The Haweaters

  He shouts this at Laban’s father, who raises a hand in caution. “Not interested in whatever this is. Just come to collect our horses. They seem to have found their way to your corral by means undetermined and it seems only neighbourly that I should take them off your hands before they become a nuisance.”

  Is he kidding? There is not one person within earshot who doesn’t know what’s going on here, so why pretend otherwise? Laban is flummoxed. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He reaches back and fits the revolver in his hand, just to be safe. He won’t do a damn thing until Father gives the command, but he’s sure as hell going to be ready when that command comes, which, judging by the venom in the air, could be at any moment.

  Old Man Bryan hammers his club into his thigh with enough force to bruise his own flesh, which strikes Laban as odd, but he’s got other things to occupy his mind. Charlie is on the move. He approaches the fence and lays his hand on the top rail, readying to vault it for the second time tonight. Laban prays that won’t happen, even if it does seem inevitable. Clearly he and Charlie are both waiting for signals from their fathers, the receipt of which will usher in a more violent phase to this confrontation.

  Bryan’s snort is returned by a horse. “Nothing undetermined here. You leased land from us for which you still owe money. Seems your horses have taken it upon themselves to volunteer as payment. At least your beasts are honourable.”

  Laban’s father drops to one knee and scoops up a fistful of dirt, which he bounces in his palm as if trying to guess its weight. Laban spots the truncheon firmly gripped in the hand that’s hidden behind his back and tenses as his father rises and positions his weight over his back leg. “Even if I did owe you money, these horses far exceed what that debt would be. So the only reasonable action is for me to walk these horses back home and for you to go inside to sleep it off. You reek of the drink.”

  Bill makes like he’s considering doing as Father suggests, but only for a moment. His face hardens and he raises his club high, but before he can bring it down, Father flings dirt sideways into Charlie’s face, catching the boy off guard. Charlie howls and buckles to the ground while the old man lunges which, ironically, puts him in the perfect position for Father to slam the truncheon into his skull. Old Man Bryan drops his club as he stumbles sideways, both hands pressed to his head as if dampening a ringing bell.

  Father isn’t satisfied. He pursues Bryan as wildly and as viciously as a man ever did. The truncheon flashes in the moonlight as it comes down on the old man’s wrist, then his back and shoulder and spine. The air is thick with grunts as Bryan tries to shield himself with his arm, but that’s just another bone for Father to break.

  By now Charlie has managed to paw enough dirt from his eyes to join the fray. He hauls himself over the fence and stumbles to his father’s side as Laban tries to will himself invisible in the hopes the Bryan boy won’t see him as a target. It works. Charlie’s inaugural blow collapses George’s shoulder. Several more follow, all of them aimed high and all of them connecting with bone. Thumps and thuds and pops resound with alarming frequency. Laban panics. He cannot fathom how Father can withstand such a ruthless assault. He inches closer, more out of obligation than anything else. He has no intention of intervening. He doesn’t want a role in any of this. He wants to run and hide until this lunacy is over, but his knees have gone weak and his thighs are shaking. There’s no way he’s going anywhere. His body won’t permit it. So Laban raises the revolver and swings it between Charlie, who’s battling Father, and Old Man Bryan, who’s groaning on the ground. He doesn’t know which one his target will be. That depends on Father’s mood and the timing of the command. Laban’s job is to wait, as if that’s an easy thing to do in the present circumstances.

  And then it happens. George thrusts Charlie backwards and swings for his ribs. This winds the boy. He drops to his knees where he catches a kick to the stomach and another to the head. George backs away, panting. “Down him, Laban.”

  The command is clear, but Laban doesn’t move. Surely the fight is over. Both Bryans are on the ground and both are barely moving. Neither presents a threat, not in any realistic way. That makes Father the victor and the revolver unnecessary, at least to Laban’s mind.

  Only then Charlie goes and blows it by heaving himself up onto his feet and charging Father like a damaged, drunken bull. Damn that Bryan boy. Why couldn’t he have just stayed down and let this fight end with them all still alive? Does he not realize what’s at stake? Is he really that stupid or does he believe that he alone in this world is invincible? It’d be just like the fool to think something like that.

  Laban points the revolver at the boy’s bucking back. God, how he hates Charlie for bringing him to this. Things could’ve been different. They could’ve been friends, but who can be friends with someone who’s constantly attacking? He deserves a bullet and yet Laban isn’t pulling the trigger. He can’t. Something inside him won’t let him extinguish a life, even one as aggravating as Charlie’s. So Laban watches helplessly as Father deflects a seemingly endless series of blows before pulling back his arm and delivering a mighty one of his own. This one connects with Charlie’s head. There’s a loud pop and a grunt as the Bryan boy hits the ground.

  Father is shouting. “For the love of God, Laban. Shoot the boy. Then shoot his ingrate father. Now. Before either one of them can harm me more.”

  But Laban can’t. Not now and not ever. He’s the one thing Father has always feared he would be: a coward. It’s as plain as the moon in the cloudless sky. Laban lowers the revolver, which causes George to roar and stagger over to his son, wrenching the weapon from his hand. The first shot hits Charlie square in the forehead. Even in the moonlight, Laban can see the dark patch suddenly appear above the boy’s nose, the look of infinite surprise, and then the loose-limbed flop. Father swings his arm down to where Bryan is struggling to his knees and fires a second shot. Laban doesn’t see where it hits. He only sees the old man sag to the ground as words gush from his mouth in a torrent of gibberish and random expletives. Then nothing.

  Father waves away the revolver’s acrid smoke. “Get the horses and lead them home. Then stand at the end of the lane until I come to fetch you. There’s plenty of work yet to be done. I don’t want to waste time wondering where you are.”

  Father yanks the hunting knife from his boot and hands it to Laban, who stares at it, blinks, then staggers over to the corral fence. He half expects Charlie to make a grab for his ankles as he stumbles past, but that doesn’t happen. Nothing does. Laban isn’t even sure Charlie’s still breathing and he knows better than to check.

  Laban steadies himself against the corral fence, watching as Father turns the old man over and pats him down. He’s searching for something. Laban assumes it’s a revolver, but he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know. His brain is numb and his fingers are fumbling with the same knot that defeated him only an hour past. It doesn’t occur to him to sever it with the knife and, it turns out, he doesn’t need to. The knot loosens on its own, as if by magic. Laban stifles a sob. Why now? Why not earlier when it would’ve averted bloodshed? There’s no answer. Not from God and not from his own soul. Laban mulls this as he leads the horses towards the settlement road. When he passes by the Bryan shanty, he hears a creak and turns towards it. The home’s one and only door is slightly ajar. Whether that’s by accident or design is unclear, but since neither Mrs. Bryan nor Art poses any realistic threat, Laban turns back to his purpose, his mind a swirl of too many conflicting thoughts for one boy to think.

  9

  STARING INTO THE DARKNESS

  Mary Ann nudges her husband’s shoulder a second time.

  “What?”

  “The door.”

  “What about it?”

  “Someone’s at it.”

  Sloan opens his eyes and stares into the darkness. He’s listening, but he’s also wondering why, in the good name of His
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Mary Ann always wakes him during his deepest sleeps. So there’s a knock at the door that only she can hear, is there? It was the same complaint last Tuesday and that turned out be the residue of a fast-fading dream. Sloan stops straining. “Must be the wind kicking up. Go back to sleep.”

  “What wind? There’s not been anything stronger than a breeze for weeks now. I dare say the wind has better things to do than knock at our door like a man with worry on his mind.”

  Sloan again listens and again he hears not a blessed thing. “You’re imagining things. Go back to sleep before you wake us both beyond repair.”

  Sloan barely finishes his gripe when he too hears someone pounding.

  “Still think it’s the wind?”

  He does not. Sloan grabs his shirt and pants from the chair and pulls them on. He stretches the suspenders up over his shoulders and groggily trips down the stairs. Sloan yanks open the door to find two men silhouetted in the moonlight. He squints.

  “Need your help.” George Amer. There’s no doubt about it. The man barges into the room as if God Himself granted him the right to do so. God Himself did no such thing and just because George used to board in this home doesn’t mean he can burst in here in the middle of the night. Sloan would’ve thought that was clear enough. “You got some business with me that can’t wait till morning?”

  “If it could’ve waited, it would’ve. When was the last time I roused you before dawn?”

  Sloan thinks on this, but nothing comes to mind. Still. “Why you doing it now?”

  “No choice.”

  The second man enters and sets to lighting the lantern that hangs by the front door for easy fetching. He should’ve guessed straight away it would be Laban. Sloan studies the boy’s features, concluding he looks like a demon or possibly like he’s seen one. Sloan turns back to Amer to find the lamplight brightening his neighbour’s face to an alarming degree. Sloan gasps and leans closer, not quite believing what he’s seeing. “Dear Lord, Amer. What trouble have you gotten yourself into?”

  Amer’s palm is pressed to his forehead and there’s blood everywhere. His hair, cheeks, and hands are covered and his shirt is so saturated Sloan would have been inclined to believe it started out a deep crimson red if a small stretch by Amer’s elbow hadn’t remained its original blue. Amer drops his hand, revealing a deep, weeping gash torn clear across his forehead. “Fearful row.”

  Obviously. Sloan narrows his eyes. “With who?”

  “Bryan, of course. Who else?”

  Sloan shrugs. It’s best not to answer that question since, realistically, it could’ve been with any one of a dozen men and Sloan wouldn’t want to mention anyone Amer hadn’t thought of. He draws a deep breath and expels it slowly. “Sweet Jesus, Amer. I warned you about him, didn’t I? He’s been out to get you from the moment you set foot on this island and that isn’t like to change. That kind of hatred runs deeper than two men. It’s about what you represent, not about who you are. You should’ve finished building those fences as your first priority like I suggested. You’ve got to place barriers between yourself and a man like that.”

  Amer returns his hand to his forehead. “You warned me sure enough. You saw what I was up against before I saw it myself. Thought I could handle a man like that. Turns out I couldn’t.”

  That’s an odd thing for Amer to say. It’s not like him to own a miscalculation. Come to think of it, it’s not like him to ask for help, neither, from God nor from man. Sloan wonders just what’s brought Amer to his door on this bright, breezeless night. Surely it’s not Sloan’s ability to stitch a wound. Anne is as skilled at that as anyone. And since Amer doesn’t believe in the healing power of prayer, that leaves what? Best just ask. “How bad is it?”

  Amer uses the back of a nearby chair to steady himself. “Real bad. Need you to see to the Bryan men quick as you can. They’re both hacked up near as bad as me.” Amer closes his eyes for a moment. “Maybe worse.”

  Both. So Charlie was involved in the affray as well. Lord, help us all. “They at your place?”

  “Theirs. Left them on the field where they fell. Can you attend them? Now, I mean. Thinking dawn will be too late.”

  Sloan shakes his head. “No, sir, not alone.”

  He’ll stand firm on that. He may be a God-fearing Christian, but he’s no simpleton. There’s no way he’s going anywhere near Bryan without a posse at his back. The old man came around earlier today and he was mad as a bear. It had something to do with Boyd, although his thoughts were so tangled Sloan couldn’t make out what. He probably shouldn’t have given him that whiskey though. It was meant to calm him, but it appears to have set loose the devil instead. He can’t do no more than pray over it now and hope the pastor doesn’t catch wind of his folly or it’ll be included in his sermon tomorrow and Sloan will have no choice but to bow his head in shame. Mary Ann will make blessed sure of it.

  Amer picks up the chair and slams it down. He’s growing impatient with Sloan’s failure to comply and isn’t shy about letting him know it. “By all means, rouse the neighbours if that’s what it takes to get you down there. Take every man you can find. I want everyone within spitting distance to know what happened at Bryan’s place tonight.”

  Sloan hesitates. It’s more likely Amer wants every blessed neighbour to become familiar with his version of what happened at the Bryans’ this evening. Sloan knows Amer well enough to know that. He shakes his head. Some things are best left to God and this is one of them, but he pulls his boots on anyway. It’s best not to risk offending the Lord with inaction, so he’ll do his Christian duty as quick as can be, then get back to his bed.

  Sloan heads for the door, his finger pointing firmly at Laban. “Put that blessed lantern out. It’s too bright a moon by far to be wasting oil on a walk to a familiar destination.”

  Sloan makes a beeline for the government road with only the moonlight as his guide. His intention is to rouse Porter and have his neighbour accompany him to Bryan’s. There’ll be less chance of further bloodshed that way, at least to his way of thinking. If Bryan was a bear before the fracas, he’ll surely be a wolverine now. There’s nothing like whiskey and defeat to put the devil’s thoughts into an already dark mind.

  “Hold up there.”

  Not a hundred paces from his destination, Sloan spots a small figure tripping towards him. It doesn’t take much to guess it must be one of the Porter boys and the child is near breathless. “Come quick, Mr. Sloan. Been an awful fight down at the Bryans’. Mrs. Bryan says her men have been murdered. Father won’t go there alone. Says the devil himself wouldn’t do nothing so foolish as that. Sent me to fetch you to come with him. Says he wants to be alive in the morning and the best way for that to happen is for a bunch of you to set out together.”

  Sloan can’t disagree with that. He grabs the boy by the shoulders and spins him around; then he, Amer, Laban, and the Porter boy collectively stumble towards Porter’s homestead. Sloan drops his eyes to the boy. “What’s this you’re saying about someone being dead? Did Mrs. Bryan say that or is your own imagination running away with you?”

  The Porter boy is silent for a moment. When he speaks, it’s with the slow stammer of an actively forming thought. “Said something like it. Wouldn’t be surprised for it to be true. Heard the fight myself. So bad it woke the entire house. Watched the last of it from my bedroom window. Couldn’t see much, but I surely did hear the yelling and smashing and then the blasts.”

  And then the blasts. “What blasts?”

  But the Porter boy has spotted his father approaching from his homestead and stumbles off to greet him.

  Sloan redirects his eyes to Amer and he takes a long look. Something isn’t right here. He suspects his former boarder has left a few key details out of his story, or maybe even more than a few. The blasts, for instance. Why is Sloan only hearing of them now? And why is Amer so blessedly mob
ile? He claims to have been brutally assaulted and yet his movements don’t seem in any way impaired. He has no limp nor is he bent over double or grabbing his midsection. There’s no wincing, nor groaning, nor shortnesses of breath. He’s a fountain of blood, to be sure, but a whole lot of blood can flow from fairly insignificant wounds.

  It doesn’t take the wisdom of God for Sloan to guess who came out of the battle its victor, but there’s something he’s not getting. One on one, Amer could easily mark the win against Bryan, but Charlie and the old man together would be a fearsome duo. If one came at Amer from the front and the other from behind, he’d be a man without a chance. No, something definitely isn’t right about this whole situation and when he discovers what it is, he’s just hoping he won’t be caught up in something Jesus himself couldn’t handle.

  Porter approaches Sloan and gives him a brisk nod before jerking his head towards Bryan’s place. “Well, sir, I’ll say it plain: I think a grievous thing has surely gone down at the Bryan place tonight and, if I’m being perfectly honest, I would have to say that I believe we should be bracing ourselves for the worst our minds can conjure.”

  Sloan nods. “Any idea what we’re going to find down there?”

  It’s Amer who answers. “Told you what you’re going to find. Two men on the ground, both of them injured. Had no choice but to take them down. If either of you’d been there, you’d have done the same.”

  Sloan’s not so sure about that. Neither, it seems, is Porter, who lifts his eyes to heaven and his voice higher than that. “I should rightly think, sir, that a man always has a choice in these sorts of things.”