Jimmy the Hand (20 page)

Every hill that
challenged his legs was a step nearer to home.

He recognized
trees he’d climbed as a lad, fields he’d worked in or
tended stock through, jumped over a creek that crossed the roadway
and grinned at the memory of the first time he’d been able to
do that dry-shod. He was already man-tall in his seventeenth year,
with a little soft yellow fuzz on his cheeks and a shock of
rough-cropped gold hair, broad-shouldered and long-legged, his open
blue eyes friendly. A lifetime’s hard work had put muscle on
his shoulders and arms, but it was stalking deer that had given him
grace, and made his soft boots fall lightly on the dirt of the road.

And thinking
of which,
he thought, his head coming up. Something fairly large
crashed off through the roadside brush.
Pig?
he wondered, then
stooped. The false dawn gave him light enough for tracking. No, deer,
right enough. The cloven print was a little too big and a little too
splayed for swine.

Bram chuckled.
‘Run off and get chased by a nobleman,’ he said.

Nobles hunted
deer on horseback, with dogs; which was rather like killing chickens
with a battle axe to his way of thinking—easily done and not
much sport in it—but there was no accounting for tastes. The
joy was in tracking and stalking, not the kill. After the kill came
the hard part, dressing out the carcass and lugging it back home. But
then nobles had servants to do the hard work, he conceded.

He took a deep
breath of the musty-cool air and continued down the roadway,
whistling. A brisk four-mile walk had brought him almost to his own
door and he paused with a smile on his face to look at the old place.

The lane to the
farmhouse looked so welcoming in the early morning that the sight of
it lifted his heart. There were lanterns on the fence posts on the
way up to the house and one beside the door, while the downstairs
windows of the house were aglow with candlelight, the flame blurred
to a warm yellow through the scraped sheep-gut or thin-sliced horn
that made the panes. There was a lantern by the barn door as well, he
saw.

That’s
a real welcome!
he thought; beeswax candles were expensive, and
tallow dips weren’t free either.

Then he
remembered that they would have had no way of knowing that today
would be his homecoming. Which meant that all this extravagant light
was for some other cause. A wedding? But there hadn’t been any
in prospect when he left. Besides, it wasn’t Sixthday
afternoon, when most weddings were held. That meant a wake was the
mostly likely explanation, since nobody stinted in honouring the
dead. And many of the men would drink through the night until their
wives said
enough
and took them home.

Everyone had
been healthy when he left, but that meant little: illness or accident
could take a healthy man or woman suddenly enough, and farmers knew
that as well as any.

Bram hastened up
the drive, pausing when he noticed Farmer Glidden’s wagon,
which had been hidden by his mother’s lilacs. Then he glanced
into the barn, where another lantern was lit, and he noted several
horses belonging to the neighbours and a few beasts that belonged to
Lorrie Merford’s family, including their dairy-cow Tessie.

Something was
most definitely going on and it probably wasn’t good. Why was
the Merford stock in his father’s barn? Bram knew that his
family couldn’t possibly afford to buy them; nor would the
Merfords sell them.

Bram hurried to
the house. Hearing voices raised inside, he entered quietly through
the rear door, the better to hear the fast and furious discussion
that was going on. The big, single room that held the main hearth was
filled with neighbours, many seated on the benches around the kitchen
table, others on stools around the room, the rest standing or
squatting against the wall.

‘It was
animals! Wild dogs or something like that!’ said Tucker
Holsworth, smacking the table for emphasis as he waved his pipe in
the air. His face was black with soot and dirt.

‘But what
about what Lorrie said?’ asked Bram’s father.

‘Y’mean
about men doing it with some sort of tool?’ Holsworth puffed on
his pipe as he sought to keep it lit.

‘Well, she
was there. If that’s what she said she saw should we be
doubting her?’

‘But those
marks were made by some animal’s teeth! No knife did that to
them,’ offered Rafe Kimble, who stood by the kitchen hearth. He
was also black from soot.

‘And
little Rip? Where did he go to if someone didn’t kidnap him,
then?’ asked his wife, Elma.

‘He could
have perished in the fire, and the girl just didn’t see it,’
insisted Allet.

‘If the
animal was big enough then it could have dragged him off to its den.’
That came from Jacob Reese, who sat at the table with the other two
men.

‘But how
could an animal like that or even a pack of animals, be in the area
and us not notice?’ asked Ossrey. ‘Where have they gone
then? I’ve heard no rumours of such as happened to the Merfords
happening anywhere else.’

‘What are
you talking about?’ Bram exclaimed. ‘What’s
happened?’

‘Bram!’
his mother cried. Allet jumped up from her seat and made her way
through the crowd to embrace him.

‘Son!’
Ossrey said. ‘Good to see you, boy!’ He offered his hand
across the kitchen table and Bram leaned through the crowd of
neighbours to take it with a brief smile. From the leftover food on
the table and the open jugs, it was clear the women had been in the
kitchen all night, cooking breakfast for the men, who had just
finished eating.

‘You must
be starving,’ Allet said. ‘Sit down, Bram,’ she
pushed him toward her place at the table, ‘and I’ll get
you something.’

‘I’m
fine, Mother,’ Bram said, but he did take her seat after he’d
unslung his bundle and propped the bow and quiver against the wall
beside the door. ‘What’s happened? It sounds bad.’
He looked around at his neighbours, then turned expectantly to his
father.

Ossrey bowed his
head and looked at Bram from under his shaggy eyebrows. He was a dark
hairy man except for a thinning patch on top of his head, and
broader-built than his son would ever be. ‘I’m so sorry
you’ve come home to such bad news, son,’ he began. ‘The
Merfords have suffered a terrible tragedy.’

‘Lorrie?’
Bram asked immediately.

His mother’s
lips thinned and she frowned slightly, her eyes shifting to Farmer
Glidden to see how he took Bram’s singular interest in Lorrie
Merford.

‘She was
fine the last time we saw her,’ Allet said, crossing her arms.

‘What do
you mean the last time you saw her?’ Bram demanded. When no
answer was forthcoming, he gripped his mother by the arms and asked,
‘Mother, what happened?’

‘Lorrie’s
parents were both killed,’ Farmer Glidden told him quickly.
‘Their house and barn were burned down and we spent the night
over there putting out fires in the fields. Just got back here an
hour ago.’ He was silent a moment, then added, ‘Her
brother’s gone missing. I’m told Lorrie took her horse
and rode out. Probably gone after the boy.’

There was a
flurry of ‘tsks!’ both sympathetic and condemning,
accompanied by nods and shaking heads.

Bram released
his mother’s arms. ‘So Lorrie and Rip are
both
missing?’

‘Didn’t
I just say so?’ Glidden said.

‘Has
anyone gone after them?’

From the glances
exchanged around the room, Bram could tell no one had.

‘When did
all this happen?’ Bram ran a desperate hand through his hair,
looking around in confusion.

‘The marks
on Melda and Sam’s bodies looked like they’d been made by
an animal of some kind,’ Ossrey said. ‘We think the boy
must have been dragged away by whatever killed them.’

‘Animals!’
Bram said. ‘Here?’ He looked around again. ‘Has
anyone tracked the beasts? Are you saying they . . . had they eaten
Melda and Sam?’ Then it struck him. ‘Do you mean to tell
me that Lorrie has gone alone, tracking some animal big enough and
dangerous enough to kill two adults? When did she go?’

‘Lorrie
said something about men doing it,’ Dora Commer said, looking
defiantly at Allet and Ossrey. ‘Said they tore up the bodies
with some sort of tool to make it look like a beast did it, then
headed down the road toward Land’s End. She wanted to follow
them at once, but of course we couldn’t let her do that. We
thought she was in a panic.’ The woman shrugged, looking
guilty. ‘And there was the fire, we had to take care of that.
For all we knew the boy had been in the house or the barn and she
just couldn’t take the idea. Besides,’ she continued into
his silence, ‘if there were men and they’d killed both
her parents what could one girl do against them?’

‘We
brought her here and put her to bed,’ his mother said. ‘The
men had to fight fires in the fields all night, and have been arguing
this thing since they got here. When the Lormers were leaving, a
little before you got here, they saw the Merfords’ horse gone.
I checked your room and it was empty. She’d gone out of the
window, wearing some of your old clothing, and she stole your purse
from under the bed!’ She said the last as if it was more
important than the other news.

‘She’s
welcome to it,’ said Bram, ‘if she needs it to find Rip.’

‘I checked
her farm,’ Long Paul, the foreman of Glidden’s farm said.
‘I took a lantern, rode out there and checked. No sign of her.’

‘Well,
there’s nothing there for her now, is there?’ Jacob
Reese’s wife asked, sniffing sadly.

‘We’re
going to send word to the constable after sunup,’ said Glidden
officiously. ‘It’s their job to deal with things like
this.’

Bram looked
incredulous. ‘The constable?’

Glidden looked
displeased. ‘Doubt much will come of it. No doubt they’ve
much more important things to do than be after a girl looking for her
brother.’

‘But
wasn’t he right there on the minute when it came to evicting
the Morrisons from the farm their family had worked forever?’
Dora said indignantly. ‘They jump right to it if you’re a
money-lender needing to foreclose.’

At this more
arguments broke out and threatened to go on for some time.

Bram watched
them in wonder then finally shouted over the uproar, ‘What have
you been doing to find Lorrie and Rip?’

‘And what
should we do?’ his mother asked, sounding offended. ‘We
offered her our home and our comfort and she ran away, with your
purse, without so much as a thank you or a farewell. If she doesn’t
want us we can’t force ourselves on her.’

He looked at
her, then turned to his father. ‘And there’s been no
further sign of these so-called animals?’ he asked.

‘None,’
Ossrey said. ‘None before, and none since.’

‘We didn’t
find any tracks to follow,’ Long Paul told him.

Bram stared at
him. Long Paul was the best hunter in the district; it was he who had
taught Lorrie and Bram to hunt. If Long Paul couldn’t find
tracks then there were no tracks to find. ‘Doesn’t that
strike anyone as odd?’ he asked. ‘The Merfords’
farm is seven miles from any sizeable stands of woods. Any animal
large enough to savage a full-grown man and woman would have been
seen by someone if it was crossing the fields from the Old Forest or
the Free Woods. Unless you think it just trotted down the King’s
Highway without a trader, traveller, or horseman noticing it, then it
turned down the Old Mill Trail to Lorrie’s farm.’

His neighbours
looked at one another in confusion.

‘Well,
yes,’ Long Paul said. ‘Not that it signifies. Tracks I
mean. Those marks on the bodies were definitely made by an animal’s
teeth, Bram. I’d swear to that. The fact that it’s odd
doesn’t change the evidence. Could have been a flyer.’ He
shrugged.

‘A flyer?’
asked Bram.

‘Well,
never saw one, but heard tell of some things on the wing up in the
mountains that are big enough to attack a man, wyverns and the like.’
Then he cocked his head, frowning. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘That
something’s not right here,’ Bram told him. ‘Lorrie
said she saw men taking her brother away, and you didn’t
believe her.’ He glanced pointedly at his mother. Her face
became more pinched. ‘But the only evidence of animals is the
marks on the bodies and she said that men did it with some sort of
tool. Meanwhile Lorrie has run off alone and everyone’s just
sitting here talking about it.’

Ossrey looked
shamefaced and he wasn’t the only one, but no one spoke up and
no one moved a muscle. Bram picked up his pack and rose.

‘Where are
you going?’ Allet asked, alarmed.

‘Mother,
Lorrie is a neighbour, more, she’s my friend and she’s
only fifteen. She’s just lost everything in the world and she’s
out there on her own. Rip may be out there too or he may be as dead
as his parents, that’s something we don’t know. But we do
know about Lorrie. We have an obligation to help her.’

‘No,’
his mother said, thin-lipped. ‘No, I don’t see that. We
tried and she spurned our help. As far as I’m concerned that
ends our obligation. And as for her being fifteen, you’re only
seventeen yourself. So there’s no reason to think that you’ll
do more going after her than she could do for herself.’

Bram was
disappointed in her, but not surprised. As soon as he’d begun
taking an interest in Lorrie his mother had turned against the girl:
this was just more of the same. He looked at his father.

‘Do what
you think is right, son,’ Ossrey rumbled.

Allet hit
Ossrey’s arm and glared at him.

‘Would
anyone else like to help me hunt for Lorrie?’ Bram asked.

There was a
certain amount of foot shuffling and mutterings about not liking to
be away from their families while a threat lurked near. And the
constable, they should wait on the constable.