Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [183]
“There you are, mate.” Mr. Wesley stepped into the barn and walked toward Luke Honey. He wore workmanlike breeches, a simple shirt, and a bowler. He briskly rolled his sleeves.
Luke Honey didn’t see a gun, although Mr. Wesley had a large knife slung low on his hip. He smiled and tapped the brim of his hat and then tried to put out the Brit’s eye with a flick of his flaming cigarette. Mr. Wesley flinched, forearms raised, palms inverted, old London prizefighter style, and Luke Honey made a fist and struck him in the ribs below the heart, and followed that with a clubbing blow to the side of his neck. Mr. Wesley was stouter than he appeared. He shrugged and trapped Luke Honey’s lead arm in the crook of his elbow and butted him in the jaw. Luke Honey wrenched his arm loose and swiped his fingers at Mr. Wesley’s mouth, hoping to fishhook him, and tried to catch his balance on the rail with his off hand. Rotten wood gave way, and he dropped to his hands and knees. Light began to slide back and forth in the sky as if he’d plunged his head into a water trough. Mr. Wesley slammed his shin across Luke Honey’s chest, flipping him onto his back like a turtle. He sprawled in the wet straw, mouth agape, struggling for air, his mind filled with snow.
“Well. That’s it, then.” Mr. Wesley stood over him for a moment, face shiny, slick hair in disarray. He bent and scooped up his bowler, scuffed it against his pants leg, and smiled at Luke Honey. He clapped the bowler onto his head and limped off.
“Should I call a doctor, kid?” Mr. Williams struck a match on the heel of his boot, momentarily burning away shadows around his perch on a hay bale. A couple of the stable hands had stopped to gawk, and they jolted from their reverie and rushed to quiet the agitated mastiffs that whined and growled and strutted in their pens.
“No, he’s okay,” Luke Honey said when he could. “Me, I’m going to rest here a bit.”
Mr. Williams chuckled. He smoked his cigarette and walked over to Luke Honey and looked down at him with a bemused squint. “Boy, what you got against them limeys anyway?”
The left side of Luke Honey’s face was already swollen. Drawing breath caused flames to lick in his chest. “My grandfather chopped cotton. My father picked potatoes.”
“Not you, though.”
“Nope,” Luke Honey said. “Not me.”
THE LORD OF the stables was named Scobie, a gaunt and gnarled Welshman whose cunning and guile with dogs and horses, and traps and snares, had elevated him to the status of a peasant prince. He dressed in stained and weathered leather garments from some dim medieval era, and his thin hair bloomed in a white cloud. Dirt ingrained his hands and nails, and when he smiled, his remaining teeth were sharp and crooked. His father had been a master falconer, but the modern hunt didn’t call for birds anymore.
The dogs and the dog handlers went first, and the rest of the party entered the woods an hour later. Luke Honey accompanied the Texans and Mr. Liam Welloc. They rode light, tough horses. Mr. McEvoy commented on the relative slightness of the horses, and Mr. Welloc explained that the animals were bred for endurance and agility.
The forest spread around them like a cavern. Well-beaten trails crisscrossed through impenetrable underbrush and into milky dimness. Water dripped from branches. After a couple of hours, they stopped and had tea and biscuits prepared by earnest young men in lodge livery.
“Try some chaw,” Mr. Briggs said. He cut a plug of tobacco and handed it to Luke Honey. Luke Honey disliked tobacco. He put it in his mouth and chewed. The Brits stood nearby in a cluster talking to Dr. Landscomb and Mr. Liam