Chapter 2: Haley—Of What Use, a Cripple

Benjamin Franklin was present when the Montgolfier brothers launched one of their hot air balloons.
A Parisian turned to Franklin and asked,
“Of what use is that?”
Franklin replied, “Of what use is a child?”

The miasma of the swamp wreathed the village in sultry closeness. The late summer sun crawled across a white sky, pressing upon the mist, driving it into the wood and thatch of the rude huts. From one of those huts on the edge of the village a woman’s cry brought her daughter to her side. The girl dipped a gray rag in a bowl of water and pressed it to her mother’s forehead.

“It’s coming,” the woman gasped. “The baby will not wait until the cool of the night, but forces itself, now. Get your Gram. Tell her it is time.”

The girl pressed the cloth once more to her mother’s head and then slipped outside. Her father and brother, banished from the hut during the birthing, looked at her.

The girl’s voice faltered with fatigue. “Kern,” she said. “Fetch Gram. She’ll be at Tofa’s hut.” The boy scampered off. The girl stared at her father for a moment before re-entering the hut. The man’s eyes were fogged with drink. Still, they sent a chill through the girl. He hates this child, she thought. Well, so do I.

In good times, a child was welcome—a boy to work the land and tend the flocks, a girl to card and spin and weave the wool. But times were not good. The waters of the bayous were slow and brackish, poisoning the land. The summer heat drove even this little moisture from the earth; crops withered and died. The sheep were taken to summer pasture in the hills earlier each year, and were returned later in the fall. Even in the hills grass was sparse, and edelweiss had not bloomed in three years. Moreover, though the girl knew it not, nor would have understood had she known, this change in weather favored Arcadia, to the north. The wool from their sheep—finer and more plentiful—attracted the markets of Elvenhold and Beringia. These were bad times, indeed, and the baby stirring in her mother’s belly was not a helpmate, but merely another claim on the dwindling resources of the family and the village.

The girl went back into the hut. She made a weak gesture toward her mother. “Kern’s gone for Gram. She’ll be here soon.” The cloth had slipped, or had been thrown, from the woman’s forehead. Beads of sweat glistened like oil on gray shale. Outside, the soft patter of bare feet announced the boy’s return. Behind him, the slower, triple beat of the old woman’s wooden shoes and cane announced the arrival of the midwife.

“Tofa’s dead!” The girl heard the boy speak to his father. “Gram was putting the stones on his eyes.” The boy realized what he had said and fell silent. The girl, old for her years, felt a pang. In the magic of his mind, Tofa had held what little life was left in the village. He was the village bard—storyteller, musician, historian, and, in the absence of a cleric these past few years, confessor, comforter, and namer. The girl murmured a brief plea to Tofa’s spirit. Tofa, if you can hear me, please ask the Sorter to send us a paladin, or, if not a paladin, at least, rain. Surprised at herself, she blinked as her grandmother pulled aside the flap and entered the room.

“Stand aside, girl,” the old woman said, “but watch. You will have need of this knowledge some day. Do not touch anything. If you must cry out, bite your knuckles. If you must be sick, use the chamber pot, quietly. If you faint, fall away from the bed. And don’t get in my way.”

Turning to the pregnant woman, her tone softened. “Ah, you could not wait until Tofa was laid out and his spirit sent on?” Addressing the woman, she asked, “Your water has broken? Ahmmm…” Turning to the girl, she ordered, “Hand me cloths.”

Outside, the man who had earlier been partner in the impending event tipped his jug. The cool lip of glazed clay belied the fire within, but his tongue, like his brain, was too numb to notice. The boy squatted on his heels in the dust beside his father, and tossed a pebble from one hand to another. Furtively, he listened to the women inside, and wondered at the Mysteries of birth. An occasional lone figure passed. Most were moving toward Tofa’s hut. Only a few of them spared a glance for the man and the boy.

The silence of the village was broken only by the rasping, uneven breathing of the laboring woman. Then, a strangled cry, a sharp smack, and a wail were followed by a thump almost too soft to be heard. The girl had fainted. Oblivious to this, the new life vented its displeasure, filling and emptying its lungs through tight vocal chords.

“Gorton, come quickly!” the old woman cried from inside. The man outside the hut stood slowly and unsteadily. The boy, Kern, was quicker. He burst into the hut to have thrust at him the bloody child with a foot of umbilicus attached. “Hold him, carefully,” the old woman said. The boy took the slippery burden and held it at arm’s length. His fascination overwhelmed the taboos, and he let his eyes turn toward the bed. His mother lay naked. Her normally brown complexion was starkly white. Blood, soaking the straw mattress, pooled between her legs, and more welled up in a bright flow.

“What have you done?” the boy cried, looking for the first time at the brother he held. “What have you done?”

In this way, Haley came into the world. Had his father not been too drunk to notice the withered leg before Gram wrapped the child, his life might have ended there. As it was, by the time that Gorton realized that the child who had killed his wife was a cripple, it was too late to kill it.

With her daughter dead, and the new child to be cared for, Gram became mistress of the household. The man Gorton objected little, and spent even more time with his drink and his dreams. Gram kept Haley alive, nursing him on a cloth dipped in goat’s milk. She was not as successful at keeping the family together. The father disappeared before Haley’s first Name Day. There was speculation that he had wandered into the swamp and become the meal of an alligator, or been taken by the sucking earth. Kern left two years later in the company of a soldier. The soldier had escorted the tax collector in a fruitless search of the village for coins for the Baron’s treasury. Finally, the girl left when Haley was five. Without a dowry, she had been lucky to find a husband in a neighboring village.

Haley crawled early, pulling his body and its weak leg by arms that grew quickly and strong. At four, he was able to hobble about with a stick as a crutch. A year later, Gram taught him to swim.

Behind the hut, a finger of the swamp licked slowly at its banks. This bayou was fed by a small stream, and during the spring, when the water flowed freely, the bayou was pure and clean. With the dry heat of summer, however, after the winter snow had melted from the mountains, the stream dried up, and the stagnant waters of the swamp washed back into the bayou, bringing an evil smell and the bites of stinging insects.

Haley’s gram took him to the bayou, and sat with him in the shallow water near the shore. As the boy overcame his fear of this new sensation, she led him deeper and deeper into the water. With infinite patience she taught him first to float and then to swim. In the water, Haley no longer felt the pull of the earth on his leg. Delighted with this newfound mobility, the boy spent entire days in the water, laughing when he emerged with wrinkles on his skin to match the wrinkles around Gram’s eyes.

Since Haley was not able to work in the fields, Gram taught him skills usually reserved for girls: carding, spinning, and weaving the wool. His fingers became agile, nor did the growing strength of his arms keep him from developing the fine touch that Gram had. His leg also gained strength as he used the treadles of the spinning wheel and loom.

When Haley was 18, the headman of the village insisted that he take the sheep to the summer pasture. He was to be led by Jason, a tween five decades his senior. Joined by three sheep dogs and the village flock, Haley made the two-day trip to the summer pasture in four tortuous days.

For the first few tendays, Jason either ignored Haley, or teased him indifferently. Eventually, however, the loneliness and boredom as well as the stoic way in which Haley responded to his taunts affected even Jason, and he became more civil to the younger boy.

Although an adult villager visited the boys every tenday, bringing bread, the boys were expected to provide for themselves by catching small game. Jason was an expert trapper, and fair skilled with a sling. He knew that Haley envied this skill. One morning, after returning from finding his traps empty, Jason spoke to Haley. “Would you like to learn the sling?” he asked.

Haley’s eyes brightened. He was hesitant to answer, however, fearing another trick or meanness. He nodded his head cautiously.

“First we need stones,” Jason said, “About the size of your thumb.” He took Haley’s left hand and held the thumb so that only the first joint showed. Haley, balancing precariously without his staff, involuntarily gripped Jason’s hand. Jason winced, “Your hand is strong!”

“Gram said that all the strength in my leg went to my arms,” Haley said.

The bed of the stream that flowed through the meadow was a good source of stones. “The smooth ones are best,” Jason said, discarding about a third of those Haley had gathered. “They go farther and straighter. Now, you’ll need your right hand.” Haley shifted his staff to his left hand, hugging it to his body.

“Hold the thong like this.” Jason wrapped the leather around Haley’s palm. “And this one like this. Put the stone in the pocket, and twirl it. You’ve seen me. When it’s going fast, snap your wrist and let go the second thong.”

A little unsteadily, Haley swung the sling, intense concentration on his face. “Now,” cried Jason. Too quickly for him to know what was happening, Haley released the thong and promptly fell backwards into the shallow water of the stream. The stone flew unnoticed to land harmlessly on the fuzzy back of one of the sheep.

Haley raised himself on his elbows and sputtered water from his face, to see Jason laughing helplessly. Haley flushed in anger. Reaching for his staff, he thrust it between Jason’s ankles and pushed. Jason thrashed his arms in the air, and then fell face down into the stream. Haley scrambled to his feet, holding his staff in front of himself. He knew that even with the staff he could not defend himself against the older boy.

Jason, however, emerged from the water with a grin on his face. “I’m sorry, Haley, but you did look so funny!” Jason stretched his hand to Haley. “Here,” he said,” Give me a hand up.”

Haley hesitated, and then offered his left hand to Jason. With a grin, Jason pulled Haley into the water, and jumped on top of him. “Pax! Or I’ll feed you to the fishes!” He laughed, and pushed Haley’s head under water. Haley, however, levered his left leg against the streambed and grasped Jason with both arms. Surprised by the strength of Haley’s grip, and laughing too hard to be fighting effectively, Jason found himself on the bottom.

Haley paused, his hands ready to push Jason’s head under the water. Then he smiled. Jason’s laughter was contagious. Haley rolled aside, releasing his hold on Jason. “Pax,” he said.

Jason scrambled to his feet, and offered his hand to help Haley. This time, the younger boy did not hesitate to accept it.

Leaving the stream, the boys hung their clothes on bushes to dry in the sun, and Jason resumed the sling lesson. “You’re going to have to use your left hand, so you can hold your staff firmly beside your right leg.” Haley was suddenly conscious of his withered leg, exposed by his nakedness. This was the first time anyone but Gram had seen the leg. Jason seemed to be trying awfully hard not to notice it.

Under Jason’s patient tutelage, Haley learned to use the sling, and the proudest moment of his young life came when he brought down his first cony.

As the summer days lengthened, the friendship between the two boys grew. Jason showed Haley how and where to set traps. Haley, whose ability to swim was not shared by the other boy, taught Jason that skill, as well as how to weave toys and make flutes from the tall grasses that grew by the stream.

While the boys played and tended the sheep, the days lengthened and the sun approached the mark for Midsummer Day. Haley created a gnomon, or shadow stick, and carefully noted the position of the sun’s shadow at each midday. Jason ranged the woods across the stream, piling the wood for a bonfire. From reeds, Haley fashioned runes for each boy to wear. On the night following the day they judged to be the longest, the boys huddled close by a fire surrounded by sheep and dogs while ghosts and spirits walked the earth.

Although the days that followed grew shorter, the heat grew more intense. The stream dwindled to a trickle, and only a pool below what had been a waterfall held enough water for swimming. The sheep could not reach the pool, but Haley formed reed baskets, making them watertight with sap from the needle-bush, and carried water to the sheep. Fish—the few that remained trapped in the pool—hid in dark recesses and could not be enticed to the boy’s lures. Even Jason’s cunning traps were often empty. Twice the villager who brought bread failed to arrive, and when he did come there was no apology. The boys said nothing, for he was as gaunt as they.