They rode big horses with heavy rears and small heads, eastern bred for the Ranger’s service or Emperor’s troops. There were many such animals roaming under use by the discharged and freely moving warriors from the war. One of the animals was an odd buckskin color, the other a golden yellow with white mane and tail, blaze and four white feet. Wearing heavy saddles that were double rigged, I had never seen anything like them before.
Both men were small, five foot six and light boned wearing the remains of uniforms of blue tunic in serge and trousers of heavy twill with stripes down the seams so that they did not rub the inside of their legs on the leathers. High cavalry boots and bowlers, not uniform caps. Both of them carried shotguns and muskets and one had an officer’s sword on his right side.
“You alone, boy?” the older one asked, his blue eyes scanning the camp. He was older than my father, early forties with a weathered face and sun wrinkles. His accent was southern, almost a drawl. He spat tobacco juice off to his right, missing his foot in the stirrup. Their saddles creaked.
“I ain’t alone,” I stated. “I got me a pistol and a musket and two horses.”
He watched my hands under my coat. “You got the fixings for coffee?”
“Just tea.”
“Tea! We been here in the Newlands for over twenty years. Mind if we share your camp?”
“The fire’s yours. I’m up and off to the Constable’s in Sageny, he’s expecting me,” I lied getting slowly to my feet. I tucked the Dragoon into my belt and started to pack up as they dismounted.
The older man made up a pot of coffee and unloaded a cast iron skillet before proceeding to cook bacon. His buddy brought over a bucket of water and fussed with their mounts.
“Eastern bred?” I asked admiring their chunky build and strong muscles. They made my own mounts look weedy.
“Wild caught on the range west of the White Fangs.” He named the fierce mountain range where the Emperor’s forces had driven the last of Borderland natives into hiding. “Yours? Look like blooded horses.” He eyed the gelding’s long legs, long neck and fine boned head.
“Just a farm horse, part trotter,” I returned. “The mare’s from Caladia.”
“My name is Penn Rhodes. My partner is Haliburton Lewis, call him Hal. We’re up scouting for some thieves. Counterfeiters.”
“Counterfeiters? Of what? You Rangers?”
“Government Councilmen. From Albans. You an Oldlander? I hear an accent.”
“My father was from Gleneden. I’m Toby Spenser.”
“What are you doing down this way? Isn’t your father’s place out by Cayden’s Valley?” Now I was suspicious that they knew my name and township. “Constable from out your way sent a message about your parents and to warn you to return, not to take on this vengeance trail.”
“I’m going to get my horses back and bring those murderers to justice,” I retorted. “If I depend on that fat, lazy Constable, I’ll die of old age before he gets on his horse.”
“You’re going to wind up in a grave out in the pines yourself, boy, if you keep up this foolishness. You ain’t no tracker or Ranger and certainly no bounty hunter. Let those men take care of it. How old are you, anyway?”
“Sixteen, mister. I’ve been to Albans, Caladia and Fort Tigh all by my ownself, I don’t need no babysitters. I’ve bushwhacked since I was eleven. I’ve seen the elephant and ain’t afraid or stupid. I know who took my livestock and I aim to find them and read them from the book. Then, I’ll go home.”
I mounted the gelding and kicked him into a hand gallop with the mare following close behind. We ran for three miles before I pulled him down to a walk and let both of the horses blow to catch their wind. Beau was no race horse like Diomed but there wasn’t another animal capable of keeping up with the gelding once he found his stride and the mare was a close second in speed and stamina. They had been part of the legacy my grandfather had given my father when he had left to make his fortune in the Newlands after the war.
The flies and mosquitoes were bad along the water. As soon as we slowed, hordes of them swarmed us. I prayed for the first cold snap to put an end to their misery. I looked where we could get away from the biting flies and finally decided to head up onto the ridges where the stagecoach lines ran.
Up high, the only torment were the deer flies but at least the scenery was prettier and the view clearer. I could see the valleys, the small hamlets nestled below and smoke from the railroad’s charcoal pits burning busily away.
The leaves were changing colors to the west, just a few turning bronze and crimson red. The willows along the creeks were butter yellow through the glint of blue. Before too long, snow would cover these ridges and hills, making travel through the area difficult if not impossible.
There was plenty of deer sign but I really didn’t want to take one, besides the hours spent in butchering I had no way to preserve the meat and refused to eat it raw. I settled for rabbit instead and spent a quiet hour on the river taking both a good-sized bass and catfish.
I came into Brookglen after dark and the main street over the Chinanago and Delos rivers was dark except for the saloon where lights spilled out onto the dirt. A few drunks were sitting on the boardwalk hugging the posts and honky-tonk piano music drifted down the lane. The hostel was closed so I pulled up in front of the ale house and dismounted. Walking inside, I was greeted by a collection of farmers, merchants and the constable wearing his uniform open to show off his long john top and more than half drunk. They were singing sea chanties which surprised me as most of the population in this area were of Oldlander stock from the farmlands of the inner plains.
They moved out of the way so I could reach the bar and the saloonkeeper poured me a beer without asking. He was an older man with muttonchops whiskers and little on top, his nose a testament to his own drinking.
I gave him a four pence and looked around for a table finding one in the corner near the windows. He sent a barmaid out to ask me if I wanted a meal, a pretty young girl with red hair and freckles, she rattled off the menu. She was as old country as I had ever seen and she flirted with me over the hum of conversation, pulling up a chair and sitting with me which elicited frowns from the older men. The bartender yelled over the crowd, “Beatrice! Get back to work!”
She leaned towards my ear and whispered, “Meet me at the pump house when you’re done.”
I nodded solemnly and resolved to be out of there before she could corral me into trouble. Her dad looked the type to shoot first and ask questions later.
Supper was thick venison steaks, gravy, biscuits and applesauce. There must’ve been a bumper crop for apples this year, I had applesauce with nearly every meal. Of course, I never turned down pie. A growing boy could eat his weight in apple pie. Deep dish, crumb, dried apple and raisin. I was connoisseur of all things pie.
I listened to the drinkers and they were discussing the conditions in the South, how slavery was an injustice to the few Overlanders that had remained and it wouldn’t surprise them if war broke out again with a draft to follow. A tall, thin farmer complained that his team was stolen right out of his barn while he was hitching his mules to the logging chains, he’d searched in vain for them. Heard the Lemieux gang was involved but couldn’t prove anything. They saw his sister, Cornelia in the neighborhood but that was the only clue that it might have been them.
The constable snorted. “Ain’t a soul would testify against those boys unless you want your barn burned down. Fact is, I saw Plum go through Glenbrook last week with four horses. Had papers on them, bloodied animals from their looks.”
I stood up. “Two bays and two blacks? And a stud horse?”
“I didn’t see no stud. Just mares. Had no white markings on them, solid colored animals with long legs. You know ‘em?”
“I own them. They were stolen from my father’s farm a week ago. They murdered my parents.”
“Lemieux’s might be thieves but they ain’t killers,” someone muttered and I rounded on them.
“Tell that to my father. He saw them and told me so before he died,” I snapped. “And I aim to bring back my horses and whoever done it.” I stormed out of the bar, caught up my reins and rode out of town. I made it as far as the Jericho and took a bed in the barn near my mounts. I went hungry because the kitchen was closed. When I checked my pockets, I was down to my last gold piece and a handful of small coins equal to a day’s pay.
I slept fitfully, it was chilly under my bedroll and greatcoat, and the nights were shading into winter, fall dropping away rapidly after a long Indian summer. I heard the stage come in and it woke me. The hostler nearly tripped over me as he led in the coach horses. I stood up, stretched and stayed out of his way as he set the four animals into their tie stalls. “Come in late?”
“After midnight,” I admitted. “I owe you for the bed. And my horses’ stalls.”
He shrugged. “Pay for feed and the horses. Sleeping’s free. Where are you headed?”
“I’m looking for some horses. Stolen about a week ago, came through near here. Four mares and a stud. Have you seen them?”
“I heard up North towards Glenbrook some Gleneden bred horses were for sale. Mares, though. No stud horse. A Daughter of True Briton.”
“Did they say who had them?” I asked and wasn’t surprised at the answer. Lemieux.
I ate breakfast inside, eggs, toast and coffee. The tea was weak. Loaded up on supplies and was back on the road by daylight, right behind the next coach which was headed to Rabbit Town and the Forks. I rode close enough to hold a conversation with the driver, a young man named Timothy Ives who lived nearby. He warned me that the gang had informers who were cousins all along the route from Waterville to Albans and way houses where they stashed stolen animals. They stole sheep, dairy cows, horses and whatever they could get their hands on, even whole teams attached to their wagons.
I rode the ridge line with them until they turn off to Glenbrook and there, I found tracks of my horses that I recognized. The four mares were being ridden at a good pace and the tracks were over a week old mingled with a pair of work horses and a mule. It took me two days hard riding before I reached Glenbrook and it was wild country with heavy forests, swampy trails and cemeteries stuck in lonely meadows buried in tall grass.
The town itself was a good sized village with a mill, general store, jail, bank and library. A barber shop sat on the crossroad next to a funeral parlor and four taverns. There were a few places to eat, a stable and blacksmith’s, a small hostel and a horse auction. Attached next to the corrals was a stone barn and in the area was a herd of everything from chickens to goats mingling in the pens. A whole mess of folk were waiting to buy and sell. I made my way to the Constable’s office first and dismounted, tying my two horses out front to his hitching rails. As I went inside, I saw where three uniformed men were standing around the pot-bellied stove drinking coffee.
“Constable,” I interrupted. “My name is Tobias Spencer---.”
“I heard about you,” he said. “You’re tracking down some stolen horses.”
“Yes. And murderers.”
“Let’s leave that to the Emperor’s law, Mr. Spencer.” He eyed my musket and the Dragoon revolver in my waistband. “Where are you from?”
“Cayden’s Valley.”
“Huh,” he said thoughtfully. “The Warlord’s Land Grant. Where’s your family?”
“I’m a Newlander, sir,” I retorted. “Born in these lands regardless of where my father was born or how I speak.”
“Gleneden, huh? Well, it’s better than Tenesk,” he named the colony that had been started by imprisoned criminals and thieves. He turned to one of the other constables. “Bull, get a description of his livestock and we’ll print some flyers. Don’t get your hopes up. Ain’t never found a one of them stolen animals yet. I think the thieves push them over the Borders to the Oldlander refugees.”
I sat down while the aide laboriously wrote out descriptions of each mare and the stud horse. He asked if I would post a reward and I said yes, 100 gold pieces which I didn’t have but hoped I could appeal to my grandfather for help. He asked if I had a hundred golds and scoffed when I said the Government Council in Albans would cover it.
“Why?”
“Because he’s my uncle.” That brought an uncomfortable silence, the Governor of Albans and the Ehrenberg Ambassador were close friends.
“Did you notify him of your parents’ death?” He asked me.
“Not yet. I was going to send a letter when I reached Albans.”
“Wait a bit. I’ll organize a mounted patrol and we’ll track through here. You say you heard the horses come through Brookglen?”
“The auction is this weekend. I suspect they will be here with my horses.”
“More than likely, they’ll be sold closer to the big city where no one will know them. They’re probably already in Albans and gone.”
“Then, I’ll head to Albans.”
“You staying for the Auction?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“The Pradmount is a good clean, cheap hotel. They will feed you and your horse. Got money?”
“Yes, sir,”
“Don’t be lugging around those guns. Check them in at the Hotel.”
I didn’t like that but nodded. I turned on my heel and walked out. All four of them followed and watched me lead my horses down the main street towards the smaller hotel.