"So why'd Ripley really thrash you?" Kellen asked.
Ger tried to read Kellen's face, but she was still looking down at her hand. He thought about lying again—tell Kellen he didn't know why, remind Kellen that men like Ripley didn't need an excuse to pound someone. But God help him, he hated lies, and he'd already lied to her once, even if he hadn't intended to.
"I've been following him. Spying on him. Trying to catch him at breaking a law so big that they'll lock him up."
Kellen looked up, and even in the dim light Ger could see the rounding of her eyes and mouth. For a heartbeat, he dared to believe she was awed at his bravery.
"Are you crazy?" Her voice spiked high on the last word, leaving no doubt it was more accusation than question.
So much for bravery and awe. Ger felt a little like he'd just been slapped.
"He hurts people," Ger said.
"No kidding." Kellen spat the words at him, as if he were the biggest idiot she'd ever seen.
Ger's head throbbed. How to put into words his desperate need to see Ripley brought to justice?
"He hurts people," Ger repeated. "Someone has to stop him."
"And you were gonna stop him." Kellen shook her head. "Just you. All by yourself."
Ger shrugged. When she said it like that, it sounded foolish. But it didn't change anything.
"I will. If that's what it takes. Someone has to."
Kellen's face froze. She glared down at him.
"'Will,'" she repeated. "As in, you think you're gonna keep after Ripley? Even now?"
Ger didn't answer right away. His throat closed up, like it didn't want him to say what he knew he had to say.
"Someone has to stop him." It was more a mumble than the righteous declaration he'd intended.
"No." Kellen shook her head and jabbed a finger at him. "Not while you're living here."
Ger braced himself against the wall and hauled himself to his feet. Gray sparkles spun in his vision, and his head went from throbbing straight to screaming, but he forced himself to stay on his feet and look Kellen in the eye.
"You can't lay down for a man like Burke Ripley. You have to stand up to him. You have to fight back."
Kellen snorted a laugh. Ger felt the breath of it puff against his chin. "What you were doing in that graveyard wasn't fighting back. It was getting beat half to death."
Ger's face heated, and the gray swimming before his eyes abruptly cleared.
"It doesn't mean you quit." His voice sounded steadier than he expected.
"It means that it happened once, and it'll happen the next time you're that dumb." Kellen stepped closer. Even though she was a head shorter, she managed to get right up in Ger's face. "Except next time, you might not live."
Ger pulled himself up straighter. "That's a chance I'll have to take."
"A chance you'll have to take. I should've left you in the graveyard. That's where you'll wind up anyhow."
The light from the slat windows over their heads abruptly fell just right across Kellen's face, and Ger caught himself noticing, inanely given the moment, that her eyes were gray. They also glittered suspiciously.
She was scared, he suddenly realized. How hard had it been for her to hang around and come into the graveyard after him last night? Not only had she been alone, but if Ripley had gotten his hands on her, he might have done more than just beat her. The heat in Ger's face drained away.
"I told you to leave me," he said, more quietly.
Kellen snorted again, but her voice was quieter now, too. She backed down and turned away from him. Her feet scuffed on the uneven dirt floor.
"Leave a man to die," she muttered. "Who would do that?"
The throbbing in Ger's head had become a steady jabbing behind his eyes, and his split lip hurt from all the talking. He tried out a tentative make-peace smile.
"It's nice that you're worried." Ger kept his tone light. "But really—"
"I am not worried about you." Kellen didn't raise her voice, but the words were pointed. "But you live here now. If you bring Ripley down on me, then what he does to me—that's your fault."
Ger's breath fled as abruptly as if she'd punched him in the gut. She turned her head and met his gaze.
"I don't give a damn what happens to you. Us living under the same roof, that doesn't make us friends. But if you plan to go out and get yourself killed, do it on your own time. If you live here, you don't mess with Ripley anymore. Don't follow him, don't talk to him, don't shape up for the same companies. Don't look at him. Don't even say his damn name."
She stopped and pressed her lips together. Her eyes were glittering again.
Ger struggled for something to say. He felt a little dizzy—whether from Kellen's onslaught or from just standing too long, he wasn't sure. He wanted to shout back at her that it was none of her business what he did, that she was wrong to back down from the likes of Burke Ripley, that Ger would do whatever he damned well pleased.
But she was right. He hadn't thought of it until now, but he could bring Ripley down on her—or on Widow Howland, for that matter—as easily as on himself. If he really meant to keep after Ripley, he couldn't stay. Or if he stayed, he couldn't keep after Ripley. A deep longing to choose that path suddenly overwhelmed Ger.
Maybe Kellen took his stunned silence as acquiescence. Before he could figure out what to say, she brushed past him and slammed out the door.
Ger's face hurt. His gut ached. He was pretty sure his head was trying to turn itself inside out. He eased down onto the mattress and lay back.
He couldn't stay. Ger had promised himself that Ripley wouldn't keep getting away with all the things he got away with. Kellen had just made it very clear that if Ger intended to keep that promise, he'd have to leave.
But a mattress, a roof, a warm meal at night. Kellen had Ger's money, so if he intended to eat again anytime in the next few days, he didn't have much choice. And no matter what he eventually decided, he needed a day or two to recover from the previous night's run-in with Ripley.
A few days, then. He'd stay for a few days. That gave Kellen a little financial help, and it gave Ger a chance to get his strength back. Then he could leave again.
May 1806
Chapter 13
They mustered out every morning, up before dawn and stumbling through darkness to begin the day. Drill was eight counts and fifteen motions, most often mimed so as not to waste ball and powder. Ellis's voice embedded in Vincent's skull until his dreams were nothing but musket and hand movements and the sharp clack and snap of mock-firing and loading and firing again.
There was no such thing as accuracy with a musket. Winning was all about getting a good opening volley and re-loading faster than the enemy. So Ellis ordered them into ranks and shouted, "First rank, fire! Second rank, fire!" as the men pulled the trigger, took a knee to reload while the next rank fired, and rose again.
They practiced close combat with padded wooden sabres. Ellis gave them training knives and tomahawks, and they practiced using those, too. And when they weren't drilling or training, he put them to work at anything else that needed doing—chopping trees, splitting wood, digging latrines.
In the evening, they lined up along the edge of the practice field and practiced all over again with the muskets. Vincent grew exhausted to the point of numbness. His former self wore away like splintered edges beneath a file. He could hardly remember the wharves or the feel of a cargo hook in his hands.
He should have missed Kellen. Save for those fleeting moments between falling exhausted into bed and welcome, much-needed sleep, he barely thought of her. He'd been able to send her most of his pay, at least. He'd kept that much of his promise to her. The first wages had come a week into the job and then every week since. A courier took payments into Philadelphia from several of the men.
The courier delivered letters, too, but Vincent hadn't sent one yet. He couldn't read or write, and he sure didn't trust any of the other men to write one for him. It wasn't like Kellen c
ould've read it, either. But she'd know. She'd get the money, and she'd know he'd kept his word.
"Young master Rawle would do well to spend more time in the company of those men."
Dale Ackermann fell into step beside Vincent just as Vincent cleared the shadow of the barn-turned-barracks. Like Vincent, Ackermann carried a maul tipped against his shoulder. Also like Vincent, he'd left his uniform coat behind, opting to work in shirt sleeves. The air still held a chill, but the sun that touched the waking leaves of trees was warm. And what the sun failed to warm, the work of splitting wood would take care of.
The boy in question—sandy-haired, round-faced John Rawle—crouched at the edge of the barn roof, passing newly split shingles up to Petras Juszkiewicz—the only man that every other man routinely called by his first name instead of last—and Tomas Poanski. Petras and Poanski were both Lithuanian, both blonde, and both as somber as the inside of a tomb. Poanski had hair that was more brown than blonde and that curl that fell over his forehead to set him apart from fairer, square-jawed Petras. Vincent judged that Poanski probably had more going on inside his head, too. Talking to Petras was often like talking to the rock his jaw resembled.
"Johnny Rawle is not a bad boy," Ackermann continued. "But if he spends much time with master Langston, he could spoil, like the apple in the barrel."
Langston talked too damned much, and his cocky attitude rubbed pretty much everyone the wrong way. Vincent wasn't sure Ackermann was much better, though. Vincent figured he was better off working hard, watching quietly, and not getting dragged into any stupidity the other men cooked up, so he just shrugged instead of answering Ackermann. If you didn't answer Ackermann at all, he'd stare at you until you did. Vincent had discovered that a shrug apparently qualified as a response and made frequent use of that knowledge.
They'd reached the wood pile by then, stacked split wood and raw logs awaiting the mauls.
Joseph Goodson was there already. Goodson was full head shorter than Vincent and twice as broad, but Vincent had quickly learned not to discount the man's ability to get things done. Not one bit of Goodson's bulk was wasted on fat, and while he never moved very quickly, he rarely stopped moving.
"Good morning, Joseph," Ackermann said.
Goodson, caught in the act of shrugging out of his uniform jacket, issued a slow-motion nod in reply.
Fitting for the uniforms had happened the very first day, and the uniforms themselves had followed in short order. Ellis insisted they wear those uniforms all day, for everything from drill to meals to hard labor. They consisted of linen shirts and coarse linen trousers, with dark gray hunting frocks of strong muslin. The uniforms were so new that the shirts were still white.
And they fit. With his wrists and ankles covered and a coat that sat on his shoulders instead of constraining them, Vincent felt more like a man than he ever had, squeezed into the shabby, too-tight clothes he'd worn when he worked the docks.
Goodson folded his coat carefully and set it on the stack of already-split wood. He smiled sheepishly. "These are better clothes than I've ever had."
Vincent hefted a chunk of wood onto the chopping block and stepped back.
"It is for our minds as much as for our comfort." Ackermann placed an unsplit log and stepped back beside Vincent. "Captain Ellis knows it will eventually make of us one unit instead of many men. His unit."
As if on cue, a sound like a bellowing bull rumbled, easily heard even through the sound of hammers.
Vincent turned his head. Buckets of whitewash stood along one side of the barn. Near them, Bosch stood toe to toe with Jennett. Judging by how red Bosch's face was, the shout had been his. He loomed over Jennett, but whip-thin as Jennett was, he stood tall and didn't look about to back down.
"One unit, huh?" Goodson took his place, near the chopping block but not too near. "Ain't quite there just yet, looks like."
Kalvis stepped out through the barracks door and aimed a stern look in Bosch and Jennett's direction. His mouth moved, although Vincent couldn't hear exactly what he said. Bosch and Jennett scowled and muttered, but they walked away from each other.
"These things take time, of course." Ackermann hefted his maul over his head. "But you have possibly noticed that the men, they grumble about the work, but they do not slack. They call Captain Ellis "the General" when his back is turned, but it is a quiet calling and never to his face. They call this place Camp Nowhere, but they do it with pride in their voices.
Vincent itched to wipe the smug, supremely knowledgeable expression from Ackermann's bearded face. He did his best to ignore the urge and instead raised his own maul.
"We walk now with straighter backs than ever we did when hooking cargo and pushing barrows," Ackermann said. "And no one, not one man, has quit."
Both men swung their mauls. The muscles in Vincent's arms burned briefly with the effort, and then the maul's weight carried its head down. With a crack, the wood split.
As annoying as Ackermann was, he was right. No one had quit. Vincent often failed to notice the passing of days until it was suddenly payday again.
Goodson grunted and stepped forward as Ackermann and Vincent worked their mauls loose from the block. In Goodson's burly arms, the split wood looked like kindling. He carried the wood with no visible effort to the wood pile and stacked it while Ackermann and Vincent each propped a new log onto the block.
Vincent stepped back into place, but Ackermann didn't. Instead, Ackermann looked up the hill toward the main house with his shaggy eyebrows raised.
A covered veranda edged the back of the mansion. Near a garden hedge just beyond the veranda's shadows stood a girl, tall and plain-faced, probably about thirteen or fourteen. Long, dark brown hair swung loose in the breeze that picked its way through the afternoon. All angles and hunched shoulders, she seemed ill at ease in the high-waisted cotton dress she wore. She tilted her head and looked toward the barn, where Bosch and Jennett had finally settled down and were whitewashing the weathered boards of its exterior.
A man came out behind the girl. He was tall and thin in a manner much like the girl's, although his hair was less dark and more red. His shirt had a standing collar and cravat, but he wore no coat over it. He stopped behind the girl and spoke.
She straightened immediately and turned toward him. Their voices murmured as they spoke, words Vincent couldn't make out from where he stood. Then the man nodded sharply and went back into the house.
The girl's shoulders lifted and fell, as if she sighed. She turned to follow the man, but she paused after only one step and craned her neck, peering at something in the sky.
Vincent followed her gaze. A crow wheeled over the tree line along the Schuylkill River, its wings black slashes against a blue sky.
"One crow for sorrow," Goodson murmured.
Goodson had shaded his eyes and squinted toward the distant bird, as well. When he lowered his hand and saw both Vincent and Ackermann looking at him, he smiled sheepishly once more.
"Just a thing my mother used to say. She was always seeing omens everywhere."
Vincent glanced toward the house again, but the girl had gone inside.
"I did not know any besides the Captain and his servants lived in the house," Ackermann said. "Did you gentlemen know?"
Goodson shook his head.
Ackermann grunted. "I wonder what else it is we do not know."
Vincent wondered, too, but no fucking way was he letting Ackermann know it. Instead, he issued another shrug and went back to work.
~
"He's been working miracles, or so they say. His people call him The Open Door, a name he says he heard in a vision from their native version of god. We Americans mostly just call him The Prophet."
Patrick Colley sat at the very edge of his cot, the paper he was reading from smoothed out in front of him and a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. The lenses made his eyes look even bigger than they already were. In the flood of sunlight through the flung-open barn doors, the freckles spl
ashed across Colley's face stood out sharply.
Vincent wasn't particularly interested in socializing with the other men, but it never hurt to hear what was going on in the wider world. Vincent sat on one of the benches running the length of the table, elbows on his knees and staring at the hay-covered floor, comfortably drowsy from the combination of food in his stomach and sunshine laid in a strip across his back.
"A Red miracle-worker." William Jennett, seated beside Vincent, snorted. He leaned back against the table's edge and kicked his lanky legs out in front of him.
"So they say," Colley repeated. "They turned away the Indian agent sent to deal with them, and they've been refusing to take goods from the United States, even the annuities owed from their treaties."
"Nothing like a spot of chicanery to aid and abet their recalcitrant nature, aye?" Brian Byrne reclined on his cot, thin fingers twined behind his head and a relentless twinkle in his eyes. He appeared to be listening to Colley's summary of the newspaper's contents, but Vincent thought it was more likely he was dreaming up new ways to draw blood with his sharp tongue.
Robert Langston eyed Byrne from the bench on Vincent's other side, where he sat cleaning mud from his boots.
"I bet you don't even know what all those words you use mean." Langston's lip curled. "I bet you just throw them around to try and make other people look dumb."
Byrne grinned one of his obnoxious, self-satisfied grins. "Aye, Bobby. Because you need so much help with that."
Langston scowled. "I bet you just make most of them up, even."
"Indubitably."
"See? Like that word. I bet it isn't even a real word."
Byrne sat up, cocked his head to one side, and grinned even wider. "Of course not. I made it up just now, right this very second. It's a lovely ring to it though, hasn't it?"
Langston's scowl deepened. He let his boot drop with a heavy thunk into the hay but held onto the heavy stick he'd been using to pry off the dried mud.
Colley had been watching over the top of his glasses, smiling vaguely as Byrne baited Langston. Now, he cleared his throat. "Governor Harrison has been trying to get them to disperse—the Indians gathered up by The Prophet. He even had their war leader to a peace summit at Grouseland last fall."
A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Page 9