The Boss's Boy

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 - 1826

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  The Canals

  About The Author

  Books by Roy Chandler

  The Boss's Boy by Roy F. Chandler

  Copyright © 2007 and 2013 by Katherine R. Chandler

  All rights reserved

  Printing History

  IBA Edition 2007

  E-Book Edition 2013

  This is a work of fiction. The incidents in this book and the situations depicted are the author's creations. They do not and did not exist or happen.

  Cover art: Johnny Sheene

  Cover model: Zack Sheene

  Dedication

  To

  The People of Perry County, Pa.

  This book is written for the people who have, for more than thirty-seven years, so generously supported my writing efforts.

  Sixty-three books! Who would have believed it? My work is now read throughout the English (and French) speaking world. Who would have believed that either?

  You have been a generous audience, and I have been honored to write for and about you.

  Additional titles from this author will be few, if any, but I am satisfied with what is out there, and I am grateful for your unflagging interest that made most of it possible.

  My fondest hope is that future generations of Perry Countians will discover my books and be made more aware of the marvelous land in which they live.

  Introduction

  Every author would like his book to sell a million or so copies, but if I do not sell a single copy beyond Perry County, Pennsylvania, I will be content.

  Being a Perry Countian is a state of mind more than a place of residence. My Perry County frontier series is being read all over the world, and people come from distant places to walk the ground written about and, perhaps, to suck in a little of the Perry flavor.

  When I began writing about Perry County (in book form in 1968), readers beyond the county could be remembered by name, and I had short lists recording who bought books and where they lived.

  No more! Anyone who checks eBay or Amazon can discover that Chandler Books are sometimes offered from exotic locations and are bought by English speakers around the globe.

  I describe The Boss's Boy as a story about a youth who simply likes to fight. Have you known young men like that? I have, and to bring it home to some who will remember, my pal Bussy Thebes of Bloomfield was that sort of guy. Bussy got into fights at every baseball game and occasionally on the town square. Bussy did not drink, and he was not really mad. He just liked it.

  Bussy is gone now, but my guess is that among the young guys of the county there are others who carry on the street corner fisticuffs tradition.

  In this book, the youth grows to manhood and becomes sober and responsible—a man of business who is still willing to let his fists fly if needed. Yep, I could name a couple of those types as well.

  All of that is in the Perry County tradition. About half of Harrisburg's citizenry still believe that Perry Countians are wild characters who lack teeth (especially in front), go to one-room schools, sell hoop poles to subsist, and get "lickered up" and fight with knives and guns at the drop of a slur—like calling it PURRY County.

  The Perry County frontier era was memorably violent, and it may be true that genetic imprints of that time are cherished a touch more by our people than they are in some other places.

  Good for us! Let the wimps live elsewhere. We should be careful not to have too much of that thinner blood transfused when we go outside for emergencies.

  Now you have hints of how The Boss's Boy will run. I chose the subject matter because I wished to write a bit about the early canal era (1827 to 1834) and I needed to position the story in Duncannon—a town I have neglected a bit in earlier volumes.

  As canals are prominent herein (although this is not a yarn primarily about canals) I have attached a sort of canal summary following the text. If you would like to know something about the Pennsylvania canals before you tackle the story, read The Canal section at the end of the book. It is not necessary (and there is a bit of repetition of material within the book), but some will be glad they did.

  Historians will recognize that I have condensed time a little to make the story more inclusive. A few incidents occur before their historical dates, and some in the book happen a touch later than in real life. A novel is storytelling. I am not recording actual history.

  As usual, this is a book that anyone can give to anyone without fear of embarrassment or insult. There is no sex and no swearing, the good guys win, and the bad guys get what they deserve—and maybe a bit more. I hope that when a reader finishes the book, he will lay it aside with a sense of satisfaction and wish that it were longer.

  The Boss's Boy

  Chapter 1 - 1826

  Young Matt Miller backed away and ran his tongue across his split lip. Blood was salty in his mouth, and he spit it away, glaring at Mickey McFee with hunger in his eyes.

  McFee, too, paused to rub at his head where it had collided with Matt's jaw, indicating that the butt had been accidental. If the head butt had been deliberate, McFee would have taken advantage of Matt's momentary hesitation and been on his opponent like a coat of paint,

  The difference was that this was a friendly fight to prove who was toughest, who had the heart, and who, until they met again, could claim to be the cock-of-the-towpath.

  McFee had strutted up to Matt betraying his intentions by a pugnacious, outthrust jaw and balled up fists.

  He said, "Hear you're moving out." He waited for Matt's answer, grinning in delight at what he expected was about to happen.

  McFee was like that. He liked to fight, and he and Matt had battled twice before to inconclusive decisions.

  Mickey McFee was a year older and built like a brick. He worked beside the toughest nuts in his labor gang and pretty much held his own. He smoked a short Irish pipe, drank himself stupid on occasion, sang loudly when soused, and fought with anyone his size or a little larger. McFee was sixteen years old.

  Matt had watched McFee swagger along the horse-manured towpath paralleling the new canal and had easily guessed his intentions. He felt a lift to his spirit and could have acknowledged a growing excitement, for if the truth be known, young Matt Miller liked a good fight about as much as did tough Mickey McFee. Furthermore, he was still unsure whether he could properly lick McFee or whether the more-than-willing young fist fighter could put him down for a count.

  Matt's answer to McFee's query was quiet, but his eyes challenged, and the Mick did not miss the set of feet or the unblinking return of his stare.

  Miller said, "We'll be gone for a while, but we'll be back."

  McFee said, "Guess I ought to lick you once more before you go so's you won't forget how it feels."

  Matt found himself grinning in anticipation, and excitement ballooned somewhere inside his body.

  "McFee, they couldn't melt you down and pour you on me." Matt tried to look speculative.
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  "The fact is, I think I'll beat on your thick skull like I did the last time you came looking for a fight."

  The words came routinely because that was the way men talked to each other. McFee was already laying his hat aside, and when Matt dropped his alongside someone began yelling, "fight."

  Matt stepped squarely onto the towpath and got his hands up. The excited shouting came clearly through a sudden buzzing in his senses, and he heard a voice bellowing, "Come on, McFee's going to whip the Boss's Boy."

  Other voices took up the cry. "McFee and the Boss's Boy are going to scrap." A burly worker was ready to bet. "I'll put two pence on McFee. Anybody taking?"

  Nobody accepted, and that raked Matt's nerve ends. He squared off and quick as a flash, McFee made for him.

  The Mick came in swinging. He grunted with every punch and intended that each knock his enemy as cold as frozen mackerel.

  Matt Miller met McFee head on, and their blows thumped along heads and into bodies. Crude blocking forced misses, but just as many wallops thudded home. Matt felt an ear turn hot, and his vision blurred a little from a powerful whack.

  When stung, each fighter instinctively swung harder and faster. Attack was met with fiercer attack, and men gathered to watch the battle, cheering more or less equally, more interested in the small war itself than who was actually winning.

  Then McFee's head had come up hard under Matt's chin and rattled his senses. His lip split and burned like fire, and McFee had stepped back to rub at the pain in his own skull. The Irish boy's grin was nail-hard, and his body was gathering to resume the battle, so Matt punched him straight in the middle of his face.

  Mickey McFee took the smash, which bounced his head and flattened his nose, spraying blood onto his upper lip. Shaken, he swung like a gate. The wild right hand got through, thudding solidly against Matt's ear, and Miller felt his feet lift and his rump hit the ground. Slightly dazed, he lunged erect, getting close and grabbing fistfuls of Mickey's clothing.

  They wrestled about trying to topple the other, and a foreman decided he had seen enough. He signaled a muscular helper, and they moved in to separate the youthful brawlers. The still-gathering crowd hooted and demanded the fight go on, but the company paid for work, and youths hammering at each other was only entertainment.

  Matt found his arms pinned from behind, and he was unceremoniously hoisted off his feet. An instant before he was hurled off the towpath and into ungraceful flight, he glimpsed Mickey McFee struggling just as fruitlessly in someone else's more powerful grip.

  He smacked face first into the canal and went under. The long Swatara Creek cut had only recently been refilling after its winter sleep. The water was fresh off still thawing hillsides and felt colder than ice.

  Matt got erect in chest deep water and stood on the smoothed bottom searching for the best climb up the canal bank and out of the freezing cold. McFee surfaced nearby snorting water and blood from his nose and looking for the villain who had thrown him in.

  The foreman who had roughly treated the Boss's Boy picked up their hats and examined them thoughtfully. "You two want to fight, do it after hours. We'll get in a ring and take bets on who'll miss the most times."

  He shook his head in apparent disgust. "If a man's going to fight, he ought to know how. I doubt I've ever seen clumsier work in all my life." His words were cutting and meant to slash through any heroics the youths might harbor.

  "You two should hike over to the girl's school and take lessons afore some full-grown man whomps your brains into mush."

  He chose a head-sized stone from beyond the towpath and pushed the caps into nesting. The stone fit inside nicely, and he lobbed the weighted hats into the canal upstream from Mickey McFee where they immediately sank.

  "Get yourself out of there and back to work, McFee, or I'll dock your pay for the whole morning!"

  "And, you, young Matt. Quit picking on my men or you'll spend most of your time crawling in and out of this canal."

  McFee shook his fist at the foreman's departing back. "If he wasn't the head bull I'd pile out of here and punch his face till he couldn't yell no more."

  "Sure you would, McFee. That man would pound you into the ground like a tent stake." It would not do to gouge holes in the clay lining the canal walls and Matt Miller was still hunting the best route out.

  McFee was already thinking about other things. "You mark where my hat landed? I sort of lost track."

  Young Matt answered wearily. "Yeah, it's to the left of where you're heading. Go a little more. Now they should be about under your feet." He watched McFee's leather-clad rump appear as the boy dove for the hats.

  It took three dives before Mickey surfaced triumphantly waving his soggy cap. "Right where you thought it was, Boss's Boy." He clapped the water-streaming hat to his head. "Yours got washed away or something, but I reckon you'll find it after a while."

  Like hell it did! Matt knew as sure as it was cold that McFee had tromped his hat into the mud, and it would be the very devil to find. Matt gritted his teeth and plowed through the canal toward the grinning Irish youth.

  McFee let him get close before he lifted his other hand holding Matt's soggy cap. "Actually, I found yours right off, but I wanted you to worry a little." He tossed the rag in Matt's general direction.

  They studied the steep bank guessing they might have to bottom-walk to the nearest sloping bank, which was too far away to be pleasurable.

  McFee said, "Look, I'll hold you on my shoulders 'cause I'm the strongest. Once you get on the bank, you find a good grip on something and lower an arm for me to grab onto."

  The cold was biting deep, so Matt was willing. He warned, "Don't go dumping me head first or something, McFee." He got a knee on Mickey's shoulder and pressed on the Irish boy's hat while he worked the other knee onto the second shoulder. McFee tottered toward the bank where the bottom rounded upward following the general shape of a canal boat's hull.

  "Damn it, boy, lean forward or you'll pull us both backward. Cripes, ain't you ever balanced anything?" McFee paused just out of reach of the embankment. "You wouldn't get out and just leave me here in the water would you, Boss's Boy?"

  "Of course not." Matt made his voice indignant, but he had considered just that. It would be funny and deserving, but as sure as the sun shown, when he finally got out, Mickey McFee would come looking for him, and he was tired of fighting just now

  Matt got his balance on the towpath and found a mostly buried root to hang onto. He draped his body back over the bank, his feet almost touching the water, and McFee clawed his way upward gripping clothing and finally his rescuer's shoulders.

  McFee rolled to safety on the towpath and immediately reached back to grip the collar of Matt's shirt and haul him onto the security of flat ground.

  McFee twitched his upper body and complained loudly. "Damn it, you didn't have to pick a spot with fresh horse manure on it. I rolled right in it."

  Matt did not care. "Why don't you just jump back in the canal and wash it off, McFee? This is all your fault, anyway."

  "My fault? If it was anybody else, they'd have let me finish you off. You're lucky you're the boss's boy. They didn't want to see you get really whipped or you'd be pretty badly licked about now."

  They clambered to their feet studying each other and making sure the other didn't get in a sneak punch.

  Matt said, "If I was losing, how come your nose is flat and you're going to have two big black eyes?"

  McFee shrugged it off. "A nose isn't nothing to a real fighter. Your lip's another thing. Hell, it's sticking out so far I could hang my hat on it." He grinned maliciously. "Hurts, too, don't it?"

  Matt lied, "I can't even feel it." Then curious, "Why'd you come after me, anyway? I haven't laid eyes on you for weeks and here you come stomping along looking for trouble—which you surely got about all you could take."

  McFee appeared uncertain. "Damned if I can recollect. Somebody suggested I knock you around a little lest you start thinking
you were tough or maybe important." His voice sagged away in confusion before he rallied.

  "Anyway, I'm glad I licked you, and if I didn't have to get back to the job, I'd polish you off here and now just 'cause it feels good." He turned away hoping to have had the last word.

  "That beak of yours doesn't feel so good, and I'll bet you won't smell anything for a month." Matt considered starting the fight all over again.

  McFee turned and said, "You're moving away now, Boss's Boy, but I'm going to fight for money. I've got me a trainer, and if we meet again you'd better walk soft 'cause by then I'll likely be a champion." McFee again turned away.

  Matt got in the last dig. "Well, if you see me somewhere along the pike just remind me, and I'll make you the ex-champion." He saw McFee's shoulders hunch a little, but the foreman had stepped onto the towpath and was looking in their direction. McFee kept walking.

  Matt headed toward the camp headquarters wondering if his father had heard the fracas. It might be best to slip in a side door and shed the wet clothes. Big Matt had requested he quit fighting the workers' sons, and he was willing, but what was he to do when some hard head like McFee came hunting trouble?

  Damn, it had been a good scrap until they'd gotten thrown into the drink. Working full days, McFee was getting terrible strong while he, the Boss's son, was sitting in school trying to learn mostly useless stuff.

  He pondered Mickey McFee fighting for money. A lot of young men did that, but not many made anything useful. Klubber Cole was always around the workmen's camp training somebody. The Klubber had been a hard fighter, but he was a little old now.

  Most professionals adopted tough names, and Matt wondered what McFee would pick. Probably something like Hurricane McFee. Matt grinned to himself.

  He licked at his hugely swollen lip. Damned thing was still bleeding, and it couldn't be explained away other than fighting. He might as well go straight in and get it over with. He knew his father's first question would be, "Did you win?" Big Matt put a lot of importance on finishing first.