Trumpet of the Dead (Raven Trilogy Book 2)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  Kamp didn’t know what Raymond Hinsdale looked like, but he didn’t think Hinsdale was among the men who’d left the room. When he peered inside, he saw a tall man with black hair facing out the window.

  Without turning to facing him, the man said, “I would address you as Mr. Kamp, but I already know what you’d say.”

  The man turned around and approached him, hand extended, “Raymond Hinsdale. Pleasure to meet you.” Kamp assessed the man’s features. Wavy, black hair, brown eyes and a square jaw. Hinsdale stood a good six inches taller than Kamp and appeared every bit the match for his wife, both in his physical appearance and in his bearing.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  Kamp sat in an ornate leather chair at the table, while Hinsdale walked back to the row of windows. Hinsdale loosened his silk necktie and sat on the windowsill, keeping his feet on the floor. He let out a sigh.

  Kamp said, “Long day?”

  “The meeting that just took place. The labor force and the management. Negotiations. The workers want higher pay for less work. They want to bargain. They want concessions.”

  “What did you give them?”

  Hinsdale raised his eyebrows a flicker. “I didn’t give them anything. That’s the function of the managers.”

  “What did the managers give them?”

  “Nothing.” Hinsdale rubbed his jaw. “Everything is manageable, even if it’s not negotiable.”

  “I came to talk about your son, Mr. Hinsdale.”

  “I know.”

  “According to your wife, he’s missing.”

  “Thank you for your concern,” Hinsdale said, “but he’s been found. Or rather, he’s been returned home.”

  “Who by?”

  “I’m afraid that’s a family matter.” Hinsdale walked to a side table, opened a drawer and produced a pipe. He packed the bowl with blended tobacco and lit it. Hinsdale opened the window a crack to let out the smoke. “You understand.”

  “How’s business?”

  Hinsdale smiled for the first time. “Booming.” He took a pull on his pipe. We’re growing even faster than we thought we would. We’ve had to move up to bigger offices twice already.”

  “Twice?”

  Hinsdale gestured out the window. “We started on the South Side.”

  “Silas Ownby’s old place. Confederated Coal.”

  “Correct. Then we moved across the river to Market, and now we’re on Main.”

  “Impressive. Why is there an armed guard outside the front door?”

  Hinsdale crossed his feet at the ankles. “Very impressive. Breathtaking, really. Is there anything else I might help you with? Might you also be here to inquire about employment? If so, I can direct you to our person.”

  “Mr. Hinsdale, what do you make of your son’s story?”

  “His story.” Hinsdale crossed his arms in exactly the way his wife had earlier that day.

  “Yes, his belief that he’s a man from West Virginia who was murdered. That he’s not really your son. What do you make of that?”

  “None of us can invent our origins, much as we might wish to.”

  “So he’s just making it up.”

  “Becket is a very willful boy. And extraordinarily imaginative. You’ve met him. Tell him what to do and he does the opposite with twice the vigor.”

  Kamp said, “Is that how you were as a boy?”

  “I was not.” Kamp could tell the question caught him sideways or perhaps touched a place the man had forgotten.

  Hinsdale regained his composure while he relit his pipe. “Are you familiar with the Bible passage where Jesus talks about kicking against the pricks?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what young Becket loves. Kicking against the pricks. But he does it to his own detriment. The way of the unfaithful is hard.” Hinsdale looked squarely at Kamp when he said it.

  “Are you saying your son is unmanageable?”

  Hinsdale gave him a wan smile, set down his pipe on the windowsill and stood up, indicating his intention to end the conversation.

  Kamp didn’t move. He said, “Mr. Hinsdale, how much do you know about Silas Ownby?”

  “Another time, perhaps.” Hinsdale gestured for Kamp to leave.

  “You know he was murdered. How much do you know about your superiors, about Black Feather Consolidated?”

  “How much do I know? More than you, I’m afraid.” For the first time in the conversation, Kamp saw irritation flash across the man’s face. Hinsdale went to the side table, opened a drawer and pulled out a folder that contained a sheaf of papers that Kamp recognized.

  “This is a report, a sad little tale I believe you wrote.” Hinsdale picked up a few pages and leafed through them. “I’ve read it in its entirety.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “The principals of Black Feather Consolidated shared it with me soon after I was hired. They instructed me to read it, insisted I see the kind of scurrilous rubbish that people will dream up, the lies people tell in order to tear down their betters.”

  “Betters.”

  “Do you know how your service to the city, how your work is regarded? As a joke, albeit a sick and tragic one. We’ve all had a good laugh about it, though. I admit.”

  The guard appeared in the doorway and put his hand on his holster.

  “Charles,” Hinsdale said, “would you show Mr. Kamp out of the building?”

  “HE’S GOADING YOU, KAMP. You ruffled his feathers, that’s all.” E. Wyles washed her hands at the sink in the back room of the pharmacy.

  “He had the report I wrote. I gave one copy to the county and the other one to the commonwealth. So how did Black Feather get it?”

  E. Wyles looked at him with an arched eyebrow. “They all work for Black Feather, including the police. That was your whole point, wasn’t it?”

  “Can I change the subject?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Please do.” Wyles dried her hands and opened a crate full of colored glass bottles, one of many stacked in the back room. “And help me with these.” She handed him a bottle and then another, and he set them on the counter.

  He said, “Emma, have you ever heard someone say they were someone else?”

  “Heard them say what?”

  “Has a person ever told you they had a life before this one?”

  She shook her head with frustration. “Just say what you mean, Kamp.”

  While they worked to unpack all of the crates and sort the bottles, he told her about the kid, about everything he and his parents had said. When he’d told it all, he said, “What do you think?”

  She stood up and wiped beads of perspiration from her brow. “I’ve helped deliver hundreds of babies, and I’ve talked with all the parents. Germans, Hungarians, Lenapé, British, every ethnicity in the valley.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve heard stories now and again.”

  “About what?”

  “About what you’re describing. When the child is old enough to talk, he or she claims to have been born to the wrong family. Begs to be taken to their real mother, and so on.”

  Kamp removed the last of the bottles from the last crate and set them on the floor.

  He said, “Have you seen it more in one group of people than another?”

  “No,” Wyles said, “I’ve seen and heard about cases from every group, every religion. But some are much more open to talking about it. And some people prefer strongly that it never be spoken about at all. It goes by a number of names, usually ‘reincarnation.’ ”

  “Is there any proof?”

  She said, “You mean verifiable evidence that one person died—typically a sudden death—and was reborn as a new person? Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the child himself or herself is convinced, of course. And in many instances they can identify people and things from what they say is their past. Revered objects and so forth. In a number of cases, the person has birthmarks
they say correspond to events, usually violent, in the previous person’s life.”

  He said, “Why do you think it keeps happening?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But do you think it’s real?”

  E. Wyles leveled her gaze at Kamp. “Why does it matter?”

  HE SPENT A GOOD PART of the walk home asking himself why it mattered. Why did it matter if the kid thought he was someone he wasn’t? Why did it matter if he and his parents suffered because of it? Why did it matter that most everyone, at one point or another, felt lost and alien to their own selves?

  With these and other problems of the universe revolving in his consciousness, he let his feet guide him toward home. He didn’t look up until he felt a tug at his sleeve and heard the Appalachian drawl. It was the kid.

  “You sure ain’t hard to find, son. All’s I need to do is go out perambulatin’, and I’m sure to find you out here wanderin’, too.”

  He looked down at the kid, who wore his typical outfit, a velvet jacket and trousers that looked new, and the grey wool forager’s cap.

  Kamp said, “Your father told me you’d been returned home.”

  The kid took off his cap and shook his head angrily. “First off, Ray isn’t my father. My real father was a preacher who died. I was there. I seen it. An’ second, yeah, I was returned back to the house this morning, but I lit out again straightaway.”

  Kamp kept walking, letting his arms swing freely at his sides. He said, “How’d you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “How’d you break Nyx Bauer out of jail?”

  The kid’s scowl transformed into a toothy grin. “I knew you was a sly one. I knew it! How’d you figure me for it?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Ha, sure. Well, it was one of my more heroic capers, I’ll admit. An’ you can bet ol’ Nyx was outta there like jackrabbit lightnin’ when I sprung her. Didn’t wait around for no chitty-chat, didn’t thank me or nothin’. Just gone!” The kid kicked a rock down the road for emphasis.

  “What did you do?”

  “Oh, well,” the kid said, beaming and hooking his thumbs into his belt loops, “I jus’ went an’ told that overnight fella, Obie, to let her out.”

  “I thought they had extra police guarding the station.”

  “Shee-it.” He spat on the ground. “Everybody gets bored eventually and goes home.”

  “So you waited for them to leave.”

  “That’s right. Jus’ before sunup, them boys they had standin’ out front with scatter guns called it quits. An’ I know that sorry-ass Drecken-whatever don’t show up ’til at least nine. So as soon as the others was gone, I crept up and rapped knuckles on the door. That poor Obie opened the door, soused to his gills. So drunk he had to lean against the doorframe. So I says to Obie, I says, ‘Obie, I need you to fetch me that girl Nyx Bauer, and don’t say nothin’ to nobody.’”

  Kamp kept walking and looking ahead at the horizon. “And what did Obie say?”

  The kid laughed, “That’s the best part. Obie said, ‘Sure thing,’ jus’ like that, and then went an’ got her.”

  “That simple.”

  “Course. ’Cept for three things. First, I was wearin’ a disguise. I took that bearskin you an’ me worked on. I took that an’ draped it over myself, so I looked like the creature itself. An’ number two, I put the cold barrel of a .45 to his forehead. An’ thirdly, I asked nice.”

  “So you dressed up as a bear and pulled a gun?”

  “Now, don’t get sore, son. I already put that skin back where I found it.”

  They rounded the bend on the road where Kamp’s house came into view. He expected to see the posse back in his yard, but it was empty. They continued on to the turn-off that led to the house.

  The kid said, “I done you another favor, son. They’s startin’ to pile up.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Well, you know if we’d left Nyx in that cell, that would’a been it for her. They’da strung her up or throw’d her down a hole for sure. And before they sent her to that last dark an’ lonely, they would’a done even worse to her. You know that.”

  Kamp nodded.

  “An’, hell, you couldn’t jus’ go in there and crack her out, guns blazin’, bodies fallin’. You can’t be doin’ that, not with a family an’ such like. I’m craftier n’ you, anyhow.”

  Kamp turned on his heel, looked at the kid and said, “Who are you?”

  “You really wanna know? No more a’ this Becket Hinsdale garbage?” He stared at Kamp, dead earnest.

  “Tell me.”

  The kid raised his eyebrows. “Iff’n I tell you, it’s in for a penny, in for a pound, if you get my meaning. You’re gonna help me find that son-of-a-bitch who killed me, starting tomorrow. You got that?”

  Kamp nodded, and the kid thrust out his hand, “My name is Truax, Abel Truax. Born 1825, died 1861. Folks used to call me A.T. Pleased to meet you.”

  7

  “ABEL TRUAX?”

  “That’s what he said.” Kamp talked between bites of supper.

  Shaw said, “Does that name sound familiar to you?”

  He tilted his head back. “Nope.”

  He’d begun telling Shaw the story after getting home and checking to see if the bearskin was where he’d last left it, stretched between the saw horses in the back yard. It was there, and if the kid hadn’t told him he’d moved it, Kamp wouldn’t have known.

  Shaw sat across the table opposite from him and said, “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

  “As soon as they said Nyx escaped, I assumed he had something to do with it. But I have no idea.”

  “Well, if he did do it,” she said, “he has some brass balls.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “What about that Raymond Hinsdale? You talked to him, too, right?”

  He finished his meal, wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin on the table. “Not a nice person.”

  “Anything else?”

  He took her hands in his and looked in her eyes. “I want to hear some of your secrets. Tell me how you know about Shakespeare.” He rarely saw her blush but now saw color in her cheeks.

  “Kamp, do you know where Nyx is?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Shakespeare. Hamlet.”

  “He was a white man,” Shaw said, “more like a boy, though. A missionary.” Her hair wasn’t braided and fell across her face. Shaw brushed it back with her first two fingers, focused on him and smiled. “He wanted to save us Lenapé.”

  “How’d that go?”

  She made a wry face. “I’m not sure his heart was in it, the saving part.”

  “Didn’t work, huh?”

  “No, he was more of what I guess you’d call a theater person. He talked more about Shakespeare than he talked about Jesus. A lot more. Seemed like it got him in trouble with his people.”

  “What about your people?”

  “He didn’t matter much to them. They just called him gakpitschehellat.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It means fool, or madman.”

  “What about you?” He leaned in and studied her eyes and the three freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  She let her gaze drift to the ceiling. “His name was Daniel J-something. I called him Jay. Like the bird.”

  Kamp leaned back in his chair. “What did you think of him?”

  Shaw smiled. “Well, yes, I thought he was mad. But you know how I feel about madmen.”

  “But what did you think about what he was doing?”

  “I thought he was harmless, but I liked what he taught us. He told us about Hamlet. He called me Ophelia.”

  “Oh, did he now?”

  She nodded, blushing again.

  “What happened to him?”

  Shaw’s brow furrowed, and they heard a loud thud in the cellar. Kamp rushed down the stairs to find the bear cub whimpering at the bottom of the steps to the bulkhead doors. The bear had grown signi
ficantly. He pushed one of the bulkhead doors open, the bear scampered out, and he shut it again.

  He tromped back up the stairs to the kitchen and said to Shaw, “When are we going to send that bear on its way?”

  “We don’t know,” Shaw said, “spring?”

  “We?”

  “Autumn adores Nush.”

  “Nush?

  Shaw smiled. “Yes. Short for nushèàxkw. Our word for bear.”

  “Really.” He let out a sigh.

  “Don’t worry, love. She’ll be hibernating soon. In the cellar.”

  “How will we get what we need down there?”

  “Very quietly.”

  KAMP THREW THE LAST LOG ON THE FIRE and stretched out on the floor in front of it. He lay on his back and watched the light from the flames as it danced on the ceiling. He soon became drowsy and slipped into a half-dream state, where he walked alongside the bear. They followed the trail up the mountain behind the house to the small clearing where Shaw’s father conducted the ceremony for Autumn.

  As Joe had raised the baby in his hands, they’d heard the report of a rifle. After a moment, the ceremony resumed with Joe speaking the baby’s true name. In the dream Kamp heard the echoes of the hunter’s shot. He felt warm and weightless as he and the bear continued up the trail to the large mountain oak tree near the top, the tree where Kamp played war with his brothers as a small boy.

  He remembered that if you made it to the base of the tree, it meant you won the war. You were safe. He stood there now, gazing up through the broad, spreading canopy, discerning the outlines of the leaves lit by an orange glow that grew brighter. A sound accompanied the light, music, soft at first and then gathering force to a mighty brass fanfare.

  By the time he snapped awake to the solemn notes of a great horned owl, the coal that had bounced out of the fire had burned a dime-sized hole in his pants. He brushed away the ember and sat up, checking his body to see if anything else was alight.