“Shut up!” Nyx balled her fists hard enough to drain the blood from her knuckles.
Angus looked back at his work and let his fingers start again.
“Be sensible, girl. He’s a good man, and he don’t deserve what they’re giving him. But you didn’t bring him to his grief. You don’t know what he mighta done or not done. Just go to the mine and—”
Angus realized that the room had gone silent. Nyx was gone, and when Angus scanned the gun rack, he saw one open space.
AODH CAME TO FACE DOWN on the floor of his cell, and he felt heavy pressure on his lower back. When he tried to roll over, the pressure increased.
The jailer, said, “Lie still once. Doctor’s on his way. He’ll be here directly.”
“For what?”
“He’s got to fix you up and make sure you don’t miss your last appointment.”
The jailer leaned close enough for Aodh to feel the breath at his neck.
“What did you say to your friend that made him do this to you?”
“Leave me be.”
The jailer slapped him across the back of his head.
“A fella doesn’t come down to the jail to shank another fella in the kidneys, not just for laughs.”
“Feck off.”
“Not for nothing.”
“Yah, well, you’d have to ask him.”
“Ach, I wish I could, but Mr. Padgett’s gone.”
KAMP FELL into a steady walking rhythm. With his hat pulled low, no one could see his face. More important, the people in the line of carriages streaming past him wanted to see a hanging. They wouldn’t be looking for him.
He brought to mind Wyles and the points she was trying to make. That he was giving up. That by walking to Mauch Chunk he’d be recognized and then killed.
He brought Shaw to mind, her face and the constellation of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the crescent-shaped scar. Then he pictured Autumn, the moment he first held her and then the moment Joe spoke her true name and lifted her toward the sky. Kamp imagined her eyes, one brown iris and one blue.
If he offered himself up to the populace alongside the man condemned to hang, would they forget about Nyx? If he surrendered himself to the Order of the Raven, would they leave his family in peace?
And then Kamp caught a fragment of another memory, a man running toward him, the fiend Daniel Knecht, sprinting up the path that ran past his home. He pictured himself hefting the spade in his hands and then swinging it into Knecht’s ribs and saving him from a bullet in the back. If he hadn’t swung that shovel, Knecht would have been killed and the nightmare never would have started.
He flashed to the instant he found Knecht in a barn. Knecht said something. What was it? Something Latin.
“Quia merito haec patior. For this I suffer deservedly.”
And then Knecht pulled back the hammer and pressed the pepperbox to his temple and said, “How’s that for a joke?”
Kamp tried to recall what else Knecht had said but couldn’t. He tried to remember where Nickel Glock came from and failed at that, too.
He turned and saw another column of carriages coming up behind him. Maybe it was better to let it all go, to stand there and turn his face to the passersby, let them see him.
Or perhaps he could walk straight to town, surrender. Maybe they could just stand him alongside the condemned man.
ANTON “DUNY” KUNKLE WALKED ALONE on the side of the road, watching the carriages pass, ogling every woman and girl.
Fathers and brothers said nothing, owing to Duny’s crazy stare and greasy locks matted to his forehead. That, and the long rifle he carried compelled them to hold their tongues.
Duny had no truck with any of them, of course. He just wanted something to distract him from the tedium of the long march to Mauch Chunk, the shithole to which he’d been sent. It had to be coming up soon.
He looked ahead of the carriages and saw another solitary figure, standing on the side of the road. Even at a hundred fifty yards, Duny recognized the build, the jacket and the slouch hat. Kamp.
Duny wasn’t accustomed to good luck and put no faith in it. And yet here it was. He put Tate Cain’s warning out of his mind and replaced it with the thrill of getting a reward for gunning down this son of a bitch here and now.
He widened his stance and took a steady position, then raised the rifle to his shoulder and pressed his cheek to the flame maple stock.
Kamp stood still and looked ahead at the town of Mauch Chunk spread out before him. He gazed up and saw a raven wheeling beneath a cloud, tracing its parabolic path and for a moment becoming lost in it.
Duny Kunkle pulled in a slow breath and sighted the head. He softened his grip on the rifle as his lungs filled. Kamp was giving him his shot, making it easy, like he knew it was coming. Duny waited only for the inhalation to crest so that he could fire on the way down.
But the click of the set trigger alerted the driver of a passing carriage, a respectable father of four who’d been ignoring Duny until this point. The sound drew the attention of this man, who immediately deduced the would-be assassin’s intentions.
As Duny’s finger lit on the trigger, the man said, “Christ almighty.”
Kamp heard the shout and ducked an instant before the bullet whizzed past. He hurtled into the bushes at the roadside. Duny couldn’t reload fast enough to fire again or even to protect himself from the man who clambered down from his carriage and clouted Duny on the ears.
B.H. GRIGG COULDN’T RETURN to Bethlehem, couldn’t practice his livelihood, couldn’t resume his life. But the knowledge he’d gleaned on his journey to Virginia was enough for him to initiate the escape from his predicament.
One of the individuals who’d taken the death picture of Kamp was assuredly Adams, the woman hunting him. Grigg didn’t know the identity of the man who’d been with her. He thought it might’ve been MacBride, the fiend in charge of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. But MacBride didn’t have wavy, blond hair. Who was with Adams?
He’d solved the mystery of whether and how Kamp had died and then returned to life. But how did Kamp get to the Hospital for the Insane? And how did he get out?
Grigg hitched a ride on a U.S. Mail carriage to Washington, D.C. by convincing the driver he was a government official who’d been ambushed by brigands. He spent the last of his cash on a train ticket back to Philadelphia.
THIRTY-TWO
JOACHIM S. THALER KNEW HE NEEDED MUSCLE, not necessarily for actual protection but to project power, to intimidate and deter. He pulled the front door closed behind him, locked it and took in the scene below from his front porch.
He saw carriages streaming in from the south, citizen spectators. From the north, people walked in ones, twos and small groups. In spite of his order that all workers report to the mine, they were going to town for the execution of their comrade.
There would be unrest, no doubt, and almost certainly violence. But Thaler knew that in the back of every miner’s mind was the realization they needed the work and the pay just to survive. Wholesale insurrection would make their lives worse.
So, Thaler surmised, whatever trouble might arise would be a token gesture, at best. Aodh Blackall was a hero to them but still a man destined to go the way of all martyrs. His death would justify their anger and satisfy their bloodlust at the same time. The miners would feel better in the end. And he’d been assured the execution would happen inside the jail and out of sight of would-be rioters.
He called to the foreman whose team was laying paving stones in the driveway.
“Go tell the Swedes.”
“Sir?”
“When we go to town, you and your crew are coming with me.”
FINDING ALISTAIR MACBRIDE wouldn’t be the hard part. The challenge for B.H. Grigg would be getting the information he wanted without being captured. In spite of his considerable ability to escape, Grigg had no intention of going back in the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.
And so w
hen Grigg stepped off the train in Philadelphia, he walked to the hospital, assuming that MacBride wouldn’t have arrived for work yet and that when he did, the doctor would enter through the front.
Grigg stood beside the road, fifty yards from the wrought iron gates at the entrance and the guard house beside it. He intended to flag down MacBride’s carriage, deceive the doctor via subterfuge, then demand information, by force if necessary.
An hour passed. MacBride should have arrived by now. Maybe finding him would be the hard part after all. Grigg felt sweat beads forming beneath his mustache. Someone could recognize him as an escapee. And Adams might not be far behind.
He straightened his coat and hat, then strode to the entrance, hailing the guard with a nervous wave.
“I say, you sir.”
A man emerged from the guard house and inspected Grigg, but he didn’t speak.
Grigg moved closer, looking at the gates and the high brick wall surrounding the property and then at the guard.
“I’m afraid this won’t be enough.”
The guard gave him a flat expression. “Enough for what?”
“Oh, no, no, no, not enough at all.”
“State your business.”
Grigg looked past the guard. “I need to speak to the man in charge here. What’s his name, McBurr? I need to talk to him.”
The guard shifted his weight and straightened his spine.
“Send a letter.”
“You don’t understand. They’re coming now. Right now. This won’t be enough.”
Grigg waved his arms at the hospital gates as he said it and then jammed his hands in his coat pockets.
“Who’s coming?”
“Them.”
“Who’s them?”
Grigg lowered his tone, leaned in and said, “They deploy their foul fiends to kill the innocent.”
The guard put his hand to the pistol at his right hip. Grigg’s eyes went wide.
“I’m not the threat. The threat is there. A secret society! A murderous cabal!” He turned and jabbed his finger toward the city. “They’re coming. I need to speak to the man in charge. To explain. Let me in.”
The guard walked back to the guard house, closed the door behind him and locked it.
Grigg went to the door and started pounding on it. “Please, I beg of you. Just give him a message from me. Tell him—”
“He’s not here,” the guard shouted through the door.
Grigg kept pounding. “What did you say?”
The door swung open and the guard put his pistol to Grigg’s forehead. “Doctor isn’t here.”
“Where is he?”
Grigg raised his eyes to look at the barrel.
“Out for the day. Now if you’ll—”
“Sir, I have very important information for the doctor. It will save us all.”
“Well, in that case you’re doomed.”
“Why’s that?”
“Doctor’s up the line.”
“Up the what?”
“If you want to talk to him, you can go find him in Mauch Chunk, okay?” The guard slammed the door and muttered, “Goddamn lunatic.”
WHEN KAMP REACHED THE CABIN, Angus was locking the door and heading down the steps.
“Morning, cousin.”
Kamp had never seen Angus startle before, but he did so now.
“Oh, Jesus, you gave me a fright. Wie gehts?”
“It goes, it goes. You?”
Angus buttoned his wool coat and picked up his rifle, a Sharps.
“Going hunting?”
Angus scanned the woods surrounding the cabin. “Not as such.”
He tried to walk past Kamp, who took him by the elbow.
“Then where?”
Angus looked him in the eye and said, “Where I’m going, cousin, you can’t come.”
“She can take care of herself.”
“Then what are you doing here?
THIRTY-THREE
IT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN INSIDE THE JAILHOUSE. The Honorable J. Blasius Grimp wanted it that way. Black Feather wanted it that way. The hanging frame was supposed to be built on the ground floor, at the front of the gallery.
The pines they intended to use were freshly felled and bucked at the base of Sleeping Bear Mountain and then hauled to Black Feather’s sawmill at the edge of town. From there, a team of two draft horses pulled the lumber in a wagon to the base of the courthouse steps. The horses were flanked by officers wearing black wool uniforms and holding gleaming shotguns with fine maple stocks that blazed in the morning sun.
All who saw the passing wagon knew its purpose. Those who weren’t watching the road when it passed heard the clop of hooves and caught the smell of pine. Talking ceased when the wagon went by, as if it already held the corpse of the condemned man, rather than the materials for the gallows. From the selection of the trees to the delivery of the lumber, it all went smoothly and fast.
The trouble started with the carpenter, a Mennonite named Horn. He didn’t know why they’d summoned him to the courthouse. He thought they probably wanted him to build a chair or a desk.
When they told him they wanted a hanging frame, the carpenter surveyed their faces and said, “No.”
The sheriff said, “Hanging is tomorrow. And this convict, Blackall, he’s a scoundrel, a fiend. He deserves punishment.”
Horn said, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord. I won’t do it.”
The sheriff knew he wasn’t making any headway, so he lied.
“Blackall has done things to children. Horrible things.”
“I don’t know that he did or he didn’t,” Horn said.
The Honorable J. Blasius Grimp said, “We’ll pay.”
“Nope.”
“Best money you’ll ever see.”
Horn fixed his gaze on the judge, adjusted his hat and said, “You’ll pay me twenty dollars for coming up here for nothing. And then I’ll be on my way.”
Grimp raised his hand to strike the carpenter, but the sheriff intervened before he could land the blow.
Shouting and cursing ensued, but Horn would not be moved. When the commotion died down, the sheriff instructed the town bursar to open the cash box and handed Horn his twenty dollars.
As he walked away, Horn said, “Just remember that him that guides the accused, he don’t want to stand on no rickety platform. And then there’s him that stands underneath and pulls the lever. The weight of the drop could bring the whole works down on him.”
They watched the carpenter disappear down the road carrying his toolbox, and the sheriff said, “Yah, well, it won’t happen now, not today.”
“What won’t?”
“The benka.”
“The what?”
The sheriff faced the judge. “Ach, the hanging. That was the only guy who could do it right, and fast.”
J. Blasius Grimp wondered what the world was coming to if a man would turn down good money for building an instrument of justice.
He fished the round tin from the pocket of his robe, took another pinch of Turtle Island Tobacco Bits, settled it between his lip and gum.
“Fucking Mennonites,” he said.
GRIGG ONLY WANTED a hot bath, a shave and a clean outfit. When the train pulled into Third Street Station, he jumped from it and ran so fast that all Adams saw were the soles of his shoes.
No one could have known he was back in Bethlehem, and so great was his desire to get clean and feel safe that he sprinted in the direction of his house. While he ran, he considered the possibility that the Order had ransacked his home or even burned it to the ground.
When his house came into view, however, nothing seemed amiss. He retrieved the skeleton key he kept in the downspout and turned it in the lock. But before he turned the knob and pushed the door open, Grigg hesitated.
He recalled a story about an incident involving a businessman, a Black Feather executive named Ownby, who’d put his hand to a warm knob and twisted it an instant before his house exploded. At l
east that’s what Kamp had told him.
Kamp swore the Order had set a trap for the doomed Ownby, and Grigg saw no reason they wouldn’t do the same to him. He went around to the back of the house, dismantled the window frame next to the backdoor, removed the pane, and set it on the porch.
As soon as he was inside, Grigg saw that a wire had been strung across the back door. He stepped closer to inspect it and saw that the wire was attached to an apparatus affixed to a bundle of dynamite. He saw the same setup inside the front door, too.
Grigg moved as quickly as he dared, careful not to take a step or open any drawer without first checking for a trap. He guessed he’d have an hour or more before whoever they’d assigned to keep watch took notice and alerted them to his presence. He took in a long breath, sighed and realized he needed a hot bath to put himself right, no matter the risk.
He started a fire in the stove, heated the water and filled the tub. Grigg stepped into the bath and gently lowered himself, letting the pain, distress and grime wash off. He gave himself a clean shave and then tilted his head back and allowed himself to luxuriate in the hot water.
HE’D ALMOST GIVEN UP on checking for signs of life inside the lawyer’s house. Each day for the past week, he’d walked slowly by the house and scanned for an open window or a new milk bottle on the stoop. Checking had become a habit, a fruitless compulsion. But today, from a distance he saw a thin spiral of smoke issuing from the chimney. Grigg was there.
Grigg had just drifted off in the hot water when he heard boot heels on his front steps and then a loud rap on the door. He leapt from the tub, pulled on a pair of pants and tiptoed down the stairs.
He peeked through the wooden blinds of the bay window and saw shiny black boots and wool pants. The man wore a holster on his belt, and across his chest, he held an eight-gauge shotgun. If the man tried to break through the door, he’d hit the trip wire, and that would be that. But if Grigg warned the man, he’d diminish the chances for his own escape.
Grigg turned and retreated back upstairs. The knocking on the door resumed, and then the man called out.
Kill the Raven: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 3) Page 18