by Scott Thomas
Laben’s drumstick lodged in midair.
“We saw him in the woods, stark naked, dancing around with antlers strapped to his head.”
“You’re makin’ that up!” Laben scolded.
“No, father, we saw him,” Mary persisted.
Laben knew his daughter was not prone to untruths; still, he grew angry.
“You’re mistaken, girl; that old Indian is gone.”
The next morning Laben loaded his wagon with produce and his auburn mare towed him into the village. By afternoon the farmer’s pockets were heavy with coins, more than they had ever known. Smiling, he set off for home.
It began to snow and his wagon creaked and rattled along through the wooded lanes. Steam came in bursts from the horse’s nose and its big eyes blinked off heavy flakes of white.
Something in the woods made a deep crunching sound. Someone was moving in there! The auburn horse came to a stop. The wind moaned, “Laben...”
From out of the dense mist of snow there appeared a great stag, its antlers stabbing up at the belly of a grey winter night.
In the morning a man from the village, a Mr. J. Cushing, found Laben’s wagon sitting in the centre of the snowy road. Later on, at the village inn, he would report how he found Laben’s body, broken and twisted in the snow, amidst tell-tale pink hoof prints.
He would also tell how he’d heard crashing in the woods and looked up to see Laben’s auburn mare running off with a large male deer.
Pistols and Rain
A Troubling Wound
Massachusetts, 1797
Often the pain of another is little more than rumour; an intangible at best—a wound if the sufferer hears the good fortune of proof, yet even given that, our empathy for the sufferer's sensations remains an abstract. One cannot judge or measure his neighbour’s suffering and so, agony, as it comes to us in words, is largely an object of faith. Who are we then to admonish William Howe for his medicinal indulgences?
Young and fond of ale, in the county of Essex by the sea, William found himself at one end of a duelling pistol with the end of another staring back at him. With surgeons hovering like crows in the field of lapping sea grass, the fine spring day hung clear above a sighing Atlantic.
The terror that arrives when one is suddenly called upon to scrutinize his own mortality was William’s in quantity. He rattled in his boots as the breeze toyed with his cravat. His opponent, a veteran of honourable murder, stood straight and sure, holding his long pistol as if it were the handle of an umbrella.
Perhaps William’s fear would have proved less keen had he possessed the presence of mind to ponder the odds he was facing. For all their smoke and noise, pistols of the day could not have proved more inaccurate were their shooters wrapped with blindfolds. Consequently, duels rarely ended with a mortality.
And so it went. William trembled, damp in sweat, his thoughts spinning so quickly that he could find no prayer in them. His gun barked and the smoke coughed out and his ball flew past his challenger like a shell returning to the sea.
The other’s ball, while not even so large as a walnut, struck William with the force of a buffalo. He crumpled in the high windy grass, an ocean of pain filling his leg, overflowing up into his head— and everything in between. He groaned, looking at the blue sky, waiting for it to darken, which it never did. Voices moved closer and presently his surgeon towered above, a long, glum silhouette.
The surgeon took one look and turned to the others, announcing, “He breathes still.”
Mercifully, William escaped the surgeon’s saw, but it was months before he could stand and even longer before he was able to walk. Figuratively speaking, he ran—straight out of Essex and into the keeping of his uncle Ebenezer. His pain followed.
Every effort was made to relieve William’s suffering, but neither the comforts that Ebenezer Howe’s wealth supplied, nor the succession of doctors summoned to his bedside, could alleviate William’s distress.
“There is nothing more to be done. ”
“I can do no more than I have. ”
“Terrible though it is to say...the injury persists fully against all manner of correction. ”
So concluded the healers.
William turned to drink. While others in the inns laughed, drumming unevenly upon the tables with their mugs, and stamping their boots on the worn wooden planks, William sat in stale corners brooding, ingesting numbing quantities until his driver came to carry him out.
Once, in Pierce’s Tavern, William found himself in conversation with a strange traveller. While shabby and loud, the man sparked the interest of young Howe. It wasn’t so much the fellow’s manner as it was his boasting. Namely...
“Neither God in his clouds, nor Satan in his flames, has yet to devise an ill that I cannot remedy.”
That had William by the ears.
The ensuing interchange informed William that this bedraggled stick of a man was well learned in the writings of the herbalist Culpeper, to say nothing of other, less orthodox methods of healing. Swift as a swallow, the man was whisked to Uncle Ebenezer’s house.
The guest, Isaiah Dower, was genuinely impressed with his new friend’s situation. Truth be told, the house—a lofty thing with massive twin chimneys—did indeed bear the note of wealth. The ornate woodwork, the panelled fireplace walls, the furnishings and rugs all provided an atmosphere of comfort and beauty afforded mainly to the prosperous. Dower was bathed and fed and offered a bed in the ell where the servants slept.
Light through the many panes cast squares of honey on the floor in William’s chamber. He sat on the edge of his bed cringing down at his left leg.
“It’s no use—the pain refuses to subside.”
Dower, who only half sat on his chair, thinking that the dust of the road had imprinted upon his being and might somehow sully the cushion, leaned over the pitcher that held his latest concoction and sniffed.
“The quantity of chamomile is, perhaps, lacking,” he speculated.
None of the herbal mixtures had proved effective in treating William’s condition and he was pressed to doubt his visitor. It became increasingly evident that Dower’s boasts were only so many idle words.
As the story goes, this latest amalgamation turned out to be the last, for that afternoon Uncle Ebenezer returned from town with word that the authorities were inquiring about Mr. Dower’s whereabouts (for reasons that were never disclosed). In the morning the herbalist was not to be found, though he had slipped a piece of paper under William’s door. It was a recipe of sorts.
The musty green of wormwood, married exactingly with fennel and anise. Distillation. Absinthe. Having afforded every effort to adhere to Dower’s instructions, William came away with a green liquid, pale as peridot.
When at last this bitter brew was fit for consumption, and thus administered through the lips, William found himself hovering in the warmth of a verdant mist. He fumbled the glass onto a near table and slumped back upon his mattress. He smiled, for the pain was gone.
The Laughter of an Angel
Love, like pain, arrives in any season... when spring is a garden of perfume and bees, or when the moon is a snowball and November handles the woods with spare, russet gloves. It was at this later time, following the blare and blaze of October, that New England became a sombre thing. The stark, near-stripped woods stood so dense that they made a grey mist of the hills. The sky, kindred in shade, might have been a misplaced Atlantic, the colour of a slate over which a carver would hunch, chipping out:
IN MEMORY OF.
In this time of pheasants and unobstructed wind, Uncle Ebenezer’s house bore the contrasting flush of music and laughter common to balls. Two adjoining chambers on the north side of the second floor became one as dividing panels were swung up against the ceiling and furnishings were cleared to make room for dance.
Below and by himself in the west parlour, William scowled at the beating of feet above his head. The sound taunted him as he slumped in a window seat, cool pa
nes pressed to his back. His dark hat was squashed under his arm like a dead crow.
A guest poked his wig in and, tamping a pipe, inquired, “Will you not join in the dance, young Mr. Howe?”
William pointed to his leg and grinned dryly.
“Ahhh—sorry!” The man’s head withdrew and he trotted up the stairs.
Sustained by his medicine, William was just capable of socializing, but the leg was little more than a weight to drag—a hollow vessel full of green liquid. The young man was mobile enough, certainly, but dancing was now relegated to memory and dream.
More footsteps sounded in the hall, a skirt hissing like windblown leaves over the wide boards. The steps were softer than the previous intruder’s. William knew that they belonged to a woman even before he saw one drift past. He sat up on his seat and returned the passing gaze of Elizabeth Fay.
Softer than candlelight, the young woman might have been a ghost, William thought, the way she floated past and on up the stairs as if there were only a spring breeze beneath her gown. And her face— ideal beyond the limitations of corporeality—was quiet as the pale moon. Her hair was teased to a framing nimbus as if dawn were rising behind her head. And while her mouth was a small unopened rose and her nose was fine, it was Elizabeth’s eyes that imprinted themselves in William’s mind. They were like a Grecian sea deep enough to sink ships, or twin drops of diaphanous peridot. He wanted to drink them.
Green mist swirled in the man’s head when he stood. He grabbed his cane and limped after the ghost, precariously managing the stairs. The music grew louder and his heart, too, like the many stomping feet. Once in the upper hallway, he leaned in the doorway of the ballroom and spotted Elizabeth going gracefully about her steps.
Young men were about her like flies and each more stylish than William, more handsome, or so he thought. They were all skilled in their movements, the products of dance masters, no doubt. Their frocks were of the perfect materials and their lower legs, from knee to ankle, were white in silk stockings, like spry candles. Unable to join them, William hovered dizzily in the doorframe, his heart staring out from a prison of ribs.
He loved her immediately. He loved her green eyes, her retiring smile, and her laughter (above the strings and stomps) was that of an angel. He loved her from her head—like a crown of dandelion spores honeyed with light—down to her feet, like timid sparrows peeking out from a rim of lace as intricate as hoarfrost.
A Bitter Kiss
The day mustered its light and crept upward, westward behind a thatch of skinny maples. William took his medicine, then his tea, and then a stroll in the brisk, bleak November afternoon.
Most of the leaves were down, though here and there the rusty oaks showed stubbornly among brittle brown counterparts. Small birds, high in their green pine chapels, prayed noisily for a safe trip south.
It was by no mistake that William found himself outside the home of Elizabeth Fay. Elizabeth’s father—The Captain—had done well for himself and the house stood as evidence. It was tall and white and rectangular, with two great chimneys. The front and side doors boasted classically inspired flattened pillars and projecting pediments that were drawn-out triangles. A line of moulding like large wooden teeth ran beneath the eaves.
Soft green light played in William’s head as he hesitated by the fence. A mumble of pain came from his left leg, a consequence of the hike. He reached into his great coat and found a flask. The bitter relief was barely past his lips when the door of the house opened and a servant girl appeared. She spoke, “Excuse me, sir... Miss Elizabeth wonders if, upon such a chill day, you might like to come in for a cup of hot tea.”
William stuffed his medicament away and straightened.
“Tea? Yes, why certainly! Yes, yes, tea would be delightful.”
William limped into the house behind the girl and there stood Elizabeth with her serene stare. He plucked off his tricorn and bowed.
“Good day, young miss,” William said.
“Good day,” Elizabeth returned, curtsying, “I just now saw you from the window. You would be the nephew of Mister Ebenezer Howe, unless I am incorrect?”
“That I am. I be William Howe, formerly of Salem, in Essex.”
“Ahh. Would you care to join me in tea?”
For a moment the man could only stare, his breathing constricted by the proximity of beauty. Her words came to him, but they were more heat than sound.
“Tea, William... would you care for tea?”
“Tea—yes. Of course, that would be splendid.”
He followed Elizabeth past the doorway of a parlour where he saw a cleaning girl sweeping severed fingers from the brick hearth and a crow composed of flame flit up behind the logs in the firebox. Elizabeth seemed not to notice and William rubbed at his eyes.
There had never been a kinder hostess. Elizabeth proved as charming as she was bashful. Gifted in wit and manners, she fascinated William. She blushed readily and her laughter, as noted, was an angel’s.
They sat quietly for a time, only peeking at each other, then, with a boldness that might have come from his flask, William leaned forward, holding Elizabeth’s eye and whispered, “It is my dearest hope, one day, to have the very good fortune to kiss you.”
Elizabeth pinkened and hid her smile with a hand, though her peridot stare was meaningful. “I think I should like that.”
The kiss came soon enough. It was slow, an ember’s warmth, a vestige of October to temper the November cold. On a brown road, by a grey wood, with the blue sky above, they embraced. The young man’s lips tasted of wormwood, like a forest’s bitter shadows, yet something awakened in Elizabeth’s heart.
A Speck of Rust
Over time, the pain determined to increase, and William found himself downing more of his elixir to subdue it. The first snow had scattered, but the cold it represented and the roughness of the road neither deterred nor greatly discomforted William, for his flask was at the ready. On this particular morning he set out jauntily, despite the numb weight of his left leg.
His thoughts were all about Elizabeth’s flesh, which he had come to know in intimate terms. It had happened as simply and naturally as rain might, when the day least expected it. The afternoon had been cool and grey and their lips had been too busy finding the other’s to shape words. The barn afforded convenient shelter and the hay offered a bed.
Her youthfulness had been disclosed in full, its pallor and warmth, its softness and contours. Her breasts were as firm as pears and her nipples hard like candle nubs. He had kissed all, from the swan-white neck down to warm hair the blond of August rye. He even pressed his mouth to a small mole—a coy speck of rust—on the back of her left shoulder.
Like Beasts, or Demons
It was not so much that William was ignorant of the particulars so far as fashion went, it was that he resented the restrictions affixed to conformity. Even so, love has a peculiar way of altering the will, and this morning William would present himself anew, dressed as well as any of those charming young fellows at the ball. He went so far as to wonder if the right quantity of his medicine might, over time, see him dancing as they had that night he first saw Elizabeth.
These thoughts and others came about in a hopeful way, for Elizabeth had sparked a light within him where none had shone before.
On his way to Captain Fay’s house, he paused to inspect his reflection in a puddle. While the water was a muddy grey, he stared back at himself, handsome enough in his suit of imported black velvet, with his white satin vest and cocked hat. His silver knee and shoe buckles gleamed as if shaped from stars.
William went directly to the Fay property. The morning air was scented with hay and fresh-cut wood as he came alongside the outbuildings. He was humming happily, but there were sounds coming from within the barn that caused him to stop and listen.
Were his ears now playing tricks? Wasn’t it enough that he was spying burning birds in fireplaces and body parts where none should be? That very morning he had glimps
ed a toe poking out from his tea like an albino toad.
He moved closer and pressed an ear to the door. No, it was more than his imagination—he could hear grunting and groaning from inside, as if the barn were filled with beasts and demons.
William eased the door open a crack and stared in. The first thing he saw, there in the dimness, was Captain Fay’s fine great coat flung across the rail of a horse stall. Looking harder, he saw pale figures, down in the matted hay. A bare woman was astride a man who lay grunting beneath. The woman went up and down, and while her hair was hidden by a bonnet, he saw a small reddish mark there on the back of her left shoulder.
William gasped and lurched away, hurrying back onto the road, his head and heart aswirl in a mutual fever—the door swung shut behind him and made a noise.
The Captain cursed and pulled the woman down out of view, dislodging her bonnet in the process so that her dark hair spilled onto his chest. The fleck of red oak leaf that had been stuck to the maid’s shoulder fell loose and disappeared into the hay.
The Challenge
About the time that The Captain and Mrs. Fay and their five daughters were taking their evening meal, an uninvited visitor marched into their house and burst through the door of the chamber where they sat. All eyes went to young William. Even Elizabeth was alarmed by his manner.
Thrusting a finger at the head of the house, William spat, “You, sir, are a pig.”
A communal huff flew from the women. The Captain shot up, indignant, bear-like.
William was not quite finished. “You lie with your own daughter as if with a common harlot!”
The missus gave a cry and her hand flew to her chest like a small white bird.