Boston, 23 February 1784
Casey Donovan puffed on his pipe and looked out at the people in the pub. He still wore his formal Army jacket, threadbare as it was, though it gave him good protection from the cold and snow outside. He had just read that Congress had ratified the Treaty of Versailles, thereby ending the war. The city had all the right in the world to celebrate.
The door opened and a few people came in. Casey took his feet down from the chair he had them on and stared at two of the men. They wore less clothing than he, which meant they didn’t travel far, or that they were used to the cold. He knew most people in the city by sight, if not by name. He knew that most of the ones here were leftovers from the Second Massachusetts Regiment. He himself had been with the Second – then consolidated into the First – Rhode Island Regiment under General Nathaniel Greene. Officially, he was a full major. However he never invoked his rank, and preferred to remain as a simple guide and liaison between the Americans and the Indians.
He moved to Boston to be closer to affairs, and to also concentrate on keeping the Americans and Indians as close to peace as possible. He knew he’d have to be heading to New York once the spring thaw hit. The Iroquois had sided with the British, and there would be a lot of fighting. He needed to still speak for the people who had raised him. Soniac had ordered him to.
Casey stood up, choosing to follow the two men through the crowd. He watched as they approached people, were talking to them. One man chatted up a blond drunk, while another dropped something into his mug.
Casey shoved through the crowd. The blond reached for his mug and grabbed it. As he was about to raise it to his lips, Casey was there, knocking it out of his hand. The steel mug fell to the floor with a barely audible clatter, and a coin spilled out from it along with the ale.
The young man looked up at him. “You swine – wha’d you do that for?!” Then he hauled off and slammed a fist into Casey’s face.
Casey stumbled. The kid packed quite a punch. The kid was now stepping away from the bar, and the crowd began to part. The kid aimed a punch into his abdomen, but Casey was ready for it. It connected, but he had clenched his muscles to take it, so it didn’t hurt. Then Casey threw a punch which hit the young man in the jaw. He had pulled his punch, knowing he could very well break his jaw. The kid snapped his head back to him, his eyes full of fury.
Casey grinned and crouched – got him mad now. The kid aimed a punch down, but Casey moved, going in close. He was a much better wrestler and close-quarter fighter, having done that kind of fighting since he was a child in the tribe. It seems this young man was just as good, as he slammed punch after punch into Casey’s kidneys. He had clenched his muscles there too, so the pain wasn’t bad. The two men grunted and pulled for purchase.
Then the kid did something surprising, and thrust a hand down to Casey’s groin, however, he moved his arm slightly to the side. He picked Casey up. Casey’s eyes went wide – he knew he weighed just over twelve stone, and while it wasn’t impossible to pick him up, it was damn near difficult. He lifted Casey off the floor, the other hand holding onto his shoulder. Casey did not move, especially with the man’s lower hand so close to something else important to him.
With a roar, the man threw him right into large thick window. He threw him so hard that he actually went through it. Casey fell through that wall, and into the small railing of the deck behind, through that, and into the gutter. And the kid still kept coming.
All this for a god damn beer, Casey thought, rolling in the glass to try and get up.
The kid said something that might have sounded like French to Casey’s ear, and reached down to pick up him up by his sweater. Casey kicked up, hard.
The kid went down, holding his genitals. Casey knew that was dirty fighting, but he’d just about had enough. “Do you have any fucking idea why I did that?” Casey got up, standing over the kid. Casey kicked him to the side, and rested his foot to the side of his genitals, ready to stomp his heel into them again. “If you drank that, you would’ve been conscripted into Her Majesty’s Navy! They’d’ve bought you that drink and you’d’ve been theirs.” He removed his foot as the kid regained his breath. Then Casey looked up at the gathering at the sidewalk.
His eye fell upon the two men who had done this, and they scattered. He turned to the kid, now looking normal. He held his hand out to help him up. The kid refused, getting up on his own.
“Lemme buy you a drink,” Casey said.
“I think you fuckin’ broke somethin’.” Casey tried to place the accent. It was from further south than New England. Virginia?
“I doubt that, though I’m not the one to check. Maybe Sarah there could?” He motioned to a woman-of-the-evening who was standing just a few feet away, watching the fight with a smile on her face. Casey had had her a few times, and found her to be one of the better of her sisters on this street. However, Mrs. Dooley over near Copley…
The kid was leering at her. She smiled back, and walked toward the two men. “I think,” the kid said, “I might be needin’ a check-up.”
“Oh,” she said with a small giggle, “I’m not a doctor.”
Casey pulled out a coin and handed it to her. “Check him out first. I’ll be up in an hour or so.”
The girl and the young man left, heading to her place. Casey wandered aimlessly for a little bit, and then went up to Sarah’s room. He heard them going at it. He grinned as he tried the door. It was unlocked, so he turned it. She had bolted it at the top. He gave it a hard punch where the bolt was, and it snapped off, as the door opened.
They were still going at it, even as he walked in. So intent were they that they didn’t see him come in and close the door behind him. He began to strip, examining the kid in the half-light. He was covered in scars, many of them swords similar to his own. However the kid was more lanky, built for speed, not for strength. Casey was as broad in the shoulders as he was long in the kid’s torso. Casey wondered if that size betrayed his true strength, like his own. He could lift a carriage full of men with one hand – and had.
Finally the kid lay down on Sarah, shuddering. Casey grinned, knowing Sarah wasn’t satisfied yet. He stepped forward and grabbed the kid by the shoulder. He looked up, startled. “Get up,” Casey said.
“An hour, already?”
“Sit back, you might learn something,” he said, giving the kid a shove, harder than he intended. The young man fell off Sarah. Casey leaned in and kissed her hard.
After Casey had his way with her, and sent her off satisfied, the two men got dressed. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Paul. Paul Valentine.” Casey noticed the young man was also studying his chest in the same way that he had been studying Paul’s. “You have a lot of scars.”
“Too many fights. And that last war did a number on me.”
“Not as bad as the Crusades.”
Casey yanked his sweater on over his head. “Crusades?”
“The Second Crusade was the worst. No planning.”
“Wait. How do you know about the Crusades?”
“I was there.” The kid finished getting his things together. “Thanks for the girl.”
“Paul,” Casey called as he started to walk out. Paul turned around. Casey slowly smiled, “I think you an’ me, we need to talk.”