by Myers, Karen
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Benitoe confirmed, the excitement rising in his voice. “How if we had troops that followed a given route, season after season. A bunch of wagons, say, a part of a clan all together, children, grannies—all of them who wanted to come. Bring the family, bring the animals, at least the ones worth breeding or selling. Bring the craftsmen and the smiths and, yes, human goods that would be useful everywhere, the ones that aren’t worth the effort of the korrigans for the small villages.
“We could work along the way, crafts in the wagons, raising the children and teaching them. Each night a new village.”
He leaned forward. “It’s not like the market fairs. Those make everyone come to the big towns. We could go to the smaller places, spread out all over. New lutin settlements would naturally be created in the process.”
Benitoe looked at George. “And it’s not just things to sell or trade. We could offer food. We could bring along musicians. We could include strange animals no one’s every seen before.”
“Provide entertainment, you mean,” George said.
“Yes, a traveling fair.”
Benitoe subsided for a moment. “It doesn’t have to all be lutins, of course. Others might join us. And there’s no reason we can’t learn some new skills. Cooling boxes, for example, for ice cream, from Ceridwen and her colleagues.”
“Balloons?”
Benitoe could hear the tease in George’s voice, but he replied, “Well, why not? I bet we could come up with some way to do that. It didn’t look that hard. If I talk to Ceridwen about it…”
George lifted one hand from the steering wheel in mock surrender. “You’re right, I bet you could. Get the materials from here, and provide some equivalent of the fan and burner.”
“Ice cream and popcorn. Those are great ideas, and simple. The small things, like compasses and flashlights. Smithwork, cheeses, all our specialties.”
Benitoe mused a bit. “The wagons are key. We need houses on wheels that look appealing and different, and horses that go along with that, fancy and not like anyone else’s.”
“I think you’re on to something,” George said. “You’ll probably have clans that embrace this, and many individuals who will want to try it. I can get you all sorts of pictures of gypsy caravans and similar things to give you some ideas. You could have a base to return to and, if you take your families along, maybe it won’t be all that disruptive.”
Benitoe nodded agreement as he spoke.
George said, “It would be a bold advertisement for lutins and what they could do.” He glanced over at Benitoe. “I thought your folk kept what we would call a ‘low profile.’ How will you present this to the Kuzul? How would they react?”
“What I need,” Benitoe said, slowly, working it out, “is a caravan all set up as an example and a couple of those horses, to give them an idea of what I mean.” He smiled. “And some ice cream.”
“That wouldn’t be that hard to do,” George said. “You could set it up at Bellemore until you were ready to show them.”
“Or at Karnag, in Edgewood. But how? It would require an initial investment, and not even Maëlys with her inn has that sort of gold to spare. Luhedoc has barely started to rebuild his herd. I don’t really want to be beholden to Gwyn…”
“Let me stake you,” George said. “I know what it would cost, and it’s not that much. I can do it for you.”
“Why should you take that risk?” It seemed strange to him—they had no clan relationship.
“It would be fun,” George said. “You forget, I used to be a man of business.”
Benitoe looked over at George, driving the car casually with the unconcern of long habit. Maybe that could work, he thought. He’d need the huntsman’s help anyway, for planning, to buy the horses… why not make him a partner?
“How would I pay you back?” he asked.
“I’d like to invest for the long term,” George said, “if it’s alright with you and the Kuzul. You can buy and sell on my behalf, and I’ll make it back gradually from the profits.”
Benitoe paused to think about it, then decided. “Partners?” he offered.
“If you’ll have me,” George said, a surprised look on his face.
Benitoe thought, why, he’d expected we’d want to keep this to ourselves, didn’t he? It’s easy to forget he’s the only human in Gwyn’s court, so powerful as he is. He’s more isolated in our world than the lutins are, if you look at it a certain way. People come to him as a champion, not so much as a simple friend. We’re almost of an age, he realized—it was easy to forget that.
“I’d be glad to have you as a partner,” Benitoe said.
George beamed at him. “It’s a deal.”
After a moment, Benitoe added, “We’ll have to invite Luhedoc to help with the horses. They’ll be no keeping him away once he’s seen them.”
His satisfaction soon turned to sleepiness as the road noise lulled him into a doze. He woke up sometime later, as George pulled off to the left and found a place to park. The sun was still above the horizon, but the daylight would soon be fading.
“Where are we?” Benitoe mumbled, as he rubbed his eyes.
“It’s a gliderport,” George said. “We’re just going to watch. You had one experience of flying today—I thought I’d show you a different version.”
He explained what the people were doing, and Benitoe was amazed. Unpowered flight, coasting on the wind like a giant bird. It was more marvelous than the big planes high in the sky. He couldn’t imagine a way of doing that back home.
Hot air balloons, now, he thought that was possible. There had to be some way of including that with the caravans. What would folks make of that, he wondered.
CHAPTER 22
George and Benitoe were off again early the next morning.
Benitoe left George to his thoughts at first, but George didn’t find them a pleasant place to be. His fingers twitched on the steering wheel. He hadn’t slept well—it seemed as though fragmentary dreams of his father had disturbed him all night long. His father towered over him in most of them. I was only nine when it happened, he thought, of course I think of him as a giant. But I did so much admire him. He could do anything outdoors—build a shed, train a hound, stalk a deer.
George was no longer a child. He wondered now why he couldn’t remember any friends of his father’s. All the outdoorsmen he knew in Virginia had one or two buddies who helped them with projects that needed more than one man. Not his father, not that he recalled. George had tagged along to watch as much as he was allowed, and sometimes his father let him help, but most of the time he was told sternly to just “stay put” while his father worked, if not indeed forbidden to follow altogether.
He wasn’t too sure how his father had earned a living. He did some sort of gamekeeper work for a large estate nearby, he thought, but he’d never brought George along with him, so his ideas about it were hazy. And now there was no one to ask.
He cleared his throat and glanced over at the quiet Benitoe. “You know,” he told him yet again, “this is probably a dead end, not my father at all. A dummy run.”
“I saw the picture,” Benitoe said. “Looks a lot like you.”
“Does it?” George asked. He’d gone through all the materials the lawyer had sent him last night, trying to tell himself that it was probably a coincidence. But no matter how he tried, the resemblance of the photo to his father could not be denied. “To me it looks like my father, not like me. But it’s the wrong age.”
“That means little, if he isn’t human. You know that.” Benitoe shifted in his seat to try and get a better view of the farmland between the low mountains. “And he does look like you, only thinner.”
What if it is my father, he thought. What if he doesn’t want to be found? Then what will I do?
If it is him, how did he survive when my mother died? What did he have to do with that? Is he dangerous? To me? To Benitoe? Why would he leave me alone all this time?
He knew ther
e were no answers to be had without finding this man, this Charles Tremont, and seeing if the resemblance and the back history were purely coincidental or not.
He tried to turn his thoughts to something less nerve-wracking. “Well, I suppose I’ll know one way or another, soon enough,” he told Benitoe.
They crested the last of the Appalachian ridges and admired the view as they began the descent into the Bald Eagle Valley again, this time headed southwest.
“What’s that?” Benitoe exclaimed, pointing at the tall white structures with long blades on the top of the Allegheny front opposite them.
“Wind farms,” George said. “Like windmills, only they make electricity instead of grinding grain.” He didn’t enjoy seeing the mountain ridges defaced by cell towers or wind turbines, but he had to admit, it made a dramatic picture.
“When we get there, you can stay in the car, if you like,” he said.
“Nonsense, I want to help. Just because Mag wanted to stay in her burrow one more day doesn’t mean I plan to leave you alone to face this.”
Benitoe smiled unexpectedly and, at George’s cocked eyebrow, told him, “I was remembering when Maëlys adopted me into her clan. I would have been grateful for a friend then.”
George said, hesitantly, “All this talk of wagons last night and traveling lutins, well, it made me think of Isolda.” He glanced over to see how Benitoe would take the mention of his betrothed, dead now for three quarters of a year.
The lutin replied, somberly, “I thought of her, too. I could picture her driving one of those caravans with the showy horses instead of her usual cobs.” He sighed. “I would have so liked to show her the balloons yesterday.”
George stretched out his right arm and clumsily gripped Benitoe’s shoulder. There was nothing he could say. Only the passage of time could help.
“Maybe you’ll show her father instead.”
The thought of kennel-master Ives floating overhead hanging from a big bright balloon cheered them up, and they joked for a while about just what the colors should be.
“Looks like we got the right place, this time,” George said. They had needed to ask directions from the center of Port Matilda. The address he’d been given was confusing, and they were sent back over the last Appalachian ridge into the Halfmoon Valley.
All the way down the valley road, George had admired the well-kept farms. “What a place for a foxhunt,” he’d observed to Benitoe, “All the fields along the valley, and woods and ridge on both sides, as well as tongues of cover well-placed for game.” He wondered if there was a hunt around here—he hadn’t heard of any.
The proper address had led them to a boarding stable, neat and tidy, with green paint and black trim on all the buildings and an old white square farmhouse where the owners clearly lived. Paddocks extended back along the grounds in the direction of the ridge, and an indoor arena was tucked behind the long stable block.
George parked the rental car in the gravel lot near the entrance to the stable alongside several other cars. He glimpsed two teenage girls inside, tacking up their horses.
“Remember,” he told Benitoe as they got out of the car, “you’re a jockey, if they ask.”
Benitoe snorted. “At least I’m not your son this time.”
“Yeah, but if they ask any questions about what racetracks you frequent, you’re going to be in trouble, so try to let me field questions if they come up. Tell ’em you’re from Wales—no one knows anything about Welsh racing, if there is any.” Including me, he thought.
He saw an obvious office just inside the stable and made for it. No one was there, and he came back out, stymied.
The door of the farmhouse opened, and an older woman in breeches, boots, and a sleeveless shirt walked down the porch steps to see what they wanted. George waited for her by his car.
He offered his hand to her and she shook it. “I’m George Traherne, and this is my friend Ben. I’m looking for someone, I think he might work here? Charles Tremont. My, um, cousin.”
She tilted her head at him. “Yes, I can see the resemblance.”
A shock went through George. So this man was real, whoever he was. She knew him.
“Wish you’d called first, though,” she said. “He’s not here any more.”
George’s ears pulled back on his scalp. He hadn’t expected that.
“He moved on a few months ago. Too bad, he was a whiz with the problem horses. Had a real way with ’em.”
“Do you know where he went, ma’am?” George asked. So close, he thought.
“I’m sorry,” she said, introducing herself. “I’m Lydia. Your cousin was here for, oh, must be about ten years. I didn’t know he had any family.”
She glanced at him sympathetically. “He kept kind of to himself. We hired him as a groom and stablehand, but he took over most of the horse training in the end and we were happy to have him do it.”
She looked over at Benitoe and a faint crease appeared on her brow as she tried not to stare at him, puzzled. She returned her attention to George.
“But that’s not what you wanted to know, is it? I don’t think I have a forwarding address, but Jake would know, if anyone does.”
She left them standing by their car and went on into the stable. George looked over at Benitoe. “I didn’t think he’d be gone. Now what?”
Lydia returned with a young man who seemed to be in his mid-twenties. He wiped his hands on his jeans as his boss made the introductions.
“Jake, this is Charlie’s cousin… What did you say your name was, again?”
“George, ma’am.”
She nodded. “You go show him the cabin and answer his questions,” she told the groom.
“Good luck,” she told them, as she headed back to the farmhouse.
George stood in the doorway of the one-room cabin and surveyed it. Everything looked as if the owner had just stepped away—sheets tucked on the bed, clean dishes on the open shelves, an old rag rug in front of the fireplace.
Jake stood in the middle of the floor and explained. “He wanted to be by himself, so he did, and when Miz Lydia showed him this cabin, he was fine with it. Said he didn’t want no ’lectricity or nothin’. I heared it was in pretty bad shape but he fixed it up all by himself.”
They were off in a corner of the spread, back up against the ridge. This must have been a settler’s cabin originally, George thought. It was weather-tight, and the floorboards showed signs of replacement or repair. Much of the mortar in the brick fireplace looked new, compared to what had been there before. Three oil lamps hung on the walls, and one was on the table next to the bed.
“They rung the bell for him when they wanted him down at the stable, so they did,” Jake volunteered, into George’s silence.
No phone, George thought. He looked at Jake. “Were you here when he came?”
“Sure was. I’ve been working for Miz Lydia at least that long, off and on. My dad’s place is about a mile from here. She liked to have me run messages up to Charlie.”
“Did you know him well?” George asked.
“I guess. I don’t think anyone really did, though. He ate by himself. There’s a spring house out there and everything.” He pointed out a back window. “He made a deal with Miz Lydia for room and board, and she had me bring supplies out every week.”
He smiled shyly. “He let me poke through his books, though.” He waved at one wall of shelves, and George walked over to take a look. Nature books from all over the world filled most of the shelves, books of animals, guidebooks. There was also a selection of books for how to live “off the grid” which made the hairs on the back of his arms stand up. That was very suggestive.
“Why did he leave? Where did he go?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Jake said. “He just came down to the stable with a backpack on and said, ‘Time I was going.’ I asked him why, and he said, ‘It’s been long enough.’ Didn’t make no sense to me, but that’s all he said. A cab came for him, and that’s the las
t I saw of him.”
“And he left all this behind?” George said, sweeping his arm around the cabin.
Jake looked down. “He told me I could have his books.” He lifted his head. “If that’s OK with you, I guess.”
“It’s fine by me,” George said, to Jake’s apparent relief.
George pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down, inviting Jake to join him. Benitoe walked quietly around the cabin, looking at what the former tenant had left behind. “Do you know where he went?” George asked Jake
“Well, I kinda have an idea.” He got up from the table and walked over to the bed, then pulled a slip of paper from underneath the base of the oil lamp and brought it back.
“This came for him in the mail, afterward. He hardly ever got no mail, except for those books.”
George picked it up. It was a bus schedule for Adirondack Trailways, between New York City and Phoenicia, NY. “How would he get to New York? He didn’t have a car, did he?”
“We got a train from Tyrone goes to New York pretty much every day, I think.”
Talking to himself, George muttered, “What the hell is in Phoenicia?”
Jake answered him as if he’d been asked. “I looked it up on the internet, so I did. It’s up in the Catskills. And I don’t think he was going there, exactly. There was a town next to it. I recall he mentioned its name one time. I really liked the sound of it. Shandaken, it was. Isn’t that a fine name?”
That was a new one for George. He pulled out a pen from his pocket. “Can I keep this?” he asked, pointing to the schedule. When Jake nodded, he wrote the name of the town down on it, folded it up, and put it in his pocket.
“So you think that’s where he’s gone?” George asked.
The young man shrugged. “Who knows?”
The books about living off the grid gave George an idea about his next question.
“Did Charlie go out drinking with you guys? What was he like?” He explained, “I haven’t seen him for a very long time, not since I was a kid.”
“No, sir, I never saw him go out, but he did get a bottle now and then with his supplies. I don’t think he ever had a visitor.”