Gallows Pole

[Steven Hunley]

Gallows Pole
by

Steven Hunley


The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

-The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes





When Jonathan saw Dover again he knew he was finally home, mustered out of Wellington’s cavalry just after Waterloo. As the boat neared the dock the battle seemed only a remnant of the past.

Brought up a poor yeoman farmer he’d always known how to ride. The King’s Dragoon Guards taught him how to shoot. Dragoons were his choice from the start. Duty was light and they stayed on their island, that green cold bastion of liberty, that tucked-away England. Drinking ale at the nearest pub and whoring at the closest inn was the most dangerous sport the men indulged in.

Until Bonaparte escaped.

But when a ship’s horn sounded in Dover his memory took wing and flew back over the channel, across green rolling fields to the encounter itself. The horn sounded like the French bugle that announced their fool-hearty charge.

Waterloo was Bony’s last desperate gamble. Wellington decided to raise the stakes. At Eaton he learned team playing. So Blucher the Austrian and the schoolboy from England joined up to play against French Bony. Wellington himself said later,

“Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”

Later on Elba, Napoleon remarked to one of his own cannoneers, “Blast those English to hell anyway! Mon Dieu! They’re a nation of shopkeepers. How I hate everyone of them.”

Jonathan’s charge was only one of many.

It was late afternoon about four. Napoleon’s canons had been blasting away since morning. The smell of burning black powder drifted over the fields and appeared as lazy grey puffs. Then suddenly…the cannons stopped. Large moving masses of French cavalry started advancing. At first not so fast. They were saving their speed for later when they were right on top of the English.

“Not a man present who survived could have forgotten in after life the awful grandeur of that charge.”

French infantry lined up in their blue and whites off in the distance. The lines of their bodies ran to both ends of the horizon.

“You discovered at a distance what appeared to be an overwhelming, long moving line, which, ever advancing glittered like a stormy wave of the sea when it catches the sunlight. On they came until they got near enough, whilst the very earth seemed to vibrate beneath the thundering tramp of the mounted host. One might suppose that nothing could have resisted the shock of this terrible moving mass. They were the famous cuirassiers, almost all old soldiers, who had distinguished themselves on most of the battlefields of Europe. In an almost incredibly short period they were within twenty yards of us, shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" The word of command, "Prepare to receive cavalry", had been given, every man in the front ranks knelt, and a wall bristling with steel, held together by steady hands, presented itself to the infuriated cuirassiers.

—Captain Rees Howell Gronow, Foot Guards.

Then the King’s Dragoon Guards met the French with their sabers, drew blood and turned them. It was almost a route. Afterwards he recalled wiping thickened blood from his weapon on green grass while black birds circled overhead waiting for the field to be cleared of the living. The dead were their only concern. Parts and pieces of bodies were everywhere; the canons on both sides had done their work with deadly precision.

But that was then, now it was today, different time, different place. The things that beckoned him most, what concerned his thoughts were his small farm, his mother, and the green hills of Surrey. How things had changed. He wanted to return to the earth. The sound of the trumpeter blasting Boots and Saddles would become only an echo.

It would take two days to ride home.

His first night was spent under an ancient oak in a farmer’s field. Bright stars were scattered above in haphazard order. A black velvet sky stretched in all directions. Moon shadows moved languidly over his tired face and wrote dreams on his eyes. Gentle winds whispered between the oak leaves. He slept soundly, falling unconscious to the chirping crickets, feeling safe in the land of his fathers. It was his first night home in three years.

The next morning he set off again.

By the time he’d reached the outskirts of Guildford, it was one in the afternoon and he was wiping small rivers of sweat from his brow. He stopped near the ruins of the Norman castle overlooking the town to rest in its shade. Below were the lines of houses with the vine-covered stones of St. Mary’s church on one end and the blacksmith shop half-way up the cobbled High street. He could tell it was busy from the ringing of the anvil. He counted five more houses. On the other end of the street was his uncle’s tavern he remembered so well. A huge gnarled oak grew behind it forever. At least it seemed that way when he was a boy.
Smoke from the tavern’s chimney rose up straight in the still air. Large stands of maples dotted the hill sides to the north. The Wey River appeared in the distance where it broke through the hills, like sparkles of silver on blue shimmering fields. Grey geese ran in a bunch across the square in front of the church. A small boy with a stick followed closely behind. Two shrunken grey-haired women sold red apples from a creaking wooden cart while pushing it up the street.

‘It hasn’t changed so much.”

It looked as quiet and peaceful as the day he left. Even in England the sun was relentless that time of year and had a way of reminding a man of his thirst. Therefore the tavern would be first.

When he walked into the tavern his uncle looked up and smiled,

“Well, if it isn’t our own Johnny, home from the war with the French! Two beers here for my nephew the hero, and another one for meself!”

He slapped him on the back and knocked off fine particles of dust that danced in the rays of sunlight coming in through the shutters. A fire burned merrily in the hearth and the air smelled like stew. A serving girl set down three flagons.

“Sit here and we’ll get you some food. How are you John? It’s been a long time. Three years hasn’t it?”

“Aye, three long years. How’s aunt Millicent? And my mother, how’s my mother, Michael?”

Michael was more like a brother than an uncle and only ten years older. He wiped foam from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Your aunt is fine and your mother is in good health. Though she’s been in bad spirits lately about the farm.”

He looked around and leaned nearer.

“Your farm is in debt. Two years of bad crops and there’s been no help for the woman. The duke is constantly making her offers to buy your land but she refuses. He wants to own everything around here just like he owns this tavern. But she’s a tough one your mother is! It runs in the family.”

It wasn’t the home-coming news he wanted to hear. He drained his beer in a gulp then sat staring at the empty flagon. He’d been away too long.

“I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you later, with the family.”

John stood up and made for the door. In the courtyard he mounted his horse. Michael followed him out.

“Come back this evening with your mother, Johnny, and we’ll celebrate.”

John turned in the saddle and waved, then disappeared into the distance at a gallop. His second drink still lay on the table, forgotten. Just then another serving girl came in with two bowls of stew on a tray nearly as large as herself. Raven-haired she was and fresh-faced. In contrast to her hair her skin was quite fair. Her lips were stained red from raspberries. She stared dumbfounded at the empty table with a flagon still full standing next to two with foam around their rims. A handsome man had just been sitting there but now he’d disappeared like magic. All she’d seen of him was his dust.

“Who was that?”

“That’s our own Johnny back from the war.”

He picked up the flagon and tipped it into his mouth.

“Your nephew, the cavalry man?”

“Of the King’s Dragoon Guards, darling Sarah.”

He swallowed it in one gulp and barely came up for air.

Waste not; want not,” he continued, “You’ll probably see more of him later. That is, if you’re a mind to.”

Sarah put the empties on the tray and took it back to the kitchen not giving it another thought. She had no mind to see anyone, much less her employer’s nephew, no matter how handsome. Absolutely no mind at all.

***

[bortleman]

Haha I don't think I can help you much in the way of the the astrix, but I can relay to you some feedback.

I thought that the intial battle scene was well thought out, and you even gave detail to some of the tactical aspects of the war. I do agree the astrix make it a difficult read coupled with your puncuations. I think the dialog could use some smoothing over, it seemed a little choppy to me.

[hillwalker]

Hi S*****,

I'm not sure what the problem is.... are you posting from a mobile phone perhaps?
The only time I stumbled across an * in one of my own stories was my latest posting where I changed Microsoft font from Japanese characters to English. Possibly the original has a number of font or formatting changes, and each time there's a change you get asterixed? I really can't help.

As for the piece itself - well, I detest historical stories so again I'm the least qualified to judge this one.
BUT - take note, the school is called 'Eton' not 'Eaton' - and I seem to remember Napoleon referring to zee Eengleesh as a 'nation of shopkeepers' rather than 'school boys'.

H

[Jack of Hearts]

Historical fiction finds its best audience in people who have researched its era. That aside...

The section about the veteran French charging at Waterloo was gripping. One suspects the entire thing to be a Hunley-esque reference or a part one, which is why it ends like it does. Tough to say; this reader is a bit lost on this one...


J

[Steven Hunley]

Down the road half a mile was a stone house with a thatched roof. There was a wall between it and the road, behind the house a rose garden and a well. Behind that was an oak with some magpies sitting in its branches. Fields, once rich from tender care, now lay fallow and empty on both left and right, and green rolling hills in the distance completed the picture. The duke’s lands surrounded the farm on all sides like a trap.

In the main room were the fireplace and the hearth. Only a table and a rocking chair were there. Most of the furniture had been sold to pay rent. An old clock sat on the mantle. A woman sat alone rocking and knitting. The few sounds were the clock ticking, the chair creaking, the fire crackling and the two needles clicking between her hands. A black and white kitten played with the other end of the ball of yarn silently like a mime. It was as if the woman was waiting for something. Rocking and knitting and waiting, with patience her only companion.

Her hair had been dark but age tinted it with wisps of silver. She wore a black dress. White lace graced the cuffs, hem and collar. She’d surrounded her throat with a black velvet choker with a yellowed ivory cameo in the front. The image carved thereon was the head of a beautiful young girl cut with perfect proportions. It was her in her youth. A memory. Now she employed it to hide her wrinkled neck.
Her beauty was now displayed in the intricate designs of her knitting. Her skills to elicit sighs from others, both men and women, worked now by her fingers instead of her face.

Suddenly the magpies all cocked their heads and looked towards the road. A lone rider approaching. The woman heard hoof beats drawing closer. Old eyes instantly glittered and suddenly looked twenty years younger. The girl on the choker; reborn in an instant.

The woman sat up and reached for her stick, then tapped her way to the door and onto the porch. She smelled heather and the new mown hay of late summer. She heard someone tying a horse to the wall by the gate when it whinnied. Then she heard the steps in the gravel path to her door draw closer and closer, one after the other. She took one measured pace nearer the doorway.

“It’s me, Johnny,” a voice said warmly, “I’ve come home to you, Mother.”

When the woman heard the voice close enough she dropped her stick and put out her arms.
John stood on the gravel below but towered over his mother. They embraced. Her arms reached up and her fingers carefully searched through his hair. It was still as fine and curly as when he was a child.
Her fingers continued to look, and wandered down to his jaw. It was rough, she could tell, but it was what she expected. The tall boy that had left her three years ago had returned whole, and now was a man.

“You’ll not be kissing me, young man, until after you’ve shaved yourself proper.”

“Yes, Mother, I will.”

She sighed and he felt her chest heave. Stretching up, she gave him a kiss on his cheek. It tasted of salt.

That day in Surrey dandelions grew between the stones. Rows of green alfalfa bent together in the quickening wind of late afternoon. Watching magpies took flight and disappeared. Cloud shadows raced over the fields both fertile and fallow exhibiting the quick magic of nature.
But, for the mother and child having their reunion... time stood still.

***

[Jack of Hearts]

As the reader suspected, a part two.


But, for the mother and child having their reunion... time stood still.

Seems a bit strange to use the word 'child' here, the previous paragraphs being used largely to establish that he was now a man. Perhaps the word 'son' is a better choice?

A small critique for now, the reader suspects the tale has not yet run its course. But it is maintaining interest.


***

???




J

[Steven Hunley]

.
That night the Boar’s Head Tavern was a riot. Its light and merriment spilled out the windows and doorway and into the cobblestone street along with two of its patrons. They huffed and puffed and wrestled each other into the gutter from there. Then, after they’d decided who the best man, they helped each other up and walked back inside arm in arm while singing a song. Then one accused the other of having faulty harmony.

“Me? Faulty harmony? Why I’m the best in the church choir! Tomorrow just you listen!”

“I’d more likely listen to the squall of my cat while a Tom was having his way with her!”

Then they’d wrestle all over again.

Savory smells accosted their noses the second they entered the door.

An entire roasting pig was on the spit over the crackling fire. Every table was filled but one. Laughter and drunken boasting could be heard all the way in the street. On a crisp Saturday night in Guildford this was the place to be. Business was as brisk as the whiskey in the tumblers.

John and his mother could smell and hear it. The music was felt and acknowledged by their bones.

“My uncle is doing a good deal of business tonight.”

“Let’s help him add to it. I haven’t been here in months. This should be fun.”

They threaded their way to a place near the fire. Michael cleared the table himself.

“Here, Mother.” John pulled out a chair.

His mother sat down and straightened her dress. She could smell the pork roasting and hear the fire crackling and how music filled the room. Bits of conversation here and there came to her ears between sounds of warm laughter and singing accompanied by music from two village men on a drum and hurdy-gurdy. Playing and drinking with them was a small Spanish troubadour, a gypsy, strumming a mandolin. The rising beat of the drum accompanied by the thumps of drunken flagons on sturdy oak tables and the stamping of a dozen feet was ready to shake the plaster from the walls.

Just then a carriage stopped cold in the gravel outside. The door opened.

Cold air rushed in and she felt it on her feet. John looked to the sound. A man’s figure was in the doorway and back-lit by the yellow light outside it looked like an outline of evil. All heads turned his way and the joy was sucked right out of the room. Laughter stopped.

“Who’s that?” asked John. “It looks like a fop.”

“It’s Diego de Silva, the Spaniard, come to collect the rent,” spat his uncle. It was as if the name left a bad taste in his mouth. The gypsy with the mandolin looked frightened.

The figure stepped into the room and surveyed the place with a cool measuring eye.

“Ah,” he sneered with satisfaction, “business is good.”

He was bearded and squat. His hair was dark, perfumed and slicked back. His clothes were black velvet with designs embroidered in silver thread. Under his coat he wore a red silk vest with pearl buttons. Beneath that a white silk shirt with lace at the cuffs. In one of his sleeves was a silk handkerchief and in the other he’d hidden a small pistol. His high-heeled boots were fine Spanish leather. He’d ordered them special from Seville to add a few inches to his height. He was vain, and because of that, was a beautiful deadly creature.

Tapping nervously with his right hand on the oak bar he looked around. He seemed out of place, dressed up like he’d come from some state dinner. It might have been so, but it was unlikely. No state would have him. Of all the men there he was the only one who didn’t remove his hat.

Michael got up and greeted de Vargas. The man ignored him as he watched his countryman holding the mandolin. He went to the back for deVargas’s money.

Sarah appeared from the kitchen and carried a tray to their table. Jonathan caught her eyes. He’d never seen such dark eyes.
She wore white cotton blouse with small buttons in front and ties near the ends of the short sleeves. One had come undone and the sleeve slipped down over her shoulder. How she wore that blouse, how it fit her, and the curve of her shoulder entranced him. The music and laughter resumed but he heard none of it. His attention was somewhere else.

He decided to help with the tray .

“I’m Jonathan, Michael’s nephew, and this is my mother,” he explained nervously.

“I’m Sarah. Please to meet you both. You’re a cavalry man?”

She removed a wisp of wild curly hair from her eyes and pushed it behind her ear.

“Not any more. All that’s over for me.”

She smiled, revealing small teeth like rows of white coral. This was the man she’d missed this morning. There was more to him now than merely his dust. Here was his well-crafted form.

“Good then. We’ll be seeing more of you.”

De Vargas motioned to the small Spaniard near the fireplace. He said goodbye to his friends and slowly walked over.

“I want you to come and ready my carriage for a trip to my banker’s in London tomorrow.”

“But your lordship knows I have that day free.”

“You may have a free taste of my whip, gypsy, if that’s what you want.”

The Spaniard looked even smaller and shivered,

“Yes, my Lord.”

The tavern seemed to polarize between the warm side near the fire and the cold side nearer the bar when de Vega sat sipping and counting his coins. The gypsy guarded his back.

“Inn keeper, I’ll have another” roared de Vargas, who by now had a few too many. He was savoring the feminine sights. Not one of the women is the room escaped his obscene glance. Just then Sarah came from the kitchen with a full tray, holding it with both hands. He couldn’t resist. He reached for her backside and found his mark.
The tray tipped one way and then another, and drinks crashed onto the floor.

“You’ll pay for these,” she shouted.

“Not on your life.”

“It won’t be on my life,” she warned. “It will be on yours.”

She was on him like a tigress and from out of her apron, a claw. Before he knew what happened she had a dagger with a silver pommel and an edge sharp as a razor at his throat.

“Well?”

De Vargas was not used to shaving so close. He spoke not a word but searched his pocket with his fingers and pinched a gold sovereign out with their tips. It fell and rolled on the floor. The room went silent.

“Help me up, Fernando!” he shouted.

His small servant put down his mandolin and helped up his master. The girl straightened her skirt and tied her hair back. John was astounded.

“Mother, did you see that?”

“I heard it, and that was enough.”

De Vargas had drawn a bad hand this time and knew when to fold. He quickly picked up his bag of gold and shoved his servant out the door. The last thing anyone heard him say was,

“These English swine don’t know their place in the scheme of things. They need to be taught a lesson.”

His carriage pulled off and his servant Fernando was already learning his own private lesson. He had consorted with the enemy. DeVargas could let him ride on the back hanging on for dear life. But no, instead he’d have to run along after the coach like a dog. When Jonathan stepped outside and looked down the road he saw that the moon was on the rise. It was close to the horizon and fat, round and yellow. And smaller, becoming even smaller, was the black silhouette of the coach and its horses and three insignificant shadows scampering behind in its dust. Of these, two were Dalmatians.

[Steven Hunley]

Later that night Jonathan was unpacking his things at home.

First was the biggest bundle wrapped in brown paper.* ‬A souvenir.* ‬The uniform of a Zouave,* ‬the pantaloons and blue embroidered coat.* ‬The red fez* ‬with its gold tassle.* ‬He*’‬d traded it for his own.* ‬He looked at the pants swelled like two long red balloons and laughed.

*‘‬Perhaps I*’‬ll save this for a special occasion,*’‬ he thought,* ‬and stuffed it into the drawer.

The last items he touched came out of a* ‬green velvet bag who*’‬s contents were precious.* ‬There were four things.* ‬The first two were a set of matched pistols given to him after the battle.* ‬Their silver mountings gleamed brightly against the dark sheen of the checkered black walnut grips.* ‬He had* ‬no use for them now.* ‬He cleaned them with oil and wrapped them and placed them in the drawer.* ‬The other two things were in glass vials.* ‬One was a vial of clove oil for his mother who he remembered complained of a tooth.* ‬The other was rose oil.* ‬He took* ‬out the stopper.* ‬The fragrance reminded him of working in the fields with Monsieur Molinard in the Cote d*’‬Azur.* ‬They toiled side by side gathering the flowers and later in his kitchen extracting the precious essence of their blooms.* ‬After distilling the fragrance from roses,* ‬Molinard held a beaker up to the light from the window.* ‬His eyes sparkled.

*“‬It*’‬s the essence that counts,* ‬Johnny.* ‬It*’‬s what*’‬s hidden inside that makes us,* ‬whether flower or man or woman.*”

“You French are so involved with your essences.* ‬What good is it to smell like a rose*?‬”

“For a man it is nothing.* ‬For a woman,* ‬it*’‬s the world.*”

He studied John closely.

*“‬You may laugh John,* ‬but this is the start of something.* ‬I don*’‬t expect to be in this kitchen forever.* ‬Someday I*’‬ll have a factory.* ‬You work well and are serious.* ‬Perhaps you can throw in with me.*”

“I*’‬m returning to England and my mother.* ‬That*’‬s enough for me.*”

“Home is important to every man,* ‬French or English.* ‬They say even the Spanish have mothers.*”

They laughed.

Outside the workers were lining up with their baskets of blossoms.* ‬The lilacs were blue and the rose petals were yellow and red.* ‬Bright gleaming white was the jasmine.* ‬The bins soon grew heavy with the fruits of their labor.* ‬Beyond that,* ‬a flock of swallows took flight in the last breezes of summer and were soon lost in the distance.

Molinard uncorked a bottle of Burgundy,* ‬then poured two glasses and offered a toast.

*“‬To home and the hearth.*”

You could hear the glasses clink.

*“‬To home.*”

Finishing the bottle they smoked their pipes and watched the day turn to night.* ‬The only light was the fire beneath the stills piercing the darkness of the room.* ‬The only smell was roses.*

John put the stopper back in the bottle of oil and placed in the drawer next to his pistols.* ‬Then he crawled into bed.

****

[Jack of Hearts]

Still reading, but the prose is losing it's way a bit in all the plot. Those *s are gettibg unwieldy though.




J

[Steven Hunley]

The next day he went off to find work. ‬First it was at the blacksmith’‬s. ‬Three men were working there. ‬Tom, ‬the owner, ‬was hammering on the anvil next to the forge.


“Have you any work for an able-bodied man?”

“We’‬re full up with workers right now.”

He wiped his sweating hands on his apron and took a break.

“So John, you’re back from the war with the French, are ye? It’s like this. We took on many workers here while you were gone. They work for nothing, these men do."

Smoke billowed from the forge as the fire sputtered and sparked.

“Many are in debt to Diego de Vargas. He’s good at his business, too good if you ask me. He lends money when he knows it can’t be paid back. Then he forecloses on their lands. They say he’s in league with rich bankers from London.

Look at Robert over there, ‬feeding the horses. ‬He once was a farmer like you. ‬Lost it all. ‬And Gerald, ‬in back, ‬lost his farm to de Vargas at cards. ‬He says the man cheated him. ‬But the sheriff here is in his pocket and backs him up. ‬Nothing is ever done about it.”

“So that’s the way of things, is it Tom?’

“That it is, ‬and it can’‬t be helped.”

John thought to himself, ‘That’s what they said about Bonaparte when he was running over half of Europe with his Grande Armee but we stopped him.’

John looked for work at the baker’s, the grocer’s, and the book binder’s, then at the wheel-wright and down by the mill. Nothing. Jobs were impossible to find. DeVargas influenced business everywhere for miles around and had his poisoned finger in every pie in the county.

It was the same story day after day. ‬He’‬d return from looking for work late and fix up the farm for his mother with the time he had left. ‬Small repairs that could be done for pennies. ‬Nothing was accomplished and they lived hand-to-mouth. ‬Late summer turned to fall and the air took on a chill. ‬One crisp afternoon he stopped by his uncle’‬s. ‬A fancy coach from the high road was pulled up outside.

Inside were two gentlemen and their ladies. ‬John took a table near the door to observe them.
One man stood near the fireplace smoking a pipe and the other sat at a table with two ladies. Sarah put down two whiskeys and wines and stopping by his table on her way to the kitchen she whispered,

“Just look at how finely those two are dressed! See the ribbons on their bonnets?”

The ladies wore Empire dresses with straw bonnets trimmed with ribbons and lace. ‬One had a white Kashmir shawl. ‬And neither would go anywhere without gloves.

Sarah ‬sat down. ‬She nudged him with her elbow and covering her mouth with her hand, ‬turned to him and said excitedly,

“And look at the buckles on that one’s shoes! Why John, I’ll wager they’re silver!”

“It looks that way to me. ‬Perhaps they’‬re from London. ‬It’‬s the fashion there.”

The men were certainly dandies. Both wore exquisitely tailored dark coats and snug trousers tucked into their boots of finest English leather.

“ I wonder,” he whispered back, trying to feign interest, “ how long it takes them to tie their cravats?”

The truth was, ‬even though he appeared to be as excited as she was at the show the strangers were giving, ‬his attention was on her all along. ‬He couldn’‬t help it. ‬In her attempts to not let customers hear, ‬she sat closer and closer. ‬When he whispered back he nearly touched her ear with his lips. ‬She smelled like Jasmine.

After they left she cleared their table and found a book in the corner. ‬Their carriage was off and away. ‬She handed it to John.


It was Captain Alexander Smith's Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen.


I’ve heard of this fellow, she said, “He was hanged.”

Her finger was closer to the author’s name than the etching of Dick Turpin.

“Which one, the highwayman or the author?”

“Probably both!‬”

John opened it to the first page.

"Of course, I’ll come back.”

The next day was almost gone. It was late afternoon. She met him outside in the shade beneath the gnarled oak. They sat on the bench that wrapped around the tree trunk. He placed the book between them and they sat close, shoulder to shoulder. She knew the moment his shoulder touched hers. He began to read. The afternoon drifted.

The only phrases she remembered was,

“Your money or your life.” and, “Stand and deliver.”

As he read from the book she turned the pages. When she did, she turned towards his face.
Sunshine was in his smile. ‬Something about him defied the weather and warmed her without touching.

‘Or perhaps it is like touching,’ she thought. ‘Like a gentle caress.’

As far as she was concerned there was nothing to say. She felt his shoulder pressing against hers, saw the breeze playing with his careless hair. Something was growing inside her. If wasn’t her place to say what it was. It had no name. He had to close the book.

“I can’t see anymore. It’s twilight.”

“Then we’ll watch the sun go down.”

They got up and faced what was left of the sun. ‬Half a fiery disc flattened itself on the horizon. ‬Puffy clouds that had been white were now dark and etched with gold edges. ‬A flock of sparrows came between them and the sun and changed shape when they flew like so many geometric figures. ‬Light grew faint. ‬Shapes became indistinct then obscured and finally lost. ‬When the sun disappeared and it was completely dark, ‬small twinkling bonfires on distant hill sides matched the stars in the sky. ‬They were brighter and warmer of course, ‬but the ‬stars were in greater numbers.
Their first day of reading drew to a close. ‬He took her hand so she wouldn’‬t stumble, ‬and together they walked back inside and sat by the fire.

****

[Steven Hunley]

When Sarah was introduced to his mother they shook hands when departing. It was obvious to the woman the girl worked in the scullery, her hands were dry and rough. Only scullery maids had hands such as these. She also sensed something else. The growing attraction between this girl and her son. She’d listened to all his hesitations, his pregnant pauses, and the reverent tone he used when he talked about her.

One day she handed him a jar with a large cork stopper.

“This is oatmeal, honey, and egg yolk. It’s good for the hands and the skin. Sarah will appreciate it, I’m sure. Put it on her hands and add no water until it’s absorbed.”

“Me, rub her hands with this?”

“No son of mine is going to hold hands with a woman who's hands are rough.”

After he had eaten at the inn her shift ended. They walked out to the oak tree and when he sat down she noticed a jar sticking out of his pocket.

“Hullo, what’s all this?”

“It’s something for your hands, now hold them out, palms up.”

He put some in his palm and applied it to her fingers and palms. It felt soothing, and the way he touched her, with such care, and such certainty. She felt spoiled. She tried to make like it didn’t affect her, but in fact it affected her profoundly and assaulted her romantic sense and inflamed it. She grew excited and bold.

“They say in France the men kiss their ladies’ hands. Is that true? Have you seen it?’

“Yes, upon occasion,” he said coolly. He felt self-conscious, touching her like that.

“How exactly is that done?” she asked, and put out her hands palms up.

He ignored her right hand but took the left and turned it over. Her fingers curved into his and as his lips pressed her hand he squeezed her hand with a pressure so slight it could barely be felt, yet the movement had meaning. She couldn’t fail to notice how soft his lips were nor how warm.

Her hands began to tremble slightly.

“Like that,” he answered, and examined her eyes. They held promise. Then her cheeks flushed and she looked away absently at some autumn leaves spotting the dirt at her feet.
***



It was the end of the month and rent was due. They had nothing. Their savings were gone. It would be impossible to hold the land until the next growing season. By spring it would be too late. John was distraught and on edge. Things seemed hopeless. Things were not right, not the farm, not the woman, not the situation. Something must be done.


He sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. A candle placed on the table gave only feeble light. Next to that was the copy of Captain Alexander Smith’s book he’d been reading and left open. He wanted to give Sarah a present but had no money. The farm was almost on the auction block. John racked his brain. War had been simpler than this.

‘What can I possibly give her?’

His eyes surveyed the room hopelessly. From the wall to the table to the candle to the book. He suddenly remembered the rose oil wrapped up in the dresser. He slid the drawer open and removed the pistols which he placed on the table next to he book. Out came the vial of rose oil.

In such good humor, he tossed the vial in the air and watched as it twised and turned. It spun and somersaulted. It flew. But when he put his hand out he missed it, and it hit the guns and rose oil spattered on the open book. Then the glass crashed to the floor.

The only thing to do was to pick up the mess. His thoughts returned to the pit.

A breeze through the window made the flame flicker. It sparkled on the pistol’s silver mountings and suddenly the room grew lighter when a bit of broken wick caught fire and made two flames from one. John smelled roses and noticed the oil stained the gun handle and book and made the page transparent. He held it up to the candle.

Most of the oil was in the margin but some spilled on three words, the words,

stand and deliver.

So there was the message. Right there were the pistols. And in the dresser, a uniform-and- disguise. Diego deVargas supplied the motive. The signs couldn’t have been made plainer or more simple. John studied the transparent words, smiled and said to the book,

“Captain Alexander Smith, you may have to add a new chapter.”

The book said nothing in return.

Later that night a figure left the shadows of the house carrying a bundle. It wasn’t much of a figure when it made for the barn. The barn was dark and shadowy itself, like some magician’s hat. You could put one thing into it, and pull out another thing entirely.

The shadowed man was fair, you could see that even in the moonlight playing between the clouds. He was tall and broad shouldered, but in a way, formless and undefinable. That’s all he was. Just a shadow man. A few minutes later the doors at the opposite end of the barn opened.


A strong black charger stepped out and snorted smoke from his nostrils that steamed the cold night. Two glowing embers were his eyes. Astride him, tall in the saddle, a man in uniform. Red pantaloons tucked into black boots. A red Fez with a long gold tassle. The white shirt and blue embroidered vest of a Zouave. He wore a brace of pistols and a rapier on his side. A wine-colored cape covered most of his face but his eyes, those were the things you saw. Piercing, determined eyes under dark brooding brows. The horse and rider were one perfect beast. The rider looked up to regard the moon and the clouds. A group of them scurried across the face of the moon, plunging the landscape into India ink. When the clouds traversed its surface and it was free to show its face again, the perfect beast had vanished.

Hardly noticeable, the only trace of anyone having been there, the slight scent of roses.

[Steven Hunley]

From the top of the hill where the road narrowed it was easy to see the Duke’s carriage below. It’s two lamps weren’t giving much light but it was noticeable as it flickered between the trees as it rolled down the road. He pulled a dead tree trunk across the path with a rope. Hiding his horse, he mounted a rise just above the road and crouched on a rock like just another shadow.

The air was still and quiet close to the ground, but in the sky the clouds were racing across the face of the moon. Black tremulous clouds with slim sliver rims. The calm before the storm.

Then came the sound of horses panting, their hoofs stamping, and wheels crashing the gravel. A carriage. The snap of a whip as they slowed for the hill.

“Hold on there, alto!” shouted a familiar voice, “There’s something in the road ahead!”

Just then the rock stood up. All six feet of him. A pistol pointed their way.

“L’ventaine et livre!”

“What’s this?” said the driver.

Fernando translated,

“Stand and deliver!”

Out poked the head of Duke Diego deVargas.

“What’s going on? Why have we stopped?”

“Votre argent ou votre vie.” said the man with the pistol in one hand and a rapier in the other.

“What? What’s that?”

“Your money or your life.”

“Fernando, you gypsy thief, you know I know French!”


This was a tricky situation. Perhaps he should bluff. DeVargas decided to face him with a display of Spanish bravado. He stepped down and faced the figure standing above him on the rock. He snorted,

“Do you really think that I will voluntarily give my money to you? You, a common highwayman? Common rabble to have my money by demand? You, senior dog, are mistaken. And in addition,” he sniffed, and waved his hand as if it was a feather duster, “You offend my nose. Poof, be gone!”

He made a gesture towards his sleeve.

As quick as a milliner’s mistress, the Zouave’s rapier point opened his sleeve from elbow to cuff and the gun fell out into the mud.

The Highwayman snatched the silk handkerchief out of the air where it fluttered, and wiped the mud from the gun and placed it securely in his belt. Then he handed the handkerchief back.

“I believe you were needing this?”

He lifted the heavy gold crucifix from DeVargas’s chest with the tip of his sword. It’s jewels gleamed in the moonlight like ice. It was time to get to work. Within minutes both he and the driver were tied to a tree. Fernando was still free and cowering like a dog act in a circus.

“You, my little dwarf, I will need as a hostage and to drive.”

“Oh please, Highwayman,” bawled Fernando, “ spare my life, so I may return and free my good and honest master!”

“We’ll see about that. Let’s off.”

The carriage started again and disappeared down the road. It was daylight before Fernando returned with the story of how he’d been robbed of the ring his mother had given him, and displayed his bumps and bruises the Highwayman inflicted when his servant had defended the honor of his master. Damn the French anyway. The sheriff examined the scene and found tracks, but lost the trail in the forest. The carriage itself was a mile down the road in the woods, the axel broken, ransacked, the rear seat slashed open and the chest gone from its hiding place.


It seemed too perfect. There were no tracks and no clues. But, on the way to return the crippled carriage, a workman walking along behind noticed a gleaming strand in the dark mud. He picked up what was left of a gold tassel. He was absentmindedly spinning it around his finger when De Silva saw him walk by the gate.

“What’s that?”

“I found it on the road near the robbery, your Lordship.”

DeVargas snatched it away. He ran it between his fingers. His fury grew. He pulled it back and forth between his hands. His eyes smoked with anticipation. He worked himself into a frenzy.

“This tiny thread will be the rope that hangs him, the slimy Frog! This will be the means of his destruction.”

By now he was so tense, the cord nearly snapped between his hands. As he pulled with all his strength, the fine gold wires sliced his thumb. One of this servants noticed blood and offered to wash the wound.

“You don’t want it to get infected.”

“It’s nothing,” he countered, and waved him away.

Instead, he sucked his thumb. The taste of revenge was too sweet for Diego de Vargas to give up or share with anyone else.

The new day threatened rain. John walked with his bundle out to the trash heap and threw it on. He stirred it a bit as it started to smoke. There was only the getting away now. Molinard sent a letter and reported he’d found just the place. Now there was just getting to it. A drop of rain fell on his hand. Then one on his face. It was starting to sprinkle when his mother called. He went back in the house before it really came down and felt lucky he’d missed it.

When it cleared the next morning a street urchin stopped by to warm his hands on the way to town. He was a thin, ruddy-faced boy of nine. He noticed a bundle. The edges were charred and burnt. But inside was a red hat shaped like a blunt cone. It was just his size. He decided to wear it to town. It was the first hat he’d ever had.

Turning the corner by the bakery he passed the sheriff’s office. DeVargas and the sheriff were filling out eviction papers on an old widowed woman. The red hat jogged right past the iron-barred window bobbing up and down. They’d never seen anything like it.

“Hey boy, come here,” was all the sheriff said.

He noticed the tuft of gold thread at the top. DeVargas touched the pom pom in his pocket with his sore thumb. One and one made two. They brushed away the eviction papers and sat him at the table.

“Have a tart boy, and tell us where you’ve been this morning.”

It was the best time at the sheriff’s office the youth had ever had. His last time here he’d been whipped.

The next day started early for John. At four. It was still dark when John felt the six hands on him. The sheriff lit the candle.

“You’re under arrest for the North Road Robbery,” he announced with authority.

The deputies dressed him and cuffed his hands and walked him out of the house. He heard them trashing the place when they shoved him into a rough cart. He landed on his back, face up, and again there were one thousand stars. Each one looked molten through his tears when he heard his mother screaming. In the end they just left her alone in a ruined house, free to find her way through the rubble by herself. She could hear the cart squeaking and the horses ride away, and laughter from hundreds of yards away it was so loud. A loud noise on a still cold night carries for miles when the air is just right.

John felt the matched iron bracelets bite into his wrists and cursed his luck.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck,” he spat the words out like bitters. “I’d have no luck at all.”

His mother sorted through the wreckage, finding some things intact, like finding small treasures if they were whole. Finding broken things, broken beyond mending. Things that her heart had empathy for, and in respect for their memories and damaged condition it broke a little too.

He could hear a cart creaking by the next morning and see from the high barred window it was over-loaded and going down the road out of town. It was going to the hill overlooking the river. He knew the place. It was where they built the gallows, where the hanging was done. The town carpenter was leading the team. He was good at his craft. The trial hadn’t even started yet but they were getting ready for the verdict. He didn’t like the look of it.

The Magistrate heard all the evidence and listened with an impartial ear. Besides the circumstantial evidence, the hat and tassle found on his property, there was no solid proof, the money box had never been found. Until DeVargas swore on the Holy Bible he saw John’s they had a case. He was lying and his hand noticeably shook, so easy to spot the white silk bandage wrapped over his thumb against the shiny-black-leathered Bible.

Unless someone came up with 10 guinneas, he was sure to be hung the next day.

The morning started with a cock’s crow. Soft beams of light striped the stones on the floor of his cell. And hour later one fell on his face. Dreams ended and he was awake. Today would end with a noose.

The men came and bound his wrists behind his back. They pushed him back into the cart he’d come in. Two townspeople for witnesses, one tall, and a short priest in a brown robe sat in back with John. The cart creaked off to the hill on the outskirts of town. It was right near the road and the river where anyone passing would notice that there was law here. A rotten corpse hanging from a gibbet. Crows plucking fresh eyeballs from their sockets, that strict sort of law that everyone understands.


They pulled him out of the cart and walked him up the stairs to the rope. The hill and the height of the gallows gave him quite a view. His last. The country rolled gently and changed to growing hillocks with stands of maples and hemlocks. The road could be seen each way for miles. Within thirty yards was the river bank and the shade of its trees. Down a way on the road a dust cloud appeared as if someone was riding their way in a hurry.


John turned quickly towards the greasy hangman. Though he’d not done a minute’s work, but he was sweating profusely.

“Hangman, hangman, wait a little while, I think I see my friends a coming, riding many a mile.”

He was only too ready to wait for some more money, this sweaty and ill-smelling fellow. He figured they didn’t pay him enough for the dirty job he had to do.

“If they can offer more, then I let the man disappear-like, and who’s to say what or who lies in a pauper’s grave?”

He took out a red handkerchief, for he was gentleman hangman, and wiped his sweaty brow.

It was his uncle and aunt who rode up.

“Did you bring some silver, did you bring some gold? What did you bring me my family, to save me for the gallows pole?

“We couldn’t get much silver, we could get no gold. You know we’re too damn poor, to save you from the gallows pole.”

His aunt started crying.

The sweaty man blew his nose between his fingers onto the ground.
“Well, I better be getting back to business.”

“Hangman, hangman, slack your rope a while, I think I see somebody coming, riding many a mile.”

And there was dust again. John could not imagine who it might be. Then the dust settled and the image was clear.
A wild-haired woman sat there and with her eyes alone, pinned the hangman’s arms to his side. He stood frozen looking at her in all her magnificence. He ate her with his eyes. Every last inch.

“Sarah did you bring me silver, did you bring me gold? What did you bring me my Sarah, to save me from the gallows pole?”

She gazed at John closely. Her eyes conveyed a secret.

‘Yes, I’ve brought you some silver, yes a little gold. We’ll give this man everything that he needs, to save you from the gallows pole.”

The hangman’s greedy eyes grew wide and his pupils dilated.

“Well,” he said, searching her with his eyes and seeing no purse. “Where is it?”

“Right here under my skirt.” she confessed.

But when she did, she gave him a look that said something else entirely. And she lifted the hem up an inch if that.
“And a tip, if you want one.”

He was all smiles.

“I’ve got a tip for you myself,” he answered. “Let’s go over there, where there’s a bit of privacy.”

Taking her hand and holding it high as if he was leading a cotillion, they wandered away towards the bushes. Because of the noose John couldn’t turn his head.

Then he heard a thump, and a man started screaming, and foul cursing words came next in a torrent, then a flood.

Then the sound of light feet on the stairs to the gibbet. Then a hand on the rope and a kiss on his neck. A slice of the rope and when he turned around, Sarah with the dagger still in her hand. Although she’d just cut the rope there was blood on the blade and some on her dress.

“Did you?”

“Not me. Just his Achilles tendon. That’s why you can still hear him squeal! We need time to get away.”

A kiss was in order. The order was served with delight. Her raspberry stained lips met his in a frenzy of emotions. The witness ran off the other direction from the town. Now there was only the small priest to deal with.

“I personally never thought you would do such a thing,” he said, and pulled the cowl off his head so they could see the sincerity of his brown gypsy eyes. He looked very much like Fernando.

Michael looked relieved,
“I came too late and missed seeing you hung. I just saw the grave. That’s my story. I have a bottle of cognac for the hangman. By the time they see him he’ll be drunk.”

All were mounted now and some of the animals had two riders.

“Tell my mother to start packing. We’ll send for her in a week.”

Michael went one way with Sarah and the other two another. When John reached the stone bridge he’d crossed the night it happened, she helped him pull up the rope. The gold box was quite heavy.

It was afternoon now, and rays of light slanted between the trees just off the road. Sarah forced the lid open with her knife and the blade broke with an audible “click.”
They took the coins out and placed them in their leather saddle bags then tossed the box back into the stream.
She sat behind him and held onto his waist. They poked along lost in thought until they hit a crossroad. John held up a second. He reached in the saddle bag and gave her a small vial of rose oil. She could smell it right through the cork.

“Do you know where this road goes?” she questioned.

“Straight by a round-a-bout way to the Cote D’Azure” he answered, and gave the horse a nudge in its ribs with his heals.

The Diego DeVargas was in quite a state when the story got around. The hangman lost his job and DeVargas had a fit. Then it was a fever. The fever wasn’t induced by his mental state you understand, it was a real fever, an infection caused by the cut on his thumb. It grew worse and worse until he became septic and died in misery two weeks later.

As he was foreign-born the estate went up for sale and a family moved in with their circus of dogs and blond-headed children. The new lord was kind and his family, not the acquisition of land, was his main concern.

As for the English yeoman farmer who turned French flower grower, his future wife, his mother, and her later affair with a hot-blooded gypsy, nothing is known at all. Their story is all very hush-hush and rumored. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.