Read Online The Road to Reckoning by Robert Lautner - Free Book Online Page B

months and it blurs already. Damn their ink!’ It was a small Tanner’s atlas that showed the canals, railroads and stage roads of Pennsylvania and beyond. ‘Well, we could go south to Danville—there will be law there—and report this matter to them. They would have a care of you. That is still Columbia county so they will take interest and you will be off my spine.’
    This did not suit me and I was relieved at his next words.
    ‘But that is off my path. So Berwick is here tomorrow and cross into … damn this ink! I know where I am going! Damn this ink! What is that? It is Luzerne but I do not know what!’
    I came behind his shoulder and leaned over beside his ear. He smelled of smoke and firewood. I have never lit a fire since and not pictured him nor seen a scarecrow and not smiled upon it.
    The Tanner’s atlas was colorful and exact. The greens and yellows like a mythical land. Lake Erie a monster in the left corner eating its way across. The fire did not help Henry Stands’s eyes, nor the rum, I supposed. I pushed my head in closer. He snatched the paper away.
    ‘I think you will not appraise! Eat your supper, deadhead.’
    ‘I have young eyes. I can help.’
    ‘And I am old, is it? Perhaps you can fetch me a cane and I will turn it to a switch! Sit down, boy.’
    I went to my sack and with some slow thought took out my father’s spectacles. Father had need of them for all time and he read his newspaper with them comfortably. I turned and offered them out for mister Stands.
    ‘You may have lend of them. As to the map, I would not know what I am looking at to help you. Although why I should aid one so set on abandoning me I do not know.’
    He rolled again and grunted, taking the spectacles and putting them on as awkwardly as fixing a blindfold with his fat fingers. He looked at the map with his new eyes and said nothing but I could tell he was satisfied. I went back to my eating. He looked gentler now, as if wearing a kindly mask. My father’s face. He went over the map but he told me no more of his plans. When he was done he took off the glasses with care and handed them back without thanks. I folded them and put them in my shirt pocket.
    I ate and finished my laced tea as the owls came out. Henry Stands would stop as one called out and waited for the other to reply, drinking some at each successful call.
    I was drowsy with my tea and wanted to sleep but he bid me clean out the boiler before I fell and he watered the horses with his own canteen. This required him to tickle their throats up and he poured into them. He had to bite Jude Brown’s ear to make him do this. His own horse was used to it.
    He came back to the fire with his head down and waved a hand for me to come in close.
    ‘Take up the boiler,’ he whispered. ‘Make like you are eating from it and pass me your cup.’
    I was afraid at his low voice. This was the worst secret and I could feel it. I could see Thomas Heywood all around me. Mister Stands gave me a hard look. He was warning me to be still and his voice went on as if I would understand.
    ‘An owl did not answer. Make like you are eating and give me that cup.’ I shook as I handed it over and he looked at me as if I were dead. I ate my empty spoon and he poked at the fire.
    ‘You see a white beehive over my shoulder in the trees?’
    I put the boiler to my mouth as if draining it and studied the tree line. There was a white moon shape with stripes like a hive twenty feet away over mister Stands’s head. It had twigs about it and was halfway up a tree. It blinked and I became hollow.
A face without!
I knew then that it was painted white and striped.
    ‘We are not alone.’ Henry Stands’s eyes never raised from the fire. ‘Drink your cup. There is another to your right. He has half a face.’
    I did not know what this meant. I had to speak but kept it in the boiler.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Indians,’ he said, and drew on his pipe.
    There were no Indians in Pennsylvania. I