Chapter Text
It seemed unusually brisk even for a January evening. Zachariah Moore sat on an upturned bucket, a neck collar across his knees. He had been scrubbing and polishing the collar for over half an hour in the hope of having it gleaming in time for the mayor's departure. The chill in the air made his fingers ache and throb, which slowed him. He'd tried to work with his mittens on but that only made it more difficult to hold anything. In the end, he had settled for pulling on his sheepskin coat and pretending that his hands were not cold and stiff.
If Mister Dent believed in heating the stable, it wouldn't be so bad, but the old hostler was a firmer devotee of the notion that keeping busy made a man warm enough to withstand any degree of cold. Certainly he was perpetually in motion, even as a man of nearly fifty. His unrelenting demands to 'get back to work' annoyed Zachariah and his fellow stable hands. They worked plenty hard enough in their own respective opinions but nothing satisfied Horace Dent. Zachariah himself would not been sitting up so late with this collar if he had been able to squeeze in the time to clean it earlier in the day.
He paused in his determined polishing of the rein terrets to flex his half-numbed fingers, then arched his back to stretch out cramped muscles. There was little time to sit idle of course but a few seconds' respite did no harm. There was no else around the stable at that hour. Not with Mister Dent away having his dinner. It was a rare relief indeed.
And then, inevitably, his solitude was intruded upon.
'Doctor,' said a female voice from around the corner of the stable. 'Where are we?'
'We're supposed to be in New York City. But this looks nothing like I thought it would. How interesting.'
'If the TARDIS has gotten us lost again, I really will have no faith in it any more. This was supposed to be a holiday trip.'
Zachariah frowned as he looked up, to see two people come walking around the corner. They had come from the short alley that ran between the stable and the shed in which the wagons and carriages were stored. It was not a direction guests of Hatch House typically came but neither was it unknown. He set the collar carefully aside – no sense in letting it get dirty when it was all but finished – and stood up.
'May I help you, sir?'
'Ah, yes, I think so,' said the man, who looked and sounded like a gentleman. An English gentleman at that. Odd. 'We've, ah, just arrived. Can you tell us where we are?'
Both his eyebrows arched. 'You're behind the Hatch House stables, sir,' he answered.
'Hatch House...?'
'Hatch House. It's the best inn this side of Portland.' He hesitated, then decided fetching in business could do no harm. 'Do you need a room, sir? You said you just got here...'
'Well, we may not be here that long. We've come to meet Poe.'
Poe? 'The poet?'
'Yes. He has moved here recently. We're hoping to meet him.'
That was very much news to him. Not that he would have cared anyway, not at all liking the grim tone of Poe's work. These two must think quite the opposite if they wished to meet the man, which didn't go far at all in easing Zachariah's growing suspicion of them. 'He's not come here, sir,' he told the gentleman. 'He's down in the south somewhere. Maryland, I think.'
'No, he's moved.' The gentleman frowned a little. 'This is New York City, isn't it?'
This time, Zachariah's eyebrows drew sharply together. 'You're wicked far off from New York City, sir. This is Bangor.'
The two strangers exchanged glances, with the gentleman seeming almost apologetic and the lady rather annoyed. 'And where is Bangor, exactly?'
'It's in Maine, of course.'
'Ah. Yes. Of course. Sorry, I should have guessed.' The gentleman managed to smile despite the obvious awkwardness of the situation. 'Did you say something about an inn, Mister...?'
'Zachariah, sir,' was the stable hand's slow, wary reply. He was not about to let slip his surname. 'Sure, it's just around the corner. Shall I show you the way?' Since these two clearly had no sense of direction. At all.
'We're not staying here, Doctor,' the lady protested. 'It's freezing and not where you promised we'd go.'
'Just for the night, Charley. This doesn't seem like such a bad town anyway. You might like it better in the morning.'
'I doubt that very much.'
This was entirely too strange for Zachariah's liking. He dusted off his hands and coughed politely. The sooner he got rid of these two, the better. Ideally before Mister Dent came to the back to see if he'd finished with the collar. 'If you'll follow me, sir?'
Mercifully, the two strangers followed without a word, though the respite did not last long. They had not reached Main Street before the gentleman was asking, 'What's all the bustle for?'
'It's the logging season,' Zachariah answered, judging this to be the first harmless question to come out. 'Wilbur Dawson's crew has been gathering this week. They're going north in the next two days but Dawson's only got a small strip of land so he gets away with leaving it late.'
'Is he the only logger still in town?'
'Yes, sir. Everyone else is up north. This is prime cutting time. We won't see any of the crews down this way again until the spring thaw. That's when the river drives start.' Zachariah waited until a short convoy of sleighs had gone gliding past. Crossing Main Street was always a dangerous business. 'Come on, please. Best be quick!'
He set off at a trot across the busy road without a backward glance, too well-used to making these crossings to spare a thought for anyone who wasn't. It was sheer luck that the two strangers stayed close enough to get safely across themselves. Predictably, the gentleman was the first to speak again once they'd reached the wide pedestrian way in front of Hatch House.
'You must know a far bit of the logging trade, then.'
Zachariah shrugged. 'Some. I was up with one of Thibodeau's crews not that long ago. This is Hatch House, here. You'll find Mister Hatch still up. He ought to get you settled easy enough.'
It was meant as an end to the conversation but the gentleman seemed oblivious. 'In a moment. I admit I'm curious now; this is clearly a logging town, you have worked as a logger, yet aren't one now.'
'Mister Thibodeau cut me loose. He's known for that when he decides he doesn't like a fellow.' He shrugged again. This was not the truth, of course, but these two didn't need to know that.
'That's hardly fair, though,' the gentleman's companion remarked. 'Disliking somebody is no reason to sack him.'
'Tell that to Mister Thibodeau, Miss. He's the boss so he can do what he pleases. Besides, he's never short of men for his crews. He cuts more timber than just about anyone else hereabouts. He pays a top wage too. Almost has to, I guess. His camps are the closest ones of ours to the border region.'
'The border?'
The question revived his suspicion. 'With Canada, sir. Well. New Brunswick anyway.'
'So there's competition with Canadian loggers?'
'You... could say that, sir. They've been making trouble about where the border actually is for a while now. They say it's right along where the Penobscot River starts, a ways north of here. Everyone knows it's actually the Saint John River about a hundred miles farther north.'
'Hmm. Tell me more about this fellow Thibodeau. It's curious that he's able to attract workers so easily, despite being so close to foreign competition and a disputed border.'
'He always gets the best lumber. His springtime drives push other crews off the rivers, and he always pays his crews well for their work. Most boys around here figure the risk worth it. 'Sides. Mister Thibodeau's a leading citizen hereabouts. Whole city trusts him. It looks good on a fellow to be in his employ.'
'It's still curious. But I suppose greed has a way of overcoming other considerations.'
'Not greed, sir. Reputation. Bangor's known the whole world over for its lumber and Mister Thibodeau's the king of the northern woods. He's been a lumberjack all of his life. Nobody in the county knows the northern woods better. Word is he's got land up around the Aroostook River too. He probably owns the most acreage of anyone.' Zachariah's brow furrowed. It was tough to keep hold of his suspicions when the gentleman's questions obliged him to think. 'Especially up that way. I don't think anybody else has camps that close to the border. Nobody wants to take the risk, really.'
'Where is the Aroostook River?'
'Way up north, sir. Not far from the Saint John, I think.'
The gentleman looked meaningfully at his companion, who groaned. 'No, Doctor. This is supposed to be a holiday.'
'It is, Charley. But this is interesting. Where might I find Mister Thibodeau?'
'You won't find him down here, sir. This time of year he'll be up north at one of his camps.'
'I see.' The gentleman looked thoughtful. 'You mentioned that nobody wants to 'take the risk'. What does that mean?'
Ah hell. He shouldn't have said that. 'Um, well... most figure it to be more trouble than it's worth, cutting where the Canadians could come swooping in to claim that the land is actually theirs.'
'Except for Thibodeau, apparently.'
'Mister Thibodeau isn't most folk, no.' Zachariah was not sure he really liked where this conversation was going but could see no way to get himself out of it, short of simply walking away – and to do so to potential guests would see him dismissed with startling speed.
'Perhaps that's why he's at his camps and not in town. Has there been any trouble along this disputed border lately?'
'Some. Folks trying to start up farms around the East Branch have had problems with Canadian land agents. There's been rumours the militia will get called out.' He paused, considering whether it was really wise to go on, until he decided that he hadn't yet said anything that wasn't already public knowledge. 'Some lumberjacks have up and gone missing too, not long before Thibodeau gave me the boot. Folks figure they've been arrested and carted off as prisoners or something by the Canadians. I'm happy to not be up there anymore, myself.'
The gentleman didn't respond to that directly. Instead, he looked again at his companion, who now looked resigned. 'We ought to speak to Thibodeau, don't you think, Charley? This sounds like trouble is brewing here. I want to find out more about it.'
'But Doctor – '
'Is there anyone in town who can take us north? We have business with Mister Thibodeau. Business that can't wait.'
'Um – well, there's a supply wagon going out tomorrow, first thing, but – ' It was all Zachariah could do not to stumble over the words, caught so unawares as he was by the abrupt request.
'Why can it not go out this evening?'
'It's dark, sir. Never mind that it's a long haul to make at night.'
'But can it be done?'
'Well, yes, but – '
The gentleman didn't hear him, having at last gone past into Hatch House's splendid lobby. Bewildered, Zachariah looked at his companion, who was shaking her head.
'I was afraid of this,' was all she said as she too went inside.
That had been the goal all along, he decided, though it wasn't accomplished quite how he'd wanted. But he was rid of the pair now. It was smart to return to the stable before they came back out, so Zachariah hurried across the street, expertly dodging sleighs and single horses. His return was badly-timed, however. He reached the rear stable yard in nearly the same instant as Mister Dent, whose face went a dangerous shade of red on realising that not only had Zachariah been absent but also that he had failed to finish cleaning the single neck collar.
When a wide-eyed Billy Daniels came looking for him some twenty minutes later with a summons from Mister Hatch himself, Zachariah's ears were still ringing.