“I know you’re in there. Answer the door.”
Grigg didn’t recognize the voice. Just give me a minute to get out of here and then you can blow yourself to kingdom come.
He hustled to put on his best suit and retrieve the wad of cash he always kept stashed for an emergency.
“Mr. Grigg, I just need to talk to you. Open the door.”
Grigg carried his shoes to the bottom of the stairs and laced them up. The banging on the door intensified, and he saw the doorknob wiggling. If the man outside put his shoulder into it, it just might give.
“I know you’re there.”
He finished tying his shoes, grabbed his coat and made for the back of the house.
“I’ll break down the door if I have to.”
Yeah, do that, asshole. Grigg hoisted one leg over the windowsill.
The man shouted, “Listen, I know what they’re doing. I seen it in their records. I know they’re after you. The police and Black Feather. The Order of the Raven. I know all about it.”
Grigg recognized the voice now. He pulled his leg back in the window, raced to the front of the house and opened the blinds to see the brash, violent Officer Falko Stier readying himself to break down the door.
“Stop!”
STIER NEEDED NEXT TO NO CONVINCING that he should accompany Grigg on the next train to Mauch Chunk. He told Stier to keep an eye out for a slight woman with blond hair.
They boarded without incident, although the packed train thrummed with a nervous energy. All the talk they heard centered on a single topic: the execution of an Irish fiend named Aodh Blackall.
THE HONORABLE J. BLASIUS GRIMP SPAT tobacco juice on the muddy ground and said to the sheriff, “Who else can we get to build this goddamned thing?”
The sheriff removed his wool hat and scratched his scalp. “Ach, I don’t know.”
“How hard can it be?”
“Harder than you think.”
Grimp said, “Well, get whoever you can, and get ’em to work fast.”
The sheriff then recruited the one group of men he knew was available, the poor bastards in his jail. When asked if they could do it, all of them professed to have the skill to build the gallows.
The sheriff quizzed them all, selected the four who seemed least likely to fail, and promised them an early release if, in twenty-four hours, they could build a suitable gallows. All agreed.
The four convicts immediately dispensed with the notion that the structure would be built inside the jail. Hauling the planks up the steep stairs and then cutting them all to fit the dimensions of the room would cost them too much time. Much easier to do it outside, they said.
Twenty-four hours later the hanging frame stood ready enough, though if one looked closely, there was a discernible tilt to it. And just prior to finishing, the four convicts who’d been promised early release upon completion of the structure, abandoned the job and vanished down the street.
To J. Blasius Grimp’s surprise, one convict returned, hanging his head.
Grimp said, “Who’s this responsible fellow?”
The sheriff said, “I believe that’s Smitty.” He struck the man with backhanded knuckles to his ear and said, “That’s for the them who didn’t come back.”
Grimp said, “What in god’s name did you come back for?”
Without looking up, the man mumbled, “Tired. Nowhere to go.”
THE SIGHT OF THE GALLOWS caused the town of Mauch Chunk to pulse with dread, anticipation and arousal. Delaying the execution for a day allowed the pressure to build, as those who’d been forced to wait another day grew impatient and as the late arrivals added to their ranks.
The local taverns were packed, and boarding houses bulged with the curious who’d come to see and even participate in the grisly show, if the opportunity arose.
And still more carriages rolled into town, though some veered off the main road and up the drive to the mansion on the mountainside.
THE HONORABLE J. BLASIUS GRIMP gazed up at the gallows and then back down at the square in front of the jail. Men had begun swarming on street corners. Grimp felt the mood of the street, combustible and murderous.
And then the jeering started.
“Hey, Judge, I don’t think that gallows is gonna work.”
“You can’t kill no one with that rig, ’specially not a big son of a bitch like Blackall.”
“Yah, mebbe we oughtta try it out with a little son of a bitch first.”
“Yah, why don’t we try it out with you, Judge, see if it holds!”
Sardonic laughter ensued. Alone, none of them would dare challenge him, but together, now that each man’s identity had begun to melt into the mob, they’d give no thought to harming him.
No telling what they’ll do once they see Blackall swing at the end of the rope, Grimp thought.
He wasn’t one for backing down, though, not for anyone who might break his laws and certainly not for the stained rabble in the street.
NYX KNEW MORE than Angus thought she did. She’d watched him so many times that she could make her own rimfire cartridges and load all sixteen with one in the chamber. And Angus didn’t think she knew how to handle the Henry, but she did.
Nyx wore brown trousers, a white cotton shirt and work boots. She added a grey wool cap and a dark green wool jacket with black buttons, instead of brass. She’d found the jacket in Kamp’s slaughterhouse two years before and kept it without telling him, tailoring it to fit her frame and waiting for an opportune occasion such as this. She carried the Henry in a canvas duffel that also held enough food to last as long as she’d have to wait.
THIRTY-FOUR
THE RUSE WOULD WORK, not because his disguise was particularly convincing but because they wouldn’t suspect anyone, least of all a fugitive, to sneak into jail.
From a street corner, hiding in the mass of men, Kamp had watched the scruffy convicts erect the structure and then steal away as soon as the opportunity arose. When it did, he saw his chance. He focused on the convict who looked most similar to him and chased the man down an alley. Kamp had cornered him, then offered to exchange clothes.
The convict realized that he stood a far better chance of escaping if he weren’t wearing a prisoner’s stripes and took the deal.
All Kamp had to do then was to trudge back to the jail, mumble a few words, absorb the requisite blow to the head, and he’d be safely inside. He assumed they wouldn’t put him in the cell with Aodh Blackall, but maybe they’d put him close.
On his way to his cell, a bailiff slapped him hard on the back of the neck and said, “Welcome back, idiot.”
The bailiff shoved him to the concrete floor, slammed the door and left. Kamp took a moment to orient himself. The cell to his right was empty, and in the one to his left, a man slumped in the corner.
“Aodh, Aodh.”
The man stirred, but Kamp couldn’t see his face.
Kamp raised his voice. “Hey, Blackall, it’s me—”
“Yes, dear?”
The man rolled over and grinned. He had greasy hair plastered to the side of his face, and he was missing all his teeth. Definitely not Aodh.
ANGUS WAS UNACCUSTOMED TO ANXIETY, let alone panic, but now his heart slapped against his ribs. In the years since he’d left Bethlehem and moved to the woods, he’d taught himself to narrow down his world to his own activities, to need only himself.
But then Kamp had appeared, followed by Nyx. The two of them worked their way into his life, his routines. Especially Nyx. Angus hadn’t known the depth of his need for them until now. And now they were both gone, both about to put themselves in harm’s way.
Angus put a pistol in his belt and locked the door behind him when he left.
EMMA WYLES NEVER ASKED KAMP what happened to him while he was at war. She wasn’t curious about the battles he fought or the horrors in which he participated or simply endured. By the time he returned from the war, she’d traveled far and wide herself and withstood hardships of her own
.
It wasn’t that she didn’t care. She loved Kamp as a person with whom one’s life has been intertwined since before conscious memory. She felt affection for him now but along with it a deep ache for the boy he’d been and the lost man he’d become.
And much as she detested the realization, Wyles felt sorrow for herself, for the way her livelihood and her life had been torn down.
She caught a fragment of memory, the moment her father collapsed in the front yard, how she pressed herself to his chest, taking handfuls of his wool coat, willing her breath into his lungs, and failing, pressing her head to his chest and listening to his heart beat its last.
Wyles blinked away the tears and sat straighter in the saddle as Bethlehem came into view. She’d never caved in to despair before and wouldn’t now.
She realized how the enemies that plagued Kamp plagued her as well. The same forces that destroyed the upright Jonas and Rachel Bauer were those that ensnared the fiend Daniel Knecht and condemned Aodh Blackall to hang.
The men who’d driven Kamp and Shaw, Nyx and Angus onto the margins and into the shadows were all the same. They created one nightmarish scene after the other in order to distract and deflect, obfuscate and confuse. They did it for personal gain and personal enjoyment. They did it for the sake of evil but said it was for the common good.
Wyles’ desperation and anger coalesced into purpose, as she pointed her horse in the direction of Bethlehem’s South Side.
PICKLER DIDN’T HAVE TIME to ponder the mysteries of emotion or the machinations of men. A stack of new prescriptions lay on the counter beside his pharmacist’s tools, and a line of customers stood before him, peppering him with questions and demands.
“Where’s that liver tonic?”
“When’s the talcum coming in?”
“Get more of that black licorice. My girl loves it.”
Pickler wiped a bead of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. If he’d had time to admit anything to himself, Pickler would have conceded that the runaway success of Native Plants and Medicines was running him ragged. He hadn’t entered the ranks of his profession in order to accumulate wealth, but if that were the reward for his labors, so be it. And whether his success was engineered by the men who destroyed his competitor, well, that wasn’t his business.
Pickler pushed away these thoughts as he stared into the swirls of the maple wood mortar, the last item he’d bought from Emma Wyles. He felt a fire in his elbow from so much grinding and pushed that away as well.
Of necessity he narrowed his world down to the task at hand, the ingredients in correct proportion, the scrape of the pestle in the bowl.
Pickler didn’t hear her come in, didn’t notice her shooing all of the customers out and then locking the door. He didn’t become aware of her presence until the moment there was silence.
When he looked up, Emma Wyles was standing before him with a determination and ferocity he knew he had no chance of resisting. She didn’t need to press a gun to his head.
Before he even knew what was happening, she’d packed his case with an assortment of medicines and bandages and guided him outside to her wagon.
Pickler managed only a feeble “What’s this about?” as he climbed in.
THIRTY-FIVE
JOACHIM S. THALER STOOD ON THE VERANDA of the mansion on the mountainside and watched the fine carriages snaking through Mauch Chunk and then turning up the drive in his direction. He counted each one, checking them off a list in his mind.
Ten had arrived already. Three more to go. The last one, he assumed, would arrive after nightfall. Thaler also heard two dray wagons and a carriage depart the drive behind the house and move down the back road, headed for the mine.
If he’d simply called off the day’s work without the distraction of the execution and its attendant hysteria, the miners would have been most suspicious. But most of them would skip work anyway, and ordering those that did report to vacate the mine would allow the operatives to do their work without raising eyebrows.
KAMP MOVED CLOSER to the toothless man lying on the floor in the adjacent cell.
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Aodh Blackall.”
The man furrowed his brow. “He tried to kill him.”
“Who did?”
“Just imagine. They already condemned the poor bastard to hang. But the devil himself wanted him even sooner.”
“Where’s Blackall now?”
The man looked at Kamp with disgust.
“He put a blade straight to the kidneys. There. Right there.”
Kamp noticed the bloodstain on the floor.
The man continued, “Didn’t kill him, though. Mebbe he didn’t want to.”
“How’s that?”
The man rubbed the scraggly whiskers on his chin.
“Mebbe Padgett just wanted Blackall to suffer all the more.”
He turned his head to the side and studied Kamp’s face.
The man said, “Heeeey.”
“What?”
“You and me been together in this cell for, what, ten days now?”
Oh, Jesus.
Kamp said, “It’s been eleven days.”
The man screwed up his face. “Ten, eleven, don’t matter. That’s not my point.”
“Eleven.”
“So, we been stuck in here together goin’ on two weeks.”
“And?”
The man sat up and leaned toward Kamp. “And you ain’t never asked me one goddamn question. Not one.”
“So what?”
“So today, yer just full of questions. How come?”
Kamp returned the man’s stare. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask any more.”
“Good.”
“You know what? I’m tired of your bullshit.”
The man’s eyebrows shot up. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
The man turned and said, “Somethin’ ain’t right here.”
Kamp grabbed a handful of the man’s shirt through the bars. “Shut your mouth.”
The man pulled away and crawled to the far side of his cell.
“Fellow who was here before, in all the days we spoke, never uttered so much as one curse. Not one. You ain’t him. Matter of fact, when Smit came in here, I thought, ya know, he looked like a fella who’s wanted for a crime. Fella with a reward on his head. An’ then Smit flew the coop when they took him out to build them gallows.”
“Wrong.”
“And now you’s here.”
“You’re mistaken.”
The man gritted his teeth. “Like hell I am.”
“If I’m a wanted man, why would I put myself in jail?”
“Don’t know and don’t care. Guard!”
SHORT PINKY SHOWED UP at the mine on the morning of the execution. He knew his employer, Black Feather Extraction, had told the miners to stay home, but he couldn’t bear the thought of going to town to witness the death of a hero.
He wouldn’t have anything to do at the mine anyway, because no one else would be there. And that would be perfect for him. He needed the quiet, all he wanted to do was lose himself in a penny dreadful called The Black Spider. He settled himself on the stool where he’d passed so many days as a trapper, lit his candle and started reading.
E. WYLES MADE PICKLER sit next to her for the ride up to Mauch Chunk. She explained the history of his employer, Black Feather Consolidated. She wanted him to understand his function as one of their unwitting cogs.
Wyles didn’t intend to shame the young pharmacist. Rather, she wanted him to realize for the first time that he was putting a pleasant face on their murderous machine.
She explained how a small group of men calling themselves Black Feather controlled all of the mining, manufacturing and transportation interests in the region. She also described how their power enabled them to control the court, namely the Big Judge Tate Cain, with whom they were closely connected. She finished by telling him how Blac
k Feather’s push into pharmaceuticals spelled her own demise.
Pickler kept quiet while she talked, except to let out an occasional “gosh” or, “I didn’t know that.”
After she finished, neither of them spoke, and the only sounds were the creak of wagon wheels, the jingle of brass fittings in the reins and a nicker from the horse.
She glanced at Pickler, who stared into the far distance, mouth open.
After another minute, he pulled in a long breath and said, “I just have one question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why Black Feather?”
“What?”
“Black Feather. How come they called the whole thing Black Feather? Where does that come from? What does it mean?”
Wyles felt a wave of irritation, and she pulled the horse to a stop.
“Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
“Yes, I have.”
“The name doesn’t matter. What matters is—”
Pickler’s expression hardened. He stared into the distance and said, “Of course it matters.”
She felt the rage rise from her chest into her throat.
“Now listen here. Black Feather is using—”
“Excuse me, madam, if I may. You’ve made a number of allegations, very disturbing allegations which, if true, call into question the substance of my—”
“I haven’t called your—”
Pickler raised his voice, and the color bloomed in his cheeks. “Called into question the very substance of my character. Now, if you’ll please turn the wagon around. I must return to the shop. For the customers and for the patients.”
“You’re coming with me. You need to see it for yourself.” Wyles snapped the reins, and the horse broke into a trot. “And you need to make amends.”
“To whom?”
“To me.”
SHORT PINKY NEVER PEEKED at the end of the story to see how it would turn out. As he reached the last chapter of The Black Spider, his main concern was that his candle would burn all the way down before he could finish.
Kill the Raven: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 3) Page 19