Shaman's Crossing

Page 3

I followed him as we walked a short distance down the street. “That’s a barracks, where soldiers live,” he told me. “And that’s a canteen, tacked onto the end of it. That’s the place where soldiers can get a beer and a bit of relaxation when they aren’t on duty.” The tour of the fort stopped there. The barracks and canteen were constructed of wooden planks, painted green and white. It was a long, low building with an open porch running the length. Off-duty soldiers idled there, sewing, blacking their boots, or talking and smoking or chewing as they sat on hard benches in the paltry shade. Outside the canteen, another porch offered refuge for a class of men I knew well. Too old to serve or otherwise incapacitated, these men wore a rough mix of military uniform and civilian garb. A lone woman in a faded orange dress slouched at one table, a limp flower behind her ear. She looked very tired. Mustered-out soldiers often approached my father in hopes of work and a place to live. If he thought they had any use at all, he usually hired them on, much to my lady mother’s dismay. But these men, I immediately knew, my father would have turned away. Their clothes were unkempt, their unshaven faces smudged with dirt. Half a dozen of them loitered on the benches, drinking beer, chewing tobacco and spitting the brownish stuff onto the dirt floor. The stink of tobacco juice and spilled beer hung in the air.
As we passed by, Parth glanced longingly into the low windows, and then delightedly hailed an old crony of his, one he evidently hadn’t seen in years. I stood by, politely bored, as the two men exchanged reports on their current lives through the window opening. Parth’s friend leaned on the sill and talked to us as we stood in the street. Vev had only recently arrived at the fort, with his wife and his two sons. He’d been mustered out after he injured his back in a fall from his horse. Like many a soldier when his soldiering days were done, he had no resources to fall back on. His wife did a bit of sewing to keep a roof over their heads, but it was rocky going. And what was Parth doing these days? Working for Colonel Burvelle? I saw Vev’s face lighten with interest. He immediately invited Parth to join him in a beer to celebrate their reunion. When I started to follow him up the steps, Parth glared at me. “You wait outside for me, Nevare. I won’t be long.”
“You’re not supposed to leave me alone in town, Corporal Parth,” I reminded him. I’d heard my father articulate that carefully on the ride here; young as I was, I was still a bit surprised he’d forgotten it already. I waited for him to thank me for the reminder. I considered that my due, for whenever my father had to remind me of a rule I had forgotten, I had to thank him and accept the consequences of my lapse.
Instead he scowled at me. “You ain’t alone out here, Nevare. I can see you right from the window, and there’s all these old sojers keeping an eye on you. You’ll be fine. Just sit yourself down by the door and wait like I told you.”
“But I’m supposed to stay with you,” I objected. My order to stay in Parth’s company was a separate order from his to watch me and show me the fort. He might get in trouble for leaving me alone outside. And I feared my father would do more than rebuke me for not following Parth as I was supposed to.
His drinking companion came up with a solution. “My boys Raven and Darda are out there, laddie. They’re down by the corner of the smithy, playing knife toss with the other lads. Whyn’t you go and see how it’s done, and play a little yourself? We won’t be gone long. I just want to talk to your Uncle Parth here about what it takes to find a cushy job like what he’s found for himself, nursiemaiding for old Colonel Burvelle.”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak of the boy’s pa in front of him! Do you think he hasn’t got a tongue of his own, to wag on about how you talk? Shut it, Vev, before you put my job on the block.”
“Well, I didn’t mean anything, as I’m sure Colonel Laddie knew, right, lad?”
I grinned uncertainly. I knew that Vev was needling Parth on purpose, and perhaps mocking my father and me into the bargain. I didn’t understand it. Weren’t they friends? And if Vev was insulting Parth, why didn’t we just walk away like gentlemen, or demand satisfaction of him, as often happened in the tales my eldest sister read aloud to my younger sister when my parents were not about? It was all very confusing, and as there had been much talk over my head of late that I must be taught how men did things now or I should grow up to be effeminate, I hesitated long over what response I should make.
Parth had a powerful thirst and Vev had offered to buy the beer to satisfy it. That was what mattered most to him, for my corporal suddenly gave me a none-too-gentle push in the direction of some older boys lounging at the corner of a warehouse and told me to go play, he’d only be a moment or two. He immediately clomped up the steps and vanished into the tavern. I was left unchaperoned on the street.