October 25th, 1795 aex

Mak Garde

South of Picklewood, Watateje, New Alben

Two shots remained in the whiskey bottle, and a third one swirled around the bottom of an old cup. Mak sat in his bird coop and watched the amber drink, its enchanting aroma strong enough to supress the smells of the coop. The Dames were settled, abreast as always, in a corner while the smaller birds slept in their nests. Plucker curled up at his feet, almost like Duke used to do.

He wanted to pat the violet fowl’s head, but birds weren’t like dogs. It would most likely puff its tail feathers and cause a stir. The Dames would not be pleased, and their outcry would wake Mak’s family.

He’d retreated to the coop after an early supper of fresh bread and pickled carrots to watch the sun die in the west. He’d spent most of the time absentmindedly tossing handfuls of grain and seeds to the birds while contemplating the day’s happenings.

The papers given to him by Guvson were meant as a threat and a show of power. I have legal rights to your land, and what more, good man, I have access to a portion of the army. I can also legally raise my own militia, and just to top it all off, I have ten centaurs under my command. The message was loud and clear.

He considered Konni’s words, more than he thought he would. He was convinced, and every bone in his body told him to take the deal and go. It was bones outside of his body that kept him hitched to this land. The bones of two prior generations buried there. He couldn’t justify such spineless surrender. Where would it stop? Every time some northern snot would come around wanting something, would he be forced to give in? Was resistance a muscle? If so, he did not mean for it to atrophy.

Sherik had not returned. The sun was well below the line, and the moon shone bright, but the boy was absent. Mak’s mind wandered to places he’d rather have avoided. Had Guvson found the boy in town? What might he have done if he did? Mak shook his head. Many young men had weak tempers, especially the spoiled ones, but that didn’t mean he was murderous or even violent. The way Guvson had yanked his stallion’s reins suggested otherwise. One with no compassion for beasts likely has none for his fellow man. There was also the state of Daun’s home. Mak shivered.

“I wish y’all could drink with me,” Mak said to the sleeping birds. He drained his cup, and the liquid burned his chest. The flavour was an explosion of colour in the dark.

His voice woke Plucker. It got to its slender stick feet, sauntered off to a quieter area of the room, and nestled beneath the red jay nest.

Many thoughts fought for control of his mind throughout the night. The amount Westen Freight was willing to offer for such a small sliver of land was oddly high. A company could never become as powerful as Westen Freight making deals like that.

Guvson had never introduced himself. Mak wouldn’t have known it was him had Sheriff Meadows not referred to him by name. He must have been the owner’s son, heir to the company.

Plucker squawked. A storm of red feathers swarmed around him. The red jay flew in, pecked, and flew out. It repeated the process a dozen times like a jousting knight. Plucker puffed his tailfeathers and pecked at the diving foe.

Mak shot to his feet, nearly toppling the table that held his whiskey bottle. He rushed to the commotion and waved his hand through the air as if to get rid of a fly. “Stop,” he whispered harshly. The red jay continued to dive at Plucker, taking violet feathers with it on every retreat. The jay dove again, confident, but left empty-beaked. Plucker held a red feather triumphantly. “You’re ruining each other’s plumage, fools.” Mak felt like he was breaking up a brawl between two drunkards in expensive coats.

The red jay returned to its nest. Plucker’s last defense was enough. The Dame’s feathers rose slightly at their tails, but they kept calm. Mak sighed in relief. The Dame’s guaranteed at least an hour of carnage if properly agitated.

He bent to gather feathers from the ground and found only a few from the fight. There were no other violet feathers anywhere else in the coop. They used to pile up beside the wall along with the rest of them but that had stopped. He scoffed. There were enough things to think about without adding the trivial mystery of the missing feathers to the list.

Hooves clopped along the road and approached the house. Mak returned to his rickety chair, sat in silence, and awaited his son and the fabricated explanation he’d likely prepared. He contemplated draining the rest of the whiskey but decided against it. He might need it later.

The boy steered Butterhoof onto the path and past the house. He moved by the coop, not noticing the eyes that watched him, and stopped before the barn. He hopped off and patted Butterhoof’s cheek. The horse had been worked into a lather.

Sherik glanced at the house a thousand times while he opened the barn door and brought the horse in. “Don’t worry,” Mak whispered, grinning, “we’re all asleep. No one knows what you’re up to.”

Butterhoof’s rump disappeared past the barn door, prompting Mak to leave the bird coop. He exited the two-door system without making a noise, a skill only he possessed, and prowled toward the barn. He inched the door open to find the glow of a lantern and undiscernible shadows dancing about the walls and floor.

He pulled the door closed behind him and glanced around the illuminated barn. The animals slept. Milli lay in her stall, snoring blissfully as if her tragedy had never occurred. It warmed his heart to see.

Sherik stationed Butterhoof in her stall at the far end of the barn. The mare munched on a stash of hay, and the door closed and locked. The boy spun and started for the ladder leaning across from Butterhoof’s stall. Mak remained unnoticed.

Sherik climbed to the loft. He was half way up the ladder when Mak spoke. “Sleeping in the loft tonight, boy?”

He yelped and nearly fell from the ladder. “Don’t do that, Pa.”

“Oh, you don’t like being scared, do you? Maybe you shouldn’t scare your family, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t just run off like you did.” Mak closed the distance between them. “You didn’t tell us where you were going, what you were doing, or most importantly, when you were planning on being back.”

He nodded and stayed frozen on the ladder. “I’m sorry, Pa. I’ll make it up to you, I swear it.” He waited.

Mak regarded him for a moment. “Get off the ladder, boy, and get to bed.”

Sherik’s jaw clenched and his eyes widened. “Pa, I know I don’t deserve your trust, but you have to trust me—”

“Off the ladder. Into bed.” Mak repeated the command. “I’m not leaving this barn before you. Come off that ladder, or I’ll take you off myself.”

A defeated breath slipped from the boy as he descended. A small leather satchel hung from his shoulder to his hip, Mak hadn’t noticed it untill now. “What’s in there?”

“Nothing.” Sherik responded instantly, pulling the satchel close to him like an old lady and her coin-purse.

“Awfully suspicious, boy. What am I going to find in there?”

“Nothing, because you will trust me, and you won’t make me show you,” Sherik said, hopeful.

“Why should I trust you, boy?” Mak loomed over his son but noticed the boy had grown in the last month. Instead of a head taller, the boy stood up to Mak’s nose. He’ll need new clothes soon. He firmed his stance and donned a hard expression. “You never show any initiative in your work. You’re always late. You leave without telling where, why, or what, and you should have been there by my side when that Guvson fella came. Your mother, sisters, and brother were there. We were all there except for you. Now you want trust?”

Sweat beaded on the boy’s upper lip. “You’re right. I know it.”

“Well?” Mak tapped his fingers on his crossed arms impatiently.

“Please, Pa,” Sherik clutched the satchel.

“Give it to me.” Mak might have let it pass as he didn’t truly think it was anything sinister, but the boy’s odd behavior aroused suspicion. “Quickly, now.”

Sherik gave him a look he never thought he’d see. There was rage in the boy’s brown eyes. Resentment. Mak stood firm. He remembered the boy as a helpless creature at Konni’s breast. No scowl would scare him off. Mak extended his hand expectantly.

“I’ll show you,” Sherik’s shoulders fell limp, and the grip on his satchel faded. “I’m not ashamed of what’s in here, I just—”

“Quit stalling and show me.” Mak maintained a calm voice throughout.

Sherik exhaled an insulted breath and handed the satchel over.

Mak dipped his hands into the satchel and kept his eyes hard on the boy. A stack of paper money lay at the bottom of the bag. No small sum. His eyes left the boy and plunged downward. Twenty dollars. They were old notes, most were ripped at the corners, and some down the middle. They weren’t bound together with a blue ribbon like the bankers did, and they were dirty, as if they’d been buried and dug up countless times. He flipped through the stack. Each note was worth one dollar and displayed the face of Terryl Seeker, the first man to cross the sea from Albentenia to the new world.

“Where did you get this?” Mak fully expected an onslaught of lies. “This is what we make when selling off excess crops on a good year.” He weighed the stack in his hand. “A great year.”

“I… found it,” Sherik’s lie began, “I rode to town, just wanted to get away from the farm for a bit, you know me.” He smiled awkwardly. “It was on the ground on the side of the rode just a few minutes out of Picklewood.”

“Why were you climbing the ladder?”

The boy flushed. “I was gonna go hide it up there.”

“Why hide it?” It seemed too honest to be truth.

“I don’t know.” Sherik avoided eye contact. “I thought it might be a good idea to have some money hidden in case something happened. With all this Westen Freight business, I just… I don’t know.”

It was a good strategy, but one Mak wouldn’t fall for. “Put it wherever you want for tonight,” he moved to Butterhoof and brushed his fingers against the loyal horse’s nose. “You’ll ride back to town first thing tomorrow morning and give it to Sheriff Meadows. He’ll get it back to its rightful owner.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Pa, what if—”

“It’s a great idea,” Mak interrupted, “it’s what you’re going to do, ‘cos it’s the right thing to do. Unless, of course, you’re lying about how you came across it.” He dropped the stack into the bag and handed it over to the red-faced boy who looked more and more like a man with every passing day, but still refused to act like one.

Sherik took the satchel, barely holding it, as if it had lost all worth. He nodded.

“Get to sleep,” Mak said. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

Sherik stormed out of the barn, leaving Mak alone in the lantern light. Not alone. He moved past a half-dozen stalls of sleeping cows. Milli lay in the stall closest to the door. Her belly rose and fell with the deep breaths of sleep. He wanted to pat her, but she’d been through enough. She deserved a good rest.