eye, that a simple business transaction would tie a knot in his throat. He'd thought he'd never be afraid again. But he was still the same boy inside, uncertain, wary of the next taunt or blow.

It was a relief to know that he'd soon see a familiar face. Maybe that was what had drawn him to seek the peddler. Even though Daniel had seen him only twice, the little man had known things about Daniel that he hadn't known himself. He'd known how it was with Ivy, and how Ethan would become his friend, even though Daniel hadn't thought he needed one.

The last time he'd seen the peddler, the fellow had a boy with him, a boy who spoke Da's language and sang Ma's songs. Back then, it had hurt to hear those words, those songs coming from that boy's lips. But now he thought it might feel good.

Walter slipped out of the blacksmith shop and cut around to the road. He glanced back. The foreign boy was bent over Mr. Fairley, watching him work. Walter shivered, seeing how easy it would be for the foreigner to take Mr. Fairley unawares, just like he must've taken the real owner of that horse.

But Mr. Fairley wasn't unawares. He'd been clever enough to see through the stranger's lies and was more than a match for the stranger in wits and strength. Hadn't Walter himself felt the weight of Mr. Fairley's striking arm when he'd dawdled about a chore the way he was dawdling now?

“Run and fetch Constable Ainesworth,”
Mr. Fairley had told him, not stand and think. So run he did.

Tilda Fowler took a wet shirt from the laundry basket and shook it out smartly. The sleeves made a sharp snapping noise as they grabbed at the air. She jabbed a clothes-peg in each end of the hem and stooped for another garment.

“Mama, look! There's Walter Sackett running up the road like the devil's chasing him.”

“Sally, tend your chores and don't be dithering about the blacksmith's boy,” Tilda scolded her daughter. Lately Sally had nothing in her head but boys, boys, boys. Just the same, Tilda tugged the clothesline down below her nose and peeked over the laundry toward the road.

Walter Sackett looked like a plucked chicken when he ran, all flapping elbows and flailing legs and pimply skin. He caught his toe on a rut and sprawled face-first in the dirt. Tilda ducked under the shirts, headed out to the road, and hauled the boy to his feet.

“What's your hurry, boy? You set Mr. Fairley's shop afire?”

“No, ma'am.” He bounced on the balls of his feet as though he needed to find an outhouse quick. “It's robbers—a robber, I mean—I got to get Mr. Ainesworth.”

“Someone robbed Mr. Fairley?” Tilda asked.

“No, ma'am. Not yet, I mean, that is—”

Tilda grabbed Walter's shoulders and gave him a little shake. “Spit it out, boy. What do you mean?”

The boy stopped bouncing. “There's this fella came to the shop—a foreign fella, all slicked up in new clothes on a fancy horse and valises full of goods”—he bent close to Tilda's ear and lowered his voice—“all stolen. He tried to make out like they was
his, but Mr. Fairley, he knew, but he didn't let on, just so's this foreigner wouldn't get suspicious and bolt. He's keeping this fella busy down at the shop while I fetch the constable.”

“Who'd he rob?” Sally asked.

“His master,” Walter said before Tilda could scold Sally back to her chores. “Robbed him and murdered him, most likely. Prob'ly lying in the woods with his throat slit from ear to ear.”

“Oh!” Sally gasped, her eyes saucer-wide, her hands clasped tight at her breast.

Tilda wasn't sure which disturbed her more: the idea of a robber and possibly a murderer at the blacksmith's, or the way Walter Sackett's eyes latched on to Sally's clasped hands. Or rather, what was beneath them.

“Well,” Tilda said, rubbing her hands on her apron, “we'd best not keep you. Run along and fetch the constable.”

The boy ran down the road as if the dust cloud at his heels pursued him. “Sally, get inside,” Tilda said. She turned toward her daughter, but Sally was already gone, not toward the house, but across the east pasture and halfway to the Wolcotts' place.

“. . . and there was still blood on his hands.” Sally gasped, breathless.

Beulah Wolcott squealed with terror. At least Sally guessed it was terror, though in truth, it might have only been envy that Sally had gotten a juicy story before she did.

“. . . and his horse's feet were red with it,” Sally continued. “Trampled him down after he was dead, you see, so nobody would recognize the body.”

“What body?” Beulah's papa poked his head out of the barn doorway.

“The dead man's. The one this foreigner killed,” Sally said.

“What foreigner?”

“The one down at the blacksmith's.”

There was a clatter of tools, and Mr. Wolcott came out of the barn with an ax in his hand. “There's been a killing down to Jake Fairley's?”

“Oh, no, sir.” But Sally's heart doubled its pace. It would be exciting if there was a killing, something to talk about for weeks and weeks. “But there is a killer. He killed his master and who knows how many others, and Mr. Fairley is keeping him there, waiting for Walter to fetch the constable.”

“A foreigner, you say?”

“Oh, yes. Speaks nothing but gibberish. Probably a Papist on top of it.”

Mr. Wolcott hefted his ax. “And Jake all alone with him? Good God!”

The excited flutter in Sally's heart landed in her stomach and turned into a lump of granite. Mr. Wolcott was a slight, even-tempered man. Sally couldn't see him standing against a murderer. Another lump of granite lodged in Sally's throat as Mr. Wolcott kissed the top of Beulah's head. “Tell your mother I'm going to Mr. Fairley's. But don't tell her why,” he said. His fingers brushed his daughter's cheek, as if he feared he might not see her again.

Beulah's chin quivered as her father walked away. “What do we do?” Beulah's whisper rose to a mousy squeak.

To the west, Sally saw Mr. Gilbert and his sons digging potatoes. To the south, Mr. Finch gathered windfall apples. When Sally turned back to her friend, Beulah met her eyes and nodded. “We have to hurry.”

“Killed them all, and they never had a chance, and now Papa's gone to help catch him.” Beulah's voice faded into a series of hiccuping sobs.

Seth Gilbert gave the girl his handkerchief. Poor thing, practically in hysterics, and no wonder, too. “There, dear. We'll go, won't we?” He wondered if there was time to go home for his musket. The only weapons he and his sons, Levi and Noah, had to hand were their shovels and pocketknives, but there was safety in numbers, and with Jacob Fairley and Enos Wolcott, they'd be five—no, four. Best to go now and not waste any time. He frowned at Noah, his youngest. “You're not coming,” Seth said abruptly.

Noah opened his mouth to protest, but Seth continued. “Find whoever you can and tell them to join us.”

“But I want to go, too,” Noah said.

Seth grabbed the boy's shoulder and shook him. “This is important, son.”

“You can be like William Dawes and Paul Revere,” Levi added.

Seth threw Levi a grateful glance. “Yes, just like them.”

Noah puffed out his chest and nodded. “Yes, sir,” the boy said, and was gone.

Constable Chester Ainesworth was having a very bad day. A weasel had gotten into the henhouse during the night and ravaged the flock, leaving only a trio of tough, scrawny hens behind. Of the prized chickens Amelia had fattened and primped for next month's agricultural fair, not a one was left. Cleaning up the blood, feathers, and torn bodies with their stench of tainted meat had been a joy compared to facing Amelia's distress over her lost flock.

After a scorched and dismal breakfast, Chester had discovered a leak in the barn roof that had ruined a good quantity of hay. In the process of mending the damage, he'd spilled a box of nails and hammered his thumb.

In the afternoon, he'd found the cattle placidly grazing among his pumpkins, having broken down their pasture fence and forsaken the tough August grass for the cornstalks standing sentry over the pumpkins. It seemed that everything he wanted to keep in was bound and determined to get out, and everything he wanted to keep out was equally set on getting in.

He returned to the house to find a babble of frantic women, excited children, and agitated men blocking his front door, all of them vexed because Chester had been out when they thought he should have been in. He caught snatches of conversation that made him wish he'd stayed out.

“. . . he killed them in their beds, the whole family,” said Caroline Dunbar in her grating squeal of a voice. “Slit their throats one by one and robbed 'em and then set the house on fire . . .”

Chester circumnavigated the group, hoping to slip into the
kitchen and fortify himself with a glass of rum before facing the horde. Walter Sackett stood on the doorstep talking to Amelia, his hair sweat-plastered to his forehead. The blather of the crowd kept Chester from catching any of his words.

“. . . ain't nobody safe in their homes anymore,” said a man on Chester's left. “He bashed in their brains while they slept, and then made off with a thousand dollars in silver and gold . . .”

“. . . assaulted the women and girls, then chopped them to pieces with an ax . . .”

Chester told himself that his neighbors were probably stirred up over some newspaper story about a faraway crime. Nothing sensational ever happened here. Chauncey was so tiny, it merited only three sentences in the gazetteer.

“. . . a gruesome sight as you'd ever want to see,” someone grumbled in harsh bass tones. “He cut off their heads with a scythe, as easy as mowing hay . . .”

Or perhaps the tale of the chicken massacre had circulated through town and returned transmogrified into something more ghastly.

“. . . and when the constable came for him, he shot him dead,” said a voice at Chester's elbow.

Then again, perhaps not.

Daniel stood with his cheek pressed to Ivy's, overseeing the blacksmith's ritual of fitting, nailing, and filing. The familiar task was almost a comfort when set against the uncertainty and bewilderment that had been his lot for the past several days.

The more time and distance he put between himself and Farmington and the Lymans, the more he discovered how ill-prepared he'd been for the journey. The number of simple things he didn't know seemed unending. Finding a night's lodging should have been easy enough. At first glance, landladies and tavern-keepers would greet him with fair and smiling faces. But their smiles faded when he opened his mouth and his Irishness showed itself—that Irish turn to his words he'd fought so hard to keep ever since that horrific day six years ago, when fire had
taken his parents, his baby brother, and his home. Now he tried to flatten his vowels like a native-born New Englander. Even so, asking for food or lodging, or a barn to stable Ivy for the night, was a challenge. Perhaps it was because he couldn't remember ever asking for anything where the answer hadn't been no.

Finding his way was another problem. A line on a map and a road on the ground were different things entirely. He might blunder about until winter, trying to puzzle out where to go, where to stay, how to speak, and how not to get robbed. Finding the peddler had quickly turned from a whim to a necessity.

“There, that should do it.” The blacksmith released Ivy's foot and straightened.

Daniel blinked out of his fog. “Yes, thank you, sir,” he said. At least he remembered to say
yes
instead of
aye
and
thank you
instead of
ta
. He stooped to check the smith's work, then glanced up to ask about the peddler.

The blacksmith wasn't looking at Daniel or at Ivy, but at something behind them.

Releasing Ivy's hoof, Daniel rose and turned. A little sandy-haired man stood at the edge of the blacksmith's yard, an ax in his hand. Another next to him held a pitchfork, and another a spade. There were more behind them and coming up the road. Others carried weapons rather than tools: a rusted sword, a twisted bayonet, battered muskets. Daniel wondered if he'd arrived in town on training day. Perhaps the blacksmith was captain of the militia and . . .

But the men weren't looking at the blacksmith. Their dark, cold gazes were fixed on Daniel.

The constable's parlor was jammed with people, some standing on chairs to get a better view, some trying to shove their way in from the hall. Those out in the yard jostled at the open windows, trying to thrust their heads and shoulders into the room.

Daniel felt as if he stood outside himself, seeing himself as one of the spectators might: a stranger with nothing to say in his own defense. The contents of his bags lay in an untidy sprawl
across the constable's table. Funny how quickly he'd attached himself to those bits of cloth and leather and metal and paper. It felt as if his guts were laid out there, instead of only his goods.