Speaks the Nightbird

by Robert R. McCammon

  Paine took a puff, released the blue smoke into the thickened air, and suddenly turned his head to look directly into Matthew’s face. “Your eyes have gotten large, young man. Might I ask what you’re staring at?”

  “Uh…” Matthew resisted the urge to avert his gaze. He decided in another second that he didn’t care to make an issue of this, though he didn’t quite understand why his mind told him to make a note of it. “Nothing, sir,” he said. “My pardon.”

  Paine lowered the smoking stick—Matthew thought it was called a “cigar”—and directed his attention to his host. “If I’m going to lead this expedition at sunrise, I’d best find two or three other men to go along.” He stood up. “Thank you for the dinner and the company. Magistrate, I’ll meet you at the public stable. It’s behind the blacksmith’s shop on Industry Street. Good night to you all.” He nodded, as the other men—excepting Bidwell and Dr. Shields—stood as a matter of courtesy, and then he left the dining room with a brisk stride, the “cigar” gripped between his teeth.

  “Nicholas seemed ill at sorts,” Johnstone said after Paine was gone; he grasped his deformed knee for extra support as he eased himself onto the bench again. “This situation has gotten the best of all of us.”

  “Yes, but the dawn of our dark night has arrived.” Bidwell looked over his shoulder. “Goode!” The black man immediately stopped playing and lowered the violin. “Are there any more turtles in the spring?” Bidwell asked.

  “Yes, suh. They be some big ones.” His voice was as mellow as the violin’s.

  “Catch us one tomorrow. Magistrate, we’ll have turtle soup in our bowls for dinner. Would that suit you?”

  “Very much,” Woodward said, scratching another massive welt on his forehead. “I pray that all goes well with our hunting party on the morrow. If you want a hanging in your town, I’d be glad to pass sentence on Shawcombe as soon as we return.”

  “That might be splendid!” Bidwell’s eyes lit up. “Yes! To show the citizens that the wheels of justice are indeed in motion! That would be a fine sippet before the main course! Goode, play us something merry!”

  The black servant lifted his violin again and began another tune; it was faster and more lively than the one previous, but Matthew thought it was still more tinged with melancholy than merriment. Goode’s eyes closed again, sealing himself off from his circumstances.

  The vanilla cake arrived, along with another tankard of rum. Talk of Rachel Howarth dwindled, while Bidwell’s talk of his plans for Fount Royal increased. Matthew found himself drifting, itching in a dozen places and longing for the embrace of the bed in his room. The candles burned low in the overhead chandelier. Garrick excused himself and went home, followed soon afterward by the schoolmaster. Dr. Shields, after imbibing much of the fresh tankard, laid his head upon the table and so departed the company. Bidwell dismissed Goode, who carefully wrapped the violin in the burlap before he braved the weather. Winston also began to drowse in his chair, his head thrown back and his mouth open. Woodward’s eyes were heavy, his chin dropping. At last their host stood up, yawned, and stretched.

  “I’ll take my leave of you,” Bidwell announced. “I hope you both sleep well.”

  “I’m sure we shall, thank you.”

  “If there’s anything you need, Mrs. Nettles will be at your service. I trust your endeavors tomorrow will be successful.” He started out of the room, then halted on the threshold. “Magistrate, don’t put yourself at risk. Paine can handle a pistol. Let him and his men do the dirty work, as I require you for a higher purpose. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good night then, gentlemen.” Bidwell turned and left the dining room, and in a moment could be heard tromping up the staircase to his own quarters.

  Woodward regarded the two sleepers, to make sure they were both unconscious, and then said to Matthew, “Nothing like a command performance to sharpen the wits, eh? One week to decide the fate of a woman I’ve never met. Even the cold-hearted murderers in Newgate prison are afforded more time than that. Well…” He stood up, his vision bleary. “I’m to bed. Good night.”

  “Good night, sir,” Matthew replied. After the magistrate had trudged out, Matthew got up from the bench and retrieved the empty tankard near Dr. Shields’s outstretched hand. He stared into it, recalling the tankard in which Shawcombe had dropped the gold coin. A Spanish coin, taken from an Indian. What was an Indian doing with a Spanish coin? This question had needled him all day, daring him to find an answer. It was still there, something that required clearing away before he could fully concentrate on his clerking duties and the case of the witch. Possibly Shawcombe could be persuaded to shed more light on it, before he swung.

  Tomorrow was sure to be an interesting day. Mathew returned the tankard to the table, then wearily climbed the stairs to his room. Within a few minutes he was asleep in his borrowed clothes.

  six

  FIRST PROVIDENCE had brought the magistrate and his clerk to Shawcombe’s wretched little tavern, and now necessity had returned them.

  There stood the place, festering alongside the muddy track. As he saw it come into view, Woodward felt his guts tighten. He and Matthew were sitting in a wagon whose team of horses was guided by Malcolm Jennings, he of the hawkish eye and toothless mouth. On the left, Nicholas Paine sat easily astride a burly chestnut stallion while on the right a third militiaman named Duncan Tyler—an older man, his beard gray and face seamed with wrinkles but his attitude right and eager for the job at hand—mounted a black horse. The journey from Fount Royal had taken well over three hours, and even though the rain had ceased before dawn the sky was still pale gray with clouds. The onset of an oppressive, damp heat had caused steam to rise from the muck. All the travellers were wet with sweat under their shirts, the horses ill tempered and stubborn.

  Still fifty yards from the tavern, Paine lifted his hand as a signal for Jennings to halt the wagon. “Wait here,” he commanded, and he and Tyler rode their horses on to the tavern’s door. Paine reined his steed and dismounted. He brought his wheel-lock pistol from his saddlebag and inserted a spanner to properly wind and prepare the mechanism. Tyler got off his horse and, a readied wheel-lock pistol also in hand, followed the captain of militia up onto the tavern’s porch.

  Matthew and the magistrate watched as Paine balled up his fist and pounded the door. “Shawcombe!” they heard him call. “Open up!”

  There was no response. Matthew expected at any second to hear the ugly crack of a pistol shot. The door was unlatched, and the force of Paine’s fist had made it creak open a few inches. Inside was not a glimmer of light. “Shawcombe!” Paine shouted warily. “You’ll be better served by showing yourself!” Still no response.

  “They’re like to get they heads blowed off,” Jennings said, both hands gripping the reins and his knuckles white.

  Paine put one boot against the door and kicked it wide open.

  “Careful,” Woodward breathed.

  Paine and Tyler entered the tavern. The others waited, Matthew and Woodward expecting to hear shouts and shots. But no such things happened. Presently Paine reappeared. He held his pistol down at his side and motioned for Jennings to bring the wagon and the passengers the rest of the distance.

  “Where are they?” Woodward asked as he climbed down from the wagon. “Didn’t you find them?”

  “No sir. It appears they’ve cleared out.”

  “Damn it!” Heat rose into Woodward’s face. “That cunning bastard! But wait, there’s the barn to be searched!”

  “Duncan!” Paine called into the tavern’s gloom. “I’m going back to the barn!” He started off, slogging through the mud, and Matthew followed at a distance respectful of any gunfire that might erupt from the barn or the forest. Matthew quickly noted that things had indeed changed: the horses were no longer in their corral, which was wide open, and the pigs were gone as well. The rooster, hens, and chicks were likewise vanished. The barn door was slightly ajar, its locking timber lying in
the mud nearby. Paine lifted his pistol again. “Come out of there!” he called toward the entrance. “I won’t hesitate to shoot!”

  But again, no one replied. Paine glanced sharply back at Matthew as a warning to remain where he was, then he walked forward and pulled the barn door open wider. He peered in, his pistol ready for any sudden movement. He drew a breath to steel himself and walked inside.

  Matthew waited, his heart pounding. Presently, Paine emerged with his pistol lowered. “Not in there,” he said. “I found two wagons, but no horses.”

  Then they were well and truly fled, Matthew thought. Probably when Shawcombe realized his intended victims might reach Fount Royal, he knew his reign had ended. “I’ll show you where Shawcombe buried the bodies,” he told Paine, and led him around behind the barn toward the woods. Back there, where the water-soaked earth had given way and revealed Shawcombe’s misdeeds, a small storm cloud of flies swirled above the grisly remains. Paine put one hand over his mouth and nose to stifle the smell and approached the gravepit, but only close enough for a quick look before he retreated.

  “Yes,” he said, his face gone pasty-gray. “I see the picture.”

  Matthew and Paine returned to the tavern. Tyler had opened most of the shutters, allowing the daylight to overrun Shawcombe’s sorry domain. With the onset of such illumination, the rats that had been making carnival in every room put up a fierce and indignant squealing and fled for their holes, save one large individual that bared its teeth and might’ve attacked had not Tyler’s right boot dealt the first and bone-breaking blow. Jennings was happily busying himself by collecting such items as lanterns, wooden bowls, spoons and knives, and other small utensils that could be easily carted home. Matthew found the magistrate standing in the room from which they’d escaped; the light revealed the shattered door and on the floorboards the dark brown stains of Shawcombe’s blood.

  “Gone,” Woodward said grimly. “Everything, gone.”

  And so it was. Their luggage—the two trunks and the wig box, the valise containing Matthew’s writing quills, inkpot, and tablet—had disappeared.

  “My waistcoat.” Woodward might’ve sunken down onto the straw pallet, but evidence of rodent habitation prevented him, even though he felt weak enough to faint. “That animal Shawcombe has taken my waistcoat, Matthew.” He looked into the younger man’s face, and Matthew saw that his eyes were damp with soul-deep anguish. “I’ll never get it back now,” he said. “Never.”

  “It was just a garment,” Matthew answered, and instantly he knew it was the wrong thing to say because the magistrate winced as if he’d been physically struck.

  “No.” Woodward slowly shook his head; he stood stoop-shouldered, as if crushed by a tremendous sadness. “It was my life.”

  “Magistrate?” Paine called. He looked into the room before Woodward could rouse himself to respond. “They haven’t been gone very long. The fire’s still banked. Did you find your belongings?”

  “No. They’ve been taken.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You had some items of value?”

  “Very much value, yes. Shawcombe took everything.”

  “This is a strange state of affairs,” Matthew said, after a moment of thought. He went to the open window and stared toward the barn. “There are no horses here, but Shawcombe left two wagons. I presume one of those is ours. Shawcombe took our luggage and his pigs and chickens, but he left behind the lanterns. I’d say a good lantern is as valuable as a hen, wouldn’t you?”

  “Hey, hey! Looky what I done found!” came a happy cry from the front room. Paine hurried to see what the discovery was, followed by the magistrate and Matthew.

  Jennings, who’d uncovered a burlap sack in which to deposit his booty, was holding a wooden tankard. His lips were wet, his eyes shiny. “Rum!” he said. “This was a-settin’ right on that table over there! Might be a bottle ’round somewhere. We oughta hunt it down a’fore we—”

  “One moment,” Matthew said, and he approached the man and took the tankard from him. Without another word, Matthew held the tankard over the nearest table and upended it.

  “Great God, boy!” Jennings squalled as the drink poured out. “Are you cra—”

  Plink!

  A gold coin had fallen from the bottom of the murky brown liquid. Matthew picked it up and looked closely at it, but he already knew what it was. “It’s a Spanish piece,” he said. “Shawcombe told me he got it off a dead Indian. I saw him drop it in that tankard.”

  “Let me see that!” Paine reached out for it, and Matthew gave it up. Paine walked closer to a window, the better to inspect the coin’s details. Tyler stood behind him, looking at the coin over Paine’s shoulder. “You’re right, it is Spanish,” the militia captain said. “You say Shawcombe got it from a dead Indian?”

  “That’s what he claimed.”

  “Strange. Why would an Indian be in possession of Spanish gold?”

  “Shawcombe believed there was—” Matthew suddenly stopped. A Spanish spy hereabouts, he had been meaning to say. But he had the mental image of Paine lighting his cigar at the banquet last night. Smoking in the Spanish style. Who had taught Paine to take his tobacco in that fashion?

  Matthew recalled, as well, something else that Shawcombe had said about this Spanish spy: Hell, he might even be livin’ in Fount Royal, an Englishman turned blackcoat!

  “Believed what?” Paine’s voice was quiet and controlled; his fist had closed around the gold piece.

  “He…said…” Matthew hesitated, thinking furiously. He couldn’t make out the expression on Paine’s face, as the steamy light held Paine in silhouette. “He…believed the Indians might have found pirate’s gold,” Matthew finished, lamely.

  “Pirate’s gold?” Jennings had sniffed a new intoxication. “Where? ’Round here?”

  “Steady, Malcolm,” Paine warned. “One coin does not make a fortune. We’ve had no squall with pirates, nor do we wish to.” He cocked his head to one side and Matthew could tell his brain-wheels were turning. “Shawcombe was wrong,” he said. “No black-flagger in his right mind would bury his loot in redskin wilderness. They hide their gold where they can easily get to it, but it would be a poor pirate whose winnings could be found and unearthed by savages.”

  “I imagine so,” Matthew said, unwilling to dig his grave of deceit any deeper.

  “Still…how else would an Indian get hold of this? Unless there was a shipwreck, and somehow this washed up. Intriguing, wouldn’t you say, Magistrate?”

  “Another possibility,” Woodward ventured, “that a Spaniard gave it to the Indian, down in the Florida country.”

  “No, the redskins around here wouldn’t travel that far. The tribes in the Florida country would make sure to part the scalps from their skulls.”

  “Stranger still,” Matthew spoke up, wanting to divert this line of discourse, “is the fact that Shawcombe left that coin in the tankard.”

  “He must’a been in an almighty hurry to get out,” Jennings said.

  “But he took the time to gather up our luggage and his pigs and chickens? I think not.” Matthew swept his gaze around the room. Nothing was disturbed; no tables overthrown, no blood nor evidence of violence. The hearth was still warm, the cooking kettles still in the ashes. There was no hint of what had happened to Shawcombe or the others. Matthew found himself thinking about the girl; what had become of her, as well? “I don’t know,” he said, thinking aloud. “But I do know Shawcombe would never have left that coin. Under ordinary circumstances, I mean.”

  Paine gave a soft grunt. He worked the coin with his fingers for a few seconds, and then he held it out to Matthew. “This is yours, I suppose. It’s most likely all the revenge you’ll have from Shawcombe.”

  “Revenge is not our aim, sir,” Woodward said curtly. “Justice is. And I must say that justice has been cheated this day.”

  “Well, I don’t think Shawcombe’s going to return here.” Paine bent down and picked up the burnt stub of a candle from the f
loor. “I would offer to stay the night and keep watch, but I don’t care to be eaten alive.” He looked uneasily around at the room’s shadowy corners, from which some agitated squeaking could still be heard. “This is a place only Linch could abide.”

  “Who?” the magistrate asked.

  “Gwinett Linch. Our ratcatcher in Fount Royal. Even he might wake up with his legs chewed off in this damn hovel.” Paine tossed the candlestub into one of the dark corners. Something large scuttled for safety. “I saw tack and harness in the barn. Duncan, you and I can hitch our horses to the magistrate’s wagon and let them take it back. Is that agreeable to you, Magistrate?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “All right, then. I say we quit this place.” Paine and Tyler went outside to discharge their pistols into the air, because the firing mechanisms, once wound, were as dangerous as coiled vipers. Tyler’s pistol fired immediately, but Paine’s threw sparks and went off only after a sputtering delay.

  Within a half hour, the horses were harnessed to the recovered wagon and Woodward was at the reins, following the first wagon on the swampy trail back to Fount Royal. Matthew occupied the uncomfortable plank beside the magistrate, while Paine and Tyler rode with Malcolm Jennings; he looked back at Shawcombe’s tavern before they left it from sight, imagining what the place would be like in a few days—or, forbid the thought, a few weeks—of uninterrupted rodent dominion. The image of the young girl, who had seemed to be only a bystander to her master’s crimes, again came to him, and he couldn’t help but wonder why God could be so cruel. But she was gone to her fate—as they all were—and there was nothing more to be done. With that thought he turned his gaze from the past and aimed it toward the future.

  Matthew and Woodward were alone together for the first time since their arrival at Fount Royal, as their walk from Bidwell’s mansion to the public stable this morning had been escorted by a young black servant boy on Mrs. Nettles’s command. It was, therefore, the first opportunity Matthew had to make remarks about their dinner companions of the night before without the ears of strangers between them.