When I did open the door it was my nose took the first offense, all them rude vapors what flower full-bodied from sodden furs & sweat-rimed hats was partnered up with pipesmoke to hang in ghostly ruin above my head.
You might have mistook the origins of that stink for a shovel of Farmhouse Shit but it come from a crowd of half-drowned men, they was hunched at their tables before me, their backs steaming like a herd of shorthorn cows, their beards ambered with drops of liquor come weeping from their plump & wetted lips.
O how quick their wagging tongues was brung to silence as the door swung shut behind me. Rain dripped steady from my oilskin to the boards, I fancied it did echo in all that stillness loud as grapeshot. My own face was chaptered with streaks of dirt & blood, no doubt they took me for some woodling creature come to damn their Earthly Doings & curse their souls with ruinous spells.
I should say not a one of them was a stranger to me or I to them but that unnatural weather & the queer play of shadow & light from a fire burning in the grate was conspired to fray the faith of any trusting man. Their eyes was set hard upon me, O it is easy to forget how well a lively blaze might turn a friend to foe, all them wise & kindly lines upon a face soon scored deep as Death.
So it was I had no chance to take off my hat before several of them had laid a hand upon their weapons, they might have blown my head clean off had Tom Peeper not looked up from his doings behind the bar. He had himself a clasp knife, he was working on some lump of wood with shavings like snowdrift upon his sleeve when he did recognize me for the innocent I was.
Well, little man, said he, his voice come booming out across the room. If it ain’t Yip Tolroy.
Them men blinked in confusion as old Tom stepped out from under the 4 lengths of rough-hewn timber what was generously considered a bar & put his arm firm around me. His manner was much changed from the morning, vanished was his somber tones & hangdog expression, his eyes was now loose with drink. Had I not just seen Burl laid dead in the woods I would have thought him found.
To hold such tremblesome news in your heart & keep it from them what ought to know is a Great Weight to bear, I did flinch like a fox in a trap at his touch & could not look him in the eye.
Ain’t no need for nerves here, said he. I do reckon I am right in sayin this is your first time settin foot in my establishment is it not?
He spread his arms wide & looked about as if it was a Palace of Wonders he did present before me. It was no bigger than the store, the tables was bowlegged & the chairs a sad affair indeed, it was a wonder they held any weight at all. The roof was patched in places, a dinted pail collected the steady drip from a split shingle. As for that bar it was as simple as they come, it did boast no mirrors or rows of polished glasses as you see in them fancy saloons these days, it looked more like a mule’s stall than anything I seen.
Tom Peeper stared back down at me, he was expecting a more excitable response than the blank look I give him, his brow was suddenly knit in concern, spittle did fleck the corners of his mustaches.
You is looking very hard done by, little man, said he. Put that slate of yourn away. You do not need no single word writ down to tell me you is in need of a good drink.
He clapped his hands & dipped back under his bar & set to preparing me whatever it was he spent his days brewing.
All them men was staring at me still, there did sit Wesley Peck & brothers Amos & Ned Seagrave. There was Vaughan Bilpin & Jack Keeves & Brody Waghorn also. Now my character was revealed they each did offer me a somber nod or tilt of their glass, though I could tell they was still disgruntled by the interruption. That was my first lesson in the habits of a Drinking Man – his fervent hope is to return to his own problems, he is not there to concern himself with the troubles of others.
But where indeed was Dud Carter?
I searched every shadow for him but he was not there & soon my eye was drawed to the walls, how queer it was to see them bedecked with shelves & them very shelves lined with so many dark & skillful carvings. Many I seen was horses so artfully crafted in their poses of majesty & triumph, some was risen on their hind legs & others was stilled by some timeless breeze, their strands of mane all a-riffle & well-muscled necks nobly twisted with stony eyes set upon some Distant Glory.
I had not knowed Tom Peeper for such a craftsman, he must have been hard at work upon another when I come in, there was little piles of dust & shavings I seen now upon the floor what skipped & jumped to the whistling of the wind outside.
Perhaps, thought I, this might in time come to resemble a merry scene but then I begun to see nailed to that same wall some rows of shallow & leathery bowls or so it looked to me. They was sprigged with a shock of dark & dangling fabric, at first I took it for some finespun cloth or lace.
But it was not long before I realized what they was, they was no delicate enterprise like the carvings but the wrinkled scalps of all them Indians what had fell beneath Tom Peeper’s blade. The hair hung down, I fancied I still seen the blood gone to brown, it fringed them scalps like woodworm.
How strange to think they was the tops to people’s heads who had once walked & thought & lived out their lives. Where was the rest of them now but surely no more than bones laid out beneath some cold & distant sky, I cannot imagine any soul resting in peace in the knowledge their missing parts was made a trophy of & nailed upon a tavern wall.