Chapter Six — Swept Away!

* * *

The glimmer of the Shining River in the distance marked the beginning of the end of the first part of their journey.  After crossing the Shining River they would cross the Hensteeth mountain range, and from there they would descend to the much larger River Hebron, upon which the town of Abernetty, which was their goal, lay.  Tom felt a certain relief, as it reminded him that, someday, there would be an end to this trip, and to his time with these men whom he had considered friends and who now so looked down upon him as a prankster and a fool.  Still, there would be days of trading and delivering items which had been particularly ordered, and Brackenstall would need to refill the carts with more goods to bring back.  It would be all the summer gone, nearly, before they would return to Victoria City, and he felt quite dejected at this thought, as the carts worked their way down the increasingly shallow switchbacks to the bottom of the valley.  He wanted desperately to be home amongst his family and his friends, who knew him for a solid and dependable person and would not have turned on him with so little evidence.

When they had capped the mountain range they had seen, in the far distance, the Shining River meandering down the centre of the valley like a bright serpent, a strip of treeless flood plain to either side which someone had said looked as though it would be perfect farming country, and a shame it was mostly unused — the ferryman had planted only a small area.  This time of year the water was still somewhat high and spilled from the banks in some places and, although the majority of the vegetation was still brown from the winter, there was more green than they had yet seen on their journey and the impression of much more soon to come — a sort of green-gold haze that hung about the grasses — an impression produced by the many new, pale shoots trying to find their way up through the dead vegetation from previous years.

They rode down that last foothill of the Governor’s Range on a glorious morning with the river living up to it’s name, glittering through the trees.  Emerging from the trees, the track wandered and wound across a broad swath of flat grassland, which obviously had been flooded not long before when the river had been only a little higher.  By the river, clearly visible as soon as they left the trees, was the ferryman’s hut of logs which sat with it’s back wall to the upstream, the better to stand against flooding.  A few chickens and a pig were pecking and rooting within a light, moveable enclosure, newly deposited topsoil had been turned up in rows for a kitchen garden, and all in all it looked as though the ferryman had been quite busy repairing all the damages of the flood.  As they approached the hut the ferryman himself emerged, a grey and dour man, with shoulders which looked far too large for the rest of his narrow body.  He and Brackenstall entered into some haggling before he took a few of Brackenstall’s coins and several sheets of glass that would go to fill gaps in his windows which were currently covered by oiled paper, having lost their panes despite being small and high and having heavy shutters (which, with their swinging windows, stood open at the moment to let in the fresh spring air).  Lastly he took a few ‘honest potatoes,’ because, as he said, a man could only eat about so much rice before he longed for something homelike.  Rice grew bountifully along the river — a thriving field of jade green stood just downstream from his hut — but he said he could ‘not grow a single potato to save his soul.’

The ferry was a raft with two sturdy wooden rails on either side, attached, by means of two ropes, to a single long cable which was secured on each bank of the river, and propelled by means of a single oar, easily the largest oar Tom had ever seen.  Because this raft was built (and rebuilt nearly every year, as they were often lost to the floods) and moved by only the one man it could not be overly large.  Consequently a wagon, without it’s team, or a few horses or mules, was all that could be safely carried across the waters at one go.

The upper surface of the raft had been made to look and sound as solid as it was possible to make it, with layered matting of grasses atop it, and Tom helped to hobble and blinder the horses and wrap their hooves in rags to further muffle the ring of hooves, yet still it was difficult to persuade the beasts to step aboard the swaying craft.  Only three would fit, safely, and it took two trips for Brackenstall, Ivanovitch and four of the other outriders to reach the opposite bank.  As this was being done the wagon men were unhitching and rubbing down the mules, giving them a bit of grain or talking to them, trying to keep them distracted from the impending raft trip.  However, most of the mules still managed to observe the horses who had gone before them, and knew what would be asked of them.  Being mules they lost no time in letting their handlers know that they were considerably opposed to this prospect.  Brackenstall was acquainted of old with this behaviour and had given orders in advance of his crossing that the carts be brought across first, pulled by the men, and then they could take their time to argue with the mules.  The ones which could be cajoled aboard the raft would be, and the more stubborn animals would need to swim across, tied to the raft.  “Otherwise we could be here all night,” he said, “Mules being mules.”  It was whispered among the men that the only reason he tried to get some of the mules aboard the raft was that he had lost several, one year, sucked under either by the current or by some monster below the water.

Dobson and Carleton assisted Pickering and Tom in bullying their wagon through the soft mud of the river’s edge and thence onto the raft, where Tom carefully chocked a wedge of wood beneath each wheel such that it could not roll either forward or back until these wedges should be removed.

Barely had Tom stood from setting the last chock when all Pandaemonium seemed to break loose upon the quiet valley.  Calls and wild screams rang out from the edge of the wood, and men — seeming a scattering, at first, because they came from such divergent points — came forth from the trees, running hard across the grass at the caravaners!

The men of the caravan were not to be caught so flat footed as you might imagine, however.  It was true that half of their outriders, the men hired especially to repel bandit attacks, were already on the far side of the river, but the other five mounted men were armed and alert, and the wagon drivers were quick to leap to their guns, which they had left upon their racks on the wagons, high above the mud of the river banks.

Focused as Tom was upon choosing an oncoming man and taking careful aim, he hardly realized that the young Lord Ethan and his man, Mr. George, were not taking up stances of defence.  In fact, Mr. George was running pell-mell for the ferryboat, dragging young Phipps behind him, and shouting to Brown and Dobson that they must accompany him.

“You too, Pickering!  We must defend the landing!  My Lord, onto the ferry — someone must take it across so that Brackenstall and the others can get back to help us.  Tom, take him across for me; that dog of a ferryman has disappeared.”

Indeed, the shutters of the log hut were now closed tight — the ferryman had apparently taken shelter from the human storm outside and meant to ride it out.

All the while he talked George pushed the young Lord gently but firmly, and now he snapped the rope from it’s mooring and cast it aboard.  “Go!  Return with help!”  He pushed the raft off with his foot, trying to give them a head start.

Dobson cried out and staggered, then fell, and Carleton was already closely engaged with one of the swiftest footed of their attackers, blocking a sword with his gun and cursing loudly.

Tom handed his gun to Phipps, hoping that he, too, had been taught to shoot by Mr. George, and turned to the oar, awkwardly lifting it from the deck and settling it into it’s crotch in the railing.  He had done a certain amount of sculling in smaller boats and understood how the oar had to be rolled to angle the blade differently at each end of the stroke, but much greater size of this oar made it unwieldy and difficult to handle, and he was glad of George’s push and the current helping the raft get a quick start toward the middle of the river and away from the fighting.

The smaller boy had seemed almost in a trance until the gun touched his hand, but then he leaped atop the seat of the wagon quite nimbly and took up a shooting stance as though he knew what he were doing.  He was sheltered by the wagon and could rest his gun atop it, and he cracked off a shot quickly and to good effect, dropping a man with a gun who had just taken aim.

Tom pulled hard, the river looking much wider than it had on his previous trips.  Phipps was reloading quickly, but another man had arrived to take the place of the one he had dropped and was taking aim.  Perhaps the only thing that saved Tom at this moment was that he had forgotten about the strong current and begun a backstroke, which combined with force of the current and pulled the rear of the raft hard against it’s restraining cable, managing to twist that end of the raft to the downstream for a moment before the cable brought it back, with the result that the bullet plunked into the grass matting beneath the cart.  Phipps had reloaded and got off another shot, and Tom yanked the oar from the water and began to row rather than scull, but his end of the raft was now swinging downstream despite his efforts against the current.  It took him a moment before he placed what the problem was:  the cable which had stretched across the river had disappeared.  Upon the bank which they had just left a man brandished a cutlass at Tom, seemingly grinning with delight at their predicament.  He had cut the rope on his end.  Without the guidance of the cable the ferry was being swept downstream, and, because of it’s oblong shape, it spun broadside to the bank as it went, putting the bulk of the wagon between Tom and the fighting, to Tom’s initial relief.  He realized, as another man snapped off a shot at them, that Phipps was perched high on the seat of the wagon and was now completely unprotected.

On the other bank, Brackenstall waved his arms, cursing or giving orders, and the five outriders — Ivanovitch evident at the front as the tallest and leanest of the group — ran along the embankment, downstream, trying to catch up with the raft which was now rapidly moving away.

Tom angled the oar, trying to find some way to catch the current such as to move them to the opposite bank, and it seemed that he was making some headway.  They might soon rejoin Ivanovitch and the others, and the questions of what to do next would be in Brackenstall’s hands.

It was just as he glanced back, curious what was going on with the battle on the shore they had lately quit, that a great jolt took him off his feet and nearly off of the raft, as Phipps shrieked.  They had, of course, hit a submerged sand bar and rebounded from it, but it was only later that he realized this.  Now he clawed for purchase on the grass matting.  As he pulled himself back aboard the raft, his legs soaked, Tom spied the end of the oar sliding off the raft into the water.

The men upon either bank grew relentlessly smaller as Tom, sprawled across the surface of the raft, watched, unable to do anything about it.  The scene of the battle was soon lost from view as the raft rounded a curve in the river and only then did he try to stand.  Of Phipps there was no sign.

Tom stepped round the cart, keeping a hold on it as much from a fear of what he might find as because he was as yet unsteady on his legs with the constantly shifting surface of the raft, much different here in faster water and with no tether.  Had the smaller boy been thrown overboard by the impact?  But no, there he was, sensibly having taken cover in the footwell.

“I think it would be safe to get up, now,” he said as he approached the seat.

But Phipps did not move, and Tom could now see a dark puddle beneath him.

* * * * * * * * * * * *