“I want to help. I’m tired of cooking.”
“Well, I don’t know about helping,” Horace balked. “We’re making fireworks.”
“Let him help with small bombs,” Sasha suggested. “The little one is not too young to learn.”
“Well,” Horace replied. “I suppose we could set him to packing gunpowder into the firecracker shells. With his small hands, he’d be good at it.”
Sasha nodded in agreement. Ricky’s face lit up in a broad grin. Horace took the boy’s hand and led him to a free chair before an empty work table.
“First, let’s roll up the sleeves on that coat. You’ll need the use of your hands for this project.”
Horace took several moments rolling up the sleeves of the thick down jacket then lifted the boy and placed him on the chair. The boy’s head and arms could barely reach the tabletop. Horace brought a burlap sack and a plastic bag to the table. From the sack he spilled out several spent shotgun shells within the boy’s reach. He opened the bag to reveal that it was full of black powder.
“What we need you to do is fill each of these shells to the top with this black powder. Use this stick to tamp the powder down real well like this. But not too hard, eh.”
Horace demonstrated. The kid grabbed his own empty shell and began filling it with pinches of black powder. When he’d reached the brim, he used the stick as Horace had shown him to tamp the powder down, and then added more until he had the powder fully packed to the rim. He set the finished cracker aside and reached for a fresh shell.
“I think we’ve found ourselves a natural,” Horace announced, ruffling the kid’s hair.
Ricky looked up to Horace and smiled before returning to his work. Sasha watched the boy for several moments before shaking his head and resuming his labors. Horace returned to his workspace and lifted the rocket he’d been working on from the table. Soon the three of them were so absorbed in their labors that they didn’t hear the door creak open the second time.
“What’s going on in here?” the voice of the Flowers rang out, a full octave higher than usual.
Horace almost broke his rocket in half trying to hide it before turning to face the voice. Sasha merely stopped his painting and looked up.
“Ricky! What is that in your hand?” the Flowers demanded.
Horace turned to see Ricky sitting in his chair holding a spent shotgun shell packed to the brim with gunpowder.
“It’s a bomb,” Ricky replied with delight.
The Flowers’ face turned bright red in anger, which is an especially scary sight to see on a redheaded woman.
“You come with me,” she said, grabbing Ricky and setting him on the floor. “And put that horrible thing down.”
Ricky tossed the packed shell onto the table as the Flowers dragged him toward the door.
“Bye,” Ricky said, waving his free hand.
“I’ll be back to deal with you two after I’ve got my boy safe.”
The Flowers slammed the door behind her and silence followed in the tiny shed. Horace and Sasha exchanged a glance.
“Whew, that was close,” Horace observed.
“But she is coming back,” Sasha pointed out.
The two men flew from their work tables and began barricading the door with anything they could find. And they did so just in time. The Flowers returned with an axe to grind. Fortunately, she hadn’t taken the time to retrieve the axe from the woodpile. Instead, she used a huge fallen branch to beat on the door while the two men leaned their full weight against it from the other side.
Big John heard the noise and stepped out back to see what was the matter with his usually calm daughter. He didn’t intervene until the Flowers began packing wood and old newspaper around the base of the shed, fully prepared to burn the building down around its occupants’ ears. He carried the Flowers kicking and screaming into the tavern to try and calm her down.
Finding that the Flowers had at least temporarily suspended her assault, Horace and Sasha snuck out of the building carrying boxes of supplies and disappeared into the woods.
* * *
“Okay,” I said, glancing over at the Flowers who was chewing on her nails. Her eyes were wide, crazy. “So we don’t let Horace or Sasha babysit. Ever.”
“Oh, God! What if he’d been killed? I am such a bad mother! One day here and he almost got blown up.”
“But he wasn’t hurt. And Sasha knows about these things. He wouldn’t have let Ricky do anything really dangerous.”
At least, I didn’t think so.
“And you are not a bad mother.” This probably wasn’t the moment to point out she wasn’t a mother at all. She didn’t need to be reminded that she was a pinch hitter.
I was driving slowly as we talked. It wasn’t because I was too distracted to be safe. We had another five miles before we reached a paved road and the terrain was a challenge even with good shocks. Big John had suggested that I take his daughter to Seven Forks and try to talk some sense into her so the Mountie wouldn’t need to arrest her for murder when he got back home. Meanwhile Big John would take Ricky to visit Wendell and see the new litter of wolf puppies. Everything would be fine.
Of course I agreed, but I wasn’t sure but what I should let Judy take an axe to my soon-to-be father-in-law. No wonder Chuck’s mother had been the primary parent in his life. Horace was a menace.
* * *
The meeting in the old church, which also served as the town hall, had just concluded. Everyone had given the Mountie an earful. It began with the man in the dusty bib overalls standing behind the altar.
“What do you mean, you released him?”
“I thought he was a prisoner of Woody Sykes,” the Mountie explained.
A low grumble rolled through the congregation. The Mountie heard the actions on several firearms being readied.
“He said his name was Andy Smith.”
“My name is Andy Smith,” the man behind the altar clarified. “And I don’t much like him taking it in vain.”
From that point on, the conversation degenerated into shouting and finger-pointing. The man in the bib overalls, the real Andy Smith, tried to gain order and failed. The Mountie joined him behind the altar to assist but failed. Anatoli finally pulled Chuck aside.
“Perhaps we should let them vent,” he suggested.
Anatoli succeeded in stepping outside to wait. Chuck wasn’t so lucky. He made his way for the door but was grabbed by a burly mountain man to have his ear chewed on. Chuck spent most of his time warning the citizens of Soda Springs against touching a police officer. They all wanted to be heard and eventually they were, though this didn’t seem to mitigate their anger much. Succeeding in applying some organization to the complaints and name-calling coming in, Chuck was eventually told where he could stick his head by all thirty village members before they dispersed into the woods. Andy Smith was the only man who stayed behind to lock up.
“I think that went well, Mountie,” Smith said with a wry laugh as they left the church and Chuck finally understood why some animals ate their young.
“Mr. Smith, I have a report to radio in,” the Mountie said tiredly.
“Can’t. There ain’t no working radio. Woody Sykes broke it.”
Smith locked the church doors shut by lacing a heavy chain through the door handles and locking the chain closed with a simple key-activated padlock.
“Then there’s no way to communicate with the outside world?”
“None whatsoever. Unless you brought a radio with you, being as I see you as one of those who need to be calling in a lot for help.”
Chuck struggled to hang on to his temper. He couldn’t go around shooting people, even if they deserved it for dragging him away from his wedding.
“Mr. Smith, can you recommend anyplace that I might sit for a while in silence and write out my remembrances for my report? In fact, I think I should make special note of several of the townsfolk and check criminal records when I get back to Winnipeg.”
&
nbsp; “Mountie, I suggest that you and your friend, Tonto here, leave town as fast as you can. I suspect that some of the others are gathered someplace right now deciding whether to track down and string up you or old Woody.”
Chuck opted to take Mr. Smith’s warning seriously. Trotting down the main street with Anatoli by his side, the Mountie and the Russian made good time back to where they’d stowed their motorbikes. They sprang two more nonlethal traps along the way but didn’t stop to admire their delicate design or observe their intricate functionality. Instead, they kicked up some dust with their heels.
As Chuck reached his bike the first arrow landed in the dirt not two meters from where he stood. It took only a moment to look back toward the church and see that a posse had formed in the street out front. He supposed the arrow indicated that they’d already chosen their intended prey. He heard Anatoli kick-start his bike. This example brought Chuck back to the present, leading him to deftly kick-start his own. Anatoli peeled out, performing a perfect 180 turn back the way they’d come. The Mountie’s front tire was no more than a meter behind Anatoli’s rear wheel as they raced away down the trail.
They rode well into the night, beyond the time at which it could still be considered sane to speed down winding mountain tracks lit by nothing more than a single dirty headlight. In fact, they stopped only when they were completely lost, the GPS had stopped working, and their bikes ran out of gas; they had planned on refueling in Soda Springs.
* * *
“But Sasha, I nearly have the last of the pinwheels assembled,” Horace complained. “All I have to do is fasten the rockets to the last wheel.”
“There is always time for explosives,” Sasha countered. “Now we must go.”
Sasha kept tugging at Horace’s sleeve until the elder man relented. He then led Horace out of the makeshift lean-to they’d assembled to house their laboratory in the outskirts of the woods and into the center of Main Street. There they stopped as Sasha insisted on Horace accepting a black blindfold the Russian tied tightly around his friend’s eyes.
“This is silly,” Horace noted.
“This is going to be great,” Sasha said, borrowing one of Horace’s favorite phrases.
With Horace’s eyes bound, Sasha led his blind comrade across the street and up the stairs of the Lonesome Moose. Horace shuffled his feet slowly, feeling uncomfortable at not being able to see. They nudged their way through the door of the tavern and once inside Sasha pulled the blindfold from his friend’s eyes.
“Failte, mo charaid!” the men in the tavern greeted him in Gaelic.
Horace was surprised to see that all the men in town had gathered in the Lonesome Moose to await his arrival. Each of them had a glass of whisky in their hand which they raised in a salute to the newcomer. Horace cracked an awkward smile and stepped further into the room as men rose to pat him on the back and shake his hand.
“Ciamar a tha thu?” Fiddling Thomas said, shaking his hand.
“What’s that?” Horace asked.
“How are you? Surprised and confused, I would imagine.”
“Very,” Horace admitted.
“Come,” Big John interrupted. “You might as well have a whisky too. After all, you’re covering the tab.”
Horace began mentally counting the number of men in the room while wondering if he had enough money in his savings to cover such a tab after he paid for a new rowboat. Meanwhile, the press of men around him directed him forward to an empty stool at the bar. He sat.
“So, what is all this about, Big John?” Horace asked, accepting a healthy dram of whisky.
“It’s your initiation ceremony,” Big John explained, boosting Ricky onto the counter and pouring the boy a glass of something purple. “If you’re to be a proper member of our community, you have to be sworn in, so to speak. It’s a pity that the Mountie isn’t here, but it seemed wisest to do this while Butterscotch and the Flowers are away.”
Horace took a sip of his libation and almost choked on the bitter beverage. It hadn’t been brewed in any commercial distillery. Resigned, he took a deeper swallow to bolster himself for whatever was coming.
“Don’t you worry, mo charaid. You should enjoy it as much as we will. Everyone,” Big John called, “would you please take a seat so we can begin?”
The men in the tavern ignored Big John, opting instead to mill around and share stories with one another. But then who could blame them? It wasn’t often that the men of the Gulch were together all in one place without their balls and chains.
“Oy!” Samuel Levine-Jones called. “Oy!”
The earsplitting shriek of his voice managed to bludgeon everyone into a seat. The group quieted to allow the ringing in their ears to subside. Big John took advantage of the silence to get in a few words.
“Brothers of the Gulch,” he began. “We are gathered here this day for a very special occasion: namely, the admittance of a new member into the brotherhood.”
There were rounds of applause and lots of spouting of good-humored Gaelic expressions that Horace didn’t understand. Horace suspected that some of the Gaelic dialog made him the butt of a shared joke, but he didn’t care. Horace was honored to be amongst these men and to be considered one of them. Several bottles were passed round to refill the glasses—in Whisky Jack’s case, to fill a large tankard. After his audience had settled down, Big John continued.
“Horace Goodhead, I now ask you to stand and take the oath.”
Horace stood to hoots and catcalls. He raised his right hand to beside his ear to give the moment more of a sense of gravity.
“I, your full name, do solemnly swear upon the front half of our mascot, Bernard the Moose.”
“I, your full name, do solemnly swear upon the front half of our mascot, Bernard the Moose,” Horace repeated.
“To protect and maintain the secrets of the Gulch.”
“To protect and maintain the secrets of the Gulch.”
“To protect and defend the members of our community.”
“To protect and defend the members of our community.”
“To include suspension of setting off your damn fireworks in town and blowing up our garbage dump and my building.”
“What he said.”
“And to never lie, cheat, or steal when dealing with a fellow Gulcher.”
“And to never lie, cheat, or steal when dealing with a fellow Gulcher.”
“But it’s still okay to lie to everyone else.”
“But it’s still okay to lie to everyone else.”
“Horace Goodhead, I now pronounce you Horace the Bomb Jones. May you live long and prosper.”
Big John actually went so far as to make the Vulcan peace sign with his hand.
“Amen!” pronounced Harry McIntyre.
“Play ball!” added Billy Jones.
“L’chaim,” declared Samuel Levine-Jones, tossing back his glass of whisky.
“L’chaim,” everyone else in the tavern chanted in unison, downing their drinks as well.
“L’chaim,” Horace agreed with a smile, finishing his own libation and feeling smoke blow out his ears as a result.
There followed much cheering, dancing in place, and patting on backs. More whisky bottles were passed around to refill glasses. Horace was glad he was sitting since he was sure he could no longer stand. Big John raised his hands high in the air in a request for quiet. It didn’t work—it never does.
“Oy! Oy!” yelled Ricky and was pleased when he got results and laughter.
“I’d now like to call upon Wendell Thunder to say a prayer in the hope that the gods of the Ojibway Nation will watch over our newfound brother.”
Wendell stepped up behind the bar, replacing Big John. The scene became solemn. Some of the men even took their hats off to show their respect. Many bowed their faces toward the floor as if in prayer themselves. In a tortured combination of English and what little Ojibway and Gaelic Wendell knew, the portions of the prayer Wendell could remember through the haze of a
lcohol were recited. Wendell then called for a moment’s silence. He did not receive it.
“Is it finally time?” Whisky Jack called out.
“Time for what?” Horace asked suspiciously.
In response to his question, Horace was hoisted from his stool and carried on the shoulders of his new brothers to the sink in the kitchen of the tavern.
* * *
The Braids heard the hoots and hollers coming from the Lonesome Moose and shook her head. Men! While they played she was doing real work.
Or trying to; so far effort was not being crowned with success. The Flowers had given her several old sheets to dye for tablecloths when she had mentioned needing wide fabric for the wedding. The idea of dying tablecloths had seemed straightforward enough when she heard that Butterscotch liked orchids and that the Wings planned on flying in some of these exotic flowers as a treat for the wedding. Unfortunately, the concept had proven easier than the execution.
Her first impulse, after washing the sheets that reeked of mothballs, had been to use natural dyes, and color the sheets the old-fashioned way. Then she had discovered that the oldest fixative mentioned for holding color was sheep urine. Though the fabric would of course be washed after the dying process, it just didn’t feel right laying out a wedding feast on tablecloths that had been soaked in sheep piss.
Besides, she wasn’t sure that she could collect enough sheep water to be useful—and she was damned if she was going to use her own, or ask anyone else to contribute to a communal pee pot.
So, she had ordered some commercial dye. She chose three colors of purple, not being able to tell from the catalog’s description which was the closest to orchid purple.
The dyes had come in with the Wings on his last supply run, but she had been busy sorting out canning jars and hadn’t gotten around to reading the instructions until that morning. That was unfortunate because though the boxes said Britest Color in only one hour! they all talked about how to dye clothes in the washing machine and dryer.
She didn’t have a washing machine. Or a dryer.
6 The Wedding Page 4