Donners Bend (13 page)

Phillip
frowned with a laugh, “Aww, come on
! 
That had to have hit you!”

Jamie shook his head, “Pas de touché.”

“Well, I’m going to be victorious this round
. 
Don’t you worry!”
Phillip
assured him.

J
amie went in for the win, but
Phillip
fended him off quite well
. 
Every so often
Ellie
could hear one or the other say, “Pas de touché” again and she knew the game hadn’t yet ended.

But finally, Jamie leapt forward and
Phillip
uneasily admitted with a voice of failure, “Touché.”

Jamie smiled, raised his sword, and gave a bow, “
Mr.
Jamie
Rhodes has
successfully fended off all coveters of his title as the undefeated champion of fencing!”

Phillip
laughed, “I really didn’t have a chance, did I?”

Jamie laughed along, “What do you think?”

“Emily?”
Ellie
asked.

“Yes?”

“Were you ever one of those girls captivated by Jamie’s charm?”

Emily smiled, “What do you think?”

“Ready to go, Mae?”
Jon
called from atop Penny.

“Yes,”
Ellie
replied from inside her house, scramb
lin
g to find her hat, “One moment!”
             

She found it waiting patiently beneath her bed
. 
After grabbing it,
Ellie
flew right out her front door, not wanting to be late for work
. 
Jon
gave her a hand up onto the horse behind him, and she placed her bag between the two of them so that when they rode, her arms, which sat on
Jon
’s waist, would act as a barrier for the bag
. 

“Doing anything special with the children today?”
Jon
asked as Penny began to canter.

“No, not especially,”
Ellie
replied casually, “Just the usual.”

“I hear Jamie
Rhodes
is
back in town
. 
Thrown out of whichever university he was at, I assume.”

“You assumed right.”

They rode through the hills and down the rugged dirt paths
. 
The sun
was shining
brightly overhead, for today was to be a sunny day, though one can never be too sure of the weather in
Donners Bend
.

Lately,
Jon
came to
Ellie
’s every morning
. 
He’d come in just as she had finished dressing and while she sat down and ate breakfast, he’d have a little snack too
,
even though he’d already
eaten
his own morning meal
. 
Then, he’d prepare Penny while she got her things together and when they were both ready he’d take her over to the
Rhodes
’
house before heading to his own workplace, Ol’
Smith
’s
. 

“
Johnny
, were you ever friends with Jamie?” asked
Ellie
.

He shrugged, “We went to school together as boys, but I wouldn’t say we were great friends or anything
. 
Of course, we’d play together at recess time sometimes and he was always wil
ling
to help me out if I needed it
. 
That Jamie is one smart cookie
. 
He really made the rest of us feel stupid sometimes, though he’d never mean to do it.”
Jon
smiled as he remembered times in his childhood, “The teachers despised him
. 
He knew what they were going to say before they even said it
, o
r at least that’s what I heard
. 
I was rarely in a class with him
. 
Because of the age difference Jamie was always six levels ahead of me
. 
I’m eighteen now so he must be twenty-four
, o
r I suppose he could be twenty-five, depending on when his birthday is.

“I always thought he’d be a lawyer
. 
He’d make a good lawyer
. 
Smart as a whip
and he loves a great debate
;
he certainly knows how to stand his ground and
defend
whatever he believes is
right.”

They’d reached the
Rhodes house
by this time and were riding up the cobblestone way
. 
Ellie
slid off Penny’s back, took her bag, and gave
Jon
a friendly kiss on the cheek.

“
Goodbye
, Mae!” said
Jon
as he turned Penny around.

“
Goodbye
Johnny
!”
             

Jon
rode off again
,
and
Ellie
walked up to the front door and used the golden doorknocker, engraved with the
Rhodes
’
name
, to announce her presence.

Instead of Juliet answering the door, like usual,
Ellie
was greeted by Jamie
. 
He looked slightly different though, for at this encounter he owned a small mustache and his dark hair was even slightly more askew than its usual messy ways.

“Good morning, Miss
Henderson
,” he said with a slight nod of recognition as he allowed her in.

“Good-morning,
Mr.
Rhodes
,” she replied.

“Might I ask something of you, miss?”

“
Well o
f course, sir.”

“I remember
Jon
Smithton
from my school days
.  A
re you involved in a courtship, Miss
Henderson
?”

“
Why
no, sir
. 
We’re only friends.”

“Ah, I see
. 
Just wondering,” he said with a nod and a shrug, “Well, the children are still eating their breakfast in the sunroom
. 
You may go and wait for them if you like.”

“Thank you, I’ll do that, sir.”

“Have a nice day.”

“I shall.”

At playtime that day, the children decided to go outside for it was a beautiful day
. 
Jamie decided to come out
,
to
o
. 
He wanted to play pirates; he said he’d grown a mustache especially for the occasion of the first game of pirates since his arrival
. 
The children agreed with this idea and the game was set up.

On one side of the lawn hidden behind a propped
-
up board that served as their “ship” were
Ellie
, Leah, and Demi and on the other side of the lawn were Jamie, Gracie, and Wesley
. 
Wesley, dressed in a black cape and cap, came in front of his side’s board with a grave face.

“We, the men,” he began.

“And lady!” Gracie called out.

“Yes, yes, and lady
. 
We, the men and lady of the ship the Black Diamond, hereby declare war on you, ship of fools
. 
What
? 
What Jamie?”
             

Ellie
could now see Jamie’s dark head come above the top of the board and whisper something to him
. 
He’d been tel
ling
Wesley what to say since the beginning
,
she now realized.

“Oh, o-tay,” Wesley continued, “And we’d like to know if you accept our gracious offer, but if you don’t
,
we don’t care because we want to fight anyway.”

Demi came around to the front of
Ellie
’s board wearing a navy cape and white bandana and said as she shot her fist madly into the air, “We, the ladies of the ship the Sapphire, hereby accept your offer for we too, would like to fight.”

Wesley smiled, “Well then, shall we first introduce ourselves?”

Jamie smiled at the young boy’s idea of war, but went with it anyway
. 
He was dressed in
a white
-
collared
shirt, black pants, black cape, and he’d tied a red bandana around his head.

“Oh of course, of course,” he said with a forced straight face as he came out to the area between the two “ships”, “I, Black-beardless Jame
s
, would like to introduce the Queen of the Kingdom of Gracie-shire
...
”

Gracie came out, clad in a lavender cape with a crown of daisies upon her head
. 
She was the only one who didn’t like to dress up as a pirate; her feminine side dominated any tomboyish side she’d once had and she didn’t like to dress boyishly at all
. 

Jamie went on, “And the swarthiest pirate of them all, Westy Ray-man.”
             

Wesley took a little bow.

“And from the side of our enemies, the Sapphire, we have the
a
udacious Demi-Annie, the
v
ivacious LeLe, and the
n
imble Every-
Henderson
.” After each girl had been introduced, Jamie lowered his voice to a pirate’s gruesome tone and called out, “Now, this is not to be a clean fight, nor will it obey any laws you’ve ever known
;
to the victor go the
spoils
...
and
that’s just the way it is, savvy?”

“Can’t we just fight already?” Demi asked.

Jamie screamed, “We’ll fight!
” he paused and lowered his voice to a calm and rational one and finished, “
W
hen we’re good and ready
. 
Are all armed with their weapons?”

“Aye
! 
Aye!” both sides called as they raised their sticks.

“Then let the war begin!” Jamie yelled as he ran back behind the Black Diamond’s board.

Ellie
couldn’t help but smile
. 
Jamie, somewhere around the age of twenty-five, could act youthful and charming all at the same time
. 
She’d never seen a man his age get so into a game of pirates as Jamie did
. 

And so the war of pirates began
. 
Each side ran out from behind their board screaming war calls with their weapons raised; Jamie was the biggest child of them all.