Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 07:42:10 -0500
From: Jack Schaeffer <jack.schaeffman@gmail.com>
Subject: Light in the Window - Chapter 1

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This story was awarded the second place prize in Castle Roland's Age of
Enlightenment Contest 2015. Check out all the excellent stories and author
forums at http://www.castleroland.net 
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Comments welcomed: jack.schaeffman@gmail.com

THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW
By Jack Schaeffer and Mark C.

Copyright © 2015 by Jack Schaeffer & Mark C. All rights reserved

A smile is the light in the window of your face that tells people you're at
home. ~ Author Unknown


Chapter 1 – Philadelphia in the late 1700's

"Are you sure you won't stay?" asked John yet again to the man who was
gathering his meager belongings into a single canvas knapsack,
absentmindedly brushing the long locks of his overgrown black hair out of
his eyes.

"Come on, John. We've been over this a hundred times. It's time for me to
move on."

"But Edward, I'll make you a partner. You'll share equally in the
profits. Philadelphia is booming. The war is over, we won, and now there's
talk that the city will be the new federal capital. We'll have more
construction business than we'll know what to do with. You could be a part
of history here. We might even get to build the new Presidential Palace
they're talking about."

Edward laughed. "You and your history. I don't want to be a part of
history. I want to forget the past, John. All it ever brought me was misery
and heartache. I want a future. A different future, far from a big city and
all the noise and...disease." He looked out the single, small window of the
room where he had lived for the past three years and sighed, the deep
melancholy in his soul cracking the surface and exposing his pain again.

John Wilkins, a successful carpenter and lumberyard owner in Philadelphia,
had purchased Edward Branson's indenture contract from the captain of the
ship "Hopewell" when she arrived from Ireland by way of England. He had
given Edward the room under the attic eaves of his warehouse office. It was
hot and humid in the summer and cold in the winter, but Edward had never
complained. He had generally seemed grateful - and was - for the
opportunities afforded him in the business.

John interrupted. "But you can't say your time here with me was bad. I
thought we got along well, and I've honored every word of our contract."

Edward, holding up his hand, said, "Relax, John. You're an honorable man,
and yes, you've held up your end of the bargain admirably. I've spent my
time serving here, and I've learned new skills in a trade I love, and for
that, I thank you. But I don't want to run a business, and fight with
suppliers, and argue with workers' unions, and all the rest. I want to
smell fresh air, see the grasses growing, feel the breeze on my skin, and
work the land. I hate the city, John. You know that."

John sighed deeply. "Well, for what it's worth, I know you started out with
me as a...well, a servant, I guess. But I hope you know I truly considered
you a partner. I would not have half the business I have now if it wasn't
for your skills and work management. I only hope I can hang on to it."

Tucking away the last of his simple clothing in his bag, Edward looked up
at John and smiled warmly at the man who had indeed treated him like a
partner. Edward had been fortunate. Not every man or woman who signed away
a part of their life for "free" passage to the New World could say the
same. It had been hard work, but Edward was no stranger to hard
work. Running a farm in Ireland was hard work, too. Losing it all...was
even harder. He shook his head to drive away the sadness once again and
reached to shake John's hand.

"It's been an honor to serve you, John. And I thank you...for everything,"
he said, gripping John's hand firmly.

"Where are you going again?" asked John.

"West, I think. There's a stagecoach leaving this evening for
Lancaster. I'll figure it out from there."

"You need anything? Money...what?" asked John, sincerely wanting to help
the man he now considered his friend. Edward smiled.

"I've got all I need. I've saved as much as possible and I don't need a lot
for now. I'm just anxious to get moving. Thank you again, John. I'm truly
grateful." The two men nodded to each other, understanding their parting
was inevitable, if not mutually desirable. John stepped aside and watched
as Edward descended the wooden steps from his room into the warehouse
proper and confidently strode across the concrete floor and out the main
door into the noisy, dirty Philadelphia streets.

It was a warm afternoon for early May, and Edward tried his best to ignore
the rising stench from the refuse and rot on the sidewalks. Here and there,
the cobblestones trapped pockets of dirt, adding to the general mess of the
city. The noise of metal horse hooves and iron-banded wooden wheels on the
numerous carts and wagons clacking along on the cobblestones was
maddening. During his service here, he had longed for the wide open
expanses of quiet rural areas and had never truly felt alive until now,
knowing he would soon be leaving the noisy, dirty city behind.

The stagecoach to Lancaster departed at the ungodly hour of 2:00 A.M. but
Edward didn't mind. The sooner he got out of the city and into the vast,
open countryside, the better. Edward weighed the choice of spending part of
the night at an inn or just staying up and waiting for the coach. Since he
would rather not spend any coin on a room at this early stage of his
journey, Edward decided to walk to the Indian Queen Tavern.

As one of the city's prime establishments, the Indian Queen was a known
gathering place and favored watering hole for government leaders and
Philadelphia's social elite. It also had the distinction of being located
on Fourth Street directly across from the stagecoach terminus, making it
the perfect place for Edward to dine on a hearty dinner and
relax. Hopefully he would be allowed to sit in the main room until the
stage departed. If not, at least he only had to walk across the street to
await his ride.

After feasting on a rich stew ladled from the hanging pot over the
fireplace - full of beef, turnips and carrots - and hot biscuits straight
from the oven, Edward leaned back in his chair, his back to the wall, and
looked around the dining area while finishing off his tankard of ale. The
room was populated with people from all walks of life, brought together by
the commonality of food and drink.

Dirty tradesmen lifted their drinks in loud banter, enjoying the end of the
work day. Politicians and other gentlemen, some of them still wearing
powdered white wigs, sat huddled at tables, discussing all manner of
serious business over dinner and liquid refreshment. It was rumored that
most of the political work of forging a new country out of 13 disparate
colonies happened in pubs just like this one, all across
Philadelphia. Since the Philadelphia Mutiny of `83, most of the national
governing was transpiring elsewhere now, but there were rumors the new
Congress would return to the city soon. Edward had no interest in
politics. He just wanted to get on with his life, far away from wars,
governments, and especially the city.

He called over the tavern keeper and inquired about staying there until the
stagecoach arrived. "Lord, yes, Sir. I cater to the stagecoach travelers,
so the door is always open. It can be a bit of bother at times but I do get
extra custom from it and who of us can say no to extra money?" Edward
smiled knowingly.

His stay arranged and dinner bill settled - a shilling - Edward awaited the
stagecoach with increasing impatience. Now that he had severed his old
indentured life, he was more than ready to move on with his new
adventure. The hours moved slowly, the conversation in the tavern grew more
boisterous and irritating, and by 1:30 A.M., Edward couldn't help but step
outside and mentally "will" the coach and its horses to appear in front of
him and the other two male passengers waiting. A few minutes before 2:00,
the coach could be seen in the moonlight, rolling down the street after
leaving its first pickup point on Chestnut, a single candle-lit lantern
swinging from a hook near the driver's seat.

The brown four-in-hand, looking well-groomed and well-fed - obviously the
company owner knew the value of keeping his horse teams well maintained -
pulled up alongside the wooden walkway and the driver jumped down from the
coach to assist the three waiting passengers. Edward handed him his
knapsack and the driver placed it on top of the coach, then did the same
with the other two passengers' bags. One passenger was an "outside", saving
money by riding outside with the driver. Edward and the other man climbed
up the front wheels of the coach and slipped under the leather curtain
hanging from the canvas roof. Since there were no women passengers, Edward
moved to sit on the last of three benches with his back braced against the
coach wall, normally a position given to women as it was said to be the
most comfortable. The only other passenger, a young blond-haired man of
about 20 dressed in plain homespun cotton trousers and shirt, sat next to
Edward on the last bench as well. The driver then closed the black leather
curtains, climbed up to the driving position, and whip in hand, flicked the
reins and the coach was off, bearing its human cargo on the first stage to
Lancaster.

The young man sitting next to Edward promptly drifted off to sleep without
introducing himself, something Edward found impossible to do with the
constant noise of rattling coach wheels on the pavement and the snores of
his riding companion. He spent the next several hours thinking about his
plans for the future – or rather his total lack of any coherent plan at
all.

His only real goal was to leave city life and return to country living. He
had a skill now – carpentry – and he assumed that with westward
immigration opening up at an ever increasing rate, surely there would be a
demand for building and construction along the way. How far west he would
go was yet to be determined.

It seemed like he was still trying to escape his life, not really live
it. After his parents moved their small family from the chaos and chronic
unemployment of Liverpool, England to the relative tranquility of County
Mayo in northwest Ireland, Edward could not have been happier. His youth
was spent exploring the green pastures and meandering streams nestled
between countless rocky hillsides. As he grew up and eventually married,
his life's work consisted of caring for farm animals and learning to grow
feed grains for the livestock. His father gradually gave control of the
farm to Edward, and over the years he modestly expanded their land and
livestock holdings. His family never had much, but they lived fairly
comfortably and peacefully off the land, which provided their basic needs,
and they bartered surplus grain and sheep wool with the few local merchants
when necessary.

But then it was all lost in one long horrible, agonizing fall and
winter. The land simply stopped producing crops. The strange relentless
dark fog, which had descended upon Ireland for as far as the eye could see,
blocked most of the necessary sunlight which the fields required to yield
their fruit. In the end, with nothing to feed the livestock or themselves,
sickness set in. Typhus spread across the land, wiping out whole families,
and Edward's was not one of those spared, taking first his parents, and
then finally his lovely wife Adeline and their beautiful twelve year old
daughter Molly. Edward was the only one to survive, and then only barely.

Nursed slowly back to health by a local merchant and his wife willing to
share from their own meager rations of food, Edward eventually regained
enough strength to begin helping the merchant rebuild his business the
following season when the fog finally dissipated. It was told in the local
pubs that a great mountain in Iceland across the sea to the west had
exploded, pouring out ash and soot into the sky, covering nearly all of
Ireland and large parts of Europe for months, claiming thousands of lives
across the island nations and the continent as poverty and the resulting
disease took their toll.

For Edward, staying in the place where he had lost everything became
emotionally intolerable, so at 34 years of age, after finally selling his
family's farm to a surviving neighbor and gathering only what belongings he
could carry on his back, he departed Ireland and returned to England. His
goal – a new life in the New World.

Today he had officially completed his required indenture to John Wilkins,
payment for his passage to that new life. A life Edward was finally ready
to begin. His work for the past few years had been satisfying, and John had
been both an honorable employer and a good friend in the end. But Edward
had grown increasingly restless, and John's frequent pressure for Edward to
court various eligible ladies of Philadelphia's society did not appeal to
him at all. While he longed for companionship and love, he knew he would
never find it in the arms of a woman born and bred into city life. He was a
frontier man, through and through.

The rhythmic jostling of the coach eventually lulled Edward into a restless
sleep of sorts, and when the coach made a brief stop at a small tavern
alongside the turnpike, the passengers and driver shared a quick breakfast
meal while the horses were tended to. The stagecoach was shortly on its way
again, the smooth graveled road much quieter than the hard pavement of the
city.

The driver had rolled up the leather curtains on the sides of the coach,
and Edward looked out into the great pine forests on either side of the
turnpike. The road, 24 feet wide in places, cut a swath through dense
woods, generally following the valleys and streams at the foot of the
Allegheny Mountains. There were more varieties of birds than he had ever
seen before. He observed many other animals scurrying among the trees and
along the river banks, as well. Beavers industriously building their dams,
squirrels jumping from limb to limb, chasing one another in spring's annual
mating rituals. Edward smiled, thinking of his own pursuit of Adeline so
many years ago. Of course, those thoughts always turned to despair and
agony, and he shook his head and tried valiantly to keep his mind on his
future, not his past.

His fellow passenger woke up long enough to share his total distaste for
the wilderness. He apparently was reluctantly travelling to Downingtown,
the halfway point to Lancaster, on behalf of his father's blacksmith
business, to procure a collection of horses for rent to Philadelphians in
need of personal conveyance. His conversation consisted of a short diatribe
on the ridiculousness of having to travel such a distance just to find a
horse. Surely they must raise horses closer to town. Edward smiled and said
nothing. Thankfully the sullen young man went back to sleep, finding no joy
in his country experience thus far.

With only another brief stop to water and rest the horses around the noon
hour, the stage coach continued on. Just before sundown, it arrived at its
final destination for the evening, the Downing Mill Inn, a tavern built on
the east side of Brandywine Creek. Two stable hands were waiting to take
charge of the horses, and with some minimal assistance from the driver, the
passengers disembarked. Edward noticed his young fellow passenger had taken
a sudden interest in the two lads currently unhitching the team of horses.

Edward stretched his back and made a slow turn to take in his new
surroundings. The driver had indicated they would spend the night here at
the Inn and depart again at approximately 4 A.M., with assurances the
innkeeper would knock on their doors to wake them up in time. The driver
stressed there was a schedule to keep - he would not wait for
stragglers. He then turned and entered the Inn, followed closely by the man
who had spent the entire day riding next to him. In the distance, Edward
saw his travelling companion now in the company of the stable hands,
chatting and laughing good naturedly. Perhaps the young man's journey was
looking up, he thought.

Inside, the Inn was alive with a crowd of mostly workmen fresh out of the
mills that lined Brandywine Creek in each direction, all seeking
refreshment. Edward found a table off to one side and was soon served a
delicious meal of wild turkey breast and assorted boiled vegetables,
followed by a slice of cherry pie. By the time he had drained his third
pint, Edward was tired of sitting and desired a walk around the small town
before bed.

Outside, the warm air was filled with the sounds of insects and the
fragrance of lilac bushes growing along the front of the Inn. Edward set
off in the direction of the stables, a glow in one of the windows to guide
him. He was feeling much better, the good food and drink having restored
his general good mood. He was once again feeling anxious and excited to
continue his journey westward towards a new life.

As he sauntered past the closed stable doors he thought he heard someone
moaning in pain. He stopped to listen more closely, now certain that he was
hearing someone groaning every few seconds. Fearing someone might be in
injured or in real danger, he quietly made his way around the side of the
stables and moved quickly in the darkness toward the back of the building,
the moans getting louder as he moved cautiously through the weeds, one hand
on the side of the wooden stable to guide him.

In the back, the light was brighter, and Edward could clearly hear moans
and what sounded like subdued laughter coming from one of the stalls in the
interior. Stepping very softly, hoping to avoid any creaking boards, the
element of surprise being his only weapon, Edward stealthily moved along
one wall down the main open pathway in the center of the stables until he
was standing in a position to see into the stall itself.

What his eyes took in shocked him. The young man who had ridden in the
coach alongside him for the day was now lying on his stomach across a hay
bale, his breeches around his ankles. One of the stable lads, his own
breeches completely missing, was humping the backside of the first, from
whom the moans were coming. Just as Edward was about to shout out to stop
the abuse, the young blond man from the coach turned his head so Edward
could see his face, and to Edward's surprise, he was clearly enjoying what
was happening to him. Horrified, but unable to turn away, Edward watched
mesmerized as the two men continued their rutting until it appeared they
each had reached the shuddering peak of their own personal pleasure.

Fearing he would be seen, now that the young men were finished, Edward
tiptoed quietly back to the entrance of the stable, finally exhaling the
breath he had been holding tightly. Finding his way carefully back to the
main street in the dark again, Edward tried to make sense of what he had
just witnessed.

He had heard of buggery between men, of course. He had even heard the story
back in Liverpool of two men caught in the act and made to stand in the
public pillory for one hour while people pelted them with rotten food, dead
animals, and rocks. One of the unfortunate men later died of an infection
from his wounds.

But he had never before seen it with his own eyes, and he would have never
considered the one being buggered would actually enjoy it. Yet clearly his
former travelling companion had not only found pleasure in the act, it was
likely he had pursued it with the stable lad. Edward was now faced with two
questions. The first was should he report what he had seen to the local
authorities, and thereby ruin, perhaps forever, the young men's
reputations? Or even worse, he could end up being indirectly responsible
for their personal injury or death at the hands of a vengeful public, when
their only "crime" was sexual relations, though of a most unusual kind.

The second question was even more distressing for Edward. Why on earth had
he himself become physically excited while watching the two young men's
behavior? Was it simply the observance of someone receiving sexual pleasure
with another person, something he himself had been denied for several years
now? He knew he had never so much as thought about sexual activity with
another man. His wife Adeline had been his only lover, and he had been
quite satisfied with that part of his life. After her death, he had
considered himself dead to a sexual relationship ever again, as he had no
intention of re-marrying at this point in his life. And his own moral code,
such as it was, made it impossible for him to seek physical comfort in the
arms of a prostitute. He was not above self-pleasure on occasion, but he
would have never admitted it out of sheer embarrassment, though he doubted
he was the only unmarried man to do so.

In the end, he blamed the lateness of the hour and his own personal
conviction that the young men had harmed no one, except perhaps themselves,
so he did nothing. He returned to the Inn, received a key to a small room
furnished with a single, one-person wire cot supporting a thin mattress and
a tiny writing desk. The only light was from a wax candle standing on a
flat stone.

Edward slept fitfully, his dreams plagued by a return to the images he had
witnessed in the stables. He woke up nearly two hours before his impending
departure, sweating, excited, and overwhelmed with frustration. Not knowing
what else to do, Edward pleasured himself to relieve the sexual tension,
and was finally able to sleep soundly until a loud knock woke him from yet
another dream of the two naked young men, this time calling out to him from
the stack of hay bales to join them.

After a warm breakfast of eggs and biscuits with gravy, washed down with
hot tea, Edward was the first to climb into the stagecoach in the darkness
and misty fog of the early morning. He was relieved his previous day's
companion was not to be seen in the group of travelers taking the coach to
Lancaster. In all, six men of various ages and professions joined Edward
for the day's journey ahead. When the stagecoach lurched forward as the
horses stepped into their yokes, Edward realized he had never learned the
name of the young lad whose life had inexplicably changed his.

The journey to Lancaster was without incident or excitement. The other
passengers amused themselves with conversation about their personal
successes and achievements and how the coming new order of things would
benefit their business interests. Edward listened only halfheartedly,
nodding and acknowledging someone when spoken to, but politely declining to
really enter into the conversations.

Frankly, he was bored. Bored with business and politics, bored with the
banal banter of simple men with simple interests - namely themselves. The
only thing on the journey that did not bore Edward was the scenery. He was
fixated on the beauty and wonder of nature all around him, and as they rode
deeper into the forests and along the occasional open rolling valley, he
longed to start a new life, pulled from the very land itself, much as he
had done in Ireland. There was something gratifying for him in living off
the land. The challenge, the danger, the fight for survival which intrigued
him and motivated him in a way city life and carpentry could not.

His mind also kept returning to the images of two young men in the throes
of passion. What he had seen the night before was seared into his memory,
like a brand on a new calf, and he knew it had awakened something in him he
thought would be best kept hidden. It made him uncomfortable and uncertain,
raising questions he never expected to have to face. As he had done so many
times in his life, he chose to ignore it for now, and returned to dreaming
about his immediate future.

After a brief stop along the turnpike for a midday meal and rest for the
horses, the stagecoach arrived at Miller's Tavern in Lancaster shortly
after 5:00 P.M. Despite having done little but sit on his very sore rear
end all day, Edward was tired. All he wanted now was a hot meal, some
liquid refreshment, and a place to lay his exhausted body. Tomorrow he
would begin to figure out the next steps for his new life.

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Authors' Note: If you have enjoyed this story, check out Jack Schaeffer's
"Forever" series in the Beginnings section on Nifty if you haven't already
- http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/beginnings/forever/