Jonathan Rogers - The Secret of the Swamp King

“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.

“Who made you cap’n anyway?”

“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.

When the Errolsons arrived at the manor house with Massey and Floyd, Ebbe eyed the two alligator hunters suspiciously. From their buckskin garb he recognized them as the raftsmen who had wreaked havoc on the Hustingreen riverfront earlier in the day. Ebbe had always been more concerned with the dignity of the House of Errol than Errol or his sons had ever been. He felt much put-upon when one of the Errolsons-usually Percy-dragged in characters like these two river rats for him to wait on.

But Percy, pretending not to notice Ebbe’s annoyance, smiled broadly at the head servant. “Ebbe,” he said, “these old boys could use a wash-up before dinner, and they might like to rest their bones a few minutes before we eat.” He nudged Floyd. “Rafthanding is hard work.”

“So I have observed,” Ebbe answered icily, looking at Floyd’s breeches, still wet from his dip in the river. The hunters, unaccustomed to such withering propriety, held their coonskin caps in their hands and studied the floor. The pale, skinny house servant struck terror in the hearts of these men who made their livelihood wrestling alligators with their bare hands.

“So maybe you could show them to a couple of the spare bedrooms and dip them up some washbowls,” suggested Percy.

Ebbe waited a long second, blinked slowly, and with a formal smile answered, “Certainly.”

Ebbe had begun to turn on his heel when Percy added, “And you might want to say hello to Aidan too.”

Ebbe bobbed stiffly in Aidan’s direction. “Master Aidan.”

Aidan smiled at the stuffy old servant. “Hello, Ebbe.”

Ebbe didn’t trust Aidan much more than he trusted the alligator hunters. He had been attached to the House of Errol since before the boy was born, had seen the boy in diapers, seen him cry when he fell down, seen him waste away whole days in boyish daydreams. He had heard the other servants’ whispered talk of Aidan being the Wilderking, and he didn’t think it was proper at all-not at all. The whole thing started the day Aidan claimed to have killed a panther in the bottom pasture. But Ebbe had gone to the bottom pasture himself, had taken the boy’s place watching the sheep-which, as Ebbe often pointed out, wasn’t part of his job in the first place-and he saw for himself that there was no dead panther in the bottom pasture.

But still the servants talked, about the boy killing a giant and routing the Pyrthen army almost single-handedly, about other accomplishments they took to be signs the boy was indeed the Wilderking. But what did the other servants know, thought Ebbe, as he led the alligator hunters down the hall without speaking a word to them. The other servants would believe anything. They even believed in feechiefolk.

Percy left for the woodshop to get Carver started on a new oar-sweep for Massey and Floyd. Aidan knocked on the door of his father’s library. “Father?” he called. Pushing the door open, he was surprised to see his father struggling to his feet, both hands on a walking stick. Errol gave his son a weary smile, and as he walked toward the door, Aidan noticed his father’s limp had worsened. He looked more haggard and world-weary than he had six months earlier, when Aidan last saw him; it was the last time Errol had visited Tambluff Castle. Errol’s trips to the court of King Darrow had grown less frequent as his health declined. Or perhaps, as Aidan suspected, his father’s health had declined because his visits to the court had grown less frequent.

“You’ve grown,” Errol observed as he embraced his son. “King Darrow must be feeding you well.”

“He feeds me very well,” answered Aidan, “but still I miss Moira’s cooking.”

Errol laughed and put his arm around Aidan’s shoulder, as much for support as out of affection for his son. “Moira will be glad to hear her kitchen compares so favorably to the king’s.”