The Haweaters

by Vanessa Farnsworth

  Sloan waits. He’s expecting Porter to go on a long-winded rant, but his neighbour goes on a short-winded one instead. “Well, sir, I can’t rightly claim to know how this whole thing got started here tonight. I’m not sure I believe any horses were ever stolen and that’s down to Amer himself for speaking opposite about the only parts of the brawl I clapped ears on. I don’t think for a second that’s because he’s confused. No sir, I think he’s telling the tale to his own advantage.”

  And, God help him, so does Sloan, who draws a heavy breath before saying what the Lord Himself knows to be true. “The two men in that shanty may be the only ones who can say for certain what transpired here tonight and that may never happen. Charlie for sure won’t see dawn. The old man maybe, but he’s closer to heaven than earth right now. The next few days will determine if he’s like to survive, but my gut says no. All I know for certain is that God will decide when the time is ripe.”

  Sloan runs his eyes over the moonlit landscape. Porter’s house is silhouetted against the silvery fields and, a little farther to the east, Sloan can see the roof of his own modest home. He hangs his head. Had he known what was happening here, he wouldn’t have slept nearly so soundly and not just because of the noise from the melee. “I pray to Our Lord and Saviour that nothing I said to Bryan earlier today contributed to what transpired here tonight.”

  Porter cocks his head. “I don’t see how that could possibly be, sir. Not once in all the years I’ve known you have I ever heard tales of you agitating, so far as I can recall.”

  “I never have, not if I could help it. It’s not Christ’s way. But Bryan had the right to know his avowed enemy has been entering his home when he’s not there to chaperone. It isn’t proper for Eleanor Bryan to be alone with Amer behind closed doors. That’s the worst kind of a sin and if Bryan had found out later that I’d seen such a thing and kept silent, there’s no telling the hellfire that would’ve come my way.”

  Both now and in the hereafter. Sloan winces at the thought. If he’d been less of a sinner, he would’ve foreseen that telling Bryan what he’d seen would result in the tragedy he’s witnessed here this night. He sees now that it was the devil’s words on his lips. He only wishes he’d seen it then.

  Porter breaks into Sloan’s thoughts. “No sense beating yourself senseless over things you can’t control. The truth can’t ever be hidden, not for long, and certainly not for always. Somehow, some way, the treachery you laid eyes on was going to make its way to Bryan’s ears. You can’t be so foolish, sir, to believe you yourself were the only one who caught sight of Eleanor Bryan’s misdeeds. If I’m being perfectly honest, I saw them myself and so did my Eliza. You can’t blame yourself for speaking true. God would surely have wanted it no other way.”

  How would Porter know what God wants? The preacher hasn’t ever set foot on Porter’s homestead, so far as Sloan knows, and not one of his children can rightly quote scripture. It’s blasphemy, all of it, but that’s immaterial. Sloan is bound to act in accordance with God’s law regardless. “Someone needs to fetch Doc Francis.”

  Porter nods his agreement. “Yes, sir, and someone needs to fetch the law, as you well know. I believe it’s surely best to wait until daybreak for both. There’s no sense in sending a man through the bush in darkness to serve a tragedy that’s already happened. Enough damage been done here for one night. A few hours’ delay won’t change a thing. I’m guessing you feel the same.”

  He’s right. Still, Sloan is agitated. He has to do something, so he pivots towards home and starts to run. “Going to fetch Mary Ann. These men need nursing and it doesn’t look as though Eleanor is up to it. My wife will have the neighbour women rounded up inside an hour. This is like to be the only day in Eleanor’s life she won’t be called upon to work herself to the bone.”

  Sloan has no idea if Porter caught any of what he just said, but he’s got more pressing matters on his mind. Namely, he has no clue how he’s going to square all this with St. Peter when his days are through. He’s just hoping that at some point between now and his final moment, the answer comes to him. If not, he’ll be spending eternity reliving each and every one of his sins and that’s not an eternity anyone would look forward to.

  10

  ANNIE BOWS HER HEAD

  Annie kneels on the hard wood floor, her eyes inches from the gap between the door and its frame. She’s spying on Father, who is presently propped up on the sofa in the next room, his skull swaddled in a modest turban of bandages. She can see him clearly through the gap although, admittedly, not with both eyes at once.

  “You’ve got nerve summoning me here like I’m some lowly field hand. It’s best you remember who gave you a leg up when you first came to this island.”

  For certain it’s Mr. Sloan who’s speaking. Father sent her to fetch their God-fearing neighbour in the middle of the night when Mr. Sloan hadn’t stopped in after assessing the situation at Mr. Bryan’s homestead like her father had assumed he would, and there’s not a man alive who can claim she didn’t do just that. Only when she stumbled across Mr. Sloan, he was in the midst of praying as hard as a man ever did with a Bible clasped in one hand and beads dangling from the other. He said he’d come – and obviously he has – but he further made it plain he would not move a foot from his home until he’d finished saying his peace with God. By her count, it took him six hours to do it and yet all that praying appears to have improved his mood not a stitch.

  Father adjusts the pillow beneath his head. “Need your thoughts, not your complaints. Imperative I know if everyone at Bryan’s place is like to survive.”

  Of course not. Annie need not hear Mr. Sloan’s reply to know that. She’d been absolutely certain from the moment she discovered the horses missing from the back field that the night would end in bloodshed and, to her everlasting grief, she knew just whose blood was most likely to be shed.

  “One ball caught Charlie square in the forehead and the other hit Bryan in the neck. I thought at first the old man had a chance at seeing more life, but now I’m thinking opposite. He’s totally insensible. The next time his eyes open he’ll be gazing at the angels.”

  Father looks theatrically glum. “Sorry to hear it. But we need to be clear no shots were fired last night. Any holes you may’ve seen were made by a knot in the club.” Father winces and closes his eyes. “For Christ’s sake, Laban. Stop pacing.”

  Laban, silly goose that he is, abruptly does as he’s told as soon as he’s told to do it. Annie tilts her head so that she can set eyes on her brother’s remarkable ability to squirm. Good old dependable Laban. You can always count on his nerves to frazzle the second things go wrong.

  “Cut the games, Amer.” The unmistakable irritation in Mr. Sloan’s voice draws Annie’s eyes back to her father. “I’ve just come from attending two men who’ve been downed by balls. It only adds up one way and that way has nothing to do with any knots in any clubs. You can’t get that one past me and you certainly won’t be getting it past the Lord.”

  Father makes a show of thrusting himself up onto his elbow, only to collapse back into the stack of pillows with a concussive grunt that crinkles Annie’s nose. Mr. Sloan properly ignores the dramatics, turning instead to Laban. “Have you got anything to add to this discussion?”

  Laban looks predictably thunderstruck, his eyes flitting between Father, the floor, the ceiling, and the wall. Anything to avoid looking at Mr. Sloan.

  “I didn’t think so.” Mr. Sloan turns back to Father and waves vaguely to the east. “Me and Porter walked the Bryan homestead as soon as the sun rose and found much to suggest that last night’s affray may not have played out how you said.”

  “You didn’t find no revolver, so don’t bother claiming you did.”

  Mr. Sloan just now turns the dangerous red of a kettle that’s about to explode. He then makes a valiant – though, in Annie’s opinion, not entirely successful – attempt to steady
his voice. “No, but we did find a bloody truncheon in the grass east of the corral and a knife and an axe and lots of clubs. One even had a clump of grey hair on it. I’m thinking it wasn’t yours.”

  “Your point?”

  “My point is that’s a whole lot of weapons for four men to have between them when you claim the old man got the jump on you. How surprised could you possibly have been if you thought beforehand to bring a cache of weapons with you?”

  Father heaves himself up into a seated position. “Not all those things are mine.”

  Mr. Sloan appears to be staring hard at the ceiling, although Annie must concede that heaven could be his true target, or possibly God himself. “But some of them are. Don’t even try telling me that truncheon belongs to Bryan. The clubs I’ll believe, even the axe, but not the gun and not the truncheon. Not even the knife. It’s too fine a quality to be something Bryan could afford.”

  Father melodramatically clamps his head between his hands, leading his daughter to suspect this activity has more to do with skewing favour than attempting to subdue any real pain.

  “Just say what’s on your mind, Sloan.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Nothing about this looks like self-defence. I can’t help thinking that if that’s truly what it was, you would’ve mentioned the gun.”

  Father waves dismissively. “Was an oversight, nothing more. Give you my word on that. I’m assuming my word still holds weight with you.”

  The look on Mr. Sloan’s face suggests it might not. “It’s only fair to warn you that Porter’s gone for the law. There was no real choice. We can’t pretend we didn’t see what we saw and what we saw leads us to believe the law needs to have its say.”

  As Annie takes this in, Father stares at the floor. Then he stares at Mr. Sloan. “What did you do with the truncheon?”

  Father tries his very best to sound nonchalant when he asks this, but his tone causes Annie to suspect he’s trying to suss out a way he can abscond with the weapon before the law arrives. Mr. Sloan appears to pick up on this as well. “I hid it well and it’ll remain that way until I place it in the hands of a lawman. Don’t go thinking otherwise.”

  As Mr. Sloan storms out of the room, Father beckons Laban to approach, then digs his fingers into his son’s shoulder. “You’re to head to the bush at the north end of the lot and stay there until I say otherwise. Make yourself known to no one. I can turn this thing around, but it’ll take some time, and until then I need you gone.”

  Laban yanks his shoulder free. “The north bush? You mean where the hogs and the cattle are kept? Do you really think so little of me that you’re going to pasture me in the bush with the animals you intend to slaughter?”

  Father snorts. “Maybe it’s best you don’t put thoughts like that in my head just now.”

  “Because slaughtering me would solve your problems?”

  “It’d sure solve one of them.”

  The front door swings open with a clattering the likes of which would surely wake the dead. Annie can’t see who’s entered and at first thinks it must be Mr. Sloan returning to continue the argument. Only then she hears an apologetic half-cough and properly guesses she’s witnessing Sam’s return from Manitowaning where he’d been sent in darkness to fetch Doc Francis. Annie listens as hard as can be, but does not hear a second set of footsteps.

  Father barks. “Doc on his way?”

  “Not ten minutes behind me. Had to race all the way back here to stay ahead of him. Man walks faster than the devil.”

  Does the devil walk fast? Annie has never properly considered the matter until now, but she’s not entirely sure why he’d need to since souls would surely come his way if he stood as still as a tree. Doc Francis, on the other hand, is always on the run and for the best of reasons. He’s the only doctor on the island, so far as she knows, and there’s always some wound that needs binding or illness that needs benefit of herbs or powders or syrups. They’ve most assuredly got the preacher for such times when the only remedy worth the bother is prayer.

  Father lowers his voice as if plotting to conspire. “What exactly did you tell him?”

  Annie leans forward. She’s terribly curious to hear what Sam has to say and yet only mildly surprised when the fool lowers his voice in the manner of his master even though it’s abundantly clear he’s not at all grasping why such a thing might be necessary. “Only what you said to tell him, sir. That there’s been a fight down at the Bryan place and that you’ve been banged up real bad.”

  “Good boy.” Father sensibly lies back. “Said nothing of the Bryans?”

  Sam raises his shoulders in a shrug. “Don’t know nothing of the Bryans, sir. Besides, you said to say no more than your message, so that’s what I did. The doc was fixing to set off right after me so I reckon he’ll be here before the angle of the sun changes by much.”

  Annie switches eyes to better see Sam through the gap. Large scuffs plaster his palms and knees, causing Annie to wonder how many times the boy fell along what must’ve been the roughest of stumbles through the bush for those first few hours. The only light would’ve come from a lantern and yet somehow Sam had completed the journey in as fast a time as could have been expected of a racehorse.

  Annie turns from the gap and rests her back against the wall and listens as Father continues his machinations. “Gather enough provisions for one week plus everything Laban needs to camp out in the bush until this thing settles in our favour. By your count, you’ve got roughly eight, maybe nine minutes to accomplish all this. I want Laban out the back before Doc Francis sets foot on my porch. Nod if you understand.”

  The silly goose must’ve nodded, for he and Laban come rushing past Annie’s hiding place on their way to the summer kitchen. Neither fool so much as catches sight of her, which is most assuredly a positive. Alas, their retreat rouses Mother, which is decidedly not a thing that should ever be wished for. “George, dear, exactly how much trouble are you in?”

  Mother has been perched on the melodeon bench since shortly after disposing of Father’s torn, stained clothes in the wood stove. Her mood had been the darkest of darks then, what with her demanding the revolver and Father refusing to tell her where he’d hidden it. She’d made not the slightest of peeps since then.

  Father grumbles. “I was within my rights to defend myself against Bryan’s attack. Sloan may think he heard misstatements from me, but he’ll soon come to understand that everything I said is in line with what truly happened.”

  Mother slaps her lap. “Oh, George, wake up! There are many on this island who already had knives out for you because of your speculating. I tried to warn you about that just yesterday. It almost doesn’t matter what happened at the Bryan homestead last night. People will put this tragedy down to you regardless.”

  Annie turns back to the gap in time to see Father pluck a rag from the floor and spit it bloody. “Those ingrates are free to say what they will. It’ll change nothing. Gossip has no standing in the law.”

  Mother is bursting to interject some nasty sentiment or other when Father tosses the bloody rag to the floor. “No chance this will ever get to trial. You’ll see. No point in having powerful friends if you can’t call on them at times such as this.”

  “You know I would never question your thinking on a subject as important as this, my love, and yet I cannot help but wonder if you’re really planning on staying out of jail by calling on powerful friends?”

  Father yanks a pillow from behind his head and tosses it to the floor. “That and a plausible story.”

  Mother leaps from the bench and snatches up the pillow, which she flings at Father, who deflects it. “Don’t be so sure that’ll be enough, my love. Why in heaven’s name did you bring that revolver with you?”

  “You know why.”

  Mother studies Father’s face, then returns to the bench, where she attempts to smooth every precious wrink
le from her equally precious skirt. “I know why you said, my love, but what I don’t understand is why you were so convinced Charlie had a revolver that he intended to use against you. Did Boyd tell you that? I never did trust that man.”

  Father draws a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. “Eleanor Bryan told me about the revolver when I looked in on her not two days past. Said Charlie was looking to set a trap that I couldn’t help but walk into. That’s when he’d use it.”

  Mother frowns. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, dear. Of all people, I would’ve thought Mrs. Bryan would’ve known her son didn’t have the revolver anymore. A mother knows these things and, since Sloan seems to have known, it’s hard for me to believe that he did and yet Charlie’s mother did not.”

  Father chews the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Also hard to believe that Eleanor wouldn’t have noticed a fiddle suddenly showing up. I’m sure I wouldn’t know what passes for conversation in that household. But I’m thinking Eleanor knew the truth and told me a lie.”

  Mother narrows her eyes. “What exactly are you saying?”

  At first, Father says nothing, he just stares into the air as if transfixed by a speck of dust until, finally, he grimaces. “I’m saying Eleanor needed to end her torment and didn’t have the strength to do it herself, so she found a way to get me to do it for her.”

  Well now, that’s a curious turn of events. Annie isn’t quite sure what to make of a mother who would say a thing that would surely endanger her son. Father too seems to be struggling with this, for he bows his head. In contrast, Mother balls her fingers into fists and turns towards Annie’s hiding spot. “Annie, darling, you can come out now.”