Newton could hardly believe his luck. Finally getting to help his father on an important task, and with no snotnose Adam, either. He’d been left the man of the house when Dad went off to war. Now it was time for the two men of the house to work together. He watched the way Turner cradled the carbine in the crook of his elbow, the barrel pointed slightly down. He’d placed the cartridges in the inside pocket of his coat, to keep them dry. Newton was going to remember everything.
They walked swiftly and in silence up the road to the ford. He could see stirrings in the village, lanterns alight in the houses, a few shadows of people outside on morning errands. His father paid no attention to them. When they reached the ford, he untied the skiff and motioned for Newton to move to the bow.
“Hold this while I pole,” he said in a low voice, handing him the carbine.
He had held it a few times, even gotten to shoot it once. It hadn’t been so bad—the boom at his ear much louder than he’d imagined, and the kick more like a hard punch to the shoulder. Strange how the sound had seemed so much more intense than when he was standing a few feet away.
He sat backward on the bow seat of the skiff, watching Turner pole. He hardly seemed to push against the bottom, just worked his hands down the pole with a gentle push-off at the end. This was a trick to be mastered once he got taller. His father kept his eyes on the far bank as he guided the boat across the river. When it reached the shore, he said quietly, “Step out now and pull me in a little. Keep the barrel up.”
Newton did as he was told, handing the carbine to his father once the skiff was secure. Turner took a cartridge from his breast pocket and loaded it into the breech.
“If anybody starts shooting, get behind a tree and don’t peek out,” he said.
They walked toward Flynn’s cabin, Turner pausing every few steps to watch and listen. The grass along the path was trampled, and the smell of powder clung to the air. Newton longed to ask what he should be listening for as well, but knew not to speak.
“Strange,” his father murmured. “Missing something.”
Newton now listened for something unheard rather than heard, and it was obvious. “No cows,” he said, and Turner nodded.
He had not liked coming across the river ever since Angus died. Before then, it had been an exotic place, full of brushy byways and the mystery of wild land, thickets of scouring rushes and large inexplicable tracks in the mud. But now it felt ominous. He dreamed of Angus’s drowned body even though he had not been allowed to see it, dragged up at last from whatever underwater snag had held it, bobbing to the surface eyeless and accusing. Angus was over here somewhere. This was the side of the river where outlaws were buried in lonely graves, and their ghosts prowled.
By now they had reached the cabin. No smoke rose from the chimney. “We’d better look inside,” Turner said. He tapped on the door. After a pause, he lifted the latch and stepped inside. Newton followed.
Josephine was kneeling on the floor in the middle of the room beside the sprawled body of her mother, bathing her face with a damp cloth. She glanced up as they entered. “He hit her with his gun barrel,” she said, her voice flat.
Turner rushed to them and kneeled beside her, his hand pressed to Marie’s cheek. “She’s alive,” he said.
Josephine had propped her against a table. Newton could see the bright red welt across her forehead where the barrel had struck. Her jaw was slack and her eyelids fluttered randomly.
“Where is he?” Turner said.
Josephine shrugged. “Out with the cows, I guess. He told us to pack
everything.”
“Why?”
“He never said.”
Turner’s brow furrowed. “We need to keep her still, and we need to fetch Charlotte.” He stroked the girl’s hair. “You did well, child.”
Josephine did not answer, her attention focused on Marie. Turner stood up and collected his thoughts.
“All right,” Turner said. “Here’s what we’ll do. Marie will stay here. Newton, I will need you to take the skiff across and fetch your mother while I find Mr. Flynn. Can you do that?”
“He can, but he shan’t,” said a voice behind them.
Michael Flynn stood in the open doorway, a bucket in one hand and a shotgun cradled in the other. He set the bucket down and leveled the shotgun at Turner.
“We are loading up to leave, and I’ll not be interfered with,” he said.
“You fool,” Turner said. “This woman is badly hurt, not to mention that you’re the one who did it. She’s not even conscious.”
“I’ve been hurt worse,” Flynn said sulkily.
“I’m sure you have, but your skull is thicker. Let’s you and me talk about what happened last night while Newton goes after Charlotte.”
Newton could see the man working through his thoughts. “No,” he said. I can’t let you leave. I’ll have to take you with me.”
“Seriously, what good would that do?” his father said. “You’re wanting to leave in a hurry, right? So leave Marie with us and make your dash. You can send for her later.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, whoremaster?” Flynn said. He kept the shotgun level. Newton felt a deep cold in the pit of his stomach as he realized Flynn would truly do it, he would shoot his father down right here and cold sober.
“Let’s tend to the injured and settle our disputes later,” said Turner, his face red.
“Boy, you can go fetch your mother,” Flynn said, waving him through the door with the shotgun. “The rest I’ll decide later.”
Turner caught Newton’s eye and nodded. Newton edged toward the door, the barrel of Flynn’s shotgun gleaming huge in his sight. At the door he looked into the bucket that Flynn had been carrying. It was filled with something that looked like milk but was an odd color of pink.
“What’s in the bucket?” he asked without thinking.
“Milk,” he said. “I’ve got a calf lost its mother, and I had to drain her milk with my knife. It’s bloody but it will feed.”
“Couldn’t you just switch it to another momma?” Newton asked.
To his shock, tears sprang from Flynn's eyes. “Ain’t no momma cows,” he said. “Ain’t none at all. They’re all dead.”
No one knew what to do. Flynn stood in the door, his face working, tears rolling down his cheeks. Then he slap-wiped his face, drew back his shoulders, and scowled down. “Get the hell out of here, boy, before I change my mind,” he said. “Bring your mother and don’t be slow.”
There was more Newton wanted to ask, about how the cattle had died, about all the shooting in the night, about the bad men who had tried to burn Dathan’s cabin. But more than anything he wanted to get out from in front of that shotgun barrel. He slid past Flynn and jumped into the yard.
Newton dashed down the path to the landing. Marie’s face had been so strange, her muscles alternately twitching and frighteningly still. The sight of her propped against the table, legs splayed disturbingly, hung before him.
Running full tilt, with his head down to watch his path and his mind on the scene behind him, Newton failed to see the horse until it was too late. His face smacked into its muscled flank, his feet flew out from under him, and he hit the ground hard. The smack of his nose against the horse’s leg sent tears to his eyes instantly. He furiously rubbed them away, and as his vision cleared he saw that the horse’s rider was Sheriff Willingham, with another rider beside him. He lay on the hard ground, waiting for his breath to return.
Willingham lifted his hat to scratch his head. “Maybe I’m shrinking. Didn’t you see me, son?”
“Nosir,” Newton said, sitting up. His eyes cleared. The other rider was Charley Pettibone.
“What’s the hurry, then?”
Newton tried to gesture in three different ways at once. “Mrs. Marie’s been hurt,” he called out, trying to keep his voice calm like his daddy did. But he could hear the quaver and swallowed hard. “And Mr. Flynn’s lost his mind or something and is holding a gun on my dad. But he let me go to bring Mama to help—”
A look passed between Willingham and Charley. “We just come down here to identify bodies,” Willingham said. “But I reckon that’ll have to wait. Pettibone, I’m gonna turn you loose here because I may need your help, but don’t think that I’m done with you. And I’m keeping that gun of yours in my saddlebag.” Charley held out his hands, which had been resting on his saddle horn holding the reins, and Newton realized that he was handcuffed. Willingham unlocked the cuffs and slipped them into his coat pocket. He turned his gaze to Newton again.
“So Flynn’s where?”
“In their house.”
“What kind of gun?”
“Shotgun. Double barrel.”
“Carrying anything else?” Willingham squinted in the direction of Flynn’s cabin.
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t think so.”
Charley interrupted. “You say Marie’s hurt?”
“Yessir, he smacked her across the head with his gun barrel, is what Josephine said. She’s out cold on the floor, and—she didn’t look right.”
Charley yanked his horse’s reins toward the cabin, but Willingham reached across and grabbed the bridle. “Easy, son. More harm in rushing than in thinking. Can you steer that boat across by yourself, boy?”
“Oh, yes sir!”
“Then you do that, and bring back your mama. She’s got the healer’s touch if anyone does. Charley and me, we’ll dismount here and walk up, see what we can see. When you bring Mrs. Turner back, watch for us and don’t run right in.”
“Yessir.” Newton ran to the skiff and stepped to the stern, hefting the pole in his hands. It was longer and heavier than he thought. He pushed away from the bank as the men tied their horses to a witch hazel bush and picked their way through the underbrush toward Flynn’s house.
Then he realized that the current had already pulled him a couple of yards downstream, and the boat was drifting backward. He jammed the pole into the riverbed and pushed off with both hands, but that motion only spun the boat around so that it was now heading downriver, not across to the other bank. He fought back panic, shifting the pole to the other side to right his course. The problem, he could see now, was overcorrecting, and he gritted his teeth as he tried to find the balance he needed between force and delicacy. But the boat swung round again, and now he was ten yards downstream from the landing.
He would not cry out for help, by God. If it took him an hour, he would do this on his own. He lifted the pole, hefted it in his hands. More carefully this time. The pole down, smooth but steady, firm, find the bottom then push off, don’t try to cross the river in a single stroke. Nice and easy, nice and easy….
And the boat was farther downstream yet.
The current was too strong for him.
All right, then, by God, he would turn weakness to strength, he would guide the boat slowly downstream, work it across the river going with the current, not against it. He held the pole on the bottom for a minute and let the bow of the boat drift down. Where could he take out? Easy. There was the big flat rock where his mother liked to sit and watch the river. He could slide right up onto it and jump out, drag it up a little ways and then run up the path. Heck, it was closer to their house than the landing. It would save him some time. Then the two of them could run to the crossing and find a canoe, or even swim horses if they had to. For now he could just drift.
But he had forgotten about the water wheel, turning quietly in the river, and as his flat-bottomed skiff drifted downstream, one of the paddles of the water wheel caught it by the side and drew it in. The big wheel was not powerful—only a couple of its paddles were in the river at any moment—but the strength of the current was enough to lodge the boat against it, and there it stuck, bobbing gently as the river’s force pulled it down and its own buoyancy lifted it up.
Newton laid the pole in the bottom of the boat and gripped its sides with both hands, waiting to see whether the water wheel would drag him under.
It didn’t.
“God damn it!” he said aloud, then said it again, louder yet. He felt a moment’s thrill at cursing, himself, out in the morning dimness, using a man’s swear words at a man’s swearing moment. And if there ever was a swearing moment, this was it. “God damn it!” he said again. But he recalled himself. There was a dire situation to remedy, and a problem to solve. First solve the problem—get the boat loose from the water wheel—and then remedy the greater one.
He inched his way forward in the skiff, wobbly, until he reached the place where it was lodged. The paddle of the water wheel was unshakably tight against the side of the boat. He could not move it with his hands. Perhaps he could kick it loose.
Newton sat in the bottom of the boat and braced his back against a thwart, his feet against the edge of the water wheel’s paddle. He pushed. Nothing. He kicked harder. Harder again.
Then there was movement, and for an instant he felt relief, until he realized that it was the skiff dipping down, not the water wheel breaking loose. His own weight, and the pull of the wheel, and his kicking, had tipped the balance, and now the bow of the boat had gone under the water. He scrambled backward, but it was too late. The thin thread of water became a rush; the wheel turned, and before he knew it the boat went under, and he floundered in the dark river.