Fairer than Morning by Rosslyn Elliott Page A

excuse.
    â€œI’m pleased to hear it.” Good crossed to the stall Will had been cleaning. “Still not finished here?”
    â€œNo, sir. I will be soon.”
    â€œWhat did you get from Miller about his techniques?”
    â€œI just listened, sir. We only talked for a few minutes.”
    â€œYou’ll have to do better. You only have a few weeks.”
    â€œYes, sir.” Will knew he probably shouldn’t say it, but he did anyway. “Sir, I may be able to copy some fitting techniques, but it won’t be possible for me to learn his hand-tooling in that time.”
    Good pressed his lips together and went white around the mouth. A lump of ice formed in Will’s throat. Good paced past him. Then the world reeled and Will was down on his knees, vision blurred. He rolled to the ground, half-aware. The master had hit him with something. He didn’t know what. A dull ache began on the side of his head. He knew it would be much worse in a minute.
    Dimly he heard the master’s voice. “Don’t question me, boy. Miller said himself that your stitching was fine on that other saddle. But if you can’t learn to tool the leather as well as he can, then you’ll have to discover a way to make his work less attractive to his customer. Perhaps his billet straps are weak. Do you understand me?”
    Will groaned. His eyes still would not focus, though the barn’s spinning was slowing.
    The barn door rattled as Good left. Will raised his fingers to the side of his head, where he could feel a huge lump already forming. A sharp sting revealed a break in the skin. His fingers were slick and red when he held them up close enough to focus on them.
    He would live. Tom’s head had bled worse than this when the master hit him with the poker two weeks ago. He thought vaguely that he would have to wash the blood off before dinner or he would get another thrashing.
    But as the room slowed to a standstill, the ache grew and spread. He lay immobile on his side with his eyes closed, clutching his head in his hands as if to hold it together.
    He thought he might like to die then. There was only pain, no joy in this miserable, dishonest life—there had been none for years. His brother would be ashamed of him, could he see him now, just as the Miller girls had been disgusted. That was why he had not written Johnny for a year, and his brother’s letters had gradually ceased. Will did nothing of worth—he had no future without a reputation to start a business. He did not even have honor, but had turned into a cringing shadow ready to do what was necessary to get by.
    Part of him wanted to kill his master, even if he would hang for it. But there was fear down deep inside him, ever since the first time the master had beaten him so badly. That was only a couple of weeks after his arrival in Pittsburgh. Will had sobbed and begged for mercy, his eyes swelling shut, his nose pouring blood, rib and fingers broken. It wasn’t the pain, but the degradation of begging, his own weakness—as if the master had reached a skeletal hand down into Will’s soul and closed on it like a vice so it would never be his own again. The memory claimed him—it showed him who he really was, who the master had shown him he was—a spineless beggar and a slave. A cloud of nausea filled him and he wished for nothingness.
    He heard the barn door open and close. Now he had to get up. Master Good had no mercy.
    But instead of Good’s serpentine whisper, he heard a sharp intake of breath.
    Light footsteps approached and cool fingers grazed his forehead.
    For a moment, he remembered his mother and let himself fall back into a dream that she once again sat beside him. He could almost hear her soft humming and smell the honeysuckle that bloomed outside the window the last summer she had been at home, when she would tell stories and then sing him to sleep, half cradling him in her arms.
    But the