The Miscreant

by Brock Deskins

  “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.

  He lurched to his feet and threw Garran into the wall. Garran tried to block the proceeding flurry of blows with his arms. He ducked his head to the side, and Dwight’s heavy fist struck the wall with enough force to crack the planking. He tried to use his knees to catch his stepfather in the gut and thighs, but he was pressed in too close for him to land anything but a few feeble strikes.

  Nina threw herself between her husband and son and tried to push her husband away. Dwight grabbed her wrist, swung her around, and hit her in the face. Lost in his drunken rage, Nina became the primary focus of Dwight’s violence. She dropped to the floor and curled into a ball as Dwight punched at her back and head.

  Garran picked up his reaping blade, darted across the room, and struck Dwight in the back of the head with the haft side of the blade. Dwight stumbled away and spun back toward Garran. Garran stepped over his mother and turned the deadly end of the steel toward his stepfather.

  “Touch either of us again and I’ll kill you,” Garran swore.

  Dwight looked about to call Garran’s bluff, but he spit on the floor and straightened up. “I got better places to be than surrounded by a bastard and a whore.”

  Garran turned to keep facing him until Dwight left the house, slamming the door behind him. The tool clattered to the floor, and Garran helped his mother to a chair. Her left eye was swollen shut and already going from red to purple. By morning, it would be as black as Dwight’s heart.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.” She brushed Garran’s hair away from the gash over his eye. “I need to stitch that up. I’ll go get my sewing kit.”

  Nina went to the corner of the room where she did her sewing and knitting, retrieved a small wooden box, and motioned for her son to sit in front of her. She selected one of the smaller needles from the box and some good thread.

  “I should sanitize this before I use it, but I don’t want to wait for water to boil. Best use some alcohol.” She reached for a nearby bottle.

  “You probably shouldn’t use that one. I don’t think the alcohol content is very high anymore.”

  Nina sighed and shook her head, but she could not keep from grinning. “I’ll fetch the one Dwight hides in the bedroom, unless you found that one too.”

  “No, where does he keep it?”

  Nina didn’t answer and returned a moment later with a small flask. She filled a shot glass and soaked the needle and thread for a full minute before she began stitching shut the wound.

  “I don’t know why you gotta rile him up like that. You know how he is. He’s gonna kill you one of these days, and it’ll be your own fault.”

  “Before or after he kills you?”

  “I’ll be fine. I know how to handle him when you don’t drive him insane. If it weren’t for you, I’d have no trouble.”

  “He started it. He took my money.”

  “You blew up Finney’s still! What was he supposed to do? He might be an angry, good-for-nothing drunk, but he’s right about being responsible. You’re almost a man, and you need to start acting like one or you’re never gonna make it. Stop getting in so much damn trouble.”

  “I try.”

  “You don’t do a very good job of it.”

  “I didn’t say I tried very hard.”

  Nina chuckled and shook her head. “You’re too damn clever by half for a little town like this. This place is fine for dullards like Dwight and most the folks living here, but you get bored too easy. You got too much of your father in you. That man couldn’t sit still for five minutes before something started itching at him and he had to run off and scratch it before it drove him mad. He couldn’t even hold still long enough to make an honest woman out of me. Of course, the last itch he ran off to scratch got him killed.”

  “Was he a no-good drunk too?”

  Garran had never known his father and had not given the man much thought. He had little interest in knowing who he was until recently as he neared manhood and gave his future some serious thought. Dwight thought he could define who and what Garran was by the character and actions of a man long dead, and it infuriated him.

  “He enjoyed his drink, that’s for sure. He had grand ideas that he was certain would see him to a life of wealth and luxury. He could charm the scales off a snake when he wanted to. I think maybe he coulda made it in the city, but I reckon he hoodwinked the wrong sort on his last expedition, and it cost him his life.”

  Garran did not know if he was like his father or not, but he certainly would not let someone like Dwight characterize him. He was his own man and no one else’s. It was his life, and he would live it by his rules no matter his lineage.

  “There’s some food in the kitchen,” his mother said. “Grab a plate and head up to your room. Best if you stay out of Dwight’s sight for a spell.”

  “He won’t be back until he reaches the end of his line of credit at the bar.”

  “You still need to make yourself scarce.”

  Garran touched the stitches closing up the gash on his head, as he headed to the kitchen. “Fine.”

  “I mean what I say. You best stop acting the fool. It’s time to get right.”

  Garran did not bother responding. When faced with the choice of lying to or angering his mother, he felt it best to say nothing at all. Maybe he would lie low for a while, but it was not entirely up to him. The world placed obstacles and temptations in his path, and he could not predict how he would navigate them until they arrived.

  ***

  Heavy pounding roused him from his slumbers. Garran opened his eyes and clamped them back shut against the light streaming through his open window. Through squinted eyes he watched a shadow dancing furtively against the wall. He cast his gaze toward the window and saw the silhouette of someone just outside hammering something into the frame. He rolled out of bed and crossed the small room to the window. Dwight stood on a ladder just beyond, hammering an iron grate over the opening.

  Garran glared at Dwight’s grinning face through the flat, crisscrossing bars. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “You want to act like a criminal, I’m gonna treat you like one. Maybe some time cooped up in your room and away from your friends will teach you a lesson.”

  “Criminals get a trial!”

  Garran spun around and made for his bedroom door. He twisted the knob, but it was locked. He pounded on the door with his fist and shouted, “Mother!”

  Nina’s voice spoke from the other side. “Garran, you settle down. This is for your own good.”

  “You can’t keep me caged up like an animal!”

  “Maybe you need to think about that before you decide to act like one,” Dwight said, chortling.

  Garran kicked the door several times and looked around his room for something heavy with which to bash it down. />
  “You break anything and you’re gonna pay for it!”

  “How am I supposed to pay when you took all my money and keep me from going to work?”

  “Oh, you’ll pay, trust me.”

  Garran’s mother shouted. “You do as you’re told! You just sit a spell, don’t cause no trouble, and we’ll let you out.”

  Garran gave the door one final kick, threw himself onto his bed, and covered his eyes with his arm. Dwight continued to chortle as he finished securing the barrier in place. Garran heard the ladder scrape against the side of the house when Dwight finished his work and left. Garran stared at the ceiling, cursing Dwight, his pliable mother, and his ill luck. At some point during his bemoaning, he fell asleep, only to be awoken by another noise at his window.

  Matt’s voice drifted through the bars. “Garran.”

  He stepped up to the window, his face framed by iron slats. “Matt?”

  “What’s going on? You didn’t show up at work, and there are bars on your window.”

  “That bag of pus Dwight put me on house arrest for Finney’s still. And he took all my damn money!”

  Matt grimaced. “Yeah, I have to work for Finney to pay off my debt.”

  “Careful, Finney’s an oddball recluse who hasn’t had a wife since before we were born. He might try to turn you into a fancy boy.”

  “Real funny. How long are you locked up for?”

  “Until tonight. I have a date, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss it.”

  “How are you going to get out?”

  “With your help.”

  “I don’t know. I’m in a lot of trouble already. I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with the consequences of performing a jailbreak.”

  “This isn’t a jailbreak, it’s a rescue. I was never tried in court, and this isn’t a prison. I’m sure the entire thing is illegal.”

  “Now you’re a law magister?”

  “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “What do you need me to do?”