Yes. Horribly clear.
He could make out the bones of an arm, thrown across what might’ve been a half-decayed, naked torso. A gray knee joint jutted up from the muck. There was a hand, the fingers shriveled to the bones, grasping upward as if in a begging gesture for help. And there was a head, too; mostly a mud-covered skull, but some of the flesh remained. Matthew, his mouth dry of saliva and his heart pounding, could see how the top of the skull had been crushed inward by a savage blow.
A hammer could’ve delivered such a death, he realized. A hammer or a rat-killing mallet.
Perhaps there were more corpses than one in that burial pit. Perhaps there were four or five, thrown in and entangled together. It was hard to tell how many, but there were a great number of bones. None of the bodies seemed to have been buried with their clothing.
Hey, clerk! You sure he wouldn’t part with that waistc’t?
Matthew felt the earth shift and slide around his feet. There was a noise like a dozen serpents hissing and, as the ground began to collapse around him, Matthew saw more human bones being pushed up to the surface like the muddy spars of ships wrecked on vicious shoals. Dazed as if locked in a nightmare, Matthew stood at the center of the sinking earth as evidence of murders revealed themselves under his shoes. Only when he was about to be sucked under into an embrace with the dead did he turn away, pulling his feet up and struggling toward the barn.
He fought his way through the rain in the direction of the tavern. The immediacy of his mission gave flight to his heels. He slipped and fell once again before he reached the door, and this time the lantern splashed into a puddle and the candle went out. Red mud covered him from head to toe. When he burst through the door, he saw that Shawcombe was no longer sitting at the table, though the tankard was still in its same position and the bitter-smelling pipe smoke yet wafted in the air. Matthew restrained the urge to shout a warning to the magistrate, and he got into the room and latched the door behind him. Woodward was still stretched out and soundly asleep.
Matthew shook the man’s shoulders. “Wake up! Do you hear me?” His voice, though pinched with fright, was strong enough to pierce the veil of the magistrate’s sleep. Woodward began to rouse himself, his eyelids opening and the bleary eyes struggling to focus. “We have to get out!” Matthew urged. “Right now! We’ve got to—”
“Good God in Heaven!” Woodward croaked. He sat upright. “What happened to you?”
“Just listen!” Matthew said. “I found bodies out there! Skeletons, buried behind the barn! I think Shawcombe’s a murderer!”
“What? Have you lost your senses?” Woodward sniffed the younger man’s breath. “It’s that damn Indian ale, isn’t it?”
“No, I found the bodies down in a hole! Shawcombe may have even killed Kingsbury and thrown him in there!” He saw the magistrate’s expression of bewilderment. “Listen to me! We have to leave as fast as we—”
“Gentlemen?”
It was Shawcombe. His voice beyond the door made Matthew’s blood go cold. There came the rap of knuckles on the wood. “Gentlemen, is all well?”
“I think he means to kill us tonight!” Matthew whispered to the magistrate. “He wants your waistcoat!”
“My waistcoat,” Woodward repeated. His mouth was dry. He looked at the door and then back to Matthew’s mud-splattered face. If anything was true in this insane world, it was that Matthew did not lie, nor was he servant to flights of fantasy. The shiny fear in the younger man’s eyes was all too real, and Woodward’s own heart began beating rapidly.
“Gents?” Now Shawcombe’s mouth was close to the door. “I heard you talkin’. Any trouble in there?”
“No trouble!” Woodward replied. He put a finger to his lips, directing Matthew to be silent. “We’re very well, thank you!”
There was a few seconds’ pause. Then: “Clerk, you left the front door open,” Shawcombe said. “How come you to do that?”
Now came one of the most terrible decisions of Isaac Woodward’s life. His saber, as rusted and blunt as it was, remained in the wagon. He had neither a dirk nor a prayer to protect them. If Shawcombe was indeed a killer, the time had arrived for him to deliver death. Woodward looked at the room’s single shuttered window and made the decision: they would have to leave everything behind—trunks, wigs, clothing, all of it—to save their skins. He motioned Matthew toward the window and then he eased up out of the damp straw.
“What’s got your tongue, boy?” Shawcombe demanded. His voice was turning ugly. “I asked you a question!”
“Just a moment!” Woodward opened one of the trunks, lifted a pair of shirts, and put his hands on the golden-threaded waistcoat. He could not leave this, even with a murderer breathing down his neck. There was no time to work his feet into his boots nor grab his tricorn hat. Grasping the waistcoat, he straightened up and motioned for Matthew to unlatch the window’s shutter.
Matthew did. The latch thunked out of its groove and he pushed the shutter open into the falling rain.
“They’re comin’ out the winda!” Uncle Abner yelled, standing just beneath it. Matthew saw he was holding a lantern in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.
Behind Woodward, there was a tremendous crash as the door burst inward. He twisted around, his face bleached of blood, as Shawcombe came across the threshold with a grin that showed his peglike teeth. Behind him, Maude carried a double candlestick that held two burning tapers, her white hair wild and her wrinkled face demonic.
“Oh, oh!” Shawcombe said mockingly. “Looky here, Maude! They’re tryin’ to get gone without payin’ their bill!”
“What’s the meaning of this outrage?” Woodward snapped, putting on a mask of anger to hide his true emotion, which was raw and naked terror.
Shawcombe laughed and shook his head. “Well,” he said, lifting up his right hand and inspecting the mallet with which Maude had earlier crushed the black rat, “the meanin’ of it, you bloody ass, is that you and the clerk ain’t goin’ nowhere tonight. ’Cept Hell, I reckon.” His eyes found the prize. “Ahhhhh, there ’tis. Give it here.” He thrust out his grimy left hand.
Woodward looked at the dirty fingers and then at the waistcoat he held so dearly. His gaze returned to Shawcombe’s greedy hand; then Woodward lifted his chin and took a long breath. “Sir,” he said, “you’ll have to kill me to take it.”
Shawcombe laughed again, more of a piggish grunt this time. “Oh, indeedy I’ll kill you!” His eyes narrowed slightly. “I ’spected you’d go out like a mouse ’stead of a man, though. ’Spected you might give a squeal like that other little drunk titmouse did when I whacked him.” He abruptly swung the mallet through the air past Woodward’s face, and the magistrate flinched but did not retreat. “Gonna make me take it, huh? All-righty then, ain’t no skin off my bum.”
“They’ll send someone else,” Matthew spoke up. “From Charles Town. They’ll send—”
“Another fuckin’ magistrate? Let ’em, then! They keep sendin’ ’em, I’ll keep killin’ ’em!”
“They’ll send the militia,” he said, which was not nearly as fearsome as it sounded and was probably untrue anyway.
“The militia!” Shawcombe’s teeth gleamed in the murky light. “They’re gonna send the militia all the way from Charles Town? But they didn’t come lookin’ for Kingsbury or none of them others I laid to rest, did they?” His grin began to twist into a snarl. He lifted the mallet up to a striking position. “I think I’m gonna kill you first, you skinny son of a bi—”
Woodward made his move.
He whipped the waistcoat sharply across Shawcombe’s eyes and rushed the man, grabbing his wrist before the mallet could begin its descent. Shawcombe hollered a curse and Maude started shrieking, a sound that surely scared the wall-dwelling rats into flight. Shawcombe’s left hand came up—a fist now instead of a palm—and smacked into the magistrate’s chin. Woodward’s head rocked back, his eyes clouding, but he kept his grip on Shawcombe’s right wrist. “Abner! Abner!” the old woman wa
s yelling. Woodward fired his own blow at Shawcombe’s face, a fist that grazed the man’s cheekbone when Shawcombe saw it coming and twisted to avoid it. Then Shawcombe clamped his free hand around the magistrate’s throat and squeezed as they fought in the little room, one trying to get the mallet into action and the other intent on restraining it.
They staggered back against the bed. Shawcombe’s eye caught a movement to his side and he looked in that direction a second before Matthew slammed him in the head with one of the magistrate’s boots he’d picked up from the floor. Another swing of the boot struck Shawcombe on the shoulder, and now Matthew could see a glint of desperation in the man’s eyes. Shawcombe, who had realized that the magistrate was more formidable than he appeared, gave a roar like an enraged beast and drove his knee upward into Woodward’s genitals. Woodward cried out and doubled over, clutching himself. Suddenly the mallet was free. Shawcombe lifted it high, a two-handed grip, in preparation to bash in the back of the other man’s skull.
“No!” said Matthew. The boot was already swinging forward, and with every ounce of strength he could muster, Matthew hit Shawcombe across the bridge of the nose with its wooden heel.
The noise of the blow was like an axeblade striking oak; somewhere in it was the crunch of Shawcombe’s nose breaking. Shawcombe gave a strangled cry and stumbled backward, intent on grabbing at his wounded face instead of seeing the color of the magistrate’s brain. Matthew stepped forward to wrest the mallet away, but suddenly he was attacked by the shrieking old hag, who grabbed at his coat collar with one hand and with the other shoved the candleflames toward his eyes.
Matthew reflexively struck at her, hitting her in the face, but he had to retreat to get away from her, and now Abner was coming into the room with his lantern and his pitchfork.
“Kill ’em!” Shawcombe whined, a nasal sound; he’d met the wall and slid down to the floor, his hands clamped across his face and the mallet lying beside him. Blood, black in the ochre light, was leaking between his fingers. “Abner! Kill ’em both!”
The old man, rain dripping from his beard, lifted the pitchfork and stepped toward Woodward, who was still groaning and trying to straighten himself up.
Matthew was aware of the open window behind him. His mind worked, faster than his body could react. He said, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Abner stopped in his tracks. He blinked as if stunned. “What?”
“Thou shalt not kill,” Matthew repeated. “It’s in the Bible. You do know the Lord’s word, don’t you?”
“I…the Lord’s word? Yeah, I reckon I—”
“Abner! Goddamn it, kill ’em!” Shawcombe bawled.
“It’s in the Bible, is it not? Mr. Woodward, would you go out the window, please?” The magistrate had tears of pain streaming down his face. He’d regained enough sense, however, to realize he should move quickly.
“Shit! Lemme up!” Shawcombe tried getting to his feet, but both eyes were already turning purplish and starting to swell. He had a harder time than he’d expected finding his balance, and it yet eluded him. He sank back down to the floor. “Maude! Don’t let ’em get out!”
“Gimme ’at damn pigsticka!” Maude grabbed the pitchfork and tugged at it, but Abner resisted her.
“The boy’s right,” Abner said; his voice was calm, as if a great truth had been revealed to him. “It’s in the Bible. Thou shalt not kill. That’s the Lord’s word.”
“Ya damn fool! Give it ’ere!” Maude tried, unsuccessfully, to wrench the pitchfork out of his hands.
“Hurry,” Matthew said, as he helped the magistrate over the windowsill and out. Woodward fell into the mud like a flour sack. Then Matthew started climbing out.
“You ain’t gettin’ far!” Shawcombe promised, his voice tight with pain. “We’ll hunt ya down!”
Matthew glanced back into the room to make sure Maude didn’t have the pitchfork. Abner was still holding on to it, his face furrowed with thought. Matthew figured the old man wouldn’t remain in that state of religious piety much longer, though; he was as much of a murderer as the other two, and Matthew had only rolled a stone in his path. Before Matthew let go of the sill, he saw another figure standing in the doorway. It was the girl, her face pale, the dark and dirty hair hanging in her eyes. Her arms were clasped around herself, a protective gesture. He had no idea if she was as mad as the rest of them, or what would become of her; he knew for certain, though, that she was beyond his help.
“Go on and run like a dog!” Shawcombe taunted. The blood was dripping between his fingers to the floor, his eyes becoming narrow, puffed slits. “If you’re thinkin’ to get that sword was in your wagon, it’s done been got! Damn blade ain’t sharp enough to cut a fart! So go on and see how far ya get!”
Matthew released the sill and jumped down into the mud beside Woodward, who was struggling to his feet. Maude began flailing Abner with curses, and Matthew knew they’d better put as much distance between them and the tavern as they could before the pursuit started. “Can you run?” he asked the magistrate.
“Run?” Woodward looked at him incredulously. “You might ask if I could crawl!”
“Whatever you can do, you’d best do it,” Matthew said. “I think we should get into the woods, first thing.”
“What about the horses and the wagon? We’re not just going to leave them here!”
“There’s no time. I expect they’ll be after us in a few minutes. If they come at us with an axe or a musket—”
“Say no more.” With an effort, Woodward began slogging toward the woods across the road from the tavern. Matthew followed close at his side, watchful in case he staggered.
The lightning flashed, thunder clapped, and rain fell upon their heads. Before they reached the forest, Matthew looked back at the tavern but saw no one yet following. He hoped Shawcombe had lost—at least for the moment—the desire to rouse himself and come out in this storm; he doubted if the old man and woman were very self-motivated without him. Probably Shawcombe was too busy dealing with his own pain to inflict it on anyone else. Matthew thought about going back for the horses, but he’d never saddled and bridled a mount in his life and the situation was volatile. No, he decided, it was best to head into the forest and follow the road in the direction they’d been going.
“We left everything,” Woodward said disconsolately as their feet sank into the quagmire of mud and pine needles at the forest’s edge. “Everything! My clothes, my wigs, my judicial robes! Dear Christ, my waistcoat! That animal has my waistcoat!”
“Yes, sir,” Matthew answered. “But he doesn’t have your life.”
“And a sorry thing that will be, from this day forward! Ahhhhh, that man almost made me a soprano!” He peered into the utter darkness that lay ahead. “Where are we going?”
“Fount Royal.”
“What?” The magistrate faltered. “Has that man’s madness impressed you?”
“Fount Royal is at the end of the road,” Matthew said. “If we keep walking, we might be there in a few hours.” An optimistic appraisal, he thought. This swampy earth and the pelting rain would slow them considerably, but it would also hinder their pursuers. “We can return here with their militia and retrieve our belongings. I think it’s our only choice.”
Woodward was silent. It was indeed their only choice. And if he could get his waistcoat back—and see Shawcombe kicking at the end of a noose—it would be worth a few hours of this vile indignity. He could not help thinking that once a man fell into the pit of disfavor with God, the hole was bottomless. He had no shoes, his balls were bruised and aching, his head was naked to the world, and his nightshirt was sopping and covered with mud. But at least they did both have their lives, which was more than he could say of Thymon Kingsbury. Execution is not one of my duties, he’d told Shawcombe. Well, that just might have to be amended.
He would come back here and get that waistcoat if it was the last thing he did on this earth.
Matthew was moving a little faster than the m
agistrate, and he paused to wait for Woodward. In time, the night and the storm swallowed them up.
four
AT LAST THE AFTERNOON SUN had cleaved a path through the clouds and shone now on the drenched earth. The weather had warmed considerably, compared to the chill of the night before. This was more like the usual May, though the clouds—dark gray and swollen with more ghastly rain—were still looming, slowly converging together from all points of the compass to overtake the sun again.
“Go on,” said the heavyset, lavishly bewigged man who stood at a second-floor window of his house, overlooking the vista. “I am listening.”
The second man in the room—which was a study lined with shelves and leather-bound books, a gold-and-red Persian rug on the pinewood floor—sat on a bench before a desk of African mahogany, a ledger book open in his lap. He was the visitor here, however, as the bewigged man had recently lifted his 220-pound bulk from his own chair, which stood on the other side of the desk facing the bench. The visitor cleared his throat and placed a finger upon a line written in the ledger. “The cotton plants have again failed to take root,” he said. “Likewise the tobacco seedlings.” He hesitated before he delivered the next blow. “I regret to say that two-thirds of the apple trees have been blighted.”
“Two-thirds?” said the man at the window, without turning away from the view. His wig, a majesty of white curls, flowed down around the shoulders of his dark blue, brass-buttoned suit. He wore white ruffles at his sleeves, white stockings on his thick calves, and polished black shoes with silver buckles.
“Yes, sir. The same is true of the plum trees, and about half of the pears. At present the blackcherries have been spared, but it is Goode’s opinion that a parasite of some kind may have laid eggs in all the fruit trees. The pecans and the chestnuts are so far unblemished, but the fields have been washed to the extent that many of their roots are now aboveground and vulnerable to harm.” The speaker halted in his recitation of agricultural maladies and pushed his spectacles up a little further on his nose. He was a man of medium height and stature, also of medium age and appearance. He had light brown hair, a lofty forehead, and pale blue eyes, and he bore the air of a wearied accountant. His clothes, in contrast to the other man’s finery, consisted of a plain white shirt, brown cloth waistcoat, and tan trousers.
Speaks the Nightbird Page 5