Trying to look threatening, the young sailor shouted belligerently, “Clear away! You’re fouling my rig!”
Roo moved around the animal, its sides heaving from the exertion, and said, “You cut that too sharp, friend, and now you’re hung up. Do you know how to back this animal?”
It was obvious he didn’t. The sailor swore and jumped down, losing his balance and falling facedown into the thick ooze. Cursing and slipping as he tried to stand, he at last regained his feet and said, “Damn the day I tried to do a favor for a friend.”
Roo looked at the overloaded wagon, now up to the wheel hubs in mud. It was piled high with crates, all covered and lashed down with a canvas cover. “Your friend did you no favor. That load needs two horses or, better, four.”
Just then Jason yelled, “What is all this?”
Before Roo could answer, he heard Kurt’s voice shouting, “Yes, Avery, what is this?”
“A blind man could see we have a wagon stuck in the doorway, Kurt,” he answered.
An inarticulate growl was the best reply he got. Then McKeller’s voice cut through the sound of the driving rain. “What have we here?”
Roo hurried away from the mud-covered sailor and ducked under the neck of the still-panting animal. Without bringing more mud into the entrance, he peered into the coffee house. McKeller and some of the waiters stood there just beyond the splash of mud and rain and watched the spectacle of a horse almost inside the establishment. “The driver is drunk, sir,” explained Roo.
“Drunk or sober, have him get that animal out of here,” demanded the ancient headwaiter.
Roo could see Kurt smirking at the order.
Roo turned and saw the sailor starting to walk away. He took three quick steps—as quick as possible in the ankle-deep mud—and overtook the man. Swinging him around by the arm, he said, “Wait a minute, mate!”
The sailor said, “Yer no mate of mine, bucko, but for all of that, I’ll not hold it against you. Care for a drink?”
“You need a drink like that horse needs another lashing,” said Roo, “but, drunk or not, you need to get that wagon from out of my employer’s doorway.”
The sailor looked halfway between anger and amusement. He took that pose of control assumed by drunks who don’t wish to appear drunk, and slowly said, “Let me explain to you, me lad. A friend of mine named Tim Jacoby—a boyhood chum I just met today—convinced me that it would be better to be a wagon driver in his father’s employ than to risk another voyage.”
Roo glanced back and with alarm saw the horse was attempting to kneel in the mud, an impossible act because of the confining traces. “Oh, gods!” he said, grabbing the sailor’s arm and trying to pull him back toward the wagon. “He’s colicking!”
“Wait a minute!” shouted the sailor, pulling away. “I haven’t finished.”
“No, but the horse has,” said Roo, grabbing the man again.
“I was saying,” continued the sailor, “I was to deliver this wagon to Jacoby and Sons, Freight Haulers, then get my pay.”
The horse started making a sick, squealing noise as McKeller’s voice sounded from the doorway, “Avery, move along, will you now? The customers are starting to be annoyed.”
Propelling the sailor back to the wagon, Roo found the old animal down on its knees, with its back legs trembling furiously. Pulling a knife from his tunic, Roo quickly cut the traces, and as if sensing freedom, the horse struggled to its feet, staggered forward, then collapsed into the mud. With a sigh that sounded like nothing so much as relief, the horse died.
“Damn me,” said the sailor. “What do you think of that?”
“Not bloody much,” said Roo. The horse had managed to stumble around the corner, so that now the other entrance was half-blocked. The exiting and entering patrons could now choose how they would get soaked and muddy: climbing around a filthy wagon or over a dead horse.
McKeller said, “Jason, you and the other boys pull that animal and that wagon away from here.”
Roo shouted, “No!”
McKeller said, “What did you say?”
Roo said, “I meant to say, I wouldn’t advise that, sir.”
Roo could see McKeller peering past the wagon from the doorway as he said, “Why is that?”
Hiking his thumb toward the horse, Roo replied, “That animal was old and sick, but it’s a draft horse. It weighs fourteen hundred pounds if it weighs an ounce. The entire staff’s not going to be able to pull it from that sucking mud. And that wagon was too heavy for it to pull, so we won’t be able to move it.”
“Do you have a suggestion?” called McKeller to the now completely snaked Roo.
Roo’s eyes narrowed and a slight smile crossed his face for a moment as he said, “I think I do.” He turned to the sailor. “Walk to your friend’s company and tell him that if he wants his cargo he can come here to claim it.”