We moved after the sergeant, Nash on his horse, I on Belle, and a dozen soldiers at our backs doing their best to stay in step over the uneven ground. Some carried lanterns like the two fellows trotting before us and the lot of them making enough noise to wake all this half of the island. Whenever we passed a house, the shutters would either open with curiosity or close in fear, depending on the boldness of its residents. If anyone deigned to call out a question, Nash's answer was that we were on the king's business and not to hinder us. No one did.
I stood up in the stirrups to get a look a things. Half a mile ahead was Lauder and his party, which included the corporal. The sergeant was almost to them, bearing Nash's impatient message. Another half-mile beyond, I made out two struggling figures against the clean background of an empty field. Had it been full daylight, Lauder would have been upon them in very short order.
Couldn't those fools move any faster? One of them seemed spry enough, but the other was having trouble of some sort, limping, perhaps. Damnation, at this rate they would be caught.
"See anything?" Nash asked hopefully.
I started to say no and changed it at the last second. "I'm not sure. I think I shall ride ahead with the advance party."
"It could be dangerous, Mr. Barrett."
"I doubt that; the prisoners are unarmed, after all." Before he could object, I put my heels into Belle's sides and she obediently shot forward at a fast canter. Oh, how that shook and tore at my arm. I clamped my teeth shut and concentrated on getting to my goal. We passed the sergeant without a word and I reined in Belle at the last second. A canter was bad enough, but the change in gait from it to a walk required some trotting in between and I wanted to keep that to a minimum and thus spare my arm.
"Any luck, Sergeant Lauder?" I asked. I brought Belle to a full stop, causing Lauder's party to halt as well. Anything to give Roddy and Andrews a little more of a lead.
"The tracks are very fresh," he replied. His manner was polite, but very cool as he hadn't forgotten our fight earlier. I was relieved to note that he was walking normally again, though. His corporal, who had a lantern, pointed at the ground where some grass had been crushed. "We will soon have them."
"You're sure? It doesn't look like much to me."
The corporal picked up on my disparaging tone and made a vigorous argument to the contrary.
"He says that they are here."
I obstinately continued with my pose of disbelief. "Perhaps, though I don't know how you can sort anything sensible out of that muddle."
Just as stubborn, Lauder repeated his previous statement and made indications that he would like to proceed. Just then, Nash's sergeant caught up and delivered his caustic message. Lauder maintained a phlegmatic face, but we could tell he was hardly amused at this questioning of his efficiency. He vented it upon the corporal and ordered him to proceed as speedily as possible.
I looked past them toward Roddy and Andrews. They seemed to be going slower than ever. Their three days of confinement in the cellar must have taken all the strength out of them. They'd never make it.
"Sergeant Lauder, I shall run ahead and see if I can't spot 'em. You go on with what you're doing."
I gave Belle another kick and-quite stupidly from their point of view-charged over the tracks the corporal was trying so
diligently to follow. About fifty yards on, I veered off to the left so I was riding parallel to the trail.
Roddy was the one limping; Andrews supported him, but they hadn't a hope of breaking away at this pace. I drew up even with them, but some twenty yards to their left, and gave a soft hail. "Roddy, it's me. I've come to help." "More like to lead 'em to us," said Andrews. "Please be so good as to keep your voice down, Lieutenant, or we'll all be chained in the cellar."
"What do ye want, then?" he demanded in a gruff, but somewhat softer tone.
"The Hessians are catching you up." "Tell us something we don't know. Of course they're comin'." "Good, then you know you'll need to go faster." "Aren't we doin' the best we can? The lad all but busted his ankle gettin' away, though."
"I'm ready to loan you my horse, but we'll have to be careful-"
"Then bring 'im over here an' we'll get the lad-" "Do that and a certain tracker back there will read the signs we leave like a book. There's a stony patch not far ahead. You'll have to make it that far first."
Andrews was for wasting time by asking more questions. I moved past and guided Belle down a slight slope to a wide place between the fields where the earth had been scraped away by some ancient and long-departed glacier. That's what Rapelji had taught us, anyway, when he'd once led our class out here to study geological oddities. I never thought then that his science lesson would have ever proved to be of any practical use to me in life. Blessings to the man for his thoroughness in pounding such diverse knowledge into our heads.
Roddy and Andrews finally caught up with me. I dismounted from Belle and took her over to them. They'd both need to ride her, but Andrews insisted he could do well enough on foot.
"As long as the hoss is carry in' 'im an' not me, I'll be quick enough."
"Yes, and leaving your tracks as well. When we go I want that man to find only mine and Belle's, yours are to disappear completely."
The dawn finally broke for him. "Oh, I see what yer about. That's good brain work, young fella."
"If my brain were properly working, I wouldn't be out here. Get Roddy into the saddle and shift yourself up behind him. I'll lead the horse."
"Thank you, Jonathan," Roddy gasped.
"Later," I said. "When we know you're safe."
Both of them mounted. I took hold of the reins and led Belle away from the spot, resuming the path I'd been on earlier. Hopefully, the corporal would interpret things to mean that I was afoot for some reason other than the real one. If questioned later, I could always say that I'd wanted to give the horse a rest.
The boat that Andrews had been making for was still a mile ahead. Roddy's mere five-mile jaunt had been almost twice the distance because of the character of the land and their need to avoid the soldiers. They made better time now, but our speed was still limited to a walk. On the other hand, we knew where we were going and the Hessian trackers did not.
Before too long I heard the measured rush of sea waves carried on the fresh wind. Following Andrews's directions, we slipped quietly by some farmhouses, rousing only a barking dog or two along the way. I didn't care much for that row, but the animals were too distant to do us any real harm; there were other dangers waiting for us, instead.
Nash had boasted that you couldn't toss a rock into a field without striking one of His Majesty's soldiers, and now as we passed an old unused church I spied several of them walking over its grounds toward us. The church was occupied, after all, quartered with British troops. One of the men saw our figures moving against the general darkness, correctly assumed that we were up to no good, and gave a loud challenge.
I flipped the reins over Belle's head and pressed them into Roddy's hands. "Ride like the devil. I'll lead them off." "But-"
Andrews sensibly gave Belle a kick and away they went, heading for the sea. I trotted after them, yelling to encourage the horse to go faster and to draw the soldiers' attention. It worked far better than I would have liked. Calling for help from their companions in the old church, they started for me with all speed. Without further delay, I took to my own heels, trusting that my improved vision would give me sufficient advantage
over them to escape. On the other hand, I still had to keep them close enough to give Roddy his chance to get away.
"Over there!" someone shouted. Good king's English this time, and very understandable. So far they'd seen me only as a murky figure, I couldn't allow them a better look lest I end up taking Roddy's place at the gallows. I dodged under the shadows of a small orchard, went over a fence, and through a sheep pasture. As I trotted along, I laughed out loud to think what Jericho would have to say about this misuse of my riding boots.
I was still laughing when I made it to the top of a rise and stopped for a look back to see where my pursuers were. A foolish thing to do, for I'd underestimated their speed and overestimated my own. In that instant between pausing and turning, one of their sharp-eyed shooters found time to raise his gun and use it.
It was a skillful shot-that, or he had been uncommonly lucky. I felt the devastating impact and, as it had that morning by the kettle, time slowed and all the world was caught up in my illusion of everything coming to a halt.
Above, the glowing stars flowed and spun like water in a bright stream, swirling into glittering whirlpools and splashing up into self-made fountains of light. Below, the land twisted and changed places with them and by that motion I knew I was falling, tumbling helplessly down the other side of the rise.
My back was on fire... no, my chest... my whole body. The musket ball... oh, sweet God, not again.
But even as I cried out, my voice died away, breath gone, crushed out of me by the hideous weight of the pain. It completely closed over me, heavier and more horrible than the grave.
Then the sounds of the night, the soldiers, the rush of the sea, the unspeakable pain itself, abruptly faded, like the turning down of a lamp. One second I could see everything, the next all was gone, lost in a thick, dark gray fog.
The change was so great and so fast that I couldn't sort it out at first. I was beyond any thought for the longest time. I seemed to be drifting like a feather on the wind. No, not a feather. The lightest bit of down was yet too weighty compared to me. I was more like smoke, rising high and floating carelessly over the land, too faint to even have a shadow to mark my passage.
I was floating; I was falling. I was once again caught up by whatever force had seized and sent me flying from out of my
coffin. Instinct and memory told me that much. Reason was fast asleep. Reason itself was an absurdity when measured against this. Instinct told me to be calm and not to fight what was happening, and I listened to it. I was beyond argument, beyond fear. I felt safe, like a tired swimmer who finally ceases to fight the water and gives in to its embrace only to discover his own buoyancy.
After what must have been a great while, my mind began to work again, forming questions and seeking answers. I could see nothing but fog, but felt no evidence of its damp presence. If I felt anything it always came from outside my body: the pressure of the wind, the rough kiss of grass below. Of my own body, I felt nothing. I knew I still had one, but I'd lost all form, if not the knowledge, of it. No arms or legs, no head to hold my thoughts, no mouth to express them. I could hear things, but only in a vague way as though my ears-if I'd had any-had been wrapped in a soft blanket.
Perhaps that musket ball had finished me off and the fog I drifted in was part of the process of dying. Perhaps...
Then it struck me how absolutely, utterly ridiculous it all was. Of course I was not dying. I was having one of those damned dreams again, or something very like them.
I gave myself a kind of internal shake, half in my mind and half in the body I knew had to exist.
And then I was sitting on the bare ground as if I'd always been there and with everything returned to its proper place in the universe: stars above, land below, and me in the middle. There was no sign of the soldiers and if I read things right, I was a good half mile from where I'd been before. Downwind. I'd traveled downwind. I'd traveled on the wind.
Falling and floating, or in this case, floating and drifting.
"Impossible." But giving voice to this first sign of reason was no help to my dazed brain, for my thoughts could only return to the question: how else could I have gotten here? How else could I have escaped the prison of my coffin that first night? The answer, however impossible, was undeniable.
No. I shook my head. It was far too fanciful. Frightening, too.
But how else?
The answer, the impossible answer, lay within me. Brought forth by panic or pain, the time had come to consciously grasp and hold on to it no matter what happened.
I shut my eyes to more easily remember what it had felt like. Slowly opening them again, I perceived that my vision was clouding over, as if a great gray shadow had fallen upon the world. The wide background hum of night noises began to fade. I raised my hand. It was gradually becoming as transparent as glass. The more ethereal it was, the less I could clearly see. Then the grayness consumed everything and I was totally blind, but floating.
The earth that once supported me was not really solid at all, but as porous as vapor. Then, as I began to sink in a little past its surface, came the thought that it was I, and not the ground, that was no longer substantial. I gave an instinctive "kick" and felt myself rising, until I sensed I hovered a foot or so above the grass and was even able to hold myself in place against the wind.
My concentration wavered. The night crashed back upon me. My arms jerked outward to regain lost balance and I landed hard on my feet. As before, I'd moved some distance from where I'd been.
Sweet God, what had I become?
Ghostlike, I had escaped the grave. I'd ceased to be solid and passed through the intervening ground to freedom. Just now I had virtually flown over the ground like a wraith on the wind to escape the soldiers. And the pain.
It was gone. There was no sign of any wound on my flesh, though I was shocked to find a hole larger than my thumb torn through my clothes. The musket ball had gone in and out, leaving behind only this evidence of its passage, the same effect the sword blade had had on Nora's clothes.
My arm. My right arm, shattered and useless for nearly a week...
Restored. Completely healed. Free of pain. I felt a small kind of sickness trying to ooze up from within. In the absence of a fast-beating heart, I could interpret this to be a symptom of the paralyzing fear that I'd pushed away so often before. As entitled as I must be to surrendering to it, I would not give in to the temptation. True, my situation was monumentally strange, but beyond the strangeness, beyond the changes, I was still the same man, still Jonathan Barrett, and I had no need to be afraid of myself.
Accept it, Nora had said whenever I'd witnessed anything supernormal about her. She had only to hold my eyes to make me do so, but always she'd given me the chance to abandon the confines of the mundane first. I usually failed her, requiring urging in the right direction. Whether because of her influence on me or my own temper, I did not begrudge her that liberty as it soothed away all unease between us. Could I do no less for myself now?
"Accept it," I said aloud, meaning accept your new self... for the only other alternative must surely be madness.
Accept without fear, without expectation, and with hope for the best. With God's grace and guidance I'd be able to manage whatever was to come.
Accept.
Accept...
EPILOGUE
The sea sound roared in my ears; the sight of it seemed to bestow a kind of movement to my stilled heart. It was so beautiful, a living, glittering thing, restless and wild under the calm luminescence of thousands of minute suns. It stole their silver light, tossed it in the waves, and playfully threw it back again. I could have stood on the bluff and watched for hours more, but the night was beginning to turn and I had a long road
ahead.
Below, in the shelter of a tiny cove, was Belle, her reins dragging on the ground. I was glad to see her, to finally find her. I'd been walking along the edge of the coast for a very long time, looking. She was no worse for wear and occasionally dropped her head to graze on a patch of grass.
There was no sign of Roddy Finch or Ezra Andrews. If their boat had been stored here, it was long gone. I wished them a safe journey.
I made my way down to Belle, took up the reins, and mounted her. Perhaps she sensed that we were going home; I didn't have to guide her in the right direction, she took it for herself and set a good pace. As we moved onto a clear and well-marked road, I gave her the signal to go faster and she readily obeyed. Trot, canter, and finally gallop. She would never mat
ch Rolly's speed, but she was smoother and more graceful. I crouched over her, one hand on the reins, the other stretched before me as lough to taste the streaming wind.
Accept...
Accept the wind and the sky and the earth and the joy and the sorrow.
Accept this new chance at life.
Live and laugh again.
And I did laugh.
It grew distant and hollow as my solid hand began to fade and vanish along with the rest of the world.
P N Elrod - Barrett 1 - Red Death Page 35