Free Wicked Woods by Steve Vernon

hefting his rock and drawing a breath for a fresh new tirade. “In fact, if I had a mus–ket I’d blow out your mealy young brains for showing me such impudence.”
    And then he threw the rock, winging it off of Mascaline’s bad leg. That was definitely the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mascaline turned and ran back to the farmer’s house and hunted up Rogers’s old musket. It was a dirty thing, rusted and uncared for. It looked as if it might just as well blow up in Mascaline’s face as fire.
    â€œHere’s your musket, Master White, sir,” Mascaline said. “You may fire if you have the courage for it.”
    Ah, the brash foolishness of youth mixed with the bitter anger of age makes for a very bad brew indeed. Peregrine White took the musket and eyed it with an ex-soldier’s critical observation.
    â€œYou keep as bad a care of your weapons as you do of your house, Rogers,” Peregrine said. “I’m in as much danger from shooting myself with such a weapon.”
    â€œDamn you, sir,” Rogers huffed. “Use that weapon or I will use it myself.”
    Peregrine White put the musket to his shoulder.
    â€œMind you, boy. I’ve killed bigger men than you, back in the war,” Peregrine warned.
    â€œThe war was a long time ago, old man,” Mascaline answered. “The lies and brags you make of it mean nothing more than the wind.”
    â€œBetter you use this musket for a crutch, gimp-a-leg,” Peregrine said cruelly. “It probably isn’t even loaded.”
    Rogers, who was a little loaded himself even this early in the morning, was hair-trigger quick to speak up. “And what good is a weapon, if it isn’t loaded? It’s primed and ready sir. Are you?”
    There’s nothing so foolish as those who will listen to a double-dog dare.
    Peregrine threw the musket back at Mascaline. “I need no gun to tell you what I think of you and that serving wench you hope to bed.”
    With that Peregrine launched himself into a fresh torrent of insults. Mascaline stood there taking it all in, hanging onto the musket, his fists white-knuckled with rage.
    And then, all at once, as if by accident, the musket thun–dered out a gout of black powder. Mascaline had been holding it loosely, aimed towards the ground, but just the same Peregrine fell to the dirt, his left leg holed brutally midway between his ankle and his knee.
    â€œI’ll show you how to limp,” Mascaline was heard to say.
    Mary Evans came flying off the front stoop and knelt beside the fallen Peregrine, bandaging the old coot’s leg with a swatch of fabric torn from her only courting dress.
    Whether it was simply human courtesy, or the fear of losing her lover to the gallows, Mary Evans was determined that old Peregrine would not suffer. She patched him up as best as she could, but there was nothing to be done. Infection set in, and on Wednesday, October 3, 1810, old Peregrine White muttered his last bitter insult and passed away.
    William Mascaline was arrested and charged with cold-blooded murder. He faced trial at the Kingston courthouse on October 30, 1810. One day before Halloween, Judge Ward Chipman Sr. sentenced William Mascaline to hang, and six days later, hang he did.
    Mary never married and James Rogers never repented his temper. Kipper ran away on the day of the trial, although some believe that Rogers simply shot and killed the terrier, thus putting an end to the sole reminder of his uncontrollable rage.
    Not a lot of folks know about this trial, but there are many who tell you that on Halloween nights in the woods outside of Kingston you will often hear a small dog barking in the wind. Others will tell of hearing the voices of two bitterly angry old men arguing in the empty night.
    And there is many a Kingstonian who has heard and seen the ghost of Mary Evans walking the lonely woods, weeping for her long-lost lover. Her tears mix