Table of Contents – (spoilers)
Monday morning was a slow start. The guests had only left after the last of the booze had been finished. Peep had gone to sleep early in the church, but Knuckle and Pinch both passed out in the pews outside. Having drunk only a little, Choke decided to simply cover them with their cloaks. Then he went to sleep in the stable next to the door with his longsword next to him.
Choke and Peep were both up early, but there was nothing important that could be done with Knuckle and Pinch still comatose in their pews out in the back yard. So Choke and Peep ate a good breakfast from the Sunday dinner leftovers and sat down at the kitchen table to work on the Holy Book. As was usual when they did this, Choke would read selected passages to Peep to highlight certain points of Church dogma, doctrine, or law. Then he would help her read one of the passages. She was improving quickly. These days she even kept her jokes and snide commentary to a minimum.
After about an hour of this, they heard a friendly whistle outside. They went out the kitchen door to find Babs’ boy, Gabe, at the edge of the yard with a mule hitched to a narrow, two-wheeled cart. On the cart was another barrel of ale.
“Mom said to make sure ye had this today. Sorry I’m so late, I had a hard time getting going this morning,” Gabe said quietly so as not to wake Knuckle and Pinch, who were still passed out on their pews.
“Well, ye aint as late as some,” Peep responded. “And ye needn’t waste any effort on letting them get any later.”
Peep picked up the alarm bell that was sitting on a shelf just inside the kitchen door. She moved out into the yard and rang it long and loud overtop Knuckle and Pinch, who soon responded with a barrage of cursing.
“Wake the fuck up!” she screamed back at them. “Gabe here needs ye to unload the beer! And hurry the fuck up!” Peep then turned to young Gabe with a grin. “Why don’t ye come in for a cup a stug while these lazy pricks get their shit together.”
Gabe nodded cheerfully and joined Peep and Choke at the kitchen table for some stugroot. He was a burly fellow dressed ruggedly in doeskin breeches and boots and a hemp tunic. His weaponbelt housed a big knife and a short handaxe. Over his shoulder was slung a shortbow and quiver. At about seventeen years of age, he was not more than a couple of years younger than any in the squad, but his lack of experience made him seem much more childish by comparison.
“Ye always run yar errands armed like this, Gabe?” Peep asked as she poured him a cup.
“Yes I do, Miss Otilla. It’s not far, but ye never know what ye might run into, right?”
“That’s right,” Peep said with a smile as she patted her shortsword on her hip. “It’s better to have and not need than to need and not have.”
“Exactly right! And that’s why Mom wanted to make sure yar ale was replaced this morning!” Gabe said with a big grin.
“Well, there are exceptions to every rule,” Choke said. “But we do appreciate it. Needn’t have put yourself out over it.”
“Ah, it’s nothing. Really, Brother Bartholomew. I was heading up here anyway, on account of it’s mash day at Bill’s.”
Both Choke and Peep looked puzzled at this. Peep was the one to connect the dots.
“Mash day? Like corn mash for potato wine? Ah, so that’s Bill Cornmasher, the general store guy. He’s big into potato wine, is he?”
“Yup!” Gabe said, giving Peep a thumbs up for her cleverness. “Mom wants me up here helping him out as much as possible, so’s I can get a handle on stilling. We pot our own, a bit, but no one’s got nothing on Bill when it comes to that!”
“So ye don’t wanna be a teamster like yar dad and brothers?” Peep asked.
“Nah! I wanna strike out on my own and make a fortune, Miss Otilla!”
“Ah, yar gonna make a dent in the world are ye? Well, good for you, Gabe,” Peep laughed.
“Right. So, here’s the deal. Mom said that along with helping Bill, I oughta be helping you out with whatever ye need. Ye know, running messages, fetching ye this or that, and whatever else. And I’m gonna do ye one better. I’m good in the bush! So, whatever ye need, I’m yar man!” Gabe thumped the table proudly.
“Well, thank ye Gabe, we will keep that in mind,” Peep said, just barely restraining the impulse to laugh.
“Thank you, Gabe. To you and your mother. We do appreciate it. And the help will be most appreciated. But, I am afraid we will not be able to have you along on any missions. Things are much too dangerous for that.”
“Oh, come on, Brother Bartholomew! Ye need me! I know every nook and crick around here!”
“And why are ye so eager to come along with us?” Peep asked, her tone now deadly serious.
“Well, because, if I’m gonna strike off into the world to set myself up as a trader in the bush, then I gotta have a hard reputation, right? And I gotta have the experience to back that up! Dangerous with the Pekot Bunch is exactly what I need! I aint playing!” Gabe said, puffing himself up.
“Yes ye are. But that aint a bad thing with where yar at,” Peep said. “But, ye know, boy, people looking for experience like that wind up dead, more often than not.”
“I know it! And I’m no boy, Miss Otilla!”
“Aren’t ye? Yar straddling the gap on that, I’d say. Have ye killed a man, yet?”
“No. But just because I haven’t had cause to. I’ve fought plenty!”
“Punch fights aint got a thing to do with killing. Any goblins?”
“No. There haven’t been any around for over a year. And before that, they’ve been light. Everyone says so. But I killed a boar! A tusker! Look!” Gabe pulled a rawhide chord necklace from under his tunic. A pair of boar tusks flanked a pretty river pebble in its center.
“No gobos for over a year, ye say?” Peep asked.
“Yeah. Maybe somebody killed them all, huh?”
“Yeah. Maybe,” Peep said, exchanging a worried look with Choke.
“So ye two know something about that?” Gabe pushed.
Peep blinked at him. “Maybe we do. But even if we do know something, that don’t mean that it’s for the likes of you to know, now is it? And ye’d think that a squirt of a shit-heel like yarself, who’s looking to come on with us, would remember to keep a civil tongue in his head when talking to his betters.”
Gabe flushed, first in anger, and then in chagrin. “I’m sorry, Miss Otilla. And Brother Bartholomew. I should know better.”
“Yeah, no doubt. And do ye even know what it is that yar asking to come on to do? Weren’t ye paying attention last night? Yar people are teamsters. And we’re setting up to settle a beef with the Outfit and all the local muscle they can throw at us. So who d’ye think it is that we’re gonna be killing around here? It’s all yar people!” Peep exclaimed.
“They aint my people, Miss Otilla,” Gabe came back angrily. “My people are good Stronians! My people are law-abiding folk! My people are the people that came to this church yesterday.”
“Well said,” Choke weighed in.
“Yeah. Sure it was,” Peep said. “But do ye understand that standing with us now, in what we gotta do… d’ye understand how the folk around here are gonna take that?”
“Yeah. I do. It’s gonna piss them off fierce. And I don’t care. Because I’m gonna make a name for myself that rings out beyond this shitty place with its shitty hollers and the shitty people that live in them. I’m gonna be somebody. And they aint ever gonna be anything but what they are now. Which aint anybody to pay any mind to!” Gabe finished. Then he remembered himself: “Miss Otilla. And Brother Bartholomew. Begging yar pardon.”
“Okay then,” Peep shrugged. “Ye seem to know yar mind. But Bartholomew is right: what we’re setting up to do is dangerous. And I don’t know yet if yar worth a shit. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Today, on yar way home from helping Bill, I want ye to go and talk to Theon. The dipshit that came here with his family yesterday.”
“I know Theon, miss.”
“Okay. So you go tell him exactly what I say to you now. That we haven’t forgotten his debt to us. His epiphany aint yet been cleared.”
At this, Choke flinched and raised his palm to interject:
“Could we please just stop using the word epiphany when it comes to that guy? I regret ever saying it. It is blasphemous to so misuse such a holy term.”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever ye say,” Peep said, looking bemused. “But he still owes, right? He aint in the clear, is what I’m saying.”
“Yes. Fine. He owes society and the Church a debt. He has yet to earn clemency or forgiveness for his crime,” Choke said.
Gabe raised his hand. “I’m sorry, Miss Otilla, Brother Bartholomew. Am I meant to remember all that to tell him? Because, I don’t think—”
“No!” Peep interrupted. “Alls ye tell him is, he owes us still. He aint in the clear. Got it?”
“Yes, Miss Otilla.”
“And tell him yar gonna come by tomorrow just after first light and that yar gonna bring him here to the church with ye. Can ye do that?”
“Yes, Miss Otilla. So, I tell him that today, and then bring him here tomorrow morning, you mean?”
“Yes. Can ye manage that?”
“Of course, Miss Otilla. Is that all?”
“For now. Yes. One more thing: ye got a decent horse?”
“A horse, Miss Otilla?”
“Yeah, a fuckin horse. One ye can ride so’s ye can keep up with us if we decide to take ye along on patrol. A horse.”
“Oh, sorry, Miss Otilla. Yes, I have a good horse,” Gabe said, proudly.
“Alright then. Bring it tomorrow. Now, ye should probably get going. So… where the fuck?” Peep drifted off, angry as she stood up and looked out the kitchen door into the yard.
“Hey!” she yelled out the door. “What the fuck! Wake up! That ale aint gonna unload itself!”
“Fuck you!” Knuckle bellowed back.
“Fuck me? No! Fuck you!” Peep yelled.
She picked up the bell again and headed out the door ringing it loud above her head. Both Knuckle and Pinch resumed their cursing of her, only this time muffled by the cloaks they bunched up around their aching heads to protect from her sonic onslaught.
Choke sighed.
“I think Gabe, that I will help you unload the ale,” he said.
“Oh, no, Brother Bartholomew! I got it! It’s fine. Let me, please!”
Gabe hurried out the door and soon rolled the new barrel into the kitchen. He pulled the empty one from its cradle-like stand and hefted the full one into it with its bunghole upwards. Pulling his knife, he used the back of the blade as a lever to pop the wooden bung out. Then he repeated the procedure with the wooden spigot in the empty cask. He tapped that home in the fresh barrel with the butt-end of his knife handle before doing the same with the bung into the empty barrel’s bung-hole.
Peep came back into the kitchen to put the bell back on its shelf just as Gabe was finishing rotating the new barrel in its cradle so that the spigot was down near the bottom.
“There ye are, Miss Otilla. Not a drip!”
“Just how I like my bungholes. Okay, ye can go. Ye bring Theon like I said. And not a word to no one about him being under our thumb on account of some kind of crime or misdeed. Ye hear? As far as everyone around here knows, he’s a good family man who’s come back into the fold. Right?”
“Yes, Miss Otilla! And after I bring him? What then? Can I come out with ye on patrol?”
“What did I fuckin say? We’ll see. Right? Now fuck off and do as I said.”
“Thank you, Miss Otilla! And thank you, Brother Bartholomew!”
“Yes, thank you, Gabe,” Choke said.
Peep ignored Gabe as he left out the kitchen door. She stayed glowering out at Knuckle and Pinch who had managed to rise to the occasion of washing their faces and rinsing their mouths out at the trough.
“Peep, if I may be so bold, what is the plan here with Theon and Gabe?” Choke asked.
“Oh, right. Plan,” Peep said with a grin as she took the stugroot kettle off the stove and brought it to the table to top off their cups.
“Yeah, well, with Theon I just caught him fucking that goat. And then Pinch told him he can hang for that and so I thought that’s not gonna do anybody any good. So why not see if we can’t make him into a snitch for us, right?” Peep said as she sat back down.
“I understand that. But why this effort to keep his sin a secret?” Choke asked earnestly.
Peep goggled him.
“What?” Choke asked, nonplussed.
“Man, you have never set a foot wrong, have ye? Never had some law or boss leaning on ye before. Just an innocent out here in the bush with all us sinners,” Peep chuckled.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Look, if we spill Theon’s beans about him being a goatfucker, then what the hell use is he gonna be to us as a snitch? When everybody knows what he did, we’ll either have to let him go on it, or string him up. Right? And he’s getting all the shame either way.”
“Oh. Right. Yes, that is obvious now that you put it that way,” Choke said, feeling stupid.
“What other way is there to put it?”
“Okay, so as long as I am digging a hole for myself here, I may as well keep going. If keeping his secret for him is instrumental in using him as a snitch, then why let Gabe know?”
“Well, that was just kinda on the fly. I mean, you basically spilled it with yar epiphany rant. Yeah? But I realized that Theon probably aint gonna be much use to us anyway. I mean, what’s he gonna tell us that Babs and Shasta can’t. Right? But letting Gabe know that we got Theon under our thumb is a test on whether him and that whole bunch can keep their mouths shut and back our play. Babs and Shasta were at least halfway to figuring out what happened, what with us bringing the goat here. Add Gabe’s tidbit this morning and they’ll have all the pieces put together in no time. So, if the truth about Theon being a goatfucker spills, then we know that them folk aint to be relied upon. Right?”
“Okay, then. Makes sense. So, what do you think about Gabe? Should we bring him on? I don’t want to put him in harm’s way. But having him as a local guide could not hurt,” Choke said.
“That’s what I was thinking. And why not put him in harm’s way? We aint exactly a big crew here. We need some more warm bodies riding with us. And he put his hand up.”
“It’s worth considering, at least. Okay, then. What’s our plan for today?” Choke asked.
“Well, with those two fucks feeling so poorly, I don’t think we should be doing any heavy lifting today, right? Let’s just fuck around here and then hit it hard tomorrow,” Peep answered.
“Sounds good,” Choke said, returning to his Holy Book.
When Knuckle and Pinch came stumbling in, Knuckle immediately took note of the fresh ale keg:
“Oh, nice!”
“You can just forget about that today, Theodas,” Choke snapped. “We’re out on patrol tomorrow, so there’ll be none of that.”
Knuckle slumped despondently, but accepted it. He and Pinch both stood to eat their breakfast from the remains of the leftovers on the kitchen bench.
“So what’s the plan today?” Pinch asked.
“We stay here. First thing, we’re going to fill that grave back in,” Choke answered.
“What? Oh, come on! We’re gonna need it sooner or later!” Knuckle complained.
“Perhaps, but in the meantime it is disrespectful to those already laid to rest there to leave them uncovered so. So we’re filling it in. Then, we’re giving this entire church a good scrubbing.”
“What! We already did that,” moaned Knuckle.
“No. We gave it a bit of a cleaning. Today we’re going to give it a good scrubbing,” Choke returned with a malicious smile.
“Fuck, Choke. Have ye no respect for a hangover day?” Pinch muttered.
“No. I don’t.”
“Well, that all sounds great, guys,” Peep said. “But I aint hungover, so I think instead of all that, I wanna take a look around town on foot. Figure out some of the nooks and crannies around here.”
Choke frowned. “I don’t think that is prudent, Peep.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll be staying close. I wanna get a feel for the place on foot. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. And if anything happens up here, I’ll come a running.”
“It’s not us I’m worried about. It’s not safe around here. We shouldn’t be split up,” Choke pressed.
Peep sighed. “Listen, it’ll be fine. What we’re worried about now is a bigger squad of professional killers hitting us, right? And cats like that aint gonna be hiding out in the bushes right around the lane. If they were gonna come at us head-on here in town, they woulda done that already. Right? What they’re gonna do is stick to the bush, put their feelers out, and try to set up in an ambush. Yeah? So, to do that, they gotta have a good notion of not only where we are, but where we’re heading. Ye following this so far?”
“Yes,” Choke said sullenly.
“Good. So with us here in the church, they know where we are, but don’t have a single clue what we’re planning or where we might head out. Tomorrow, though, when we head out on patrol, they’ll know pretty quick where we’re heading, and then will have a good idea of how we’ll probably come back. So, if they’re ready to make their move, they’ll set up on a likely spot on our way back from patrol,” Peep stopped here to take a smug sip of her stugroot.
“I suppose you are thinking we exploit this tomorrow,” Choke said.
“Fuckin A. We head out past Tully’s, piss in his ear on our way past, see what’s what all the way up Cowslip Holler, and mark the good ambush spots as we go. Then, we head back the same way we come in, and carefully creep up on all them ambush spots. If anyone’s set up, we have a good chance of jacking them.”
“Sounds solid,” Pinch conceded.
“I’m glad ye approve. So, with this all being so, me skulking around town a bit aint anywhere near as dangerous as mother hen here thinks it is,” Peep gestured to Choke at this. Then she turned his way to finish making her case:
“And even if there is a barnful of killers hiding out just around the crick bend, don’t ye want a good shot at finding out about it? I’ll go on foot. I’ll be sneaky. I’ll take my time and be careful. It’s called scouting, and ye need to let me do it.
Choke considered this for a while before he nodded.
“Fine then. You go and scout, Peep. The three of us will tidy up around here.”
With this pronouncement, Knuckle groaned and gave Peep the finger as she giggled at him.
Muse Vassal 