Visions of Liberty Part 12

When Chapin finished setting everything out, he asked Faelin to inspect the goods for flaws.

" 'Cause it's yours once it goes into your saddlebags.' "

Then he hopped up on a tall three-legged stool, bent his hands back to crack his knuckles, and said: "So what do you have to trade, Faelin?"

Faelin pulled out some nails.

"Nails are good," Chapin said, hopping down from his stool, agile as a monkey to check their heft and quality. "These are good nails. They'll cover the poultry, flour and sack, wax, and, because I'm in a good mood and leather buckets aren't moving since we got a cooper in town, the buckets. What you got to cover the shovels?"

Faelin glowered at Chapin. There had been a few chuckles about the buckets, chuckles that made him feel uncomfortably like an outsider.

"Leather buckets are good," he growled. "And my mate and I can mend them ourselves."

Chapin waved a hand airily. "Don't be such a hard case, Faelin. Can't you see I'm having a joke at my own expense? I over-bought last winter and all the pakeha know it."

Rather than being soothed, Faelin felt even more out of place at this reminder that he was a newcomer.

"What do you want for the shovels?" he asked stiffly.

"You brought a nice mule in with you," Chapin said. "How about him?"

"You must be joking!" Faelin replied.

"Well, I can't see what else you've got if you don't put it on the table," Chapin said amiably. "What's weighing down your goody bag there? It's more than a few nails or I'm a one-legged weta."

Faelin had the vague idea that the weta was some local critter-a bug, he thought.

"And how do I know you'll play fair with me if I put my cards on the table?" he retorted.

"You are a hard case, aren't you?" Chapin said. "Look, Faelin. We're all neighbors. We live together, work together. How far would I go if I stole from my neighbors? Why they'd just trade with each other and leave me out of the mix. I only manage to make my living because people trust me to be fair and to provide them with a savings of time."

He leaned forward on his stool, his ugly walnut face earnest. "These aren't the petroleum days, Faelin.

You could make most of what you're buying from me or hunt it out yourself. I'm just saving you time. If you don't want to trade for the churn and the shovels, ride on over to the cooper. He'll make you a churn-it might take a couple of weeks if he doesn't have one in stock, but he can make you one. Old Mrs. Velma has a couple of rusty old shovels. I bet you could rent them from her in return for splitting a couple cords of wood and returning the shovels all bright and sharp.

"Now, walk or pour out your trade goods. I have customers waiting. They may be enjoying the show-'specially since it's giving them a good idea of market value for a few things, but I don't have time to waste."

Faelin flushed and nearly walked, but he had a long trip back to the claim and didn't want to explain to Simon why he came back empty-handed. He spilled out the contents of his sack: more nails, a couple of feet of wire, and, selected almost at random, a pulley.

Chapin inspected the goods, then he looked around the store as if a.s.sessing his audience.

"A lesson for you, Faelin. The nails and wire, those are really good. Most of the nails we have here are wrought iron or salvage. These you've brought are better than local made. The wire's more of the same.

h.e.l.l, most of us make do with twine. The pulley, that's a matter of need. With the new settlers come in-yourself among them-there's going to be a lot of house raising."

Faelin nodded. Rather than being grateful for the lesson, he was feeling embarra.s.sed. He suspected now that both Mrs. Philbert and her sister back in Auckland had ripped him off. He wondered about the livestock dealers from whom he'd bought the horses and mules. At least Simon had gotten them good stock, but he'd bet his left foot they'd overpaid.

He felt color rising along his neck and fought down a desire to storm out the door.

"I'd keep that pulley if I were you," Chapin went on, "and hire yourself and Simon out to help raise a couple houses. Then when you're done, you'll have help and more to build your own place."

Chapin nodded happily, pleased by his own sermon.

Faelin swallowed hard. He wasn't going to accept this walnut-faced little monkey pus.h.i.+ng him around.

There wasn't a government here to make him build other people's houses. He'd just learned his nails made him pretty rich by local standards. He'd buy labor when he needed it and d.a.m.n Chapin for trying to turn him into a toady.

"How much for the churn and the shovels?" he repeated.

"Nails for the shovels," Chapin replied, his friendly manner suddenly take it or leave it, "and the wire for the churn. Keep the pulley and I'll put you down for house building."

Faelin started to say, "Don't bother," then swallowed the words. He could always refuse when asked.

He settled his bill and got out of there as fast as possible, then he fumed the entire way back to the claim.

The chatter of the indignant chickens didn't help his mood.

As the weeks and months pa.s.sed, Faelin's opinion of Chapin didn't change.

"He's made himself king in a land where there's supposed to be no government," he growled to Simon after another frustrating shopping trip. "Did you know that since we decided not to go to the Dutchmans'

barn raising, Chapin refused to sell me anything? Said he didn't feel like trading with a man who couldn't be bothered to help a close neighbor. Those Dutchmans are just rolling in cream and b.u.t.ter! They could pay for my time!"

It hadn't helped Faelin's feelings about Chapin's know-it-all att.i.tude that after a month or so of trying to make their own b.u.t.ter, Simon had timidly suggested that they trade the churn to Debra and Fleming in return for a few months' supply of b.u.t.ter and cheese. Faelin had been forced to agree. After a day of dealing with livestock and working on the house, neither man had the energy to churn.

He ignored the fact that he, not Chapin, had been at fault in the matter of the churn and continued his list of grievances.

"I had to go to the miller direct and she gouged me, charged everything that Chapin would have and made me pull nails from old lumber while I waited!"

Simon said nothing. Though Simon would never complain to Faelin, Faelin had seen the other man's distress when they didn't go to the barn raising. Simon liked the Dutchmans-a handsome, mostly Chinese couple despite their names-and the two men's isolation on the claim after crowded quarters on theSpeculation had proven almost more than Simon could bear.

Faelin, not normally a sympathetic man, took pity on Simon, letting him make some of the supply runs into town and not even protesting when Simon came back with a fat black and brown sheepdog puppy of the type locally known as a huntaway. He tried not to recall that this new arrangement also saved him further confrontations with his self-appointed rival.

But Faelin continued to feel the pressure of Chapin's influence. When he got into a fistfight with the cooper over a horse race, Chapin just turned away and sighed, but the next time Faelin came into the Dairy, Chapin refused to serve him until Faelin promised to donate something to the cooper's support while he recovered from the hand Faelin had broken.

When Faelin tried to recruit some labor for raising the walls on the new house-he and Simon had built a solid foundation, but couldn't hope to finish stone walls by winter-mysteriously no one was available, not even when Faelin advertised handsome pay in metal goods. Not until he and Simon took a turn in a few building parties did help materialize, and then for free.

The laborers even brought treats-sweets and veggies and summer ale-to augment the fish-fry Simon and Faelin had supplied, and that evening their quiet claim echoed with laughter and the skirling notes of Erland Totaranui's fiddle.

Faelin hated it, hated the pressure of obligation which seemed far more binding than any law-after all, laws could be circ.u.mvented, reinterpreted, or simply ignored. He hated it even more when he saw how Simon was being seduced from him.

When they had arrived in Aotearoa, Simon had been completely ruled by Faelin. He let Faelin dictate practically everything he did, and was never happier than when d.o.g.g.i.ng Faelin's heels. By July, the heart of the local winter, Simon was making excuses to do things on his own. He'd made friends with not only the Dutchmans and other pakeha neighbors, but also with members of a local Maori clan to the east who were a.s.sociated with, but not precisely part of, the Richmont settlement.

Many a wet afternoon when Faelin thought they should be mending nets or carding wool or any of a thousand other jobs, Simon would make an excuse to go riding off to visit a neighbor. Roto the puppy-named after the Maori word for lake, since he'd been so hard to house train-would happily trot after Simon.

Nor could Faelin really complain that Simon was s.h.i.+rking. He always brought something back with him as payment for his day's labors elsewhere-honey and wax from a neighbor's hives, salt, tanned hides, rope. Once, incredibly, he'd even secured them the long-term loan of a Maori waka, or canoe, in return for giving sailing lessons to the local clan.

Faelin's dislike of Chapin and his influence came to a head that spring at the sheep shearing. Like so many things Faelin thought should be handled by trade and barter-or by a bit of strong-arm persuasion-the shearing was a community event, as much an excuse for a party as a means of getting work done.

With a calm persuasiveness Faelin wouldn't have suspected the other man of being capable of a year before, Simon had explained how much less labor it would involve for them to drive their small flock-now thirty strong with trade and lambings-over to town.

After pointing out that they didn't have shears, that they didn't really know what they were doing, and that they might as well see if they could trade a lamb or two for a piglet, Simon had clinched the matter by saying, "And if you're not going, well, then I am anyhow. There's to be dancing when the work is done and a cook-off and a horse race. Farmer Lamont is donating a pig in honor of his first grandchild's birthday and it's to be pit barbecued."

"I never said I wasn't going," Faelin snarled, though in fact he'd been planning on staying home. This spring he was hoping to put in a small kitchen garden, despite the fact that he'd never grown as much as an onion in all his life. He'd thought to start turning what looked to him like a promising bit of land.

Faelin trailed the flock into town in a sour mood, watching Roto drive the sheep along with effortless ease. He wished he could figure out why his own course was never so easy. He'd expected that in a land without government and binding regulations he'd prosper.

He wasn't lazy, nor was he intimidated by bad weather. He was strong and before had always met those who-like Simon-would cling to him because of that strength. To top it off, he had skills most of the others never dreamed of. He'd been shocked to learn that Farmer Lamont had been a lawyer in faraway New York before chucking it all and coming to homestead in Aotearoa over twenty years before.

Now Lamont was a pakeha of the pakeha. In fact, the Richmont settlement was Lamont's second claim.

He'd sold his first at what everyone knew was a tremendous profit because Auckland was getting too built up for him. Lamont said he wanted his sons and daughters to be able to raise their families in less developed land, just as he had them.

Such thoughts put a sour taste in Faelin's mouth, but that sour turned to honey at his first sight of Jocelyn.

Tall and arrow-straight with golden-brown skin and s.h.i.+ning black hair, she glided through the Richmont town square like a princess. Clearly, her parentage was mixed-there was Polynesian in her and Chinese, but the lapis lazuli of her laughing eyes spoke of some European heritage as well.

When Faelin first saw her, Jocelyn was holding a toddler by the hand and his spirits plummeted. Then the little one tore his hand free and calling out, "Mama! Mama!" went waddling across to a woman Faelin vaguely recognized as one of the Lamont girls.

This then must be the much celebrated Lamont grandchild. At that moment, Faelin would have added every sheep in his flock to the barbecue in his joy at realizing this G.o.ddess was not the baby's mother.

He nudged his buckskin alongside Simon's bay.

"Who isthat ?" he asked, indicating the girl with a tilt of his head.

Simon looked and smiled. When he replied his voice was warm with affection.

"That's Jocelyn Lee. She's a cousin of the Dutchmans, came up from Auckland over the winter. She's been staying with them since August. I'm surprised you haven't met her."

Simon clipped the end off that last sentence, suddenly uncomfortable. The fact was, Faelin had become more and more a hermit over that winter. Simon did almost all their trading, even picking up the b.u.t.ter and cheese from the Dutchmans. Faelin had done the fis.h.i.+ng, building, even the sewing-anything that gave him an excuse to let Simon be the one to go out.

Faelin felt a faint regret for lost opportunities. Then suddenly he didn't care. Jocelyn Lee was here. So was he. There was to be dancing that evening. He would dance with her. He would woo her. He would win her.

Faelin worked that day with a constant awareness of Jocelyn's graceful presence. When the day warmed, he stripped off his s.h.i.+rt, knowing his muscles would show to advantage. He did every job with a smile on his lips, knowing he'd s.h.i.+ne better in her eyes. He even avoided the horse race-though he longed to try his buckskin against the cooper's black-lest the old tale of their sc.r.a.p go round and cheapen him in her eyes.

All that day he listened as the flirting note of her laughter, sweeter than any music, carried across the bleating of indignant sheep. When Jocelyn carried around cold water for the shearers' refreshment, Faelin introduced himself, then found himself too fumble-tongued to carry on.

When the shearing was done, Faelin retired to the room he and Simon had taken for the night and scrubbed down with care. He dressed in his best clothes, glad now that Simon had insisted they pack them along.

Like most sailors, Faelin had learned to tailor and embroider. The bleached cotton s.h.i.+rt he wore fit to perfection and was graced with tiny blue stars. After tying his freshly washed hair back in a sailor's queue and donning newly polished boots, Faelin inspected himself in the mirror and was pleased with the sight.

Faelin's grooming had taken so long that Simon had left without him. When he entered the torch-lit circle where three-quarters of the area's population had gathered, Faelin felt strangely shy, aware that he was still a stranger in a group of friends.

To cover his discomfort, he put a sailor's swagger into his walk and joined Simon by the buffet. The food was free-donated by all the partic.i.p.ants and transformed into a feast by those who hadn't actually been working with the sheep. The centerpiece might have been Farmer Lamont's barbecued pig, but there was such a variety of food spread around it that even its vast bulk was dwarfed.

Faelin ate lightly, waiting impatiently for Jocelyn to arrive. Even after the dancing had started, she didn't come. Gruffly, Faelin refused an invitation from saucy Debbie Dutchman, waiting like an eagle for Jocelyn lest he not be free to dive upon her when she arrived.

When Jocelyn did come in, the dancing was in full swing. Even so it seemed to Faelin that Jocelyn brought her own music with her. In workday trousers and s.h.i.+rt, she'd been eye-catching. Now, dressed for a party, she was everything he had dreamed-lovely as springtime itself in a floor-length frock of deep red silk embellished with scattered golden flowers.

That silk gown should have been a warning to Faelin, but he was too besotted to think. Jocelyn stood poised near the edge of the circle of light and the swirl of dancing. Contrary to Faelin's expectation that she would be pounced on as soon as she arrived, she remained alone, though by far the finest woman in the place.

Why it's just like with me, Faelin thought. No one will have anything to do with her because she's so far above the rest. They want to lower her to their level-to transform that lovely princess into a wallflower as they've tried to make me every man's lackey.

Faelin strode over to her, the beating of his heart in his ears louder than the combined fiddles and guitars, so that he felt strangely disconnected from everything around him. He made Jocelyn a sweeping bow, aware that he cut a das.h.i.+ng figure, and held out his hand.

"May I have this dance, sweet lady?"

In his imagination-fevered all that day so he hardly remembered the sheep, the mud, the faces of those he'd worked beside-Jocelyn had blushed prettily and put her hand in his. Then he'd swept her off into the middle of the dancing, the two of them becoming the s.h.i.+ning heart of the action, paired stars that transformed all the rest into extras.

But in reality, Jocelyn returned his bow with a pretty curtsy and smiled.

"Thank you, sir, but I'm waiting for my fiance."

"Your what! Who . . ."

Faelin heard himself bellow so loudly that the dancers nearest turned to stare and the musicians faltered for a moment in their playing.

"My fiance," Jocelyn replied. "He had a bit of business to conclude."

"Then he's lost his chance," Faelin said, struggling for gallantry. "Let me convince you . . ."

A new voice cut in from slightly behind him.

"Convince her of what, Faelin?"

Faelin knew that voice, light and a touch impish, mocking him yet again.

"Chapin!"

He wheeled and found the little monkey man looking up at him, head tilted in inquiry, a smile on his lips.

"I see you've met my betrothed," Chapin said. "Jocelyn Lee, meet Faelin the Sailor, late of the Speculation and of California, now settler-neighbor to your cousins the Dutchmans."

Faelin saw red. He didn't know what made him more furious-that this little man should have somehow bought Jocelyn Lee or that in his mocking way he should make his introduction a reminder that Faelin was just a settler, not pakeha, not now, and-if Chapin had his d.a.m.nable way not ever-not unless Faelin became Chapin's lackey, building other folks' houses, shearing their sheep, taking their insults . . .

Jocelyn had slid her slender hand into Chapin's skinny paw and was smiling up at Faelin.

"Pleased to meet you, Faelin. I know your partner, of course. Sweet Simon we call him, always such a help. Such a hand with the cattle."

Faelin began to tremble with fury. So Simon had turned against him. Jocelyn might name him Faelin's partner, but clearly he'd become a toady to these enemies . . .

He gnashed his teeth. He hadn't known anyone ever really did that, but in the madness that was overtaking him, he gnashed them, feeling them grind like rocks in his mouth.

"You!" he bellowed, a rough growl that echoed through the suddenly quiet throng. He hardly noticed that the dancing had stopped, only that his words carried farther. "You, Chapin! What did you pay for her?"

"Pay?" Chapin looked astonished.

Jocelyn, still clinging to his hand, colored, her golden skin flus.h.i.+ng crimson.