Shaman's Crossing

“Well, let’s go outside for a stroll about before curfew shuts us in, shall we?” Trist invited him and Rory. Caulder was already turning pinkish about his eyes as they walked out of the room. Rory and Trist, well experienced in the way of chew, were chatting about the day as their boots clattered down the stairs. For a time the silence held in the room. Then Oron and a couple of other cadets were suddenly inspired to rise and tiptoe down the stairs after the trio, barely managing to contain their mirth as they went.

“Bet he don’t even make it to the second landing,” Nate said quietly. Kort lifted one dark eyebrow skeptically, then drifted across the room and moved silently to where he could watch the descent.

Someone chuckled, and then silence filled the room again. We listened to the regular cadence of boots descending the stairs. Then suddenly we heard a desperate rush of footsteps down the stairs. A truly impressive bellow of retching reached our ears, echoed almost instantly by Sergeant Rufet’s roar of outrage, and drowned in the hoots of laughter and cruel applause of Caulder’s audience. Kort reappeared and announced solemnly. “Vomited down two flights of stairs. I’ve never seen one plug of tobacco go quite so far.” We all burst out laughing. Spink lifted his eyes from his books and slowly shook his head at us. “Picking on a lad,” he shamed us solemnly.

“Oh, and you were so kind to him earlier,” Gord rebuked him good-naturedly.

A smile crimped one corner of Spink’s mouth. “I wasn’t so harsh. I spoke to him just as I would my own little brother. No, actually, a bit gentler. If Devlin had come in here as Caulder did, mincing about and showing off to try to win our attention, I’d have loosened his head a notch on his shoulders. It’s a brother’s duty to teach his younger brother humility.” He allowed himself a grin. “And I learned lots of humility from my eldest brother, so I have a great deal of it to pass along.”

“Well, from the sounds of it, he’s had more than an ample lesson from Trist. Imagine a lad of his age not knowing better than to swallow snoose.”

Rory reentered the room. “Sergeant Rufet told him to clean up after himself. Caulder refused and ran out of the hall crying. Rufet’s not so hard a stone. He sent Trist after him to see to him. He gave mops and buckets to the others. I was behind and played innocent.” He was smirking, well pleased with the prank and his evasion of punishment.

“It should have fallen on Trist,” Spink said quietly, and I found myself agreeing with him silently. I thought Trist had taken things a shade too far, and despite feeling that Caulder was insufferable, I felt a twinge of sympathy for him as well. I’d had my own harsh experience with chewing tobacco when I was only seven. The memory had never dimmed. Caulder might have fled Carneston House, but I doubted he’d gone home. Probably he’d found a quiet place to be horribly sick.

Several hours passed before Trist returned. Most of the other cadets had cleared out of the common room, but Spink and Gord were just finishing up his math while Rory and I lounged back in our chairs, talking of our homes and the girls who waited for us there. Trist came in whistling just before lights-out, and looked so pleased with himself that I could not help asking him what he’d been up to.

“I’ve been invited to dinner at the commander’s house,” he said cheerily.

“What?” Rory demanded, outraged and grinning. “How’d you pull that off, after poisoning his son with plug tobacco?”

“Me? Poison Caulder?” Trist struck an aggrieved pose, his hand to his breast. Then he flung himself in a chair and, thrusting his long legs out before him, stacked his boots one on top of the other. He grinned. “Who went after the poor lad and wiped his mouth and cleaned him up? Who was astonished at his reaction to the tobacco, and said it must be an allergy he had, for I’d never seen anyone else puking after chewing tobacco? Who sympathized with him for all those rotters who laughed and mocked him when he retched? And who gave him peppermints to settle his stomach and take the nasty taste away, and then walked him safe to his daddy’s door? Trist Wissom, that’s who. And that is who young Master Caulder has invited to his father’s table, next Sevday.” He stood and stretched, well pleased with himself.

“And you don’t think the boy will ever discover that almost everyone vomits the first time they chew tobacco? Don’t you think he’ll eventually realize that you set him up for that humiliation and hate you for it?” Spink’s voice was cold.

“Who would he ask? And who would tell him?” Trist asked calmly. He rose gracefully. “Good night, fellows. Pleasant dreams!” He sauntered from the room.