Chapter 1

Wiry Fellows is a young-adult western set on the Pony Express trail

January, 1860

 

“Out, Isaac Farrel, and may God have more patience with you than I!”

Sister Donnelly shoved Isaac roughly through the front door of St. Jerome’s orphanage, and out into the frozen yard. A small boy, playing in the thin dusting of snow that had fallen the night before, looked up to see Isaac take an awkward step to catch his balance.

Isaac glared back at her. “Fine! I don’t need this danged place anyway!”

“You’d best watch that mouth!” Sister Donnelly shouted, flinging a small canvas bag at him. The bag, containing the entirety of Isaac’s worldly possessions, landed in the snow at his feet.

Ignoring the bag, Isaac demanded “Why? You just done your worst. I reckon you can’t throw me out again.”

Except for the four years living under Sister Donnelly’s thumb, in which time Isaac had come to know her every mood, he’d have missed the subtle flash of pity that showed on her face for an instant. She still glared angrily at him, but he knew the look was mere sternness now rather than true anger.

“I’ll give you one more word of advice, Isaac, if you’re not too mule-headed to hear it. This world has done you some hard turns, ‘tis true, but neither does it suffer fools gladly. You’d best check that temper of yours before you land in real trouble. I can’t help you any more. Only you and God can do that now. I’ll pray that at least one of you has the sense or compassion to do so.”

Isaac bent down to pick the bag off the ground. He couldn’t help but notice how light it was. He spat in her direction.

“I ain’t never asked for your pity or your stinkin’ prayers, Sister.” With that, Isaac Farrel turned away, catching just a glimpse of irate crimson returning to Sister Donnelly’s cheeks.

“And happy birthday to you!” she shouted, just before he heard the door slam.

As he passed through the gate and out of the orphanage’s yard, the small boy who had been watching ran up to the fence.

“Where are you going, Isaac?” the boy asked.

Isaac stopped for a moment and turned. “I don’t know, Ben,” he snapped, “but I ain’t staying here no more.”

“How come?”

“I just can’t, that’s all!”

Ben pursed his lips, trying obviously not to break down in tears. After a moment, he asked “When I turn sixteen, will I have to leave too?”

The words ‘yeah, if you’re lucky, kid,’ died on his lips. Ben was a good kid, and had always looked up to Isaac. Ben didn’t deserve angry parting words. Isaac felt a lump grow in his own throat and knelt down to look at the boy between the fence rails.

“Yes, Ben, you will. That’s the rule. But that’s not for a long time, so don’t you worry. You listen to Sister Donnelly. Try not to be so much trouble as me. You’ll do all right.”

Isaac knew it was the right thing to say, and he even believed it, but Ben looked as sad as before. They looked at each other, their breath making little clouds that rose slowly in the cold air.

“Now get on inside, Ben, and warm up by the fire,” Isaac added. “It’s too cold out for play.”

Ben broke into tears, turned, and ran back inside. Isaac watched him go. “Some birthday,” he muttered to himself.

 

With nothing to do and nowhere to go, Isaac began walking. He wanted nothing more than to get as far away from St. Jerome’s as possible, except there wasn’t much of anywhere to go. Fort Laramie was only about a mile away across the plains so he went that way.

He had been there a handful of times during his years at the orphanage. As Sister Donnelly was skittish around horses, she’d been happy for him to drive when she needed to go to the fort to buy beans or blankets or whatever the orphanage needed. Isaac had enjoyed those trips. Getting away from the orphanage was a always welcome, and driving the wagon reminded him of his father teaching him how to drive back on his family’s farm.

He looked idly into the canvas bag as he walked. Except for one item, he wondered why he had even bothered to pick it up. The bag held an extra shirt, a pair of old pants that was now a hand-span too short for him and worn clean through at the knees, and a pocket watch. The watch had been his father’s, and had come down from some ancestor Isaac couldn’t even name.

He took the watch out of the bag and put it into his pocket, turning it over and over in his hand as memories flooded over him. Memories of his father and mother, of his life before on the farm. Memories of helping his father build a corral to hold the cows, before they got a proper barn built. Of digging endless post holes.  Of setting logs upright in the dirt like a ring of giant matchsticks. Memories of his mother laughing when Isaac would surprise her, of how she splurged on sugar to make an apple pie that his father yelled about but then said was delicious.

Memories of waking in the darkness before dawn, to the smell of smoke and the sound of his mother screaming. Of jumping out of bed and dashing outside in time to see his mother rushing into the burning barn, screaming his father’s name. Of rushing there himself only to be beaten back by the searing heat of the flames. Of cursing himself for not being able to pump water faster into the horses’ trough, faster, faster, after he’d emptied it by bucketfuls onto the side of the burning barn. Memories of—

Isaac snapped himself out of his reverie, unwilling to remember the rest. He fingered the watch again—the only thing he had bothered to take with him after the fire—and looked around. Fort Laramie wasn’t in front of him anymore, but the surroundings looked familiar.

It took a moment before he recognized the signs of old wagon ruts his feet were following. The tracks had never been strong to begin with. Four years of grass and rain, and now snow had made them difficult to see.  But Isaac was sure these were the tracks he and his own father had made with their wagon on occasional trips to Fort Laramie, when they’d gone to sell meat they’d raised and potatoes they’d grown. The soft rolling hills and some of the trees were familiar to him too. The farm was no more than a couple of miles away.

With little further thought, he decided he may as well go there as anywhere. And maybe, he reflected, that wasn’t such a bad idea. After his parents’ death he had thought he would never to go back to that farm, even though a captain at the Fort had said the farm was Isaac’s and that they’d hold his father’s claim on the land for him until he was grown. Since being sent to St. Jerome’s, he had felt that he would find some other life besides farming. But now, for the first time in his life Isaac found himself in charge of his own life and his own decisions.

That captain’s promise came back to him, and he felt maybe farming wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Isaac hurried his pace a little, wondering what he’d find when he arrived. He reckoned there probably wasn’t much left of any value. Surely by now looters would have gone to the farm and carted everything decent away. But the house would still be there. If he could just get started, somehow, then maybe he could make it work.

Isaac’s lost himself in thought again as he walked, this time making plans and speculating, until he reached the slope of the last hill and saw the old oak tree that marked one corner of his father’s land. He ran up the slope until the farm came into view.

His hopes were immediately dashed. The burned barn was nothing but a smooth rectangle on the ground, white with snow except where blackened bits of wood poked through. He had expected that, of course, but had not expected to find the house in shambles.

The roof had fallen in pulling most of two walls down with it. The walls had pulled cleanly away from the stone chimney when they fell, leaving it standing all by itself at the edge of the mess.

There was no way he could live here. Not in winter.

But he had walked some hours to get here, and the January sun was now low in the western sky.  Isaac knew night wasn’t far off, but Fort Laramie was. 

“Too danged far to go back now,” he muttered, cursing himself for wandering instead of going to the Fort. He sighed. There was nothing for it but to continue on and see what shelter he could arrange for the night.

Isaac trudged down the low hill towards his former home, suddenly very aware of how cold he was and how wet his feet had become. He had stayed warm while walking, but even the brief stop atop the hill had brought a chill to him. He walked fully around his old home, surveying the damage. The last traces of hope that this old farm could provide him with a livelihood left him.

Carefully he entered the remains of the house, picking his way through fallen beams and half-rotted roof thatching, looking for anything to help him get through the night. Though his stomach was empty and growling, food wasn’t his highest concern. The cold was.

He tried to remember where the beds had been, in the one-room farmhouse. Unless he wanted to dig for it, his bed was out of the question, buried under debris and snow. But his parents’ bed had been closer to the one corner of the house that hadn’t succumbed to the collapse. Parts of the roof still rested against those adjoining walls, and it seemed to Isaac that there should be a small, angled space there under the fallen roof. He made his way carefully through the mess until he found a hole big enough to crawl through.

It was dark inside, and he moved slowly on all fours as his eyes adjusted. He felt his way to where the bed should be, but found nothing. He searched some more, swearing oaths under his breath at whatever low excuses for men had looted his family’s farm.

The dirt floor was frozen hard and sucked the heat from his hands as he explored in the darkness. He was thankful, at least, that the little sheltered space was dry and free of snow. Perhaps, he thought, if he just stayed in one spot and kept very still, his body might warm the air around him a little bit. Maybe enough to keep him from freezing to death in the night.

In the small, cramped space, Isaac labored to put on the extra shirt and pants from his canvas bag. For extra measure, he stuffed his feet into the bag itself before worming around to find a spot slightly more comfortable to rest. The pale light coming through the cracks and gaps was almost gone now, and Isaac knew the night was going to be long.

He wondered briefly if he would be troubled by mice or rats while he slept, then remembered that when he had lived here, there had never been trouble with vermin in the winter. The thought that even the mice had someplace to go when the snows came made Isaac feel very small and suddenly very alone in the world.

He choked back a sob. “Start acting like a man, damn you!” he berated himself.  “You’re sixteen now. Ain’t nobody going to wipe your nose for you no more.” But it didn’t help, and the sobs came anyway, and Isaac was grateful there was no one around to hear.

He lashed out with a fist in frustration, pounding it against the ground nearby, when he realized that he was hitting something soft. He clutched at it and felt it more carefully. It was cloth of some kind.

No, not just cloth. He recognized the feel of it. It was his mother’s feather comforter! Isaac’s heart quickened at the realization. He didn’t know where she had gotten it, but the memory of their trip west from Ohio, when he was just a boy, came to him. The comforter was one of the few things his mother had insisted on bringing with them. “Thank you, Mama,” he whispered in the darkness.

Isaac pulled the old blanket carefully towards him. If he ripped it open, the feathers would come out in a great mess and it wouldn’t be nearly as warm. It wouldn’t come fully free, and he realized that it was trapped under part of the roof. But he needed as much of that blanket as he could get. Isaac crawled as close to that spot as he could. He braced his back against the remains of the roof and heaved upward. It moved, and he managed to shift the blanket just a bit before he had to let the weight down again.

Determined, he tried once more. Bit by bit, he worked the blanket closer until with one last pull he felt it slide completely free.

Isaac spared a moment’s curiosity as to why the looters hadn’t taken this, too, but only a moment. He neither knew nor cared. Rather, he moved back to where he could lie down and carefully wrapped as much of the filthy, but warm, feather blanket around him as he could. The little bit of padding the blanket gave him against the icy ground made a lot of difference. Despite Isaac’s hunger, frustration, and discomfort, he fell asleep by and by.

Author's Note

Looking for any kind of feedback, but particularly feedback on how well this works as a first chapter. Does it grab you? What did you learn about the main character? How do you feel about him?

Reviews

[spence]

This is a very compelling first chapter- you had me hooked long before the conversation with Ben at the orphanage gate. I'd already formed a positive image of Isaac, (and Sister Donnelly), by that point, but his compassionate nature, despite the apparent hoplessness of his situation, made me want the best for the kid. I related to his independent rebellious streak, but also saw through it to his vulnerable and caring nature- as you intended. I was involved and interested from the off.
Isaac's journey to his farm house seemed nicely paced with the level of information that his memories told me- I felt like I was walking next to him at times. I imagined the dismay he felt at seeing the degraded farmhouse that used to be his home and appreciated his bravery in the face of so many returning memories that he had blocked from his thoughts- (I really liked the example you gave to show that aspect of his nature- he won't let life grind him down). I thought that the way you left openings for successive chapters was marvellous- is his inheritance intact? Did his Mother die in the fire too? How will these events combine to build the story? Already I'm thinking that the fire could have been an act of sabotage to claim ownership of the farm from his parents! Is there a plot that will reveal to Isaac that his 'misfortune' is down to a contrivance of malice and human greed!
You brought this character very much to life and made me want to read a whole lot more about him.
Oh yeah, the dialogue was absolutely top rate. Exactly as I imagine people of this time and place would speak and interact. I wish i could offer some critique on this, but I just want to know more!
Please let me know if and when you publish chapter two- you must stop doing this to me! Cheers, spence

[Tracie Skarbo]

I think this is a good first chapter to your story. I like the MC I feel compelled by him. I want to know what is going to happen to him and how he is going to get on in his life. Sixteen is young to be on his own and I know that he is going to have some rough patches ahead. Can't wait to read more...let me know when you have written another chapter.

Tigra

[Love Struck]

Wow! Usually I'm very partial to the 1st point of view, and I have a hard time getting into the 3rd pov, but you surprised me with this piece. Your personal style is wonderful, so I can't find much to complain about there. The only thing that made me hesitate was this word that you used: sternness. I know there are some words that just don't sound right with 'ness' tacked onto the end, and this is one of them. It kind of pulled me from the sentence and made me think "Wait...is that a real word?"

The other part I noticed was how easily Ben broke into tears. I think you did a good job of conveying his character, but if Ben is also an orphan, he should probably be more used to harshness and shouldn't be so sensitive.

These were only small things, however. Altogether, I enjoyed this chapter and I found Isaac's form of dialogue to be really funny. Post more, I'll be checking up on you! ;)