The auction drew a huge crowd, folks from all over the counties and even some from as far away as Great Neck, the city where all the Oldlanders came into the country. I rubbed elbows with rich folk and farmers as we all paraded through the pens inside the barns. I saw great shire work horses and big work mules, trotters and riding horses. Even oxen and dairy cattle with calves at their side.
New arrivals were coming in all the time so I hung out at the Registrar’s shed checking out the horses as they were entered on his lists. That’s when I overheard a Freidan boast about purchasing two of the finest mares he had ever seen, two bay racehorses if he was any judge of horseflesh and he was there to pick out a stud to breed them. I butted my way in.
“Where? Where did you buy them and where are they now?” I demanded.
“Who are you?” the Freidlander snapped.
“Toby Spencer. I’ve had four mares stolen from my farm. I’m here to pick them up.”
“I’ve got papers on these horses,” he returned.
“Bays, 16 hands. One mare has a white sock and a star, the other is a dark bay with a blaze and two stockings. Wheatears on the neck, no chestnuts on the front legs and a scar above the off-hind coronary band. Carry their tails to the left and the tip of one ear is missing on the bigger mare. Both are six years old. They’ll come to me when I call.”
He stared at me, his mouth agape. “Both are dark with no white.”
“They’ll be dyed. Neither are broken to harness. One mare’s had a foal, she’s got an udder. Where are they?”
“At my farm in Depot.”
“How much did you pay for them?” I asked my mouth dry. He named a sum that made me snort, they were worth 10 times that much. “I’ll be speaking to the Constable and the Judge,” I said. “To get my horses back.”
“If you can prove they’re yours, take them,” he said “I won’t keep stolen stock.”
“I’m still looking for the other two and my stallion,” I looked at him hopefully.
“I haven’t seen them. Just the fellow who sold me the mares, a tall, heavy fellow with muttonchops and named Grove.”
“What’s your name?”
“Henri Chalfant.”
“I’ll be watching for you after I speak to the Judge.” I stared, memorizing his features before I hustled back to the courthouse in the Constable’s office finding him conversing with the judge.
“Well, if it isn’t the bounty hunter,” he snorted.
“Judge, Constable, I found two of my animals. I want you to come with me out to the man’s farm and pick them up,” I interrupted rudely.
“Whose place?” The judge asked.
“He says his name is Henri Chalfant.”
“I know Henri. He’s cheap but he’s not a thief. If he says he bought them, he did it in good faith.”
“Well, they’re mine and I want them back,” I repeated.
“You’ve seen them? Positively identified them?” That was the Constable sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
“No, but he’s described them and I recognized them.”
“Go check them out, Anderson. If they’re yours, Spencer, come back and we’ll head out there and liberate them.”
“By then, the mares will be gone,” I yelled in frustration. I strode out, slammed the courtroom doors and went back to the auction yard searching for the Freidlander. When I found him, I insisted we leave for his place and reluctantly, he agreed.
I’d already scouted out the horse lot and not seen my other horses. When Chalfant saw Beau and Peony, his eyes lightened. “Laoch spironie,” he gasped. “These two look just like the two I bought.”
“Peony is the younger mare’s dam,” I answered. I followed him out to the spring wagon, mounted up behind a smart looking Caladian horse of almost black hue as he drove east towards Hamilton. He chattered nonstop the entire way, telling me about his people who had come down from Acadia and settled in the area after the borderland wars. Of being in the Navy and escaping from all the warships before coming home to the farm and raising sheep and wool for the Mills. I was expecting a small farmhouse. What I saw rivaled the Governor’s mansion, he must’ve been a big-time wool merchant to afford such a spread.
Servants came out of the house to take the reins of his cob and greet him. “Will you come in for a drink and a meal, Mr. Spencer?” He asked me. I told him no, that I was in a hurry to find the rest of my animals.
Inside the three-story pole barn in box stalls facing each other, I found two of my horses. Well fed, deep bedded but sporting no white markings at all. They put their delicate muzzles in my hand and lipped me softly. I buried my face in Athena’s neck and sobbed quietly reminded again of my mother’s bludgeoned face. Athena had been her favorite mount and the other mare was Falice. The Freidlander said nothing but ordered them haltered and let out.
“I don’t need halters,” I denied. “They’ll follow me.”
“Well, Tobias, are you going to drag them along with you all the way?”
I grinned sheepishly, “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, Mr. Chalfount.”
“I have a proposal to make. Will you do me the courtesy to listen?” I answered him in Freidsch and he smiled, a great big flash of white teeth and pink gums, rattling off a week’s worth of conversation in Freidsch. I understood most of it, here and there a word that sounded different, most likely from his Acadian accent. “You speak Freidsch!”
“My father spoke many languages and he taught me.”
“Wonderful. My proposal is this. You leave your two horses here and I will feed and house them for a stabling fee and you pick them up on your successful trip back. And I get first crack at your first foal crop.”
We haggled over the fees but I was satisfied as he’d already taken good care of the mares while he had them. In truth, having two more would prove to be a distinct disadvantage in the woods. He tried to entice me to stay the night but I was eager to keep on especially after he told me he’d heard of other blood horses being sold down towards Alban Springs. I patted both mares and put them up, told them I’d be back soon and rode out.
He and his people watched me ride off heading south along the turnpike towards Albans and the Hudspeth River. I knew I had to cross on the ferry and wasn’t sure how Beau and Peony would take to that. Then again, I had nigh on a hundred and fifty miles to worry about it before I got there.
I loved riding in the woods. The smell of the trees, the smokiness of fallen leaves and the crisp crackle as the horses’ hooves marched through the piles. The chuckling of water as it bounded over rocks and the smell of piney woods and mossy swamps.
The trail I was on was an old one, worn and rutted by many others before me and kept to the high ridges rather than go up and down the valleys. Because it was higher, it was colder and to find a decent camp, I came down into the valley to find a spot sheltered with water and grass for the horses. I was lucky enough to come upon an old campsite with a ring of rocks already set up covered with old ashes.
I stepped down and unsaddled as I let both horses loose to graze while I gathered deadwood for a fire. Coffee brewed in the pot as I fried bacon and journey cakes, ate my last piece of saved pie squatting on my haunches next to the flames.
Dark came quickly like a woman dropping her skirts on a child as the night hushed. I tried to read by the firelight but it was too dark and shadowy so I stretched out and watched the stars. I fell asleep with my eyes on Orion and the Gibbons book on my chest.
I woke up to see something standing over me about to collide with my head. I rolled frantically out-of-the-way grabbing for my musket as I was knocked over onto my ass. I yelped and teeth bit me tearing my shirt and my coat. I put out my hand and touched bone and hair. I sighed in relief, clucked and managed to get to my feet as the nearly black head of the new stallion pushed into me again. I could barely see him, unsaddled and with a broken halter on his head. He lowered his face as I scratched between his eyes.
“Diomed, mi carriadhe,” I spoke to him in Ehresh, the language of horses and he nipped me with his teeth. “Were you a bad stud? Tracking me on your own? Boy, I am glad to see you.”
Running my hands over every inch of him, I checked for spur and lash marks, cuts, bumps or soreness. His mane had been roached and his tail shortened but without light, I couldn’t see anything else. I did not feel any problems and he seemed as fleshy as before he’d been stolen.
I heard men’s shouts, more than I could handle from the sound of them so I threw myself atop the stud and kneed him down the hill calling quietly to the other two horses. They followed. I hated to leave my gear behind but I had managed to get my rucksack and musket.
Diomed slipped down the hillside on his haunches, the pair close behind me. Shouts followed us and I wished desperately for moonlight, starlight, anything to see by so I could urge the stallion into a gallop. Once he was running, no one could catch him. Unfortunately, we were in the deep woods and I had only my knees to guide him as both hands were occupied. I used one to brush away branches and the other held my musket strap and pack.
“Son of a bitch!” I heard and then a loud thump as someone met a tree trunk. I wouldn’t snicker or the fates would mock me next. Diomed broke into a canter and started going flat rather than downhill so I assumed he was on a broader trail. He ran as if the very devil was behind us instead of two horses and men. I kept low and prayed I wouldn’t meet up with a low hanging branch. I felt the horse gather his hindquarters under him and he leaped over something. I wasn’t sure if it was a ditch or a log but shortly after a half mile mad gallop, he broke down to a prancing trot, a walk and blew catching his breath. I slid off, listened and heard only the sound of Peony and Beau trotting up behind me. That gave me time to drag out one of the halters in my sack and fashion a set of reins to it with the extra leads. I pulled the rucksack back on and slid the musket over my shoulder. My powder and balls were back at camp, along with my cookware, bedrolls and saddle. I still had my money, my clothes, papers and pistol, my coat and best of all, Diomed. He was as good as a watchdog and faster than anything around, capable of making me enough monies to replace what I’d lost.
I scratched his neck and he cow-kicked at me, tried to nip at me is if he blamed me for his kidnapping. I slapped him and told him to behave. I could well imagine what a pain he’d been to whoever had stolen him. He was an ornery, opinionated devil of a horse and tolerated only a few people. He’d only been ridden by a handful of which my father had been one. He loved my mum and went like a lady’s palfrey for her but then, she was half horse.
Of the three, Beau was the smoothest to ride bareback so I climbed on him and led the other two. Diomed wanted to flirt with Peony and charge the gelding but a few quick slaps changed his mind. He could behave when he wanted to. I dozed, the only one part of me that was warm were my legs against both sides of the horse but getting sweaty and prickly from his roughening coat. I kept one hand out to deflect branches from my face, but luckily this trail descended into a valley along the river and broadened so that I didn’t have to worry about getting knocked off.
Dawn found us heading southeast in the opposite direction than from where we’d started. I saw no post signs, no travelers on the water and no recent wheel marks from carriages. I had no clue where I was or where we were heading.
The town after Glenbrook was Hamilton, the next largest Alban. I didn’t think I was heading towards the city nor was the river the Shannaque. In the dark, I could have doubled back. The worst I could do was wind up back in Glenbrook and have to retrace my steps.
I didn’t have any food left but I did have a set of hooks in my hat and fishing line. Fishing the river seemed a good idea if I wanted breakfast and I figured I was far enough away from those that were following me and the stud. Besides, I was tired from riding all night and my rear end was ready to have a respite off that horse’s spine. Dropping to the ground, I sighed with relief and let them graze on the rich bottom grass along the banks.
There was an elbow of the river where a back eddy curled and a likely spot to throw in a line. The only bait I could find were some old grubs in a dead log. I hooked and threw in a line.