THE CARETAKER

What follows is an excerpt from an early draft of The Caretaker, Book One in the Love and Liberation Series. Please excuse any errors, and know that anything and everything is subject to change.

Publication of this novel is anticipated on November 10, 2025.

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Chapter One

…All was still, as suited the hour. The waning moon just peered above a clear horizon; while from a couple of lanterns in the tower of the North Church, the beacon streamed to the neighboring towns, as fast as light could travel. 

A little beyond Charleston Neck, Paul Revere was intercepted by two British officers on horseback; but being himself well mounted, he turned suddenly, and leading one of them into a— 

“Bridge ahead!” Pritchett's rasping call jerked Charlie out of the cool Boston night and back into the heavy, glaring heat of the New York summer.

He blinked up from his book just in time to see a span of wood and metal looming, closer by the second. No time to get up, he threw himself to the side to avoid getting bashed in the head.

His neck stretched painfully and his body cramped as the canalboat passed under the underbelly of the bridge. He felt his hat fall off. “Couldn’t a’ warned me sooner, you old cur?” he muttered into the darkness. 

When they were through, he levered himself back up to sitting and reached for his hat, which thankfully had not tumbled into the canal. He set the book on his lap and ran his fingers through his hair, letting the breeze cool his sweaty scalp. What time was it, anyway? 

Where were they?

He glanced over his shoulder. The sun, which had been blazing high overhead when he’d first sat down to read, had melted into a smooth golden disk, sinking fast. Beyond the canal, the barren, drained swampland with its skeletons of trees had given way to dusty streets and low wooden warehouses. A packet boat—a rusty old one with a crowd of people on the roof—glided toward them, and beyond it he could just make out the towering brick buildings of Utica through the haze.

Hang it all. The entire afternoon had slipped by. All those glorious, uneventful miles of the long flat, with no locks and scarcely any bridges to interrupt… 

His eyes wandered back to the open page. That Boston night of seventy years ago. The yellow lanternlight gleaming on the water, the muted splash of the oars, the dull thud of hooves galloping over the hills…

He closed the book, pulled on his hat.

The Utica weighdock was just minutes upstream. The captain, Pritchett, had been complaining about the levels on his whiskey jug, and he'd be looking to get away to fill it. That would leave Charley to drive The Maggie Lynn through Utica and get supper for him and Fritz, their driver. And even then, his work wouldn’t be finished. Once they cleared the city, it’d be Charley’s turn to drive the mules through the first half of the night. 

He wouldn’t get back to Paul Revere and that moonlit night until tomorrow morning at the soonest. 

The packet’s peeling white paint lit up gold in the afternoon sun. Charley squinted at the fading black letters that spelled out the craft’s name: Lucky Wren. There was no luck to it that Charley could see, just exhaustion and a stoic kind of hope. Tired, blank faces stared out the windows and down the canal. The crowd on the roof was so thick he could hardly make out one person from another—a woman, her face streaked with sweat, held a baby while a small girl leaned limp against her shoulder. A group of men in shirtsleeves sat on steamers, smoking and playing cards. Laundry flapped in the breeze.

The men laughed, and the guttural sounds of some foreign language wafted on the breeze—German? Norwegian? He couldn’t tell from here.

Charley tucked his book under his arm, then turned back toward the prow. Pritchett stood at the helm, his cheek bulging with tobacco, one hand on the tiller and the other clutching his whiskey jug. His bloodshot eyes met Charley’s and they narrowed.  “Shtay there.” he ordered, then he spat onto the deck.

Hell. The lusher had been guzzling whiskey the whole time Charley had been reading. He was blind drunk.

“I shaid. Shtay.” Somehow, the old man’s gaze stayed steady, though his head weaved back and forth.

Charlie fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of course. The packet boat. 

It would want the right of way—as was its due. It was headed west, packed with passengers, while The Maggie had only her cargo of wheat. 

But of course Pritchett didn’t see it that way. In his view, every boat they passed was an enemy. and ceding the right of way meant losing some great war.

Charley pivoted until he was once more facing the oncoming boat, though he couldn’t bring himself to look any of the passengers in the face.

He’d only taken this job after the captain of the barge he’d come out on had broken his leg and been forced to dock in Buffalo for the season. Charley had met Pritchett in a tavern. The old man had claimed to need a bowsman, and he’d offered a decent wage. He was a drunk of course—that had been clear from the start—but a bloated captain was hardly a rarity on the canal. All in all, it had seemed a fair job…. until that first afternoon outside Lockport, when the real reason he’d hired Charley came clear.

Just past Hitchen’s Bridge, they’d encountered a line boat headed west, weighed down with passengers and freight. Pritchett had demanded the right of way, and when the other captain refused to yield—as was his right—the old man had sneered, spat into the canal, then ordered Charley to “change his mind.” 

He’d been mad as a meat axe when Charley refused to lift his fists, threatening to throw him off the boat in Rochester with no pay. Charley had almost agreed to it, he was no man’s attack dog, but in the end, his need for a job and Pritchett’s need for a bowsman had won out, and they’d come to a mutually disagreeable arrangement. Charley would stay on The Maggie, at least until they got to Albany. He wouldn’t slug anyone, but he would stand on the bow and look threatening. 

And as much as he hated it, the idiotic show usually worked.

He crossed his arms and eyed the oncoming boat. It was so damn tempting to give the old badger the slip and disappear into the crowds of Utica, make his way back to Albany and find a better job to finish out the season. It would be easy.

But Mam was ill. She needed a doctor, and food, and the rent paid. And she still had his youngest sister, Hetty at home. Her last letter worried him—she assured him all was well, like always, but her hand had been so shaky and faint… 

No, he couldn’t afford to lose this job. Even if it meant putting up with the likes of Pritchett.

Fritz, their mule driver, walked the tow path with the mules about fifty feet ahead, closing in on the driver from the opposing boat. He looked back, and Charley nodded, making the captain’s will known. Fritz grinned. Unlike Charley, the boy seemed to live for a fight. Thirteen at most, he spoke English but cursed in German, drank grog like a fish, and seemed eager to pummel anyone who looked at him wrong. 

An apt apprentice for the captain. 

“Let us pass!” Pritchett’s grating shout echoed across the canal. The packet’s bowsman shaded his eyes and studied the show of force: Fritz staring daggers at his driver; Charley—all six feet, four inches and two hundred-twenty thirty pounds of him—standing on the stable roof, arms crossed; Pritchett glowering drunkenly at the tiller. 

The bowsman shrugged, then gestured to his driver to pull to the side and let Fritz pass.

Pritchett’s oily giggle sounded from the stern. “Take that, ye weedy lil’ bitch.”

Charley felt his lips curl. What a fucking goney. All that to delay a boat full of tired women and children.

His role finished, Charley jumped down onto the wooden planks that covered the cargo hole. He ignored the captain and his stink of whiskey as he rounded the helm, then descended the ladder into the cabin. Moving by rote in the dim space, he slipped the book into his rucksack, then climbed back out just as Fritz and Pritchett’s mules passed the other boats’ driver. Fritz said something to the boy as he walked by, a taunt of some kind. But the other boy had more sense. He gave no reply. 

Charley shook his head. He’d tried to talk sense into Fritz, but it did no good. The lad would have to learn the hard way.

The Wren’s tow rope sank into the murk of the canal and she slowed, moving only with her own momentum as The Maggie’s rope floated smoothly overtop. The other boat was only feet away now, and Charley looked up to meet the stare of The Wren’s bowsman, a pale, carrot headed chap younger than Charley, but not by much. He grinned at the fellow and doffed his hat, doing his best with his cheeky expression to apologize for his captain’s assery. The man’s brows knit in confusion, but it was too late to explain, he was passed and the other boat was alongside.

Charley leaned against the rail, studying the canal ahead. They were still a half mile from the weigh dock, but the queue was already coming into view—a wide laker, sitting low in the water under its cargo of grain, seemed to be the end of it. Charley took up the dock line, and—

“What the hell ‘ya think yer doin?” Pritchett’s angry scream ripped through the humid air.

What the—

Charley turned just as someone—a boy—leapt off the roof of the cabin and onto the deck, nearly knocking him down. A string of Pritchett’s curses trailed after, though the captain himself did not give chase. He was stuck at the tiller.

The boy teetered at the rail, and Charley grabbed him by the collar. “Whoah there.” 

The boy shook him off. Charley could have sworn he would jump—that’s what any sane person would do with Pritchett in such a rage—but instead, balance regained, the lad wheeled around and stared at Charley with wide, green eyes. Freckles dotted a skinny, sunburned face, streaked with sweat and dirt. An old hat sat on his head, and tattered overalls covered a worn shirt. Looped around the boy’s waist was a wide leather belt and—was that a sword?

A runaway. Probably stowed himself on the Lucky Wren and had decided to jump before he was caught. 

“Lovejoyyy.” Pritchett clung to the rudder, his face beaded with sweat as he practically jumped up and down in his rage. “What the fuck are ye doin? Bring ‘im here.” 

The lad’s eyes darted toward the captain, then back to Charley, wide with fear.

There was something unsettling about those eyes. Where had he seen them before?…

“God damn it man. What are ye doin’? Bring that punk— I’ll…I’ll…” Charley rounded the corner and pulled the lad into the shadows of the cabin wall. Out of sight, the captain’s screams seemed to fade into the distance.

“You’ve got to jump.” he hissed. “Get into the city. You can find a—”

“Are you Charley Lovejoy?” 

Charley’s stomach did a flip. Who the hell was this? The boy looked eager, hopeful that Charley would say yes. But what did he want? And those unnerving green eyes…

None of it made any sense. 

But Charley had done nothing wrong. There was no harm in telling the truth. It wasn’t as if the lad could hurt him.

“Aye.” He answered reluctantly. “I’m Charley.”

The lad’s face spread into a grin. “Thank goodness.” He exhaled. “I’m—” he hesitated, the smile still tugging on his lips, as if he were stretching out the punchline of a jest. “I’m Hetty. Your sister.”

Pritchett rounded the corner, his chest heaving and his face as red as a lobster. He gripped a heavy iron bar with both hands.

The boy— Hetty’s—hand went to her sword hilt, and she began to pull. 

Two thoughts flashed through Charley’s mind at exactly the same time.

The first was that if somehow, this boy standing before him was in truth his baby sister Hetty, then she was his responsibility—his to protect.

The second was that if Pritchett was drunk enough to leave The Maggie unmanned as they came into the city, he was drunk enough to do any manner of ugly things.

The two truths collided, then combusted, and in the chaos of the explosion Charley grabbed for Hetty’s arm and pulled her to the rail.

“Jump!” he yelled, and together they leapt off the side of the Maggie Mae, into the rancid green soup of the Erie Canal.