“Why not?”
“There was a darkness on both of them. It’s not my habit to dissemble, of course, but I didn’t trust them, not at all.”
“What did they look like?”
“Don’t recall that, either. Except he wore fine clothes, clean and tailored. And she wore a velvet cape with a hood.”
“She?”
“That’s right. Petite l’il woman. Blond hair under that hood she wore. A fine face, but hard. I lied to ’em an’ wrote that there. Never heard from ’em again and was glad of it.”
“Thank you, pastor.”
“Both of ’em had blond hair, come to think of it. His was blond an’ wavy, combed back.”
“Very helpful. Thank you.”
“Now let’s have a word from the good book. How about a verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians?”
“I’d rather not.”
KAMP DIDN’T KNOW where Emma Wyles lived, he now realized. When they were kids, yes, he went to her family’s house every day in the summer. Her parents referred to him as “a fixture” at their supper table. But when he’d returned from the war, Wyles was gone, her family’s house sold, her parents departed.
And by the time they met again, a necessary distance had grown between them and, as such, Kamp didn’t visit her at home. Nor did he wonder where she lived.
He had to go to her house now, though. They both did. Kamp couldn’t open his eyes, lest the vertigo overwhelm him, but he knew they were traveling up the road over South Mountain. Somewhere near the top, Wyles turned off, and he could feel the horse picking its way along a narrow trail. He vomited once but was otherwise steady as he clung to Wyles. A few minutes later, the horse came to a stop.
He leaned over and let himself slide off the horse’s back. Once he’d steadied himself on the ground, he opened his eyes and saw a sturdy cabin built into the mountainside and surrounded by trees. Kamp heard a crow in the distance but nothing else. No hooves, no voices, no creaking wheels. He smelled the breeze and caught a whiff of sulfur from Native Iron.
Wyles unlocked the padlock with a skeleton key, and the girl with porcelain blue eyes and hair the color and texture of corn silk opened the door.
Wyles went straight to a bedroom, while Kamp surveyed the cabin. It was clean and spare, exactly what he would have expected. On a table by the back door, he saw an empty basin, and under the table, a large black medical bag.
The girl walked past him to the bedroom door, knocked softly and entered. He heard them talking but couldn’t make out the words. The door swung open, and Wyles walked out. When Kamp looked in, he saw tears streaming down the girl’s face. Wyles put the medical bag in the basin and then carried it all out the back door.
When she came back in, she said to Kamp, “Let’s go.”
The girl launched herself across the room and threw her arms around Wyles’ neck.
“No.”
Wyles kissed her forehead and said, “Go to your brother’s house.”
When he went back outside, he saw that Wyles had harnessed the horse to a cart. She emerged from the cabin alone.
“Get in.”
Kamp climbed in the cart and lay down on his back. She covered the cart with a canvas tarp and cinched it tight at the corners. Soon the cart began to roll.
Wyles called back to him, “Where are we going?”
“Up the line,” Kamp said.
THIRTY
FALKO STIER WAS ALONE IN THE STATION. It was still dark, though he could hear the dawn chorus. He started with the file cabinets that lined the back wall of the main room. Every drawer had a new brass lock on it, and he couldn’t find a key. As the morning light came streaming in, Stier scanned the room and saw that the loose papers that typically covered every flat surface were gone. Someone had done a thorough job of cleaning up.
If there were one person Stier could count on to be careless, it was the High Constable. He went to Druckenmiller’s desk and found that it, too, had been cleared of clutter. But the drawers weren’t locked. The top drawer was stuffed with softcover novels and broadsheets.
Stier heard someone trying the front door. It was the next man reporting for work, a new officer named Storch.
“Open the door.”
“Give me a minute.”
“It’s cold out here.”
Stier kept digging through the drawer until he felt a paper at the bottom. He pulled it out, glanced at it and shoved it in his pants pocket. He went to the door, unlocked it and swung it open.
Storch scowled at him and said, “We’re locking the door now? Jesus Christ.”
AODH HEARD THE SKELETON KEY turn and looked up to see the jailer approaching him in his cell with breakfast. He expected a hard biscuit and thin coffee.
Instead, the man carried a feast of eggs, sausage and warm bread on a tray. Aodh’s heart sank.
The jailer set the tray on the bench next to Aodh.
“You got a visitor,” the jailer said.
FALKO STIER DIDN’T KNOW that Aodh Blackall’s day of wrath was approaching. He just wanted to get home, build a fire and warm his feet by it before dropping off to sleep. As he walked the mile from the police station to his home, he unfolded the paper he’d taken from Druckenmiller’s desk.
It was a handbill for something called the Royal Traveling Company, and it read,
“An Authentic Presentation of a Medieval Masterpiece. THE HARROWING of HELL.”
On the front was a picture of a man cradling a skull. Inside the cover, there were hand drawings of several cast members. The portrait of the lead actor bore a striking resemblance to someone he knew. Before, he’d only seen the broad outlines of the conspiracy. Now he began to comprehend it in full.
But Falko Stier didn’t feel like thinking. He wanted to let his body rest, to let the pain and anxiety drain from his limbs.
He let himself in the back door of his small house at the edge of town. He unlaced his boots, went to the fireplace and arranged the kindling and logs. When he stood up to retrieve a match from the mantle, he saw it, and his heart began slapping against his ribs.
Next to the box of matches was a newly-minted silver coin with a locomotive on the front and on the back, a smiling face beneath a cap in the Phrygian style.
DIS PADGETT WAITED for the guard to leave before he said anything to Aodh, who’d begun wolfing down his breakfast.
“Rest easy, lad. This meal wonna be your last.”
Aodh took a mouthful of scrambled eggs and washed it down with coffee.
“Easy for you to say.”
“There’s plenty of trouble to go around, believe me.”
“That so?”
Aodh stared down at his plate while he finished his meal.
“Yes, and more.”
Padgett rolled two cigarettes on the bench, lit both and handed one to Aodh.
Aodh took a drag and said, “I know what they get. What do you get?”
Padgett stood up and looked out the small window at the top of the wall.
“You think it was me who put you in here.”
“I know it was.”
“Why?”
“Because they couldn’t do it without your permission.”
“Jaysus, Blackall, you’re the one that was schemin’ to hit back against Black Feather. Now you’re payin’ the price. And besides, they donna care a squirt o’ piss about what I think.”
“Tha’s not true. Yer dancin’ with them. Tha’s why I’m here. Tell the truth.”
Padgett took another drag and watched the smoke twist toward the window.
He said, “You know, when they came for him, when they intended to do all manner of evil—”
“Jaysus, don’t start.”
“When they came to do all manner of evil to your poor brother, who was it put a stop to it?”
“I’m not talkin’ about then. I’m—”
“When I found your brother, Butcher had his cock stuffed down his throat. I didn’t hear nothin’ from your
brother but a whimper ’til he seen me. Was me who clouted Butcher in his skull with my shovel.”
“I told you—”
“That you can believe. Just lucky I’m not sittin’ here beside you for it.”
“I doubt it’s luck.”
“Well, you owe me.”
“You do what you do for your reasons, not mine, not my brother’s.”
Padgett took the last pull on the cigarette, then dropped it on the floor.
“You know, there was a line o’ fellas, pants open, waitin’ for Butcher to finish. Tha’s no lie. And you know I paid for savin’ your brother from that. Bosses didn’t like that I kept them miners from gettin’ their pleasure. Said I hurt morale.”
Aodh felt the rage well up from his gut and spread through his chest and across his shoulders.
“Casey is gone, Dennis. There’s no call for you to insult his memory. If you’ll just tell for what reason you came—”
“You always was an ungrateful bastard.”
Aodh balled his fists.
“Leave,” he said.
“Yah, Casey is dead an’ buried, but that little German friend o’ yours, he’s alive and well.”
“Dennis, stop it.”
“What’s his name, Naf Bear? Donna worry, now that you’re gone, he can keep me warm.”
Aodh launched himself at Padgett and gripped him hard by his throat. He didn’t see the blade drop from Padgett’s sleeve and didn’t feel it go in his back, just above the kidney.
Aodh’s legs went weak, and his grip loosened. Padgett wiped off the blade on Aodh’s prison shirt before letting him fall to the floor.
He stepped over him on the way out of the cell, saying, “You know, back when we was home, your mother liked to have a taste herself.”
Padgett waited until Aodh’s body became still, then shouted, “Guard! There’s a man down.”
The jailer came running. He looked at the carnage and said, “Christ, this isn’t good, isn’t good at all.”
“He came at me half out of his mind,” Padgett said, “It was all I could do to defend myself.”
KAMP LAY HIDDEN under the canvas tarp and felt the to and fro motion of the cart. Neither of them spoke for the first hour or so, and they only stopped once at Shawnee Creek so that Wyles’ horse could have a drink.
When they cleared the outskirts of the town, and farm and field gave way to forest and meadow, Wyles broke the silence.
“Are you there? Are you awake?”
“Say, Emma, who was that girl at your house?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Wyles eased back on the reins and brought the horse to a stop. “We’re safe.”
He pulled off the tarp, sat up and squinted against the morning sun.
Wyles said, “I assume we’re going to see your family.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Why not?”
Kamp rubbed his left temple. “I’m never getting to somewhere they’re not chasing me, am I?”
She turned in her saddle to look at him.
“You’re exhausted, and hungry.”
“Tell me the truth, Emma. This is just like when we were kids, sort of. That was a good time.”
“This is real,” she said, “and not as much fun.”
In the distance they heard the clatter of hooves and the creak of wagon wheels. Kamp lowered himself back down and covered himself with the tarp.
On the road behind them, a carriage came into view, and another one behind it. Wyles waited for the first to pass and then the second. A well-dressed family rode in each one.
The man driving the second carriage tipped his hat to Wyles and said, “Ma’am.”
She heard more voices on the road and soon saw two men, hunters, walking side by side, each cradling a shotgun.
They stopped to leer at her.
She said, “Where’s everyone going?”
One of the hunters said, “Where are you going?”
Wyles shook her head and without emotion said, “Answer the question, please.”
The second hunter said, “You hafta answer now, Horace. She said please.”
“What’re you doing out here all cold and alone?”
Wyles sat taller in her saddle.
“I have a question, too,” the first hunter said. “We’re lookin’ for a fella, fella with a bounty on his head.” The hunter produced the wanted poster of Kamp from his pocket, unfolded it and held it up. “You seen this son of a bitch, mebbe?”
Under the tarp Kamp tensed his muscles. He didn’t have a weapon, but he could surprise them.
“No,” Wyles said.
“Sure about that?”
She held the saddle horn, shifted her weight and looked up the road.
Wyles said, “Where is everyone going?”
“Mauch Chunk.”
“For what?”
The first hunter said, “What do we get if we answer?” He closed the action of the shotgun and held it at his side. “You hear me? What do we get?”
Wyles pulled the .45 and pointed it at the man’s crotch.
“You get to keep your balls. Horace.”
The second hunter said, “Hanging. Everyone’s going to see that troublemaking son of a bitch hang.”
Wyles shifted her gaze to the first hunter. “Are you two going to Mauch Chunk?”
Before the first hunter could answer, the second said, “No.”
“Good.”
LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, Officer Falko Stier knew what the silver coin meant. He’d heard the stories. Some of them sounded like pure bullshit, some not. The coin signaled the ultimate fall from grace. Police officer or no, he’d become a marked man.
He couldn’t report for work, couldn’t follow any normal routines for that matter. They’d find him soon enough, but he wouldn’t make it easy for them.
While he gathered up a few days’ worth of food and a change of clothes, he tried to imagine who could help him, but no one came to mind. He no longer trusted his fellow officers.
But he remembered there was that guy, the lawyer. Stier hated the sound of his voice, all smooth edges and slippery words, all the bullshit that guy said. What was his name? It was on the tip of his tongue. Gig? Greg? Grigg. That was it.
Why did this klootzak’s face appear just now, he wondered. As he stood with his hand on the brass doorknob, ready to run, Stier remembered that Grigg defended Kamp. They told him Kamp was nothing but a troublemaker and a louse. But Stier remembered that when he was a kid, they told him Kamp was a war hero. What changed? Who was telling the truth?
Of course, it didn’t matter, as such. Stier stared at the coin in his hand and knew it meant he had to act.
WHEN THEY’D GOTTEN CLEAR of the hunters, Kamp heard the clop of hooves and the squeak of their wagon wheels but nothing else.
“Emma?”
“Kamp.”
“We need to go to Mauch Chunk.”
“For what?”
“She’s going to be there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’re going.”
Wyles pulled back on the reins, and the horse stopped.
“You don’t know anything about what’s going on there, who’ll be hanged, or why. Regardless, it isn’t about Nyx.”
“How do you know?” Kamp peeled back the tarp and sat up.
“You need to worry about your family. Not Nyx.” He heard irritation in her voice.
“They’re fine. Joe’s taking care of them.”
Wyles turned in the saddle to face him. “Tell me why, then. Tell me why she’s so important.”
He swung his leg over the side of the wagon and jumped to the ground.
She said, “Tell me.”
Kamp brushed the dust from his slouch hat and put it on his head. He buttoned his thin work jacket and started walking ahead of her.
“Well, then, it’s better if we split up here, anyway,” he said.
Wyles started the horse, pulled alon
gside him and said, “We’re in this together.”
Kamp kept walking and without looking at her, said, “This isn’t going to work.”
“Get in the wagon.”
“I’ll see you later.”
“Get. In.”
“I’ll find you once I know she’s safe.”
“You want them to kill you. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Go ahead. Find a place to stay.”
In one motion E. Wyles swung her leg over the saddle, dismounted and stood facing Kamp with the reins in her hand.
She tilted her chin up, pulled in a sharp breath and stared at Kamp until he met her gaze.
“You’re giving up,” she said.
Kamp felt a stab of grief in his throat as he looked at his friend. He saw the small creases at the corners of her eyes, the lines across her forehead. And then he caught a fragment of a memory of swimming in the creek with her, surfacing through green bubbles, coming up for air and looking into that same face, unlined.
“Come back. Kamp, please.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“I’ll see you later, Emma. I’ll find you.”
“Think of your family, Kamp. Think of them.”
“I am.”
THIRTY-ONE
NYX BRUSHED HER FINGERTIPS along the barrels of the rifles that filled Angus’s gun rack. Angus was already at work, re-boring a Pennsylvania long rifle by the light of three candles on his workbench.
Without pausing to look at Nyx, he said, “Don’t touch none of them.”
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t even look at them.”
“Jesus.”
Angus’s fingers stopped, and he said, “I know why you ain’t at the mine.”
He glanced at Nyx and then resumed his work. “And I know why you’re wearing them clean clothes.”
“We don’t have to be dirty all the time.”
“You’re going to—”
“Stop.”
Angus spoke without emotion. “You’re going to town today to see your man.”
“It’s not your concern.”
“It’s wrongheaded.”
“No one knows who I am.”
Angus sharpened his tone and glanced at Nyx. “Bullshit. And even if they don’t, someone will see you and—”
Kill the Raven: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 3) Page 17