Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter mc-3

by Robert R. McCammon

  The order could not be obeyed before the rain struck. It came rushing in on the heels of the wind, hit with a cold impact that made breath hitch in the lungs, and within seconds had drenched the three travelers to their skins. Slaughter sank down amid the leaves that littered the wagon, and curled himself up as best he could. Greathouse hollered out a great curse as rain streamed through his brown woolen cap and down his face. Matthew dumped the water out of his tricorn and put it back on, and when he sat there shivering he wasn't sure if it was due to the chill rain or the fact that Slaughter's fingernails could have torn out his eyes.

  The wind ceased, but the rain kept pouring down. Waterfalls sprang from the treetops. The air itself turned grayish-green, visibility was cut to the edges of what might have been roiling seafoam, and it seemed they were no longer travelling through forest but across an undersea kingdom.

  The horses, back to their old stolid selves, pulled the wagon onward with no further dissent. Presently their hooves began to sink in mud. Thoroughly wet and miserable, Matthew thought that now must surely be the time to admit his discovery of the money, and end this travail. They'd already come, by the reckoning of his tailbone, at least six miles due west from the pike and the road was yet to turn to the southwest as Slaughter had said. Before the storm had hit, Matthew had expected Greathouse to point this fact out to the prisoner, but then again they might not have quite made six miles yet; it was hard to tell, with just these unbroken woods all around. They'd had several glimpses of the river, off to the right, but not a single view of any dwelling built by the hand of man.

  Matthew wondered what his fate was going to be when he told. More than a scolding, for sure. A knock on the head, if he was lucky. More than one, depending on Greathouse's mood, and in this damned rain his mood was certainly going to be deepest black.

  "What the hell is this?" Greathouse suddenly said, and Matthew dared to look over his shoulder at what the other man had already seen.

  On their left the woods had been cleared away, and emerging from the rain-thrashed gloom were the simple wooden markers of a small cemetery. Matthew counted thirty-eight graves. The surprising thing about it was that the cemetery was so orderly and well-kept, free of weeds, vines and underbrush that normally would have quickly overgrown such a sylvan setting.

  "A cabin ahead," Greathouse said, and in another sticky quarter-revolution of the wheels Matthew also saw it, a dark shape sitting on the right. Then, a second dark structure came out of the rain on the left, this one with a collapsed roof. A third cabin stood just beyond that one, also seemingly abandoned, and as more of them emerged on both sides of the mudtrack Matthew realized it was a village. Or, at least, what had once been a village.

  "Slaughter!" Greathouse called, and the prisoner stirred. "Is this the place?"

  "No," came the reply, as he sat up and gazed around with rain running from his beard. "This is New Unity. Rather it used to be, before I went into the loon house. I wonder what happened to the people."

  "You sure you didn't kill them?"

  "It was an active village when I last passed this way."

  In another moment Matthew caught a whiff of woodsmoke, and he spied a light glinting behind the shutters of a cabin just ahead on the right. "There!" he said, but Greathouse only nodded because he'd already spotted the sign of life. That and the smoke fighting its way up into the sodden air from a fieldstone chimney.

  "I think it's best we get out of this for awhile, if they'll accept any visitors." Greathouse started to turn the team toward what appeared to be New Unity's single occupied dwelling.

  "What're you doing?" Slaughter was up on his knees. "You can't stop here!"

  "I say one miserable wreckage of a village is as good as another in a downpour, especially if there's a roof and a fire."

  "You can't!" Slaughter insisted, a note of desperation in his voice. "We're so close to the fort!"

  "The fort? What're you talking about?"

  "Where the safebox is buried. The Dutch settlement at Fort Laurens. We have to keep going, we can get there by-"

  "Nightfall?" Greathouse interrupted. "In this rain? Only if we're kept out of that cabin at gunpoint." He urged the horses through the muck and off the road. Both he and Matthew had already seen what appeared to be a small barn just beside the cabin, and none of Slaughter's pleadings about keeping on to Fort Laurens made a whit of difference to either of them; they were drenched, cold and uneasy about this journey, both for their own reasons, and the lamplight behind a shutter was for the remainder of this day at least as good a shine as gold.

  If they would be accepted by the occupant here, and that was the question. "Matthew!" Greathouse said. "Go knock at the door."

  "Me? Why me?"

  "You're dressed as a gentleman. A soaking wet one, but a gent all the same. Go."

  Matthew got down off the wagon and went up three stone steps to the cabin's door, which was set on a porch supported by large flat rocks. The place was made of timbers chinked together with mud, the same as the rest of New Unity's constructions. Everything was weather-beaten, dark-stained and dismal. The windows were shuttered tight, but through their cracks Matthew saw what appeared to be the light of several candles. He glanced back at the figure of Greathouse, sitting with as much dignity as could be maintained in a cold drenching downpour, and then he balled up his fist and knocked against the door.

  He waited, not without trepidation, and heard footsteps approaching across the planks within.

  "Who's there, please?" came a voice from the other side. A feeble, quiet voice, but carrying perhaps also an expectant note. The voice of an elderly man, Matthew thought.

  "Travelers," Matthew replied. "The storm caught us. May we rest here for awhile? Or at least, in your barn?"

  There was a pause. Then: "How many are you?"

  "Three."

  "Going to where?"

  "Fort Laurens," Matthew said.

  Again, a pause. Matthew thought the speaker must've gone away. Then, quite abruptly, the door was opened. The old man who peered out held a candle in a wooden holder. The flickering light painted him with orange and yellow. He was lean, rawboned, and of medium height, yet had been much taller in his youth for now his back was stooped with the ravages of age. His face was a mass of lines and wrinkles, like a map that itself had been left out in the rain and crumpled by a careless fist. His remaining tufts of hair were wintry white and as fine as the first frost, but his white eyebrows had grown as thick as summer's cornfields. He angled his head to the left and then to the right, and Matthew realized the man's sunken eyes might only be seeing him as a man-shaped shadow.

  "All of you, please come in," said the old man. He opened the door wider, and Matthew motioned to Greathouse that their request had been granted. "Come in, come in. Warm yourself," the old man urged. Matthew waited to make sure Greathouse could handle the prisoner on his own, getting him out of the back of the wagon, and then he entered the cabin and went directly to the cheerful crackling fireplace, where he set the pistol atop the mantel, took off his tricorn and basked in the gratifying heat.

  "I am John Burton." The old man had left the door open for his other two guests and had come up beside Matthew. With an age-spotted but steady hand, he lifted the candle nearer Matthew's face. "Your name, sir?"

  "Matthew Corbett." He heard the rattle of chains coming. "Mr. Burton, I need to tell you that-"

  He was interrupted by the noise of the thunderball, which Slaughter had been carrying in his manacled hands, slamming to the boards just outside the door. Matthew winced, thinking that visitors to a stranger's cabin ought not to destroy the porch floor within the first minute.

  "Oh, forgive me," Slaughter said in the doorway, his back bent with the irons. "I carry a heavy burden, sir."

  "Sit down," Greathouse told him. He shrugged off his wet cloak and threw it upon the prisoner. "Wipe the mud off your feet before you enter a man's home."

  "If I had shoes, my feet wouldn't be so muddy, n
ow would they?"

  To the credit of his nerves, John Burton had jumped only a bit when the ball had fallen, and had not lost hold of the candle. Matthew saw in the stronger light that Burton's eyes were nearly opaque, and by the flame glowed with a murky yellow that Matthew thought must be the color of London's fog. Possibly the man wasn't completely blind, but most of his sight was surely gone.

  "You have a man in chains," Burton said, again tilting his head this way and that. "A prisoner. Taking him to Fort Laurens, then?"

  "Yes, sir," Greathouse answered. "My name is Hudson Greathouse. Matthew and I are from New York. We appreciate your letting us warm ourselves."

  "Your prisoner. He has a name?"

  "Tyranthus Slaughter, at your service," he said from his seat on the porch, where he was fouling Greathouse's cloak with his filthy feet. "And you are?"

  "John Burton. I should say, Reverend John Burton. I was the minister here." He hesitated, silent for a few seconds, and then seemed to make a decision. "I am the minister here," he said firmly. "Pick up your chains, and come in."

  "You drop that ball again," Greathouse warned as Slaughter struggled to his feet, "and I'll take two balls for one with my boot. Understand?"

  Slaughter looked up at him from his crooked posture and grinned wryly. "Put your threats back in your pocket, sir. I promise as a gentleman to be on my best behavior. All right?"

  Greathouse motioned the prisoner in. Then he picked up his cloak, surveyed the damage and with a noise of disgust threw it off the porch onto a mound of wet leaves. He closed the door, walked past Slaughter and stood next to Matthew warming himself at the fire. "Ahhh!" he said, holding his palms out. "Much better!"

  "Pardon our condition," Matthew told the minister, realizing they were dripping puddles on the floor. He'd taken stock of the room and seen that, however nearly-blind Burton might be, the place was nevertheless clean and neat. It was by no means up to the standards of the houses in New York, but it was also far from being the hovel that it had appeared from without. On the floor was a mat of woven river reeds. Two chairs, one with a footstool, were arranged before the fieldstone fireplace. A small round table was set between them. Wood had been brought in, and stacked next to the hearth in a leather carry-all. A larger table stood on the other side of the room, also with two chairs, and near it was an old trunk with its lid up displaying iron pots, pans and other cookware within. A ladder led up to what appeared to be a sleeping-loft. Matthew noted a bookcase with ten volumes in it, though how Reverend Burton could read was a mystery. A plain pinewood cupboard stood at the rear of the room. Next to one wall was a minister's lectern, simple but sturdy, and open atop it was a thick black-bound book that could only have been the Holy Bible. In the corner beside the lectern was something that made Matthew's brows go up: a little pile of straw that seemed to be the nesting place for an unknown entity.

  "Your condition?" Burton put the candle down upon the small round table. Two other candles, both nearly stubs, were burning in holders, one atop the mantel amid a collection of smooth stones probably taken from the river, and the second on the larger table. "Oh, you mean that you're wet?" He managed a smile that took a few years off his face, and Matthew had the impression of a once-handsome man with a strong square chin and sparkling eyes. "I should thank God for the storm, then. We don't have much company."

  "We?" Greathouse asked.

  "My friend Tom has gone to check the snares."

  "Oh," was Greathouse's response, but Matthew looked uneasily at the nest of straw and wondered if Tom slept there. Surely the reverend wasn't insane, for he seemed clean enough and was dressed well, in dark brown breeches, gray stockings, a white shirt and a pair of old but serviceable brown boots. No, there most certainly had to be a human Tom, for who had put an axe to the wood and lugged it in from the forest?

  "Do you mind if I sit down, here on the floor?" Slaughter inquired. "Where I won't be in anyone's way." He was already sitting, and putting the ball gently down, by the time he'd asked the question.

  "New York, you said?" Burton eased himself into the chair with the footstool, and winced a bit as his bones settled. "I haven't been to New York in oh eight years, I think it must be. Probably nearer ten, really. All that noise and the goings-on, it was never my cup of choice. But tell me, who do you gentlemen work for, that you're taking a prisoner to-" He stopped, and his head tilted. "Ah! Here's Tom now!"

  There came the sound of boots on the porch. The door opened. A small wet dog, its short bristly hair black as midnight and its snout the brown hue of damp sand, scampered in. "Tom! We have company!" The wet dog was not Tom, for following right after the dog was a tall, slimly-built boy who Matthew guessed was thirteen or fourteen years old. Tom wore a black wool cap and a long black coat turned up at the collar. He was carrying two large gray rabbits hanging from a pole. And that was all the luxury of impression that Matthew could afford at the moment, for the dog stopped just short of Slaughter and, its legs splayed wide, began to rend the air with barks like pistol shots.

  "James!" scolded Burton. "Don't be inconsiderate!"

  The dog kept barking, but it ceased when the boy commanded sharply, "James! Hush!" After which, the dog made a couple of circles while keeping its eyes on Slaughter, and then it backed up against the boy's leg and made grumbling noises of disapproval.

  "Strange," Slaughter said, with a shrug that rattled his chains. "Animals usually adore me."

  Tom looked from Slaughter to Greathouse and then to Matthew, his expression impassive. By the candleglow, his keen eyes were a light gray, and as they stared at him for a few seconds Matthew had the distinct feeling of being taken apart from head to toe as a curious youth might cut to pieces a grasshopper for closer inspection. Then the boy's gaze left him, and Tom said, "Shhhh!" to quiet James' opinion of the new arrivals.

  "These two gentlemen are from New York," Burton explained. "The individual on the floor who smells in dire need of soap scrubbing is their prisoner. They're on their way to Fort Laurens."

  Tom frowned and started to speak, but the reverend continued. "I think we should take them at their word, and as Christians offer them shelter and food. Do we have enough?"

  The boy was a moment in answering. Finally he said, "The rabbits are bonny enough. I'll make a stew," in what was definitely the cadence and rolling "r" of a thick Scottish accent. "First off, you'll be needin' to get that team in the barn 'less you want drowned horses."

  Greathouse nodded. He told the boy, "I could use some help."

  Tom glanced quickly at Matthew and then at the prisoner, as if marking whether the former was up to dealing with the latter. When he took notice of the pistol on the mantel, he put aside the freshly-killed rabbits and went out the door again without a word, the dog shadowing him right at his heels. Greathouse said, "Watch him," to Matthew, who needed no urging on that particular subject. Then the door was closed just as a distant sound of thunder boomed to indicate the storm was in no hurry to reach the sea.

  "Well, here we are." Slaughter leaned back against the wall. "At least it's better than where I was, but not by much."

  "Your friend," Matthew said to the reverend. "Just a boy. Is he not related to you?"

  "No. Tom came to me " Burton hesitated, his eyes closed. "For-give me, time plays tricks on me now. He came to me in November, I think it was. Late November, just after my eyes began to go."

  "He came to you? How?"

  "Just as I say. One day he and James just walked into the village. From the direction of Belvedere, I think he said. The trading post there. It's a good thing he came. A God-sent gift, he is."

  "Really?" Something about the reverend's tone of voice had pricked Matthew's curiosity, which always lay near his surface. "And how might that be?"

  Burton's eyes opened and he stared into the fire as it popped and hissed. What he might be seeing was up to debate. "God sent him to me, to help keep my promise." He breathed softly, as again in the distance thunder rumbled. "I'm going to die s
oon," he continued. "I feel it coming. I was asleep in my chair when you knocked and others here, before they died, told me they had dreams of death knocking at their doors, and it was all right, it was not to be feared. So I thought I wasn't sure I was dreaming, or awake when I answered your knock. But God sent Tom to me to help do what I promised for the others, the ones who died. To take care of their graves, until I also pass from this life. And Tom has promised me also. He would stay with me until I die, and I will be the last grave in the cemetery. And that will be what happened to the village of New Unity, gentlemen. In the space of hardly more than six months, from April to October, one year ago."

  "What happened?" Slaughter asked. "Eh? What're you talking about?"

  "Fever," came the hushed reply. "It killed men, women and children. Whole families. My wife as well. And I am left, with the help of God and Tom, to watch over their place of final rest. They worked so hard at building a town. All of them. So very hard. They deserve now to be remembered. Don't you agree?"

  "Your opinion," said Slaughter, in a hollow sort of voice that Matthew had not heard from him before. "God doesn't give a shit about us. Why should anyone else?"

  Matthew saw the reverend flinch at this brutal statement. For a moment Burton did not respond, and then he said, not without pity, "Sir, you have a very cold and callous attitude."

  "I've earned it," Slaughter answered.

  The remark hung in the air, as the fire's red center spat sparks and another torrent of rain beat against the roof.

  "But you were asking about Tom." The reverend put his feet up on the footstool before him with the slow regality of his age. "He's told me that the dog took up with him somewhere on the road, and he named it after his father. For companionship, you know. I believe he was very close to his father."

  "What became of his family?"

  "His mother died when he was a small boy. A younger brother and sister, also dead. I would think fever in that case, as well. His father was a farmer. Kicked in the chest by a horse and passed away soon after."