Defective (14 page)

Porkchop kicked a
rock, felt the jolt of it along her big toenail.

Santa rang the
dinner bell and the two of them walked back to the barn. After the
meal, Porkchop told the family her decision.

___

The Constable saw
Hap pull out the trailer and attach it to the bicycle but by the
time he’d untied Chester and returned to the press house Hap had
already cycled to the other end of the orchard.

"You owe me an
explanation," he said as he banged opened the press house door,
catching Marvellous off guard. She was cooking something at the
stove and spun around as he strode over to the table.

"He’s my brother,"
she said. "I didn’t know if I could trust you. Hap’s been through a
lot."

"He left nine
children."

"He didn’t leave
them. He couldn’t remember."

Marvellous told
the Constable what she knew.

"He somehow
survived the fall off the cliff but it wasn’t until he got back
here, with me, that he remembered the children. You were the only
person he could think of who might know where they were."

The Constable
sighed. He took a seat at the table.

"I’m required by
law to tell Hap where his children are. Go get him. I’ll wait
here."

Marvellous stood
for a moment then turned and left. She soon returned with Hap.

"Constable Pierre!
How good to see you!" Hap rushed in and gave the man a bear hug.
"You know where the children are? You’ve seen them? Are they
okay?"

"They’re all fine,
Hap. It’s good to see you too. Thought we’d lost you."

Hap and the
Constable sat down while Marvellous started dinner. She listened as
she cooked.

PC Pierre told him
everything. How the children were living on a farm and how healthy
and well they seemed. He told them about what they planned to grow
and about the stag and the feast they’d had that night. Gently he
told him what had happened to Mary, his wife. He left out certain
details.

"She’s buried in a
real pretty spot, under a maple. It’ll be nice in fall."

"She liked the
fall."

PC Pierre nodded.
They were silent for a while. The Constable knew what was coming
next.

"Marvellous said a
relative took them," Hap said finally.

The Constable took
a deep breath and told Hap about his father.

"I don’t know why
he didn’t want you to know he was alive," he said when he was
finished, "but I couldn’t send them to a labour camp without at
least trying. He didn’t want to at first but he eventually said
yes."

"I thought he was
dead," Hap said. "He went missing when I was seventeen. One day he
was just gone. Never came back. The camp foreman told me to forget
about him, that he was probably killed by a bear or drowned in the
river."

His face crumpled
inwards as though he was about to cry but then he jumped up
abruptly from the table and began to shout.

"You have to take
me to them! We have to leave right away!" he yelled.

Marvellous turned
from the stove, pushed him down into his seat and set his dinner in
front of him. PC Pierre had seen only a momentary blur.

"Eat first," she
said.

She set plates for
the Constable and herself and joined them at the table.

As they ate, PC
Pierre considered his duty. He wracked his memory but could think
of no specific law on the books that applied to this situation.
There was only one thing he knew for sure.

"I’ll have to tell
the Landlord, Hap."

"I don’t care
about him," said Hap miserably.

He pushed his
plate away and tried to get up again but Marvellous had his ropy
forearm gripped in her large hand.

"But I have to see
them! They need me! We can all live together at the farm. You too,
Marvellous."

"From what the
Constable has said I think your father would have something to say
about that, Hap," she said. She gently pulled him down.

"You said that his
father doesn’t like surprises," she said to PC Pierre. "Maybe you
should tell him."

PC Pierre nodded.
It’s what he’d been about to recommend.

"I’m heading to
the summer cabin. The farm isn’t far from there. I’ll take care of
it. For now, Hap, you’re going to have to be patient. Trust me.
Porkchop is looking after them just fine."

Hap stared into
space. PC Pierre drew Marvellous outside.

"If Pater won’t
cooperate, Hap’s only chance may be to stay here," he told her.
"He’s worked this land for twenty years so there may be something
under the duty to land laws. I’ll look into it when I get back to
Battery."

He mounted Chester
and spurred him on. He was not looking forward to the Landlord’s
reaction, even less to Pater’s.

___

When PC Pierre
arrived back at Baker’s Yard he went first to the Piggy Gristle to
find the Landlord. The barkeep told him that he'd left for New Key
a few days ago.

He went to Baker's
Yard and found Mrs. Baker at the kitchen counter, up to her elbows
in bread dough.

"I hear the
Landlord had business in New Key," he said to her casually. "I have
some news for him about one of his tenants. Any idea when he might
be back?"

"Well, he took the
ferry. And one of his horses. The big black one. Not sure when he
might be back, hun. Could be tomorrow, could be next week," she
said. "By the way, your supplies are packed and ready in the back
shed. Why don’t you go on ahead? Now that the roads are starting to
dry out I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more traffic round here. He
can always get word to you by messenger."

PC Pierre went
into the main room of Baker's Yard and looked at the books on the
shelves. He hadn't read all of them yet and Mrs. Baker sometimes
exchanged old ones for new from people who passed through town.
There was a pamphlet sandwiched between two books on ploughing
equipment and he wiggled it out. It was a Deloran County labour
code amendment, dated a few years ago. He didn't recall ever seeing
it. He skimmed through it and, near the end, in small print, was a
section on pay bonuses for special skills. Among them were numeracy
and literacy.

Hap, like many
people in Battery, may not be able to read or write but he knew his
numbers well enough, thanks to his wife. If the Constable hadn't
known about the requirement, it was doubtful that Hap or Mary had
known about it. He was sure that the Landlord had never paid those
bonuses. It was blackmail, he thought. Then again, the Landlord was
supposed to update him about changes to County laws or procedures.
He also thought about all that the Landlord had done to others over
the years, all of the things he couldn’t prove. It was all he
had.

He wrote a letter
to the Landlord briefing him on the situation.

Legally, he wrote,
I have a duty to ensure that the land is worked. Both have been
retained until your decision. Hap knows the orchard and Marvellous
will benefit from his experience.

The next morning
he left the letter at the Piggy Gristle and set off for the cabin.
Despite the extra weight of the Constable’s supplies Josephine set
a brisk pace.

___

Pater stood in the
lookout post and scanned the valley for what seemed the hundredth
time. He’d been living in the post for two days, descending only to
forage for food.

PC Pierre should
have been back at his cabin by now but when Pater arrived he found
it empty with no sign or the Constable or his mule. He’d pried open
a window, thinking he could at least benefit from the Constable’s
summer food stocks while he waited but other than a tin of hard
biscuits, the cupboards were bare. The only evidence that he’d been
there at all that year was a neat stack of firewood and five
gleaming traps that hung from one of the walls.

He spent the first
night in the cabin, out of the rain, but when it stopped and the
heat rolled in, he opted for the breeze from up in the lookout
post. He hadn’t counted on it taking so long. Titania had said that
it would be easy.

"Just tell him
what you want and he’ll write it down," she’d said.

From his vantage
point Pater saw mile after mile of forest, the farm and Honey Hill,
and the road in between them that eventually wound its way to the
Constable’s cabin. He could just see the roof of the cabin and the
shed where Josephine slept.

After staring so
long at the constantly shifting shades of green Pater had started
to think, something he usually tried to avoid.

He’d run out of
maple whiskey and his thoughts turned to the children. They had,
for the most part, made his life easier, not harder as he’d feared.
The rabbit he caught last night was the first meat he’d killed
himself in months. He never had to cook anything and he probably
would have died last winter had it not been for the girl twin.

They were all a
little odd but none more than the youngest. The boy gave him the
peculiar feeling that at any moment he would open his mouth and
begin speaking in a voice not his own. Even Titania’s shifts
weren’t as bad. Sometimes, she’d have dull red hair and a series of
long jagged scars on her face; at others she was the spitting image
of Hap’s mother. That was the face she’d worn the other night; it
was the face that he couldn’t say no to and the one he recalled
now.

"Pater, you’re
going to do something for me," she said the night before he’d come
to the cabin.

She explained that
since Porkchop was almost twenty she wanted him to change his will
to make her the heir.

"The Constable’s
sure to be at his summer cabin by now," she had said. "You can
leave tomorrow and be back in time for dinner. Why wait?"

Pater couldn’t
think of a reason. Despite their oddities, the children worked
hard, knew what they were doing and didn’t make much noise. He
respected little, but he respected that. They were certainly better
than squatters.

The shriek of a
merlin made him look up to his right. He scanned the sky till he
spotted it; the hawk flew by with a limp pigeon between its talons.
When he again lowered his gaze he saw on the road in the distance
Josephine pulling the cart with PC Pierre in it.

___

Jelly, Jones and
Forest left before dawn. Narrow gave Jelly his map and she promised
to add anything new to it as they travelled.

"I wish I could go
with you," he said.

"You’re not going
with them," said Porkchop. "You get sidetracked too easily. Jelly
and Forest won’t have time to look for you when you wander
off."

Narrow had told
them it would take about three hours to reach the edge of the
valley but Forest and the twins arrived in less than two. They
looked for signs of old pathways. Jones disappeared through the
trees and returned moments later. He whistled for their attention
and beckoned them over.

Large white pines
shaded an old, well-worn foot path. It was wide enough for the
three of them to walk side by side and it switched back and forth
until it narrowed to single file through a hallway of enormous
granite boulders. After an hour, the three emerged into the
sun-filled meadow at the bottom of the valley.

They stopped to
eat and drink and to consult Narrow’s map. From their new vantage
point, it seemed a lot longer to the orchard side of the valley
than Narrow had estimated.

"What do you
think?" Jelly asked her twin brother who was slouched against a
giant rock more than three times his height. Jelly remembered what
the Constable had told them all those months ago and wondered if
this boulder had once been part of Honey Hill.

In the blink of an
eye, Jones was atop the boulder. He shaded his eyes with his
hand.

"I could do that
in no time," he called down to them. "Coupla hours."

"Do you remember
where to look?"

"Oh yeah. Pa went
over near that weird pine tree that juts out over the edge of the
cliff. I can see it from here."

___

From upstairs in
the loft, Narrow watched his brothers and sister move across the
farm and disappear into the woods. In the heat, both loft doors had
been flung open; they only closed them when a storm came through.
Narrow sat on the edge of the door frame with one foot on the top
rung of the ladder, idling swinging it back and forth. He'd let his
leg extend out, his bare toes gripping the wooden rung then bend
his knee, returning the ladder to the frame and making a small bonk
each time it hit the wood.

___

The Landlord
bribed the magistrate in New Key and quickly settled his business.
He spent the night at an inn and the next morning shopping for a
new suit and boots. In the afternoon when he was ready to leave he
discovered that there was no return ferry to Port Abram large
enough to take both him and his horse.

"Sorry, sir, but
the ferry you need is gonna be another two days getting here," said
the port master.

He didn’t want to
wait any longer than he had to in New Key — only bureaucrats and
business men lived there with their proper wives and silent
children, and it had none of the more appealing services offered by
a town like Andrastyne — but he had no choice. It would be at least
a two-day ride to Battery and it was too late to leave now. He
stayed another night and left after a late breakfast. He could
break the trip up and spend a night at PC Pierre’s cabin.

The Landlord
reached Honey Hill just before sundown. He hadn’t been out this way
for a long time. One time, many years ago, he’d been on his way to
New Key and a crazy old man wearing red long johns had jumped out
from behind some bushes and scared his horse. He had almost lost
control and fallen off but had regained the reins and settled the
animal. By then, the old man had scampered away.

Back in Battery
later that week the Landlord had described the man to PC Mark,
Pierre’s father. He said that the man was an old survivalist; a
loner with no family. He had a sizeable farm but only seemed to
grow enough food for himself. His land would eventually come open
or could be arranged to come open. The Landlord had meant to keep
tabs on him but with all his other land dealings and labour camp
issues, he never had time to revisit the area for any length of
time and, eventually, he forgot about him.