Tenner Heed was in trouble, but he didn’t know it yet. It would be easy for you, the unwitting reader, to believe this trouble was related to the dark alley in which he crouched. You might assume it had something to do with his twisted ankle. It’s entirely possible you’re considering it was all about the group of people in hot pursuit. But no . . . Tenner Heed’s trouble was deep, deep in his heart, and he didn’t know it yet. He won’t figure it out until that day when Eva reaches in, pulls it out, and shows it to his bewildered face: the trouble that he’s now lived with for far, far longer than any normal idiot should.
But that hopeful day is a long time off, if indeed it ever comes. At this moment, however, Tenner Heed certainly must worry about the dark alley, the wounded ankle, and the group of people already closing in.
We now join the story, already in progress.
It was dark, as you might expect. People rarely get into trouble like this in broad daylight. It was also wet. Save fire, nothing quite makes a bad situation worse than having water poured all over it. Tenner huddled behind a stack of wooden crates, listening for the sound of footsteps. In his hand, he held a small box. The small box held a secret. He had just stolen both, but Tenner was no thief.
Crouched in the alley, he rubbed his ankle and cursed himself for the foolish leap he took from the rooftop, landing him in his predicament. The unintended and ill-fated jump may have slowed his pursuers, but it wouldn’t stop them completely.
If his recent injury weren’t enough, Tenner was further encumbered by two single-handed swords. He wore them across his back and he was seldom seen without them. In and of itself, this might not come off as a terribly unusual practice; that is until you realize he never used them. If you’re inclined to wonder why he never used them, the answer becomes clear as water if you catch the rare glimpse of Tenner attempting to employ them. He has absolutely no skill with a blade.
After a brief respite in the alleyway, Tenner at last heard the sound he feared: footsteps rounding a corner, only a few dozen cobble-stoned yards away. These wiser feet elected to take the longer, yet safer, ground-based route. Tenner now had no choice but to make a run (or at least a hobble) for it. He was typically predisposed toward avoiding trouble whenever possible, but from time to time (like now for instance) trouble finds him all the same.
Undeterred by his injury, he moved. He managed to stay low and hug the wall for as long as possible, using piles of crates and refuse lining the alley as a screen. Only two buildings further, he found the unlocked back door of a public house. Generally speaking, there are few things in life Tenner enjoyed more than entering a warm pub and sampling the proprietor’s offerings. But he was accustomed to doing so via the front door. He was also very much accustomed to visiting as a means of escape from a weary day and not as an escape from an angry mob. He slipped in.
“Who are you?” asked a voice. Tenner turned from the door and scanned the room for the voice’s source.
“What are y’doin’ in me storeroom?” came the voice’s second question. A short, middle-aged man, thinning on top and thickening in the middle, stepped forward into the dim light. He wore a dirty white apron over a brown shirt and baggy pants and looked rather put out over having his work interrupted by this unbidden newcomer. Tenner eyed him reaching for a broomstick with an unsteady hand. The man asked his second question a second time as Tenner’s mind scrambled for an answer. He was unsure of the man’s self-defense skills and uneasy about how a solid crack on the head with a broomstick might ruin his day.
“I— I—,” Tenner stammered. He could try to reason his way out of the situation, as he preferred to do. Or he could try to force his way out, disagreeable as this felt to him. But tired, injured, completely alone, and running out of time, he took the third option: blathering.
“I was traveling on the road and lost my way in the rain and in the dark and somehow lost my way outside of town and then . . . and then I found myself behind these buildings in your alley and I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do and . . . and I found your back door and just let myself in though I usually prefer using the front door . . . sir.”
Tenner spat these words out quickly and breathlessly, stringing together far too many thoughts into a single sentence.
Before the short, middle-aged man had the chance to fully weigh the plausibility of this story, the footsteps reached his back door. You two check this one, and you there, check that one. And you, you, and you—head down that way. He can’t be far.
Tenner and the man stared at each other for a frozen moment as this newly submitted piece of evidence tilted the balance of opinion out of Tenner’s favor. The man frowned, turned, and quickly ran from the store room back into the house, presumably to fetch help. Tenner’s attention immediately returned to the door as he heard it being pushed open.
“Nothing’s easy,” he grunted to himself, rolling his eyes. He quickly threw his weight against the door, successfully closing it—at least for now—and pulled down the lock bar. “This should buy me some more time from that direction,” he muttered to no one. With no other options before him, he reluctantly limped out of the store room where he was immediately greeted by the short man and three of his not-so-short friends. The looks on their faces left Tenner with no doubt: this was not the welcoming committee. Customers in the half-filled open room looked up, some curious and others worried. More than one patron stood and departed.
“Bert here never got straight answers to his questions,” one of the not-so-short men asked Tenner directly. “Who are you and why did you break in?”
“And who’s following you?” another asked, nodding toward the back door.
“And why?” asked the third. “That’s what I want to know.”
Beginning to doubt even his own knack for talking his way out of a situation, Tenner’s mind jostled for a solution. He couldn’t alone fight three large men, even if he possessed the requisite skills and inclination to do so. He couldn’t run, not with just one fully-functional ankle left. He opted for the only logical solution.
“Look!” he shouted, enthusiastically pointing into the room behind them. His opponents were supposed to be temporarily distracted by this trick as they searched for the source of Tenner’s excitement, thus giving him the opportunity to make a break for it. This foolproof technique rarely failed. Unfortunately, for Tenner Heed, these men weren’t fools. Unperturbed by his attempted distraction, they began to close in.
“No! No! Look!” Tenner shouted more earnestly, waving his arms and pointing again. This time they heard an unusual noise in the front doorway: an unexpected noise that caught Tenner’s attention almost as much as that of his opponents’. Ignoring Tenner for the moment, the men turned toward the front door and stared in disbelief. Their mouths slowly opened as they instinctively leaned backward.
Tenner smiled. He just might get out of this yet.