We stared at the dilapidated tenement for a long time. The porch steps didn’t just head up but also keeled sideways and, in two places, sagged before finishing at a porch that was smeared with tobacco-spit slime. The front door was cracked open. Slurred voices and laughter, drunken like the stairs, spilled out of the taproom. To the right of the door, an unseasonably warm breeze swung a painted sign that read TICKLENAKED TAVERN. Behind us, two rickety shacks of slapped-together, ill-fitted logs slumped on the yard between several tree stumps.
Around these remains of trees, chickens wandered in their peculiar fashion, like stout women skirting puddles while wearing too-small shoes with too-high heels. They pecked at the yard, which was unctuous with mud, and circled a solitary young man, my age or a bit older.
This person was neatly dressed in delicate yellow pantaloons, a long-tailed blue coat, and boots that, although caked in mud on their lower halves, brilliantly gleamed around the top tassels. His cleanliness, in contrast to Gid’s and my filth, would have sufficed to surprise me. His present occupation guaranteed my astonishment: perched on a stump, with a beautiful chestnut horse tethered to the post behind him and a case open on his lap, he was inspecting a fiddle’s strings.
A ruckus brought my attention back to the alehouse. Rear first, a body tumbled through the door. It fell toward the porch, emitted a giggle, and crashed back until it sprawled, arms and legs splayed, like an ugly mat. After disgorging it, the door swung shut.
From our sleigh, Fancy barked once, then, perhaps observing this individual’s unthreatening position, returned her silky head to her paws and closed her eyes.
“The devil!” I bent to get a good look at the supine body. “Is he dead?”
Frowning, Gideon grabbed my arm and yanked me away.
“Dead drunk,” the man on the stump answered without taking his eyes off his instrument. He pinged each string and murmured, “No harm done. The E’s a little flat, but that’s more the fault of the thaw than the villains.” He reached up and soothed the neck of his horse. The animal answered the caress by dipping her head and snuffling the man’s palm. “They’re gone now. Don’t you fret.” The thick woods resounded with a sudden crackling, like ground-borne thunder. At my startled look, the young man smiled sardonically. “Breaking river ice.” He splayed a hand. “Welcome to the Genesee Valley in the springtime.”
“Spring,” Gideon groaned, and cast a mournful glance at our sleigh. From the seat, Fancy raised her sleepy head again and peered inquisitively back at him. I knew what Gid was thinking. We would have to take the runners off the chain-locked wheels and turn our sled back into a wagon. No point in trying to drive a sleigh when winter gave up its white. Already we’d spent the better part of the journey between Albany and Canandaigua dragging over snow that was half mud. Indeed, just a short while ago when we’d stopped to dispatch a letter to our family, the sleigh had almost gotten stuck in the postmaster’s yard. The wheels wouldn’t fare much better than the runners if the snow and ice disappeared—not on the wet, pitted, uneven, tree-strewn cart tracks that apparently counted as serviceable lanes in these parts. Too mucky. We’d sink.
The tavern blared another scream of laughter. Just as Gideon reached for the latch and lifted his foot to step over the unconscious person blocking our way, the young man on the stump suggested mildly, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”
Gid hesitated and turned to face the stranger. “Er … why?”
The man rested the fiddle in the case with the kind of tenderness one might perceive in a new mother situating her firstborn in a cradle. He shut and latched the case, then stood. “Because you’ll encounter a nest of vipers, that’s why. First they’ll jostle you to a table. Then they’ll chuckle and pat you on the back and ask you all sorts of chummy questions. Then they’ll send a couple of rascals into the yard to inspect your enticingly loaded sleigh. Then they’ll steal whatever they want from it.” He raised his shoulders in an elegant shrug. “I know. Minutes ago, I fell prey to a variation on that theme. They removed the sacks of potash I’d hoped to sell. They nearly stole my horse. I managed to secure the latter at the cost of the former—and saved my violin, too, thank goodness.” He patted the case, doffed his beaver hat, and bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself. Phineas Lionel Standen: violinist, horseman, and impoverished farmer. And you are?”
“Gideon Winter.” My brother took a cautious step back from the door and, jerking his head to indicate I ought to follow, made his way down the crooked stairs to the sludgy yard.
I trailed slowly, my backward gaze more wistful than nervous. After all of these horrid days and nights, how I wished—nay, yearned—for hot water and a cleansing bath. I itched. I stank. My apparel (my precious, meticulously sewn, and precisely fitted apparel!) was no longer the least bit smart but shockingly filthy. And, oh, to sleep in a bed again! I’d enjoyed a real bed only once during this vicious journey, when we’d stayed with the Hubers. But that had been weeks ago. I was sick of sleeping in that wagon.
Phineas Lionel Standen was staring at me expectantly.
“Oh. Sorry. Frederick.”
“Just Frederick?”
I gave my brother a sour look. “Mostly just Freddy.”
Gid cleared his throat. “Freddy’s a foundling.”
“Ah.” Phineas eyed me dispassionately. “You’ve more height than years, I think”—his sigh, profound and weary, prefaced a shake of his head—“and your whole long life ahead of you.” His tone made it clear I was not in an enviable position.
A laugh escaped me. “I guess a disease could always put the period to my existence sooner rather than later.”
One corner of his mouth slid up. “You’ll have plenty of opportunities in this wilderness to make a fragment of your life sentence. Wait until mosquito season. Wait for the fever and ague. Wait until your store of wheat runs out. Wait until the feed’s gone and you have to hope your oxen can survive by browsing on parched foliage throughout the winter. Wait until you start browsing right alongside them. Starvation. Bears. Wolves. Rattlesnakes.” He glanced at the tavern. “Drunkenness. So many simple ways to cut short the complicated syntax of our worldly composition.”
I closed my mouth, glanced at Gid, then managed weakly, “Thank the Lord for heaven.”
“Well, it’s the least he can promise after punishing us with so much hell.”
The blasphemous remark, blandly made, left my brother and me speechless.
Our new acquaintance didn’t seem to notice. He was brushing his horse’s pretty coat with his hand. After shifting the fiddle case, he turned to face the animal’s tail and leaned into her side to urge her to raise one of her hind legs. He held the hoof, inspected its underside, and asked, “Where are you heading?”
“The town of Gaines,” Gideon said. “Eventually.”
Phineas immediately released the horse and straightened. “Really? That’s remarkable.”
The boyish pleasure lighting his face warmed me to him.
“Though I suppose it shouldn’t shock me,” he conceded. “It’s our area that’s currently getting settled, after all. But still. First the brothers and now two more neighbors. Gaines will be a metropolis before we know it.”
“You’ve met Robert and Edward Welds, then?”
“You know them?”
“Yes, indeed. We’re all from Middleton, New Hampshire.”
“So you must be the friend Robert mentioned.…” Phineas’s gaze swung in my direction before returning to Gid. “I was expecting a solitary traveler.”
“I picked up Freddy along the way.” Phineas didn’t respond, merely waited with his eyebrows raised, so my brother added, “He was stranded.”
“Desperate and on the run,” I corrected, intent on savoring my exciting, albeit fictitious, past.
“After getting out of a bad situation with an unkind employer,” Gid said.
“A vicious blackguard of a silversmith,” I clarified, “who beat me and threatened to kill me if I didn’t slave night and day and answer his every unreasonable demand.”
My brother briefly closed his eyes.
Phineas nodded slowly, his expression bemused. “Got to watch out for those wicked silversmiths.”
“An unsavory bunch,” I agreed.
“Will you search for your family?”
“Can’t.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re Mr. Freddy of Unknown Parentage. I wonder what happened to your folks.”
“Highwaymen, I suspect.”