Peter Loon (25 page)

“Wouldn't know how to cope with it,” said the man.

“They will be gathering, I think, where we're going–the men you're looking for.”

“I'll find them, no doubt. They had better mean business, though, or Pownal will likely bite someone. He doesn't mind going places, but he craves purpose.”

“You're liable to have more visitors, Mr. Klaggerfell. There are houses about and someone will see your fire.”

“Could it be there are people as curious as you and I?” said the elderly fellow. Peter realized that, since nodding toward the dog, the man had hardly moved a muscle other than those necessary to speak. There was something uncanny in his stillness, or perhaps all too canny, like a cat ready to strike.

“It wouldn't surprise me,” the parson was saying.

“Let them come. Pownal and I travel till we tire, and then we lay down.”

“One of those houses you take no note of may contain someone who owns this copse.”

“Yes, there's something like that in all this fuss I've heard tell.”

“People have owned
these acres,”
said the parson, “and labored over them long enough to lay claim by any measure, that much is plain.” He stirred Mr. Klaggerfell's stew again, as if he were in the man's kitchen, and they were talking simple pleasantries. Indeed, they might have been, for all Peter could tell from their words; but the tension in their voices put him on his nerves. The parson pulled something out of the stew with the stick and considered it for a moment. “I think this might be ready,” he said.

“The hares around here are tough as corncobs,” the old man was saying. “I've been boiling that one for half an hour or more, but I'd wager bottom land to boulders I'll lose a tooth on it if I don't boil it the same again.”

“Come, Peter,” said the parson. He turned his shoulder to the man and Peter was startled for the fraction of an instant by a sudden stiffening in Mr. Klaggerfell's posture. Peter almost cried out, he was so sure the man was raising the muzzle of his gun. An owl–the owl, perhaps, that Mr. Klaggerfell had suspected–called from somewhere above them, and Peter heard the sound of large wings treading the wind. Parson Leach looked up.

After a moment, the old man said, “Thanks for stirring my stew, Parson,” though the clergyman had only spoken of himself as Zachariah Leach.

“God speed, Mr. Klaggerfell.” Parson Leach led Peter into the trees.

“Mr. Leach. Mr. Loon.”

Peter was amazed, how like a wall the night appeared beyond the sphere of Mr. Klaggerfell's fire. He stumbled against a root, then took the switch of a branch across his mouth. Parson Leach was standing behind him, and the man reached around to hold a sapling back. Peter ducked his head, closed his eyes for a moment, then walked in the direction he expected to find their horses with his hands before him, groping for trunks and limbs.

“This way,” said the parson, after a moment, and Peter could see the silhouette of the clergyman's arm pointing to the left a few degrees.

All the while Peter felt as if the bore of that musket was staring at the point between his shoulders. He dared a single look back, and could see Mr. Klaggerfell, in vertical portions between the trunks of trees, sitting with his dog in the light of the fire.

Mars gave out a low whinny, as if telling them where he and Beam could be found. “No need to hurry,” said Parson Leach softly.

Peter didn't know he'd been hurrying, but he accepted the parson's word and forced his feet to check their pace. The horses were shadows against the moonlit quarter of the sky, and comforting to reach up and touch when the travelers closed with them.

“As long as we've come this far north,” said the parson, “we'll head northwest and the road we reach will take us to the ford at Dyers River.” So they skirted the southern and western edges of the copse and rode by moonlight through Great Meadow.

“What do you think, Peter?” said Parson Leach, when they had ridden some distance. “We may have tracked down the foxlight after all.”

Peter looked back, now and again, to watch the light of Mr. Klaggerfell's fire dwindle. “That man frightened me some,” he said.

Then the parson said, “The hair at the back of
my
neck hasn't settled
yet?

“He
seemed
pleasant enough, somehow.”

“He might have shared his hare with us, tough as it was.”

“I don't know if I'd have eaten it.”

Parson Leach laughed, but it was a rueful sound in the dark.

“Do you suppose he
did
fight the French?” asked Peter.

“The French and the British, and some wars you and I have yet to hear of, would be my guess.” The parson himself glanced back, but the copse was only a dark smudge against the rolling fields and Mr. Klaggerfell's fire was invisible to them. “He's from an ancient race that shows little signs of dying. I only saw fighting at Yorktown, myself, but I met some of his family there, and I must say I wasn't sorry for them then. In battle, they take any soldier at their side as their own.”

Peter hoped they wouldn't see Mr. Klaggerfell again, but suspicioned that the old man would not be far behind them in reaching the trouble in New Milford.

“How did he know you were a parson?” he asked.

THE SUGGESTION OF DANGER DRIFTED AWAY IN THEIR WAKE AND ALL
but disappeared when they came to the road that Parson Leach had described–a convergence of roads, actually–and he hurried them along the track northwest again. Soon they reached the ford at Dyers River. The current there was salty, but the tide was near to ebb and they were able to splash across on the backs of their mounts without getting very wet.

They saw two or three scattered farms on that side of Great Meadow, as they passed over a road that had been built up on marshy ground; at the top of a hill, they sighted lights in the distance, along the Sheepscott River not half a mile away.

“Does the town look very awake?” said Parson Leach.

Peter thought it did. Lights glimmered from almost every house, and there looked to be a fire in one of the streets. They rode down the slope and when they crossed the wooden bridge over Benjamin Brook–their horses' hooves clumping loudly–a light glared in their faces and several figures stepped from the side of the road beyond and barred the way. Two or three of these persons wore something over their heads, and the others had blackened their faces.

“Stand!” came the nasal twang of a voice from one of them, who stepped ahead of the lantern light. “Who goes there!” and for the second time that night, the travelers found themselves the object of a musket bore's attention.

“Since
you
are pointing the gun,” said the parson, almost with a laugh, “Perhaps we deserve to be answered first.”

“What?” said the man, and a second said, “Get down, now.”

Peter, who was startled almost as profoundly by the parson's reply as from the original sentry-call, was ready to comply, but the parson put a hand out and touched his arm.

“If you're here to rob us,” said Parson Leach, “we can hand over our valuables and stay mounted.”

“We are Liberty Men!” declared one of the figures.

“We're the White Indians!” said another.

Shielding his eyes from the light of the lantern with one hand, Parson Leach leaned forward and peered past Mars's large head to inspect the foremost of these figures. The man's face was disguised as an animal of some sort, but he drew back, as if the parson could see who he was beneath the mask. When the parson said, “Are you afraid your wife will come out here and recognize you, Martin Church?” the whole group of them expressed astonishment and dismay.

“Who
is
that?” came a third voice, and one of the men stepped up and peered up at the riders. “Is that you, Mr. Leach?”

“Yes, and I've been greeted with less threat and more flattery when I've come to New Milford.”

Some wordless sounds of apology were interrupted by the first man, who came to the fore again and declared, almost in a chant, “The powers of oppression are upon us, and we must be watchful!” Then he considered the two horsemen and added, “Not to speak that the two of you are dressed like gentlemen.”

“The sheriffs been about,” said a fellow further back in the crowd.

“He's jailed ten men and swears to keep them!” said another.

“Do pardon us, Mr. Leach,” managed one man, whose face was black with charcoal.

“Do we take his gun?” said someone.

“The parson?” said another.

“He's one of us, isn't he?”

“You are, aren't you, Mr. Leach?”

“A man for Liberty, I might be,” said the clergyman lightly, “but I won't join you for the pleasure of accosting simple travelers.”

The Liberty Men replied in harmony of meaning, if not voice. “We're only protecting our own, Mr. Leach,” said the one, and “Ten men they took,” insisted another, “and not all of them part of the
frolic
the other night.” Still a third broke in with, “Roused them from their fields and hearths, Mr. Leach. Put them in irons and marched them to Wiscasset.”

The man who had first challenged the travelers took another step forward, shook his musket at Parson Leach, and announced with a degree of belligerence not yet heard in that colloquy, “Mister, you are either for us, or against.”

Parson Leach swung one foot over the front of his saddle and dropped from his horse in a single motion. The man with the contentious musket was surprised by this movement and didn't step back as much as he simply leaned away. The bore of the musket leaned away as well and Parson Leach snatched the gun from the man's hand in as quick a move as Peter Loon had ever seen.

There was a great deal of discussion about this, but Parson Leach broke through the uproar with the following quiet, if earnestly felt dissertation. “Step ahead, any man who can say he's seen me demonstrate other than sympathy for backcountry folk. If I speak of moderate means, so much more should you listen to me, rather than follow some mad ranter. But as for being for or against, I feel good will, as a general thing, toward any man not pointing a gun at me. Why have I come here, if not to discover circumstance and offer what stands by my command?” The masked men drew back from this even-spoken lecture, and Parson Leach offered the first fellow his musket back, saying, “I seem to remember writing a successful
answer to writ
for you last spring, George Chaff.”

The parson did not wait for anyone to grant permission, but mounted Mars, spoke to Peter, and rode past the group of men. Peter did not immediately understand what was happening, but then he urged Beam forward, with his heart charging in his chest. There was no further challenge or outcry from behind, but ahead of them, the voices of men were raised in shouts and raucous song. There was a bonfire in the midst of the village and the masked and costumed figures milling about it were silhouetted into strange shapes against the flames.