Jonathan Rogers - The Way of the Wilderking

The rest of the miners joined on the chorus, improving it only slightly: Fol de rol de rol de fol de rol de rol De fol de rol de fiddely fol de rol.

“King Darrow got it in his head that you was hiding out in the mines at Greasy Cave,” Gustus said. “Thought your old friends was protecting you, which we would have, if ever you had asked us. So he outlawed us.”

“Every last one of us,” Cedric added.

“Your pap got wind of the outlawing and sent Brennus to fetch those of us what might want to hide out in Sinking Canyons,” Gustus continued. “All five of us from the Bonifay adventure come along, plus another eight.” He gestured at a group of men, short and stocky like the rest of the Greasy Cave boys, who waved bashfully at Aidan.

“Their skills have been invaluable here in the canyons,” Errol remarked. “I don’t know how we would have gotten along without them.

“And then there are the Last Campers.” Errol gestured toward a group of men all clad in buckskin.

“Massey. Floyd.” Aidan shook the men’s hands vigorously. “Do you still do any timber rafting? Hugh. Isom. Big Haze. Little Haze. Chaney. Burl. Cooky, are you cooking for the men here too?”

“Yeah,” the old cook grumbled. “Not that nobody appreciates all the trouble I go to. And it ain’t easy feeding sixty folks,”-he gestured at Aidan and Dobro-“now sixty-two folks, on the stringy deer and skinny possum what live around here.”

“Same old Cooky,” Aidan smiled. “Same old grouchy Cooky.”

“We got outlawed for ‘aiding and abetting a enemy of the king,’” said Massey. “You being the enemy of the king, don’t you know. Just imagine it: I don’t even know what ‘aiding and abetting’ means, but here I am guilty of it. Shows you never do know. But if I got to be outlawed for something, I like the sound of ‘aiding and abetting.’ It’s a sight better than cattle rustling or poaching.”

“Jasper come to fetch us when your pa heard we was outlaws,” said Floyd. “And I don’t mind telling you it’s a heap more fun being in a band of outlaws than outlawing alone.”

“These boys have kept us in meat since they got here,” Errol added. “They can always find us a deer or a wild hog.”

“But nary a alligator,” Massey remarked wistfully.

Errol gestured toward two older men whom Aidan knew very well. “King Darrow outlawed Lord Cleland and Lord Aethelbert and their sons when they protested our being outlawed. We all came to Sinking Canyons together two years ago, along with Ebbe and the field hands.” Ebbe, the stuffy old house servant, bowed to Aidan. He didn’t seem quite so stuffy out here in the wilderness, though his tunic was remarkably well kept. Aidan shook hands with the six field hands he had known all his life.

A lot of familiar faces. But there were still plenty of faces Aidan had never seen before. He was surprised to see a dozen men wearing the same standard-issue blue army tunics he, Percy, and Dobro wore. “Soldiers,” Errol explained. “Scouts, actually. King Darrow sent a half dozen men to track us in the canyons, and when they found us…”

“When you found us, you mean,” laughed one of the scouts.

“When we found them, then,” Errol smiled, “they decided that life among outlaws was better than life in King Darrow’s army.”

But that accounted for only half of the soldiers in the group. “Where did the other half dozen come from?” Aidan asked.

“They’re the search party,” Errol said, smiling. “The ones King Darrow sent out to find the first party.”

“And they deserted too?” Aidan asked.

Errol’s smile faded. “These men are not deserters. They are men of honor. Understand this, Aidan, and do not doubt it: We remain King Darrow’s most loyal subjects. It would have been no loyalty to King Darrow if these soldiers had handed us over to certain death, leaving only time-servers and flatterers in Darrow’s service. No, by disobeying King Darrow’s orders these men have done him a great service, whether the king knows it or not.”

Aidan gave his father a long and watchful look. Errol had always taken a dim view of deserters, had always insisted on unswerving obedience to the king. Was this the same father he had always known, now saying that disobedience to the king was service to the king? Yes, things had changed in the years Aidan had been away.

“And who are they?” Aidan asked, pointing at a tight knot of eight or ten men gathered apart from the rest of the group and talking among themselves.

Errol paused before speaking. “They joined us only recently. I don’t know most of their names. They’re outlaws like us.”

“They may be outlaws,” Jasper muttered, “but they’re not like us.”

Errol gave his son a sharp look. He obviously didn’t intend to speak candidly in the hearing of the whole group. “Marvin,” Errol called toward the group. “You and the boys come say hello to my son Aidan.”

Marvin was a mountain of a man. His face was as round as the full moon and pocked like the moon too. It bulged against a massive quid of tobacco in his left cheek. He was bald on top, with long, thin hair straggling down the back of his neck. He moved slowly, deliberately toward Aidan, but his eyes were quick. He offered what he meant for a smile. It looked more like a sneer; it showed his big, brown-stained teeth.

Towering over Aidan, Marvin extended a hand. Aidan reached out his own hand to shake; sausage-thick fingers wrapped around it and squeezed with a crushing force that nearly brought tears to Aidan’s eyes. “I’m Marvin,” the big man said. He pointed at the ragtag group of dirty men he had just come from. “This here’s the boys.”

He looked at Aidan with an appraising eye and gave a snort that suggested he was none too impressed. “Ain’t you supposed to be the Wilderking or something?” Two or three of his cronies snickered.

Aidan didn’t know how to respond to Marvin’s remark, so he didn’t respond at all. Dobro, meanwhile, was admiring the long hair that draped down the back of Marvin’s neck. It was the most feechiefied haircut he had seen on a civilizer, and he felt an immediate connection.

Marvin noticed him staring. “What are you looking at, Snaggletooth?” he snarled.

“I was just likin’ your hairdo,” Dobro said. “Ain’t a lot of civilizers got that much style.”

Marvin squinted at Dobro, not sure whether or not this scrawny fellow was making fun of him. “Coming from a feller as ugly as you, I don’t know how to take that.”

Dobro shrugged. “Take it however you want to take it. It don’t make me no never mind.”

Marvin found himself getting annoyed at the nonchalant attitude of this ugly runt, who obviously wasn’t intimidated by him. “Say, boy,” he said, looking intently at Dobro, “how’d you get so ugly?”

“I reckon he’s a feechie,” said one of Marvin’s followers. “Ain’t I always said the Wilderking would come back with feechies?”

Dobro nodded at Marvin. “He got it right. I might look like a civilizer-scrubbed pink and with my mane lopped off-but I’m feechie born and bred.” There was nothing civilized about the green smile he directed at Marvin, or the acrid breath he exhaled in a self-satisfied sigh.

“Well, I don’t believe in feechiefolks,” Marvin insisted. “And if I did, I don’t reckon I’d think too highly of them.” He squirted a jet of tobacco juice on the ground in front of Dobro’s bare feet and wiped his thumb across his grinning lips.

Dobro eyed Marvin, trying to figure out what was the proper civilizer response to such a challenge. He figured he couldn’t go wrong if he responded in kind, so he worked up a nice, foamy glob of spit and let it fly right between the big man’s boots.