Chapter Three:  A Poor Shot and The Happy Recovery of a Misplaced Memento.

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The sky had lightened to the deep blue which foretold the eventual dawn when sounds which at any other time of the day would have been quiet, as of someone poking up the fire and setting up a wooden rack, brought the camp awake, and Tom was forcibly reminded of a quirk of the leader of their outriders, Ivanovitch, whose daily ritual it was to throw sweet-smelling herbs upon the coals of the last evening’s fire and spray his clothing lightly with water, spreading the garments out upon the wooden rack to dry.  This procedure, he claimed, discouraged the small, biting creatures which liked to take up residence in clothing and bedding.  Most of the men considered these pseudo-bedbugs (or bibbetts, as they were called in Tom’s neighbourhood) as minor nuisances, but Ivanovitch harboured a deep suspicion that they carried disease.

The other men made it a joke that Brackenstall favoured Ivanovitch because he got the others up early.  It was also murmured that Brackenstall had always given him the easier jobs which would allow him to avoid getting dirty, and had quickly elevated him to the status of leader of the outriders, second only to Brackenstall himself, because of his dandyish care for his looks and smell, as the daily treatment of smoke helped keep his clothing — which always fit perfectly on his long, lean frame — less wrinkled and nicely scented.  Still, despite his airs and odd mannerisms, Ivanovitch was well liked for his outgoing, kind personality and affectionate, self-effacing humour.  In fact it was he who had found an extra blanket for Tom the previous Spring when he had taken ill crossing the mountains.

The cook soon joined Ivanovitch at the fire, simmering a pot of grain with bits of dried fruit and meat, which would serve as a hot and nourishing, if unexciting, breakfast for the men, while the others rolled up their bedding, saddled horses and harnessed mules.  They would be off from Saradell far earlier than they had left Victoria City, and Brackenstall was pleased overall.  However, as Tom was tending to his teeth at the edge of the camp just after wolfing his own bowl of gruel (he had awoken feeling amazingly hungry considering that the night before his belly had been distended as he had rolled into his blanket) he happened to see the caravan leader striding away from Phipps’ carriage, scowling.  He touched the ginger-haired coach driver, Bartholomew, on the arm as he passed by on his way back to his wagon and asked what the meaning of that might be.

“He has asked young master Ethan to ride inside his carriage, today.  Says it’s safer, as we go into the hills, soon.  Master Ethan... attempted to make him change his mind.  But I think he’ll comply.”

Tom allowed as that was hard luck, but perhaps for the best.  “No fun at all.  But, begging your pardon, it’s hard on the men having him criticizing like that, if you can see how that might be.”

Bart laughed.  “I can’t say as I disagree, at the moment.  He isn’t always this difficult.  Why, I swear to you that often he can be very kind.  Generally overbearing and spoiled, but I think he has a good heart.  Talk is he had a falling out with his father.  They’re too much alike, a bit hot tempered, and his father wasn’t happy with his friends... or so they say.  I don’t really know, of course.  What I do know is that this plan to send him to Abernetty happened quickly.  Nobody knew a thing about it more than two days before we left, and my sweetheart was none too pleased with my being specifically demanded by the young Lord to accompany him, I can tell you, though it is an honour of course, and I’ll enjoy seeing different scenes.  And she’s another you don’t want to cross, but she knows you can’t do much about what Lords want!  Do you have a sweetheart, yourself?”

Tom said he did not, and Belvedier expressed his surprised that so fine-looking a young man should not, and for all that she might be troublesome he wouldn’t trade his own for anything, “She’s hard on me, she is, but it’s all for my own good, I’m sure!” and they left the conversation there as the word was passed that it was time for the caravan to be moving.

Tom wanted to give young Lord Ethan every opportunity of being the kindest master in all of Victoria Colony for the sake of the pleasant Bart Belvedier’s good opinion, yet it was a hard job to think well of someone who seemed to insist on continuing to make himself unpleasant.  Thankfully, whenever the caravan was moving all through that day the young Lord did indeed ride inside his carriage and did not bother anyone.

They rolled up out of Saradell before dawn, and topped a ridge as the first of the sun’s rays reached them.  But, though the day had dawned clear, clouds moved in before noon, and a light drizzle accompanied them as the moved through the gently rolling wooded country.  Each man had as a matter of course come prepared with some sort of oilskin coat or cape and a hood or hat, as they were mostly from the Victoria City area where this was such a normal weather pattern as to be completely ignored.  A slight drizzling rain nearly every day was what kept this land green and fertile, and the similarity to the region of Old Earth known as England was one of the many qualities which had attracted the Investing colonists, who had believed that a continuously mildly annoying weather pattern had been the hitherto unrecognised agent which had taught the English their legendary perseverance.

Rain dripped steadily off their hoods for most of the day, and the men of the caravan merely hunched their shoulders a bit and continued on, ignoring it completely.  The hooves of the the mules and horses churned the road to muck and often a stretch which had been fine for the first wagons was nearly impassable for the last.  There were a few outlying farmsteads in the foothills, and as the the farmers would make a trip to Saradell or to their neighbours they might effect some repairs upon the road.  However, as it was still fairly early in the spring they had not had many opportunities to do so as yet.  The caravan would draw to a halt as a cart mired in the muck, and the men would leap down from horse or driving bench and lend a hand, fetching rocks and deadwood to provide traction or lending a shoulder to lift the entrenched wheel.  One of the wagons was devoted to carrying gravel, and they refilled it wherever there was a good deposit near the road so as to have a ready supply with which to top off their repairs for a better road surface.

In the late afternoon they arrived at a clearing by the road which had been used in previous years as a camp, and there they made their dinner, in the continuing steady drizzle.  As they ate their dinner — gruel, of course, with more dried meats this time — the sun became visible below the clouds and gave them a few final rays before dropping below the horizon.  The men were subdued, there was little singing this evening; only one attempt at a sprightly tune by Ivanovitch who, as always, tried to keep the men’s spirits up.  One of the men, Carleton, had lost his favourite flask, and was feeling particularly out of sorts.

The ground here was sandy, and they dug small trenches around the wagons to help drainage, but even the oilskins probably would not keep the damp of the ground out over the hours of the night, so the men folded down the gates at the backs of the wagons and stretched the tarpaulins out over them to form something of a makeshift tent.  With legs curled up two or even three men might fit, sleeping half-sitting up against the load, though it was close quarters and not very comfortable.  Even less so if the load of the wagon was wooden furniture, or in crates.  Tom felt quite lucky that several bolts of cloth had been stored at the back of the cart he shared with Pickering.  He was not so lucky that Pickering snored loudly.  Still, it didn’t take long for him to fall deeply asleep, and he hardly knew another thing until again he heard Ivanovitch setting up his drying rack in the morning.

He, like all the others, crept with creaking limbs from beneath the tarpaulins and stretched gingerly, unkinking his limbs, finger-combing his hair, splashing a bit of cold water from his canteen on his face and wiping it off with his shirt-tail, and they were off onto another day pretty much the same as the last, though this day was interspersed by sudden javelins of sunshine which illuminated bright green new buds above and scatterings of tiny white flowers beneath, and this evening there was more joviality around the camp-fire at dinner, and many of the men opted to stretch oilcloths beneath the carts and risk getting a little damp in order to stretch their limbs out.

They were now so far beyond Saradell that the animals in this region had not developed a fear of man, and many small animals and even a few larger beasts were often seen.  The men quite often took a shot from the wagons as they rolled by, and downed much small game, which the cook cleaned on the moving wagon, tossing the offal into the woods.  He would cook the game in the evening as the caravan never stopped during the day unless it was forced to.  For sustenance during the day the men had a mix of nuts and seeds with berries which was kept under the seats of the wagons in leather-gasketed metal boxes.

The great swamp elk had little to fear from predators due to its size and fearsome tusks (primarily used for scooping up water plants, but effective for defence), and often people thought them stupid because they would stand and watch a man load his gun.  On this fine morning, the sun barely over the horizon and the night mists still drifting up from a mere nearby the road, a huge bull elk stood, meditatively chewing as it watched the caravan pass, providing a seemingly perfect target for a young man who had been handed a gun and commanded to learn how to use it.

Somehow Pickering, who was driving, was sunk half in sleep, trusting the mules to find their own footing and follow the wagon ahead of them.  He barely noticed when Tom lifted his rifle to take aim.  Tom was just pulling the trigger when something flashed by and clanked off the mud board in front of their legs.  Pickering lifted his head.

“Here, boy, what do you think you’re doing!?”

The shot, of course, went wide, but the bull elk bellowed and turned, blundering off into the bushes.  Pickering drew their cart up short, slightly to the right, and Belvedier, driving the Phipps coach directly behind, was forced to pull a bit to the left before his horses wanted to halt.  Lord Ethan, who had been riding up next to Belvedier on the coachman’s seat, stood and applauded as the whole caravan came to a halt.

“Good show!  You managed to miss something the size of a barn!”

Old George rode up to where the elk had stood, and inspected the area.  “Worse luck — you didn’t miss it entirely.  You’ve winged the poor beast, and it’s bleeding.”  He glared at Tom, then turned to Phipps.  “Sir, I can’t leave a wounded animal to die slowly.  Permission to go after it.”

“Certainly, George, of course.”

They came to a halt, and George was off before Brackenstall, who had been riding the line, managed to return and countermand the order.  The caravan waited for nearly an hour, during which time Tom was soundly harangued by Brackenstall for his lack of forethought, because, as Brackenstall said, it should have been evident that there would be no way to bleed out such a large animal while travelling.

“Did you think we could hang it from the side of a cart like we do the little conies and birds, trailing gallons of blood behind us?”

But all of that did not bother Tom as much as the thought that he had wounded an animal who might now die, suffering.  A clean kill was a far different thing, he thought, but the swamp elk was not so unlike a large mule, barring the tusks and its rather more pleasant demeanour.  He was very relieved when George returned empty-handed and reported that the blood speckles had ended, but the great beast’s trail had gone on.

“I think it will live, and perhaps learn to be a bit more wary, though I don’t know as they ever learn anything.  You’re lucky, lad, that this wasn’t the mating season, when they’re as likely to charge as run.”

But Phipps topped off Tom’s embarrassment by opining that there was nothing for it but that Tom must take shooting lessons with Old George starting that very evening.  Brackenstall grunted approval of this plan, and Tom burned with shame, but agreed that he would do so.  The caravan creaked back into motion.

Mr. George began immediately from horseback, riding alongside Tom and Pickering’s wagon.  He gave Tom a long lecture on using the correctly sized calibre gun for the game and never taking a shot until one was sure of it, and never, ever, letting a human see “the dark part of your gun” unless Tom planned to take that man’s life.  Mr. George seemed to have much more sympathy with innocent animals than with men, who could be presumed to know what they were about when choosing to attack men with guns.

When they stopped to make camp he set up some targets and let Tom shoot, and then proved himself to be a kindly instructor.  Each shot was corrected with encouragement and explanations of windage and lead, and by the end of the lesson, although there wasn’t much time before dark, Tom felt himself much improved, and thanked Old George most sincerely.

“Would we be able to do this again tomorrow evening?”

“Certainly, lad, my pleasure.  You’re a promising student; you have a firm hand and I’m sure you’ll be more sensible in the future.”

Late the next morning, as Tom leaned down to open the small bin beneath the seat for a handful of the food kept there (Pickering continually teased at him that there would be none left when they needed it, but he couldn’t help himself — hunger pangs continually plagued him), he saw a glint of metal in the shadow of the bench.  Reaching for it, he pulled out a flask with raised pictures upon it.  He hesitated to ask Pickering about it, but at that moment the man glanced over.

“Is that Carleton’s flask?”

“I don’t know, perhaps it is.”  Tom called to Ivanovitch, who was not far away.  Brown was closer, but Tom had a dislike of Brown, who made callous jokes.  “Is this the flask which Carleton lost?”

“I’ll take it to him!  What luck it showed up.  Everyone thought he must have dropped it beside the road, and he despaired of it.  A gift from his father, too.”  Ivanovitch took the flask and spurred his horse back down the line.  Shortly he returned with a coin which Carleton had sent back to Tom in thanks for having found his beloved keepsake.  Tom felt a bit odd about profiting from what was the merest happy accident, and he felt even more uncomfortable when he noted Brown scowling at him that evening as the men rubbed the mules down before dinner.

“If you ask me,” Brown commented loudly to Farley, “It’s a bit odd that young LaPierre just happened to find that flask.  How does something turn up under the seat of a wagon Carleton rarely goes near?”

Tom’s stomach twisted in knots.  Brown was not much older than he was and had taken a dislike to him the year before, Tom really wasn’t sure why, and his feelings obviously had not changed over the winter.  Ivanovitch has assured him that it was just because everyone liked Tom better and that Tom had no reason to fear Brown, but it was hard for Tom to ignore anger and dislike, being a friendly soul himself and very sensitive of other’s moods.  He didn’t feel a need to like every person around him, but he did want relations with the other men who he worked with to be cordial.  He wished he could find some explanation for why the flask had been under the wagon seat, so that he could defend himself if anyone asked him, so he thought hard all evening as to any way it could have gotten there.  Carleton had probably not been near his wagon, as he was a driver, not an outrider with the ability to ride up and down the line.  When they were pulled up in the circle in the evenings to camp he may have walked by drinking from it, and set it down as he spoke with someone.  Still, Tom didn’t think it could have been under the seat all day, as he considered he would have noticed it sooner than he did, it being a shiny, eye-catching sort of object.  It was not until he was falling asleep that evening that it came to him.  He was snapped back awake by an almost-dream recollection of the shiny object which had flown by him just as he was taking aim on the swamp elk.  The flask had been tossed into his wagon by someone, he was almost certain.  And why, he wondered?  With the intention of spoiling his aim?  Yet even with these considerations causing his mind to leap, his body was exhausted and he soon succumbed to sleep.

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