Chapter Five
Home Again
Aidan was about to turn his horse off River Road and into the cart path leading to the manor house when his brother Percy burst through the gate at a dead run and lurched to a stop in front of him. Percy was eighteen now, and his responsibilities at Longleaf Manor were growing as he moved into manhood. But in his enthusiasms, he was as boyish as ever.
“Aidan!” he shouted breathlessly, not even bothering to say hello to the brother he hadn’t seen in nearly a year. “You’ve got to see this!” He grabbed the horse by the bridle and, horse and brother in tow, ran down the trail that led to the River Tam.
Aidan was anxious to see his father, his other brothers, and the old home place after so long an absence. But it was hard not to be carried away by Percy’s enthusiasm. “What’s at the river?” he asked. But as soon as the question was out of his mouth, the river came into view and he could see for himself.
Around the upstream bend a huge timber raft slid along the surface of the water. It must have been constructed from forty full-grown pine trees lashed together, and they made a floating floor more than half the size of the floor in King Darrow’s great hall. At the front of the raft, two men wearing buckskin and coonhide caps were straining at a long pole that reached into the water. The pole was an oar-sweep—a forty-foot-long paddle whittled from a single pine sapling and balanced on a waist-high oar bench. In the spring of the year, when the water was high, a skilled rafthand could stand at the back of a raft and, using that one long oar, guide a hundred tons of pine trees around any bend or whirl the River Tam might offer.
But these obviously weren’t skilled rafthands. The back of the raft was where the front was supposed to be, and the front was where the back was supposed to be. They were drifting down the river in a slow spin, in spite of their efforts with the oar-sweep. They were utterly at the mercy of the current. Aidan shielded his eyes against the high sun and peered upriver at the vast bulk of pine logs lumbering toward them, sideways now. “Who are those people?” he asked.
“A couple of gator hunters up from Last Camp,” answered Percy. “They bought a load of logs from a farmer clearing a field above Hustingreen.” The Errolsons watched one of the gator hunters get knocked into the river by the swinging oar-sweep, and Percy couldn’t help chuckling while the other hunter, the bearded one, fished him out. “They thought it would be a good idea to build the logs into a raft and float them down to Big Bend.”
“Big Bend?” snorted Aidan. “I’ll be amazed if they make it around the next bend. How do they expect to make it all the way to Last Camp?”
The Errolsons watched the approaching vessel get closer. For the moment it was oriented correctly: bow in the front, stern in the back. But it was already going into another rotation. “Ebbe was at Hustingreen this morning when they came barreling through,” said Percy, smiling at the old house servant’s description of the scene. “Said they had the whole village in an uproar. They came shooting out of the upper shoals like a hog on ice, taking out everything in their way. Smashed up a few fishing skiffs, barely missed the ferryboat, and the whole time those two swampers are shouting and yelling at one another, riding that sweep like a bucking horse.” Percy pointed at the raft and chuckled. “About like they’re doing now.”
The raft was less than a hundred strides away, and they could hear the hunter-raftsmen yelling at one another.
“Pull to the starboard!” called the one with a beard.
“I am pulling to the starboard!” shouted the other, obviously irritated.
“Nah, starboard’s the other way when the boat’s going backerds.”
The men’s faces were red from yelling and pulling. The fact that they pulled in opposite directions didn’t help.
“Somebody’s got to be cap’n, and I reckon it ought to be the one with some sense.”
The raftsmen had stopped pulling in opposite directions. Now they were pushing one another. The raft, meanwhile, was booming down on Longleaf landing.
Percy cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to be heard over the men’s bickering. “Ahoy there, sailor men!”
The raftsmen, who had stopped paying attention to where they were going, were surprised to hear a human voice on this lonely stretch of river—and especially so close. They were stern-first again, and from their post at the oar bench, they were only a few feet away from the Errolsons.
“Throw me a line,” offered Percy, “and I’ll tie you up.” The bearded raftsman, the self-appointed captain of the vessel, let go of the oar-sweep and bent to sling the heavy rope that coiled at the near corner of the raft. At the same time, the sweep grounded itself in the deep river mud and levered the other rafter off his feet. The force of the massive raft against the long oar-sweep catapulted the hapless gator hunter well up the bank and then snapped the pole like a dry twig.
The captain sighed as he watched Aidan help his partner to his feet. “Well, Floyd, I reckon that’s one way to disembark from a timber raft.” He hopped onto the bank while Percy secured the raft with a hitch knot around a cypress tree. “But it’s a sight too show-offy for me.” He shook Percy’s hand, then Aidan’s. “I’m Massey,” he said, “cap’n of this ship. And the gymnast here is Floyd.”
Floyd shook hands with the Errolsons too. “Massey ain’t no more cap’n than a muskrat is,” he said, smiling, “but he’s right about one thing. My name’s Floyd.”
“We’re the Errolsons,” said Aidan. “He’s Percy, and I’m Aidan.”
“Errolsons?” exclaimed Massey. He seemed a little disappointed. “Does that mean we ain’t no further down-river than Longleaf?”
“Afraid so,” answered Percy.
“Ha!” barked Floyd. “I told you, Massey!” He looked at Aidan and Percy. “The cap’n here was sure we was just around the corner from Big Bend.”
Massey grumbled something about the difference between a captain and a navigator, directing a significant look at Floyd. But he thought it best to change the subject as quickly as possible. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You said your name was Aidan?”
“Yessir,” answered Aidan.
“Aidan Errolson?”
“Hey,” interrupted Floyd. “You’re the feller killed the Pyrthen giant.”
“Well,” began Aidan, “he wasn’t really a giant…”
“We was there,” said Floyd excitedly, “both of us.”
“And if that weren’t a giant,” said Massey, “I ain’t never seen a giant.” He swelled his chest up, rose up on his tiptoes, and stalked around a few steps. Floyd twirled his coonskin cap above his head, pantomiming Aidan’s motion with a sling, and then let an imaginary stone fly at Massey. Massey staggered in a circle and then flopped down in the sand in imitation of the epic fall of Greidawl, the Pyrthen champion.
“You’ve growed since then,” remarked Floyd.
Percy reached a hand down to help Massey to his feet. “Get up, Greidawl,” he said. “And you two come eat dinner with us.”
“Supper too,” added Aidan. “You can’t go anywhere until you get a new oar-sweep. We’ll get Carver to start working on one right away. You can leave in the morning.”
“Why, sure,” said Massey. “We’d be proud to stay the night at the House of Errol.” And with that, the four-some headed up the path to the manor house.