The Bone Garden: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

to any would-be thieves. He already knew many of these patrons, and they knew his impoverished circumstances; they merely glanced up as he stepped in the door. One look to identify the newcomer, and then their disinterested gazes dropped back to their cups.
    Norris moved to the bar, where moonfaced Fanny Burke was filling glasses with ale. She looked up at him with small, mean eyes. “You’re late, and he’s in a foul mood.”
    “Fanny!” one of the patrons yelled. “We gettin’ those drinks this week or what?”
    The woman carried the ale to their table and slammed down the glasses. Pocketing their money, she stalked back behind the bar. “He’s around back, with the wagon,” she said to Norris. “Waiting for you.”
    He had not had time for supper, and he glanced hungrily at the loaf of bread she kept behind the counter but didn’t bother to beg a slice. Fanny Burke gave nothing away for free, not even a smile. With stomach rumbling, he pushed through a door, walked down a dark hall crammed with crates and trash, and stepped outside.
    The rear yard smelled of wet straw and horse dung, and the interminable rain had churned the ground into a sea of mud. Beneath the stable overhang, a horse gave a nicker, and Norris saw that it was already harnessed to the dray.
    “Not going to wait for you next time, boy!” Fanny’s husband, Jack, emerged from the shadows of the stable. He carried two shovels, which he threw in the back of the wagon. “Want to be paid, get here at the appointed hour.” With a grunt, he hoisted himself onto the buckboard and took the reins. “You comin’?”
    By the glow of the stable lantern, Norris could see Jack staring down at him, and felt the same confusion he always did, about which eye he should focus on. Left and right skewed in different directions.
Wall-eyed Jack
was what everyone called the man, but never to his face. No one dared.
    Norris scrambled up into the dray beside Jack, who didn’t even wait for him to settle onto the bench before giving the horse an impatient flick of his whip. They rolled across the muck of the yard and out the rear gate.
    The rain beat down on their hats and ran in rivulets down their coats, but Wall-eyed Jack seemed scarcely to notice. He sat hunched like a gargoyle beside Norris, every so often snapping the reins when the pace of the horse flagged.
    “How far we going this time?” asked Norris.
    “Out of town.”
    “Where?”
    “Does it matter?” Jack hacked up a gob of phlegm and spat into the street.
    No, it didn’t matter. As far as Norris was concerned, this was a night he simply had to endure, however miserable it might prove to be. He wasn’t afraid of hard work on the farm, and he even enjoyed the ache of muscles well used, but
this
sort of work could give a man nightmares. A normal man, anyway. He glanced at his companion and wondered what, if anything, gave Jack Burke nightmares.
    The dray rocked over the cobblestones, and in the back of the cart the two shovels rattled, a continuous reminder of the unpleasant task that lay ahead. He thought of his classmates, no doubt sitting that moment in the warmth of the Hurricane, enjoying a last round before heading off to their respective lodgings to study Wistar’s
Anatomy
. He’d prefer to be studying, too, but this was the bargain he’d struck with the college, a bargain he’d gratefully agreed to. This is all for a higher purpose, he thought, as they rolled out of Boston, moving west, as the shovels rattled and the dray creaked in rhythm to the words running through his head:
A higher purpose. A higher purpose
.
    “Came by this way two days ago,” said Jack, and spat again. “Stopped at that tavern there.” He pointed, and through the veil of falling rain, Norris saw the glow of firelight in a window. “Had me a nice chat, I did, with the proprietor.”
    Norris waited, saying nothing. There was a reason Jack had brought this up. The man did not make pointless