Blood Stained Wood

[3]

Today is the day that Tony is coming back, he will be safe and sound, Evangeline repeated this sentence to herself dozens of times. But it was already dusk. She was cooking the salted pork and beans while Will made tea. Of course, this was normal. Shantymen were often late from returning on trips; the woods weren't the most dependable place, anything could slow them down. But that also meant that anything could be a danger to them.

"Careful, Evie. Your hands are shaking." Will place a hand on her arm, steadying her from dropping the spoon she was holding.

She couldn't speak. Her throat was dry and it was closing up, she gasped for air but only received more weight on her chest. She was drowning. Her lungs filled up with water and her head felt like she was being pulled in different directions. Evangeline could hear muffled screams, but her head was underwater. She willed to reach the surface, but she could not.

"Evangeline!" snapped Will.

She found herself on the floor, her eyes searching for someone who wasn't there. Will extended her a glass of water, but she couldn't accept it. Not water, no. Not the water that threatened to drown her to her last breath.

"Drink it, you can thank me later. If you don't drink it I'll have to force it down your throat."

A part of her wanted to come back with a smart remark, but instead, she closed her hands around the glass. She didn't want to drink it, but she was unbelievably thirsty. It was either water or tea, and she felt too overheated for tea. Evangeline forced down the glass, trying to distract herself from what had just happened.

She had swum a little when she was a kid. Her mother and father had taken her to the lakes in Kawartha and taught her how to swim. They only went to the lake occasionally, due to her father's work. She had never come close to drowning before, so why did she feel like it was happening to her now?

"He'll be back. Just a little late, that's all, Evie," Will reassured her, sinking down to the floor with her.

As she took in her surroundings, Evangeline realized that the shantymen had all gathered around her, observing. She still couldn't comprehend what had happened. She was drowning, yet the closest thing there was to a body of water around the shanty was the four feet of snow outside.

"You... blanked out. You started shaking and taking shallow breaths, next thing I knew you were collapsed on the floor. Are you alright now, Evie?" Will asked, with the shantymen still hovering over her. She had never been self-conscious around them before, but she felt vulnerable and she wasn't friends with any of them. Only Will and...

"Tony. He's supposed to be back. Why isn't he back, Will?" Evangeline could feel her breaths quicken and her head spin.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Evie! You need to take it cool, or you'll repeat what had just happened. I told you, they're just late."

"And how do you know this?"

"Because I do."

"William, stop being smart with me. How do you know this? Was there a letter, or a signal, or . . . --"

Evangeline was cut off by the door to the camboose shanty swinging open, and a gust of wind immediately following. There stood the foreman, Taylor, in all his sick glory. He looked worn, and his eyes darted around the room. Evangeline knew that if Taylor was there, then so was Tony.

But Tony did not follow Taylor inside. Must be unloading the horses, Evangeline thought. Even after one week of work, Taylor still had him working his hands off.

"Where's Smith?" Will glowered, the whole shanty's mood shifting with him.

Taylor responded with silence, removing his hat and resting it against his chest.

"There was an accident," Taylor mumbled, acting skittish and timid, not unlike a deer,. Rready to run at a moment's notice.

"What accident? Where's Tony?" Evangeline moved closer to Taylor, trying to peek out the door and see Tony's lopsided grin and his ash-blond hair, wet from the snow.

"He..." Taylor trailed off.

"He what, Taylor?" Evangeline's voice rose and uncontrollably cracked.

"Didn't make it. Anthony did not make it back." Taylor's eyes trained on the floor, one hand on the doorknob.

No, this was a mistake,

Tony made it back, he was only out with the horses.

He was talking to the horses like they were his best friends, like they were real people.

Tony was ready to bring down the axe onto more wood.

Tony was alive and well and full of life.

But the tragedy was,

This was not a mistake.

Tony was gone,

Just another meaningless body that rested with hundreds of other shantymen.

That was,

If they brought him back at all.

"There was no job, was there, Taylor? That boy had a target painted on his back, we all knew it the day you tried to kick him out of the shanty without any reason 't all!" Will screamed at the foreman who was not acting very foreman-like.

She was drowning.

She was sinking in a pool of blood,

Of Tony's blood,

Of every shantymen's blood who had ever died on the job.

She did not know if she could resurface from the pool.

She did not know if she wanted to.

She did not want to escape the blood if Tony was not there to help wash it off of her.

This was the life of the shantymen,

She had heard those words before.

If this was the life of the shantymen,

If this was life,

She did not want it.

"There will be three days of mourning. The boss himself will come to pay his respects, so you men better clean up. Especially you, Ms. Hart. The boss will arrive in two days, and you will all have no work until mourning is over," Taylor announced.

But how could she clean up when she was covered in blood?

How could she clean up if no one was there to remove the blood?

How was she,

Evangeline Hart,

Best friend of Anthony Smith,

Expected to clean up the blood that painted her body?

Did he,

Foreman Taylor

Have a blood-stained body too?

Stained from all of the shantymen he killed,

Friends or enemies,

Good or bad,

Hard-working or lazy,

But killed nonetheless.