Vincent thought the whole thing served as proof of how easily most people could be convinced of anything. All you had to do is horrify them hard enough.
Or maybe, as Vincent suspected to be the case with Ames, it was more about manipulation and possibly some outright bribery. With some people, if you waved the promise of enough power under their nose, they’d do all their own convincing.
Ellis shook the sand from the letter he’d penned and folded it. Vincent wouldn’t have been able to read it even if he’d been close enough to see the letters, but that didn’t stop him from wondering what it said. Some tale about a Shawnee ambush, if it bore resemblance to the half-truths Ellis had planted throughout Grouseland’s survivors. But what else? What exactly did Ellis have planned next? Because if there was one thing Vincent had learned for certain by now, it was that Ellis always had a plan.
Vincent also knew better than to ask what that plan might be. Even before Vincent had screwed up and pissed off Ellis by disobeying his orders regarding Kellen, Ellis wouldn’t have wanted Vincent to just ask what Ellis would do. He’d have expected Vincent to figure it out for himself.
So do that again.
The Crowmakers weren’t going east, and neither was the surviving balance of the Army, apparently. Ellis had ordered Ames to send one messenger to President Jefferson. That meant the rest of them were staying here.
That the Shawnee would find out about their dead war chief and his equally-dead entourage appeared a given. Even if Ellis didn’t planning to inform them himself, it was a near certain thing that at least one runner had gotten clear of Grouseland before anyone, even Ellis, had thought to check down along the Wabash, where the Shawnee had left their canoes.
How long until that runner reached Tecumseh’s Town to the northeast? Vincent didn’t know enough about the distances involved to calculate, but it was a fair guess that the Shawnee and their allies gathered in Tecumseh’s Town would know the truth long before Ellis’s messenger delivered his lie to President Jefferson.
Ellis sealed the folded letter and turned it over to the waiting officer. Tucking the letter into a pocket he wore under his jacket, Ames darted one last anxious glance toward Ellis.
“Dismissed. Go with God.”
God’s got nothing to do with any of this.
Vincent kept his heels together and his eyes forward and waited. Ellis remained behind Harrison’s desk, an utter lack of expression on his fine-featured face. Somehow, despite the horror of the day, his hair appeared freshly-styled and the high-collared shirt beneath his jacket an unsullied white.
In the momentary silence, Vincent dared to note that not once over the course of the long afternoon just past had Ellis treated Vincent to any of the icy, disdainful punishment Vincent had gotten accustomed to. Ellis’s orders, as he took charge and got things done, had been sharp and direct but not cruel. Not once.
I did what I was supposed to do. I protected Annie. Maybe that was enough, finally. Maybe, bad as things are, this puts me back to square with the man.
And so Vincent stood, still and quiet and waiting, while Ames shut the study door and the sound of his boots retreated down the hall.
Ellis stayed where he was for a moment, palms pressed against the sturdy wooden desktop and staring at nothing. Then his gaze shifted and fixed on Vincent.
Vincent’s throat tightened. He did his best to watch Ellis’s face without actually looking at him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be watching that girl?” Ellis’s words were crisp, but they lacked their usual icy edge.
“On my way, sir.” Vincent dared to look toward Ellis before relaxing into his first step toward the study door.
Ellis had already turned away. Vincent lingered just long enough to notice that blood had spattered the hem of Ellis’s otherwise-immaculate uniform jacket, darker splotches against the Crowmaker gray.
2
Samuel James had set up shop in a guest room at the back of the mansion, down a lengthy side hall. And behind closed doors, of course. But Ellis had delivered an order, and if he hadn’t specifically said Vincent should barge in on James, he had said Vincent should be watching Annie. And while any other fourteen-year-old girl would be cowering in her room and weeping right now, Vincent had no doubt whatsoever about where Annie was right that very second.
Vincent turned the door handle and pushed. Recently-built and well-maintained as the mansion was, the door opened without protest or sound.
Inside James’ makeshift study, they’d pushed together two long tables. Papers littered the wood surface, along with an inkwell and quill and a scattering of tools—turn-screws and pliers with delicate tips.
In the middle of the tables sat a single Crow, tilted to one side, dead-eyed and crooked-winged. Even so, it took up more space on those two big tables than seemed natural. At the sight of it, Vincent’s hands tried to clench.
Unloaded. All of the Crows have been unloaded.
“—as if it slipped away from me.” The voice didn’t belong to Samuel James or to Annie. Vincent dragged his attention away from the Crow and took in the rest of the room.
Patrick Colley sat in a borrowed dining chair at one end of the pushed-together tables. James and Annie flanked him, James with his back to Vincent and Annie on the further side of the table facing Vincent, although her eyes were fixed on Colley’s face.
Vincent wasn’t sure when Colley had regained consciousness, but he still looked like hell. He wasn’t wearing his spectacles, and dark circles outlined his too-big, too-blue eyes. He looked more like a scared kid than a soldier.
Despite his general disdain for every last one of the idiots Ellis had made into Crowmakers, Vincent couldn’t fault Colley for being rattled.
What the hell went wrong out there? Why would Ackermann do that?
For that matter, what had happened back at the White River crossing? What was the deal with Colley? With everything else that kept going wrong around Vincent?
Fucking Crowmakers.
Vincent frowned and clenched his free hand and pushed the door the rest of the way open as he stepped all the way into the room.
Colley’s brow knitted. “Or pulled, more than slipped. As if it pulled away from me.”
James made a noise that was part grunt, part harrumph. On the far side of the table, Annie slid a half-full tumbler of water closer to Colley. Her expression was closed and thoughtful.
Not at all like it had been earlier that day, round-eyed and pale as Vincent had sprinted up Grouseland’s steps and planted himself squarely in the path of Ackermann’s Crow.
I should be dead. If Kellen hadn’t shot Ackermann, I would be.
A sensation that had gripped Vincent off and on all the rest of the day returned, an icy sort of tingling in his gut and in his throat, like his insides planned on emptying out one way or another. Frowning even more deeply, he suppressed the urge.
Someone should’ve thought to shoot Ackermann sooner. If I hadn’t been distracted by Ellis’s orders to protect Annie, I’d have thought of it myself.
Stupid, that’s what he’d been. He should have thought to just shoot Ackermann. The only thing he could’ve accomplished, doing what he’d done instead, was to die. Orders. What would following them gain him, if that got him killed?
Annie was looking at him, Vincent abruptly realized. Quickly, he smoothed the frown from his face and studied her in return.
Dark as the circles were around Colley’s eyes, Annie’s looked about as bad. Puffy, too, like she’d been crying. Or, as seemed more likely considering it was Annie, that she’d been working double-time trying not to cry. Her shoulders were rounded and the corners of her mouth soft.
Someone should make her get some sleep. She’s just a girl, barely more than a kid.
In the next second, it dawned on Vincent that Annie was not actively throwing off waves of chill so frosty it was like she hoped Vincent would freeze to death.
Another opportunity in the midst of all else going to
hell, maybe. And if Vincent could regain control of the situation with Annie, get her speaking to him and trusting him again, then maybe there was hope he could take back his rightful place with Ellis, too. If nothing else, it could only make life easier.
God knew he could use a little easy right about now.
Hand still on the door knob, Vincent raised his eyebrows and inclined his head toward Annie. He had no real experience with looking kindly at anyone, but he settled his face into lines that he hoped gave that impression.
Immediately, Annie stiffened. She squared her shoulders, and her gaze swept the room—Ackermann’s mangled Crow and Colley’s dazed face and the scatter of tools and papers covering the work tables—as if to inform Vincent that important work was in progress.
Ellis had ordered James to keep looking for answers. And maybe Annie couldn’t sleep, anyhow, not any more than Vincent could bring himself to close his eyes. The importance of figuring out what the hell was happening with those damned Crows couldn’t be denied—and sooner better than later, before more shit went south.
Annie’s gaze lit on Vincent’s once again. Her chin lifted.
Careful to keep a somber expression on his face, Vincent nodded, just as if Annie was his equal, and did a prompt about-face, stepping out of the room and shutting the door behind him.
In the hallway, out of Annie’s sight, Vincent took up his customary post beside the door. What good he could do out here, he wasn’t sure. But he pressed his shoulder blades against the wall anyhow and settled in for a long stand.
A sudden recollection struck Vincent, of James’ study back in Philadelphia and the phantom stink of blood heavy in the air, of steering Annie to the kitchen so Mrs. Lockton and Mrs. Epler could see to the girl’s cut hand.
“If you going to watch out for that girl, you keep watching out for her,” Mrs. Lockton had said to Vincent that day. “You probably the only man in that house who is.”
That task seemed intent on getting tougher—protecting Annie had come far from being as easy as washing tenebrium filings out of her hand or making sure she got safely across a river. Although, if he was dwelling on the past, Vincent figured he ought to also recall how a sense of something not far off from wrong had hung in that study that day. Annie’d had dreams afterward, too, he remembered. She’d waved them off as unimportant, of course, and he couldn’t remember now what she’d said they were about.
Madness all the way around, and Vincent felt ill-equipped to deal with any of it.
Just follow Ellis’s orders, Vincent reminded himself. If there was anything to be salvaged from this shit-fest, maybe following orders would help him accomplish that.
And if that meant standing outside this door all night and into the next day, then by God that was what he’d do.
3
The day was officially done, but Ger couldn’t sleep.
Apparently, he wasn’t alone. The remaining blue-coats—too few of them—had moved their much-reduced encampment away from the blood-soaked killing ground Ackermann’s Crow had created. Ger didn’t fail to notice they’d chosen to retreat further toward the trees surrounding the mansion, away from the Crowmaker camp rather than closer to it. The glow of campfires flickering through a haze of tangy smoke limned the silhouetted form of the mansion, where lesser glows of candlelight and lit lamps filled nearly every window.
Going to be a long night for us all.
Closer by, near silence hung over the Crowmaker camp as heavily as the scent of blood and dirt that seemed by now to emanate directly from Ger’s pores. Reluctantly, he finished washing up at the makeshift washstand comprised of a bucket on the ground and a tin wash basin on the uneven top of a stump. The water felt clean and cool against his face and arms, but as soon as it dried he felt filthy all over again.
Crazy going on stupid if I think water can wash away what happened today. Ger upended the basin, dumping out the fouled water and leaving the tin pan empty beside the bucket of fresh water.
When Ger turned around, Bosch was standing behind him. Tall as he was, Bosch stared straight over the top of Ger’s head, like he didn’t even realize Ger was there. Behind Bosch, Byrne and Petras waited for their turn at washing up. Sweat and dirt had conspired to paint skull-like masks on all three of their faces, pale patches around their eyes smudged into the grime.
Ger stepped aside, but Bosch stayed where he was, staring into space.
“Lord have mercy, what little brain big and stupid possessed has drained out like the wash water.” Byrne’s lilt fell flat. Not a hint of the usual sparkle showed in his Irish-blue eyes. “Either step up there and splash some water in your dull face, or step out of the way, big boy.”
Bosch blinked and turned his head to one side, as if Byrne’s voice were no more than a buzz and he was trying to locate the mosquito.
Ger frowned, but before he could decide what ought to be said, Petras turned his square-jawed face toward Byrne and spoke in his usual unflappable somberness. “There is no great hurry.”
Byrne’s face reddened, and the typically-upturned corners of his mouth tugged down. “Maybe not for you.” And now Byrne’s lilt was there, but it held no amusement at all. “But I’ve important places to go, you know. Entertaining things to do. Nothing like a day’s worth of burying bodies to prepare you for a night out.”
Bosch lowered his head, his gaze finally settling on Byrne. His expression remained vacant, though, as if Byrne had spoken to him in a language Bosch didn’t comprehend.
“Hush.” Petras’s brow furrowed, and his words came out more shakily than Ger had ever heard from him. “If you have nothing useful to say, then for once say nothing.”
Byrne opened his mouth, but Petras had already turned away. Petras nudged Bosch around and pointed him toward the washstand. Ger finished stepping aside and eased around the two to draw up alongside Byrne. Maybe Ger hadn’t known Byrne as long as Kellen or Colley had, but he’d known him long enough to imagine he could pretty accurately read the worry sharpening Byrne’s words.
“Colley’s all right.” Ger stopped close enough to Byrne that he could speak quietly. No point making more of a fuss than was already being made. “He’s awake now. He’s fine.”
Bosch had finally stepped up to the wash bucket. Petras glanced over his shoulder, first at Ger and then at Byrne, and then faced forward again.
Byrne’s gaze snapped away from Bosch and fixed on Ger. His sneer stretched even wider.
Half my plan accomplished, at least. He’s not after Bosch anymore.
“Patrick most certainly is not fine. He may have been conscious when they hauled him up to the big house, but he wasn’t fine before that, and mercy knows if he’s fine now.” The longer he talked, the higher and louder Byrne’s voice rose.
Ger had no answer to that. Byrne wasn’t wrong. But Byrne abruptly clamped his mouth shut and pressed his lips together. When he opened his mouth again, it was to huff a laugh that sounded no more amused than anything else about him.
“And here I am, turning into a shrill and over-emotional woman.” Byrne waved an arm half-heartedly toward the far side of the Crowmaker encampment, where Mrs. Epler and Mrs. Lockton were serving up slabs of cold cornbread and salted pork. “Best you get what you can to eat now. Big boy will be coming along through that line soon enough. Assuming he ever finishes washing up.”
But Byrne’s words fell harmlessly enough from his mouth by now. Ger shot one more look toward Bosch and Petras, both still facing away from Byrne.
“I’ve my temper in check,” Byrne added. “You can leave me be, now.”
Byrne wouldn’t meet Ger’s eyes, but he sounded calm enough to be telling the truth. Ger slapped him on the shoulder and stepped away, heading in the direction Byrne had suggested.
The small single tents of the Crowmakers lay between the washstand and the spot near the wagons where Ellis’s servant women had laid out the food. Ger stepped past the empty one belonging to Colley—Colley being still up at the mansion with
Samuel James.
But he’s all right. Ackermann was—I have no idea what Ackermann was. But Colley’s not that.
The other tents were mostly empty still, too, despite the darkness that crept up on the camp, gradually obscuring the distant Army encampment and the lines of the mansion. Only Langston was in his bedroll already, sleeping or pretending to, face turned toward the tent that used to be Rawle’s. Ger hadn’t heard the sound of Langston’s banty rooster voice since before Ackermann’s Crow started shooting. Not even a hint of a peep.
Two others of the tents would remain empty. No one had taken the time or had the heart to take them down yet. The emptiness of those two tents felt like a nearly solid thing, cold against Ger’s skin and as loud as the gunfire that had left them that way.
Beyond the tents, two graves huddled beneath the trees, set apart from dozens of graves on the far side of the clearing and a big mass one deeper into Harrison’s walnut grove. A dark form stood out there by those graves, stout and round enough to be recognizable as Goodson even though Ger couldn’t see his face. Goodson’s hands clenched into fists and pressed against his thighs. He stared toward where Ackermann and Rawle were buried, but Ger sensed it was the darkness beyond them Goodson peered into.
Wondering what went wrong, maybe. What might go wrong next. And not seeing anything any more clearly than the night settling between the trees.
Ger swallowed hard and turned his eyes away. Keep walking. Just keep moving.
What wouldn’t be coming at them from the darkness, at least, were their Crows. They’d been unloaded, every last one of them, rounded up and locked together in a huddle of midnight black metal at the farthest corner of the Crowmaker camp, bound together by chains only Ellis held the key to.
They should take our bullets, too. Maybe even lock us up.
Monsters of Our Own Making Page 17