Trumpet of the Dead (Raven Trilogy Book 2)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  WHENEVER HE ALLOWED HIS MIND TO SLOW, Kamp was able to see Shaw’s logic, and he knew she was right. He reflected on the moment he’d first heard of the murders of Jonas and Rachel Bauer. He’d been gripped with the urge to protect their children and capture their killer. Finding the alleged fiend Daniel Knecht and bringing him back to the Bauer house seemed to be the first step in getting justice. But when the mob outside the house turned murderous, Kamp stumbled into the first set of unintended consequences. And his subsequent investigation of the crimes led to an escalation of violence that resulted in a clearer understanding of the matter, perhaps, but not resolution. And certainly not justice.

  He knew Wyles was right, as well. For the sake of Nyx’s safety, he needed to stay away. Same for Angus, same for the kid. Kamp’s intention was always to help people and to put things right, but inevitably and without trying, he provoked conflict and destruction.

  By sunup, he’d resolved to leave the rest of the world, such as it was, in peace. And he set about working on projects he’d previously laid aside, beginning with the bear hide. He tanned it with a mixture of the bear’s brain and hot water, then hung it in the back yard. And by the time the first golden rays of morning hit Kamp’s face, the hide had begun to dry. He dug a hole in the backyard and built a simple tripod above it. Kamp filled the hole with wood and lit a fire. After softening the hide, he draped it over the tripod and bathed it in smoke thereby. Half an hour later, it was finished.

  He carried the hide into the house and spread it on the floor in the front room and admired it. Kamp started a fire in the fireplace and took off his boots. He went to the front window and saw Raymond Hinsdale’s fine carriage gliding by on the road. He heard Shaw and Autumn come down the stairs, and soon his daughter stood at his side.

  She said, “What are you doing, daddy?”

  “Learning how to mind my own business.”

  18

  THE CARRIAGE CAME TO A STOP in the drive that coiled in front of the impressive marble steps leading to the portico and underneath it, the front doors of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. Margaret Hinsdale emerged from the carriage first, carrying a box wrapped with a red ribbon. Raymond Hinsdale then got out as well, and the two were met at the top of the stairs by a man in a three-piece suit and white laboratory coat. The man wore a beard in the Van Dyke style and wireframe glasses.

  He smiled broadly when he greeted them. “Good day to you, Mr. and Mrs. Hinsdale, I’m Dr. MacBride.”

  Raymond Hinsdale shook hands with MacBride. “Pleased to meet you, doctor. Impressive building you have here.”

  “Thank you. Indeed. Greek revival. Won’t you come with me?” With purposeful steps, he led the couple down the wide main hall. Patients sat quietly in wooden chairs on either side of the hallway. They read books or gazed out the window, as if perhaps lost in the contemplation of a tree or cloud.

  Margaret Hinsdale said, “Doctor, this place, this hospital, it doesn’t seem as if it’s a, a…” She paused, searching for the right word.

  “A lunatic asylum?” MacBride said. “Of course not, that’s our approach, the new model. Moral treatment.”

  He stopped walking and turned to face her. “I assure you, though, madam, no matter how docile they appear, every one of these patients”—he made a sweeping gesture— “is utterly insane.”

  MacBride began walking again, guiding them into a sitting room filled with sunlight, fine furniture, Persian rugs and an assortment of ferns in ornate vases.

  “Won’t you sit down?” he said.

  The Hinsdales took their seats on a red velvet divan as two attendants entered the room. The first carried a sterling silver tea service and the second a tray of crumpets with a variety of jams.

  Once the Hinsdales had been served, two orderlies ushered in the kid, outfitted in the trousers and silk shirt he’d worn when he first arrived. The first orderly pulled up a wooden chair, and the second directed the kid to sit in it.

  Without emotion the kid said, “Well, isn’t this a nice little surprise.” Margaret Hinsdale went to him immediately, hugged him and kissed his forehead.

  “I brought you a gift, dear.” She untied the bow on the package.

  “I’m afraid we don’t allow gifts,” MacBride said, “not even from the parents.”

  She said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s just a Bible.”

  The kid opened the package and said, “See, now that’s thoughtful. I sure could use the solace of the good book right about now.” He held the Bible in both hands.

  MacBride said, “I suppose we can make an exception.”

  Margaret Hinsdale focused on the kid’s face. “Oh, Becket, are you all right, dear? Are you?” She took a step back and looked at him. His blonde straw-like hair had been combed with a side part.

  “Dreadful,” she said.

  “I know I look ridiculous, Margaret. Don’t make it worse.”

  She whipped her head around to look at MacBride. “Look at those dark circles. My word.”

  Everyone stared at the dark half-moons beneath the kid’s eyes.

  “What have you done to this boy?” she said.

  MacBride cleared his throat. “Some of our residents find it difficult to sleep soundly when they first arrive. There’s always a period of adjustment.”

  “Adjustment? Shit,” the kid said. “You try sleepin’ in a wooden box in the cellar.”

  Margaret Hinsdale’s face went bright red. “What in god’s name?”

  MacBride sipped his tea, paused, then said, “Mrs. Hinsdale, I’m afraid it’s not unusual for patients to attempt to garner sympathy by spinning yarns, especially during family visits.”

  “Yarns?” Margaret Hinsdale said.

  “Indeed. Fabrications, tall tales.”

  The kid said, “Tell ’em, doc. Tell ’em how y’all punished me for tryin’ t’ absquatulate outta here. Tell ’em about that contraption y’all had me stuffed in.”

  Margaret Hinsdale’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Yes, tell us, doctor.”

  “When Becket first arrived, he did attempt an escape. And I believe the boy is referring to something called a Utica crib. These devices have been employed from time to time in insane asylums, though with no curative success, I’m afraid. Perhaps one of the other residents described one to Becket. I can assure there’s no such thing on the premises. And under no circumstances would we ever punish a resident.”

  The kid shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Don’t believe him, Margaret. I can show y’all exactly where it is.”

  “Why don’t you show us?” Margaret Hinsdale said.

  MacBride turned to Raymond Hinsdale. “I’m afraid, sir, that delusional mendacity is all too typical with your son’s kind of madness.”

  Raymond Hinsdale said, “Why don’t we focus on the business at hand?” He gently took his wife by the elbow. She shrugged it off forcefully and then took her seat.

  MacBride said, “Yes, of course. Thank you.” He turned to the kid. “Becket, the reason your parents are here is to see if you’re ready to go home today.”

  The kid’s expression flattened.

  “You seem skeptical. Don’t you want to leave?”

  “Don’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  The kid straightened in his chair. “Truth be told, folks in here don’t seem no diff’rent from people out there. Not at all. Every last soul has a situation they’re tryin’ t’ cope with. Real lunatics, doc, is you an’ that nurse an’ them savages there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, referring to the orderlies. “Iff’n you ask me, the whole lot of you is evil, an’ stone fucking nuts.”

  “That’s enough, Becket!” Raymond Hinsdale gripped the arm of the divan. “Doctor, I don’t even have the words to express—”

  MacBride looked at him with pity. “No need to apologize, sir. It’s therapeutic for the boy to reveal his true emotions and for you to witness the severity of his pathology.”

  Margaret Hinsdale e
rupted, “That’s not at all what—” Her husband grabbed her hard by the wrist.

  Raymond Hinsdale said, “Let’s focus on getting him home. Doctor, what must Becket do, and what can we do, in order for him to be discharged?”

  MacBride motioned to the orderlies, the first of whom opened the door. The second orderly walked to Margaret Hinsdale and held out his hand.

  She said, “I’m not going anywhere.” A moment passed, then another.

  The kid said, “I’ll say whatever you want me to say, answer whatever god damn dumb questions you want me to answer. Just let her stay.”

  A look passed between MacBride and Raymond Hinsdale.

  MacBride said, “So be it.”

  The first orderly closed the door, and the second backed away from Margaret Hinsdale.

  MacBride interlaced his fingers in front of his chest and addressed the Hinsdales. “I’ve explained to Becket that if he answers my questions truthfully and specifically, we’ll know he’s on the path to sanity. And while we won’t be able to say he’s cured, at least he may be well enough to return home. Does that make sense to you?”

  Raymond and Margaret Hinsdale nodded.

  “Becket, do you have any questions?”

  The kid shook his head. “No questions, but tell them varmints to skedaddle.” He motioned to the orderlies.

  MacBride said, “Thank you, gentlemen,” dismissing them. “Now, let’s begin.” The doctor leaned forward in his chair toward the kid. “Is your real name Abel Truax?”

  MacBride and the Hinsdales all pulled in a breath and waited.

  The kid said, “No, it is not.”

  They all exhaled.

  “Were you born in West Virginia in 1825?”

  “No, I was not.”

  “Do you believe you were murdered in Bethlehem in 1861 while trying to help a freed slave who’d been wrongfully imprisoned?”

  “No, I do not.”

  MacBride looked at the Hinsdales and said, “This is real progress.”

  “Finally, he’s coming back to us. He’s waking up,” Raymond Hinsdale said.

  MacBride sharpened his focus. “Now, Becket, tell me exactly where Nadine Bauer said she was—”

  The kid piped up again. “No, I ain’t from West Virginia. My father warn’t a preacher who died handlin’ on snakes.”

  Raymond Hinsdale said, “He’s doing it again.”

  Margaret Hinsdale said, “Becket, no.”

  The kid continued, “And I didn’t come up here to help my good friend Onesimus Tucks out of a pickle. I warn’t killed by a blow to the back of the neck, and I didn’t travel to no heavenly realms and then get sent back to live in no tree and then get born to Ray an’ Margaret. No, none of that happened. No, sir.”

  Raymond Hinsdale became visibly angry. “Son, when we get home—”

  The kid interrupted him, “An’ come t’ think of it, when I first hit town, I didn’t live underneath no whorehouse, neither. An’ I didn’t see Raymond comin’ an’ goin’ there on a most reg’lar basis.”

  Margaret Hinsdale tried to put her hand over the kid’s mouth, but he wiggled free and kept talking.

  “No, I never saw Raymond take up with one fine young adventuress in partick’lar, one that I happened to know myself. No, I didn’t actually see none of that. An’ I especially didn’t never hear Raymond moanin’ and groanin’ up there out an open window, like sin to Moses!”

  When Raymond Hinsdale lunged across the room, arms outstretched, knocking Margaret Hinsdale aside and reaching for the kid’s throat, the kid bolted from the chair and out the door, Bible in hand, with the orderlies close behind.

  Raymond Hinsdale watched them disappear down the main hallway. He stood up, straightened his tie and then turned and extended his hand to MacBride, who shook it.

  MacBride said, “I’m afraid he’ll be staying.”

  Hinsdale said, “God bless you, doctor. Thank you for helping our son. Our debt of gratitude is immense.”

  19

  ANGUS DIDN’T NEED TO MAKE A MOLD, didn’t even need to make a fire to heat the iron and hammer it into the shape of a prosthetic toe. After hacksawing the toe cap off Nyx’s boots, he simply took a can of matchlock musket balls of varying sizes down from a shelf and found one the approximate size of each of her missing toes. He glued the bullets into the cap of the boot in the correct places, affixing a wad of felt to each one so that the stumps were snug against them. He let Nyx try the boots on several times, making minor adjustments each time.

  When Nyx was satisfied with the fit, he said, “Now comes the easy part.” Angus glued the prosthetic toes to the sole and then stitched the caps back on. He handed the finished product back to Nyx.

  “Get them as tight as you can.”

  Nyx guided the laces through the eyelets, tied them and stood up. She took a few tentative steps forward, testing her balance with short strides.

  She said, “Okay, now I’m going to walk like I used to.” Nyx lengthened her gait, striding across the room and finding she could trust the boots. She wobbled only when she tried to push off to run.

  “That doesn’t feel the same,” she said.

  “Give it time.”

  Nyx threw her arms around Angus’s neck, pressed herself against him and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  THE LATE MORNING SUN warmed Kamp’s feet as he lay on the floor, mind meandering. He recalled the morning he’d returned home from the war, carrying nothing but the Sharps and kicking up dust on the road with the boots he’d worn since the day he’d left. The boots they’d tried to give him were garbage, poorly constructed and unfit even for a Sunday stroll. It occurred to Kamp now that his refusal to wear standard issue boots was the first in a very long series of gestures of noncompliance that led him on his wayward path to the lunatic asylum. Kamp’s thoughts shifted to the August morning that the kid first came marching up the trail. For the first time in weeks, Kamp remembered that on that day he’d just received the load of planks with which he’d intended to build a slaughterhouse. He remembered, too, his ambivalence regarding the new structure, and while he didn’t know from whence the mixed feelings emanated, Kamp knew they were still there. Maybe he’d had enough of killing. He pictured the planks where he’d left them, under a canvas tarp behind the house. They could wait longer. At least until spring.

  Kamp felt his thoughts picking up speed and intensity, and from experience he knew that if he didn’t start moving, dark rumination would soon overtake him. Following Shaw’s wise counsel, namely that involving himself in the crises of others would be more troublesome than he’d imagined, Kamp stood up stiffly and looked for his jacket. He could hike the mountain, maybe. His heart started slapping against his ribs, splintered thoughts spinning at him.

  It wasn’t until he moved for the door that he became aware of the insistent knocking and saw a man standing on the front porch.

  “I need to speak with you,” the man said. Kamp opened the door and saw the prosecutor, Grigg, holding a black leather briefcase. “Good day. May I come in?”

  Kamp stepped out onto the porch, locked the door behind him and headed down the steps.

  “Where are you going?”

  Kamp disappeared around the back of the house, and Grigg scurried after him, slipping several times in his shiny brogans on the melting ice and snow. He caught up with Kamp on the trail that led to the mountain.

  “I need to speak with you.”

  “Then you’ll have to walk.”

  “I’m not dressed for it.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I can’t.”

  Kamp turned around and saw that Grigg wore his customary three-piece suit, a wool Chesterfield coat with a velvet collar, and a cashmere scarf. He carried the briefcase.

  “Then wait on the porch.”

  “How long?”

  Kamp disappeared up the trail, and Grigg scrambled up after him, grabbing low branches to steady himself every few steps.

  When
he reached the top of the mountain, out of breath, shoes muddy and feet soaked, Grigg found Kamp staring up into the branches of the oak tree.

  Grigg unbuckled the briefcase and said, “I need to show you something.”

  Kamp leaned back and took a deep breath, exhaling it in a great cloud. Still looking up, Kamp said, “My brothers and I used to come up here.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yah. Before.”

  Grigg surveyed the landscape and shifted from one foot to the other. “Yes, well, Kamp, if you don’t mind I’d like to—”

  “When I got back from the war, this was the first place I came. This tree. A safe place.” He turned to look at Grigg. “This is the tree he said he lived in for two years. The kid.”

  “Kamp, I spoke with the coroner several days ago. He said you’d visited him a while back.”

  With his foot Kamp swept away the snow at the base of the tree. “The only difference, when I got back here, the only difference between before and now, is that it seems like nothing grows on the ground here anymore. Used to be grass and flowers. Tree’s still alive. The kid called it a kyarn, a dead place.”

  “Charming. The coroner told me you demanded to see his records from twelve years ago. And he refused.”

  “So what?”

  “So, here they are.”

  Kamp glanced at the sheaf of papers Grigg pulled from his briefcase. “You’re wasting your time.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I let it go.”

  “Really.”

  “Yah, I’m trying something new.” Kamp started back down the mountain.

  Grigg laughed. “It’s not that easy. Not by a long chalk.” He placed the papers back in the briefcase, buckled it, and trailed after Kamp. “They’re not going to leave you alone.”

  “Neither are you, apparently.”

  “If nothing else, I’m giving you advance warning.”

  “About what?” Kamp kept making his way down the trail. Grigg hustled as best he could, slipping to one knee and then getting up and then getting in front of Kamp, stopping him.

  Grigg said, “They’re coming for you, the Order.”