Wanted

Chapter 64

From that first snowstorm at the beginning of November, up until just before Christmas, when the temperatures unexpectedly rose above zero for the first time again, the weather had been extremely cold and unpleasant. Blizzard after blizzard kept people housebound for days at a time and on those days where there weren't any storms, McCarthy and his crew had their hands full with fixing buildings that have been damaged by fallen trees, and patching up roofs of houses that had been blown off by the wind or caved in under the weight of the snow.

McCarthy felt John would have been hardy enough, but his wife, always the worrier did not agree. His injured shoulder alone was enough reason not to have him out in this cold, she claimed. What if he slipped on the ice and fell on it or 'God forbid' got another concussion because he slipped of a roof. No amount of reassuring her that he wouldn't put the boy on any roofs could convince his wife, so that McCarthy ended up sending John to school more often than not instead of taking him along to work during those first few weeks of winter.

McCarthy didn't really mind. When it was that cold all he was interested in was getting the job done as quick as possible. He reckoned that even if John's injuries had been fully healed up, the boy wouldn't have been all that much use to them yet and would have slowed them down considerably on accounts of his age and inexperience. But the carpenter didn't let on of course and kept arguing with his wife over it, nevertheless. It wasn't in his nature to admit defeat, but more importantly, he wanted the boy back working eventually, and needed to make sure that neither his wife nor the boy would forget it. Despite everything, his troublesome apprentice was a good little worker and had started to show potential.

John himself was happy enough with the arrangement. No one liked being outside in that cold for too long even if school did not turn out all that he had hoped it would be. And every so often when McCarthy had work to do inside, or there was yet another blizzard abusing the city, to such an extent that the school gates had to remain closed, he got a break from that too. He couldn't say which one he'd prefer more or disliked over the other and wholeheartedly agreed with Phelps who always said that a change was as good as a break.

The only thing he truly hated during that time was having to spend so much time indoors. There were only so many chores McCarthy and his missus could give him to keep him busy and he jumped on every opportunity if such a chore would allow him to step outside for even just a few short cold moments. The confinement had been stifling to John, so like everyone else, he welcomed the freedom the change in the weather promised to bring.

It had been difficult for people having to go about their business in the freezing cold not least because the supply chains in and out of town had become increasingly less frequent and unreliable. Even the railways had come to a complete halt at different times and different parts of the country, leaving goods, post and people stranded in places no one wished them to be.

Suddenly people got post and letters from loved ones that had been sent several weeks ago, so when Horace handed McCarthy four letters that he had picked up in the post office on his way home from school, when normally they rarely got any, he told his father that the postmaster had said they were no exception.

Unfortunately, the one letter that McCarthy had been waiting for, the one from the new owner of the hotel giving him the final go ahead and the promised advance so that he could get started on the job, was not among them. After the first blizzard had past McCarthy had sent him a telegraph. He hadn't been surprised that with the stagecoach and trains having been temporarily out of service, the man hadn't been able to make the meeting at the workshop as planned to sign the final contracts. In his telegraph McCarthy told him that there was going to be a slight delay on his end due to the weather but that he was still keen on getting started as soon as he'd sent word. In not so many words of course because it was a telegraph, which now had McCarthy worry, because the man never did send a reply, not by telegraph and not by post neither. McCarthy worried if his message hadn't been clear enough and whished the man would just put him out of his misery and let him know if he wanted him to start the job or not.