Accidental Warrior: The Unlikely Tale of Bloody Hal
Page 4
Hal shook his head. If he’d gone insane, how would he know? If he had been crazy but was now sane, how could he tell?
Pyke spurred around the slow-moving hay wagon and the one with the pumpkins. Hal’s horse followed of its own volition. Ahead of them now lay a large intersection where an equally wide road crossed theirs. At the northeast corner of the intersection stood the inn, exactly as Pyke had described it. A large sign, supported by two poles at the height of a man on horseback, proclaimed, “The English Inn est. 1807”. It was adorned by the weathered portrait of a man whose gray wig and black coat were evident although his features had been rendered indistinct by time. Pyke rode past it.
“Wait,” Hal protested. “I thought you said we were going to the inn.”
“We are, but no one at the inn or near it is going to see you get off that horse. The town green is just a few streets farther.”
The green was a wide expanse of grass that fronted a large church at its eastern end. Most of the green was crowded with tables and covered booths, where farmers had brought produce for an open air market. This late in the day, the few men left were packing away what they had not sold. A group of small children darted in and out among the booths and tables in an elaborate game of tag. Dirt streets framed the green into a rough square. Smaller streets led away from it on all sides and it was into one of them, little more than alley, that Pyke rode. There, where no one else was around, Pyke had Hal struggle off the horse.
“You really need to improve at this,” Pyke said.
“Jesus, I just got on a horse for the first time today.”
“Then you have had all day today with one stop to practice. A child would be better in that time.” Pyke shook his head. “Well, it could be worse. I don’t imagine any work you will do will need riding. Come along, now, we’ll walk the horses back to the inn.”
Pyke waved over one of the children on the green, then whispered in his ear. The child sprinted off the road toward the inn. Pyke smoothed his hair back, tucking the longer strands behind his ears. There was a little smile on his lips. Then he set off down the road back to the inn. Hal followed.
By the time they reached the inn, two men were standing by the sign waiting for them. Pyke led his horse directly to the older of the two.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Slade,” he said. “How do you do this fine fall afternoon?”
So this was Jack Slade, of whom Pyke had spoken in such detail. The man who owned the English Inn looked middle-aged, possibly in his fifties, his dour face lined from all manner of things except smiling. He was clean-shaven, save for a neat moustache, and wore black breeches, a loose white shirt and an open vest with neither jacket nor cloak, despite the gathering chill. The other one was a younger version of Jack Slade, obviously his son, but thin where Jack was becoming stout, and with a face given to smiling, except when his father looked at him.
At Pyke’s greeting Jack Slade stepped forward, with a marked limp as he did.
“How’s that hip doin’?” Pyke continued.
Slade made no immediate response.
“How many years has it been since that kick from the horse? A nasty animal that was.”
“It’s been long enough, Tom Pyke, and thank you for reminding me that you know somewhat of my affairs.”
“Yes,” said Pyke, “and it’s worse when you’re tired or when the weather turns. I suppose it’s the chill for the last two days since it’s early for you to be tired and, yes, your temper often goes as the hip goes.”
“Hah. A woodsranger with a smart mouth is still a woodsranger. What is it that has you sending a child to tell me you’re coming and want to speak with me?”
Pyke gestured toward Hal. “This is a young man out of a Trans-Delaware town. Savages burned the town, don’t know about the Interdict now, but they burned it, killed the townspeople. Hal here survived but got beat bad.”
Slade looked at Hal much as if he was pricing a horse. “If he needs charity, take him to the church. They might have clothes that fit.”
“We weren’t thinking of charity,” Pyke said. “Not me, not Hal. He’s a strong young man, you see his size. I was thinking you could use help at the inn.”
Slade let out a derisive laugh. “Me take him on? That’s rich. You’ll have him right in the inn to steal me blind.”
“I’ve never been a thief,” Pyke said.
“Not yet. Two woodsrangers is all I need to know.”
If Slade’s talk bothered Pyke, he did not let it show. The little smile came back to his face. “Hal’s not a woodsranger; I told you that. Just a town boy with no town left. I am not a liar either.”
“Not that I’ve found out yet.”
“Ask him yourself.” Pyke seemed very relaxed, despite the slurs on his character.
Up to that point, Hal had felt like goods that were being haggled over, and he didn’t like it. Now, however, Slade’s attention was on him and he liked that even less.
“Your name is Hal?” Slade asked.
“Hal Christianson, Mr. Slade.” Throwing in the ‘Mr. Slade’ seemed like a good idea, but it didn’t seem to impress Slade. Slade went on with a rapid-fire series of questions about the town, the area around it and the Delaware. Hal needed no effort to look bewildered.
“A simpleton,” Slade said. “Not what I need. Only the church wants such.”
“I told you he was hurt,” Pyke said. “He thinks well enough. It’s just that his memory has a lot of holes in it.”
“More hole than anything else,” was Slade’s reply.
At that, Pyke shrugged. “Well, it is your inn and you know your needs. I see John is pretty well grown now. I’m sure you’re judging that he can handle everything for you this winter, even though Jesperson ran off. Sorry to be a bother.”
At the words, the son started. Hal had not looked at him closely before, so focused was he on the elder Slade. He was dressed the same as his father, but Hal saw that he was still a boy, younger than Hal. Pyke had said that John, Slade’s youngest, was sixteen.
“Pa, maybe we shouldn’t be so hasty,” John said. “They say it’s going to be a hard winter.”
“Which is not a reason to bring a thief into the house.”
“I’m not a thief, Mr. Slade.” The other three seemed surprised to hear him speak. “I’m not a woodsranger, either. Watch.” Hal turned to the horse and tried to swing into the saddle without Pyke holding the horse. The horse skittered sideways and Hal’s leg did not clear the horse’s back. That made the horse buck a little. Hal fell forward across the saddle. The horse kicked again. Hal’s chin hit the pommel of the saddle. Spitting blood, he yanked his foot out of the stirrup so that at least he landed on his feet instead of his back. The horse backed away from him.
Both Slades were laughing. So was Pyke. In fact, so were several passersby.
“I should have had you dismount at the inn,” Pyke said. “It would have saved a lot of conversation.”
“All right,” Slade said when his laughter subsided. “No woodsranger that ever lived would be that way with a horse. Best you not be so clumsy around the inn, though,” he said to Hal, “or your employment will be even shorter than your ride. And you, Mr. Pyke, what is your gain from this deed of charity?”
“Let me come here to trade. Pelts and skins. Travelers will buy them.”
“And you will get better prices than if you are at the market where there is competition,” Slade finished for him. “Well, that is not my problem, as long as your boy does his work. John, show our new hire-at-will where he is to stay and what needs to be done.” With that, Slade turned and walked back into the inn.
The interview was over, and he had just been hired. The strangeness of the town, with no one he knew and nothing familiar, suddenly pressed on Hal. It was a good thing he had a place to stay. He turned to Pyke.
“I don’t know how to thank you for this.”
“No need,” Pyke said. “A fair bargain for all.” He swung onto his horse.
The boy nodded. Hal remembered what Pyke had said about this son.
“Listen,” Hal said, “I know there’s a lot I don’t remember or don’t seem to know. If you’ll just tell me what has to be done and how it has to be done, I’ll do it. I can be very useful. I’ll handle all the heavy work for you, if you’ll teach me.”
There was an answering smile on John’s face. Hal reflected that he had learned a good lesson in this. Being useful was a way to stay safe.
The inn matched Pyke’s description. The floors were of wide wooden planks, all spotless. Upholstered furniture with lace coverings on the backs occupied the front room, where a merry fire banished the cold. The wooden banister along the stairs was polished to a bright sheen. The stairs, hollows worn in their centers, creaked as they went up. It was just like the old country inn in central Pennsylvania where Hal’s family had stayed one summer weekend. The resemblance ended, however, when they reached Hal’s small room on the third floor. He had to duck to clear the doorsill. As he stepped inside, Hal fumbled along the wall for a light switch. He saw John stare and yanked his hand back. There was no running water either, not in his room, not on the floor. Then he saw the chamber pot and felt heat rise in his cheeks as he realized its use.
John’s giggle turned to open laughter. “Was this a civilized town you grew up in across the Delaware, or did you have to go in the woods to shit in the dark?”
I am going to die of constipation.
The departed Jesperson had left behind some clothes. The pants were black, felt like denim, and looked the same as the ones the Slades wore, but were too large in the waist and too short in the leg. A label stitched in the waistband read, “Vervaardigd in Breuckelen”. Hal shrugged and put them on. A belt remedied the waistline; the length Hal ignored. The white shirt fit better.
That first night at the inn, Hal could not sleep. Every creak of the old inn pulled him back to wakefulness. Now that the fright and dangers of the woods had left, the feeling in his stomach turned to hopelessness. Tears filled his eyes as he tossed from one side to the other. When he dozed off from exhaustion, a dream began. In it, he reached Nieuw Amsterdam and found a grand bridge leading to a hundred-story tower surrounded by walls and turrets. He found an old man with a beard and a wand who said he would send Hal home. But before the man could wave his wand, Hal woke up.
Over the following weeks, the dream came every night and every night Hal awoke before the wand waved. Some nights, it was an old, bald man who said that Hal could go home if he just clicked his heels together. Still, Hal would wake before he could move his boots.
• • •
There were, indeed, many ways to be useful at the inn, and much of what had to be done involved muscle power. Jesperson’s departure—and Hal never heard the man’s name spoken except in that context—had left John Slade to face taking on his chores. That is, until Hal arrived. Pyke had called the situation correctly. With Hal on the scene, John could avoid the duties he liked least. There was wood to be chopped for the fireplaces. As the weather quickly grew colder, the amount of wood that had to be chopped grew proportionately. Once chopped, that wood had to be hauled to the kitchen and all the other fireplaces of the inn. Fencing needed to be repaired. That meant driving fence posts into the ground before the winter freeze made it impossible, regardless of the strength of the post driver. Bales of hay needed to be pulled out for the horses in the barn. That meant driving a hook with a wooden handle into a fifty-pound bale of hay, then lifting it and swinging it to the desired location. On and on the list went.
Hal’s experience with an axe prior to that first day at the inn was even less that his experience with horses. He had never touched one, much less chopped a log into firewood. Had John not shown him how to do it, it is likely that he would have chopped off one of his legs before he had enough firewood to get Mrs. Slade’s stove hot. John grinned as he gave the lessons but, whatever he thought of Hal’s excuses about his memory, Hal doing the work for him was too convenient to voice any suspicions.
For Hal, the first week, and even the second, were days of sore, aching muscles, of dragging himself to his bed in the third-floor room at night, of having his Nieuw Amsterdam dream, of groaning with stiffness everywhere when his feet hit the floor at daybreak. He was eighteen, though. Heavy work every day hardened his muscles. As time went by, they stopped being sore. His appetite, with all that work, was ravenous, but Mrs. Slade just put more portions in front of him. He ate in the kitchen, not in the front room where the paying guests sat. It might have been hotter near the stove, but it was also closer to the food. Nell Slade grumbled from time to time that he was eating enough to feed the town’s entire constabulary but, in this, Jack and his son both sided with Hal. The work needed to be done. Hal did the work. Let him eat.
With the time that Hal spent eating in Mrs. Slade’s kitchen, he had plenty of time to come in contact with the kitchen help. There was one who caught his eye on the first day. She was young, dark brown of hair and eye, with very fair skin. Her figure seemed softly plump, although the floor-length skirt, long-sleeved top and apron made it hard to be sure. It was her job to wash the dishes, wipe the tables, mop the kitchen floor, keep the stove burning with the wood Hal brought in, bring in the water from the back door where Hal would leave the large buckets from the well, take out the slop, pluck the hens, peel the potatoes, sharpen the knives, clean the silverware and whatever other jobs Mrs. Slade came up with. She had caught Hal’s eye lingering on her the first day he sat in the kitchen to eat his lunch. It was not long before she was returning the looks. The next day, there a smile from her along with breakfast. There was a wink when she set his lunch on the table.
“So, who is the girl in the kitchen?” he asked John one afternoon, between hauling sacks of feed in the barn.
“The young one?” Hal nodded. “That’s Mary, Mary Maguire.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
“Oh ho! Our tall, strong hire-at-will has his eye on Mary! Is that not the case?”
Hal colored while John laughed. Hal went back to hauling sacks. John, meanwhile, was perched on a stack of hay bales from where he could ‘supervise’ Hal’s work.
“I would just like to know,” Hal said at last.
“Ah, curiosity.” John smiled. “Well, dear Hal, Mary is the daughter of farmer Thomas Maguire. His place is about a day’s ride north of town. She is the youngest of his three daughters. Farmer Maguire has the same luck with his farming as he does with his sons. He has no sons.” John laughed at his joke, as did Hal. “So, Father paid him some money and Mary came here when she was eleven as an indenture.”
“Indenture?” Hal knew he looked puzzled far too often, but he couldn’t help it.
John laughed again. “Sometimes, Hal, I’m surprised you remember how to make water. An indenture is an indentured servant. Father paid Maguire money, so Mary is bound to work for us for seven years.”
“What? You mean like a slave?”
“Good Lord!” John jumped off his bales. “Not at all. It’s more like an apprentice, though we don’t have to teach her a trade. But she’s learned her kitchen work just the same. And, yes, there are masters who treat their apprentices like indentures, but that’s not the point. We house her, feed her. Certainly, she has to work and she can’t leave, but we can’t send her away either, not without paying her father. She can go to the court if she’s mistreated, and they do find for the servant sometimes. And it’s for seven years. She’s seventeen now; it’s done next year.”
Hal decided that he was done with looking stupid for the time being and turned back to his work. Mercifully, John let him be.
The difference between his status and Mary’s was fairly clear. The Slades had called him a hire-at-will from the start. That meant Jack Slade had to pay him for his work and he did so every day. Hal was free to pick up and leave if
he wished; he was under no obligation to stay at the inn. Of course, the lack of obligation worked both ways. If Hal was free to leave, Slade was free to throw him out if Hal did not work to Slade’s satisfaction or, indeed, for no reason at all. While Mrs. Slade kept his stomach full, Hal had to pay for his room and any clothes beyond what Jesperson had left behind. Still, it was a little status.
Of course, Hal continued to see Mary every day in the kitchen. Every time he ate, in fact. Having learned her name, he said, “Hello,” and was pleased that she answered him. She did more than that, in fact, asking how he was at every meal, and did the food satisfy him, and did any of his clothes need stitching or a sock need darning? When she put the plate of food on the table in front of him, her hand would brush against his. Occasionally, it would linger there. Despite the multiplicity of her chores, few of them required intense concentration, so she began to talk with Hal as she worked. It was mostly asking about what he did, and where he was from. When Hal declined to say anything about his family or his home, she switched to talking about her chores and the sort of mood Mrs. Slade was in. Hal came to the conclusion in short order that Mary was not terribly bright. He mentioned that to John, who said that she had never been the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Still, Hal did not think she was stupid, just a stolid, workaday, average sort whose interest was limited to her immediate surroundings. That did not bother Hal. Her constant chatter told him a lot about daily life at the inn, which reduced the number of times he looked stupid. It also meant that she was paying attention to him. That was a new experience for Hal, at least if he trusted his memory. Her figure might have been a shade too full for pretty, but she was young and lively. When Mrs. Slade was out of the kitchen, and could be counted on to be so for more than a minute or two, she would come and sit beside him on the bench. One of her arms would just happen to rest next to his on the table. Sometimes, she moved closer so that legs and shoulders touched. So Hal indulged the chatter and spent a great deal of time thinking of ways to be private enough with her to kiss her.