Seven
Before either Matthew or Magnus could utter another word, the plantation house’s front door opened and out came the stocky overseer Griffin Royce, who lifted a lantern and shouted to the uneasy crowd, “Silence and bend an ear! I’m speakin’ on behalf of Mr. Kincannon, who right now is in no shape to speak for himself!” He gazed across the mob until he got the silence he demanded. “As you may already know,” he went on, “there’s been a terrible tragedy! Miss Sarah has been murdered tonight, stabbed to death by the young buck slave called Abram! About forty minutes ago Abram, his father Mars, and Abram’s brother Tobey stole a boat. They were last seen by Joel Gunn headed upriver. I’m offerin’ ten pounds to the men who bring Abram, Mars and Tobey back…dead or alive. If the father and brother want to protect a killer, they’ll have to pay too. I’ll be joinin’ the hunt soon as I can. I don’t know how far up the Solstice they’ve gotten or where they’re plannin’ on pullin’ out and headin’ cross-country, but I—and Mr. and Mrs. Kincannon—want those black skins to pay for this crime, with their lives if they won’t give up easy. Any questions?”
“Griff?” a husky brown-bearded man called. “That ten pounds for each skin, or ten pounds in all?”
“Make it ten pounds for each,” Royce replied. “Ten pounds for a set of ears, a scalp, a dead body or a breathin’ one in any condition.”
“They got weapons?” someone else across the crowd asked.
“Don’t know,” said Royce. “Could have knives, maybe.”
“Knives can’t stop musket balls!” another voice nearer Matthew and Magnus called. “Shoot ’em where they stand with my Betsy!” That brought a rumble of nervous and eager laughter, and Matthew thought many in this mob would delight at a slave-hunt, particularly for ten pounds apiece. He had the feeling that most of the men were itching to go, thinking it would be quick and easy work.
“Griff!” called a sallow red-haired man who stood just a few feet away from Magnus. He had a hooked nose and a forehead marked with a deep scar over the left eye. “You say they went upriver? Joel Gunn seen ’em?” He waited for Royce to nod. “Then to the Devil with ’em!” he said, with a spit to the ground. “Let ’em rot up there! I heard the stories and I’m bettin’ most of us have. I don’t know if I’m needin’ to go up that river and leave my wife and boys, no matter how much money Kincannon’s offerin’!”
A small storm of hollers and catcalls passed over the mob, though most of the men remained sullenly silent. “Yellabelly, Jeb?” a caustic voice asked. “Or yella-striped?”
“Ain’t yella,” Jeb answered sourly, and from a sheath at his side he pulled a wicked-looking sword that Matthew thought could pierce three Magnus Muldoons. He held the sword out so the lamplight and torches reflected off its gleaming surface. “Got this to fight with and I damn sure know how to use it, McGraw! But I’m sayin’…swords and muskets might not be enough to fight what’s up that Godforsaken river! Why not just let the skins go? They ain’t gettin’ nowhere, and they’ll likely be dead by first light, up in that devil’s country!”
“I’m for earnin’ me thirty pounds!” shouted another citizen of Jubilee, a broad-shouldered man with a wild brown beard and a sweat-damp red kerchief tied around a bald scalp. He lifted his own weapon, a flintlock pistol with a small bayonet fixed beneath the barrel. “Zachary DeVey ain’t afraid! Put me a ball through any spirit, ha’int or demon up that river, and I’ll laugh when I do it!”
A chorus of assent followed this boast, with more pistols and swords lifted high. Matthew, still feeling a little queasy and blurry-eyed, thought there were enough weapons in this yard to start a small war, and possibly the mob had come here anticipating the possibility of trouble with the slaves…or indeed an uprising of the ‘skins,’ as the locals put it.
“Listen to me!” Royce bellowed. “Those stories some of you are feared of are just that…stories made up by slaves, Indians and damn fools!” He pointed toward the north. “You know why Miss Sarah’s killer and those other two are headin’ upriver instead of down? Because they’re thinkin’ those tales are gonna keep us rooted right here, feared to go up there and bring ’em back! Now…I’ve told you I’m joinin’ the hunt, not because I’m wantin’ the money but because I’m wantin’ to see justice done! I’ve told you what Mr. Kincannon wants…and he wants it quick as possible. So any man who wants to serve Mr. Kincannon and avenge that poor girl’s murder by the hands of a black buck, get your musket or your sword and whatever else you need, get your boat and start movin’. That’s all I have to say. Either help or go home and to bed with you, but I’m expectin’ ten or twenty men of you out there to remember that Mr. Kincannon built Jubilee, and you all owe him more than bein’ afraid of ghost stories and a damn river!” He waited for a reaction to this, but there was none. “You decide!” he told them as a final statement, and then he turned away and went back into the house.
The assembly began to drift apart, breaking up into smaller groups to mutter among themselves. Pipes flared to aid the contemplation. A few of the men were obviously ready to go; without further hesitation they mounted their horses and wagons and rode off toward Jubilee and their fishing boats and canoes.
Magnus’ voice was tight when he said to Matthew, “Come on,” and started toward the house. He walked up the front steps to the porch, with Matthew following right behind, and pounded on the door with a heavy fist.
The door was opened by a young black girl in the dress and mobcap of a house servant. “Tell Mr. Kincannon Magnus Muldoon wants to see him,” was the command, but the black girl shook her head. “Cain’t see nobody,” she answered. “He’s stricken.”
“Stricken? How?”
“He fell down when he seen Miss Sarah dead. Had to be carried up to his bedroom. Mizz Kincannon’s up there with him now, but he can hardly talk.”
“I want to know how this happened,” Magnus insisted, putting a booted foot inside the door. “If I can’t see Kincannon, I’ll see—”
“You don’t give orders around here,” said Griff Royce, abruptly pushing the servant girl aside and staring up with glinting green eyes at the black-bearded mountain. “If you want to join the hunt, go ahead, but you have no business in this house.” The eyes flickered toward Matthew. “You? Corbett? What are you doin’ here?”
“It seems I…had a little too much to drink, and—”
“What’s he babblin’ about?” Royce asked Muldoon. “The both of you, go on!” He closed the door, forcing Magnus to step back, and a bolt was decisively thrown.
“Friendly sort,” said Matthew, who had noted that the compress on Royce’s right forearm had been removed in favor of a wrapping of regular bandages. “Not too good with horses either, I understand.”
“I have to find out more about this,” Magnus replied, his face stern and dark. “Sarah was a fine girl.” He shook his head. “Can’t believe it! Murdered by a slave? Why?” He watched the rest of the men getting astride their horses or climbing up into their wagons and heading out with a clatter of reins, wheels, swords and muskets. “There’ll be a dozen boats on that river in a little while.” He gave a quiet grunt. “Ain’t nobody bringin’ anybody back alive, that’s for sure. Be three sets of black ears swingin’ from somebody’s sword, maybe three scalps too, but no skin’s comin’ back alive this night.”
Matthew thought of Sarah Kincannon sitting on the boulder with her nose in the book of Herrick poetry, and her wave and bright smile and how much she reminded him of Berry. If Berry had been suddenly murdered, what would his first reaction be? Grief, of course. Bitter grief. And then…?
And then, he thought, his nature would take control, and he would wish to see the body and note the cause of death with his own two eyes.
“Where might Sarah’s body be?” he asked.
“Maybe in the house or back in the dairyhouse. There’s a chapel just beyond the house over that way. That’s where the bell’s rung from. Could be there.”
“Let’s find out
,” said Matthew, who descended the steps and began striding in the indicated direction, aware that Magnus had followed him and sounded like a horse stomping the grass at his heels.
The chapel was a small building made of red bricks, just as the plantation house. There was a steeple with a belltower, and lantern light showed through the windows. Matthew pulled the door open and entered, finding a half-dozen pews inside and a lectern at the front where perhaps Kincannon himself read the Scripture against the background of a tapestry of Jesus on the Cross. In the lamplight and the flickering of two candles on either side of her head was the body of Sarah Kincannon, lying on a table next to the lectern. Her corpse had been covered by white linens up to her chin, her arms beneath the covering, no inch of flesh showing except the face. She appeared to be peacefully sleeping as Matthew approached, but dark red bloodstains had surfaced on the linens at the hollow of the girl’s throat. Her blond hair had been pinned up and gracefully arranged around her head. Matthew saw how pale she was from loss of blood, and how her eyelids were just barely open, the whites of her eyes showing, to defeat the image of a peaceful sleeper. He removed his half-crushed tricorn, in respect for the departed.
“Sarah,” Magnus whispered.
He rushed past Matthew like a hurricane to stand beside the table and gaze down forlornly at the corpse. He stood motionlessly except for a pulse beating at his temple, his eyes shocked and watery. “Oh my God,” he said, again in barely a whisper. “Why? Why?”
He reached out a hand to place his rough fingers gently against the dead girl’s cheek. “Don’t touch her,” rasped a wizened voice from the furthest corner of the chapel.
Matthew and Magnus turned toward that corner. A small, slender figure was sitting in the pew there.
“I’m watchin’ o’re her,” said the old woman, who was so black she was nearly made invisible in the gloom. “While I’m watchin’, no one touches Miss Sarah.”
She was wearing a gray dress with a stiff white collar. She had a dark brown scarf wrapped around her head and knotted at the front. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, her eyes deep-set and glinting in the age-weathered visage. Her white hair appeared to be almost gone but for a few fine wisps. Even so, her chin looked as sharp as a carving knife, and one might cut his fingers on the blades of her cheekbones. She stared impassively at the two men, her expression resolute no matter the difference in the color of their skins; she had been left in charge here, and in charge she was.
Matthew knew who she must be. “You’re Granny Pegg?”
“Called that, yes’suh,” she answered.
“I’ve heard of you,” Magnus told her. “I’m Magnus Muldoon. Was a friend of Miss Sarah’s.”
“Ohhhhh.” She nodded. “The bottle-man.”
“And I met Sarah just today,” Matthew said. “I was riding past, and—”
“The reader,” said Granny Pegg. “Supposed to come by for a visit. She tol’ me. Well…here you are.”
“What happened?” Magnus asked. “I mean…how did it happen?”
“Knife goes in the hollow of the throat. Knife goes in the back six times…a person’s gonna bleed to death.” The ancient eyes moved from Magnus and Matthew to fix upon the body. “Miss Sarah was a slip of a girl. Must not have took her long to pass.”
“A slave did this? Named Abram?” Magnus persisted. “Why?”
The old woman sighed. It sounded like the wind of doom moving through the headstones of a cemetery, and Matthew thought that behind it was just as much of a hidden world.
“I take it that’s some kind of response?” Matthew asked.
Granny Pegg didn’t speak for awhile. She looked down at her hands, knotted like pieces of dry bark in her lap. “Things happen here,” she said at last, in a quiet and solemn voice. “Things go on. Like on any plantation, up any river. Not to speak of is the best thing.” She lifted her gaze to Matthew’s. “The best thing,” she repeated.
Matthew turned his attention to the face of the dead girl. He had seen violence and withstood it; he had seen terrible things in his young life, but to think that this girl had been among the living today and then her flame snuffed out so suddenly…and so violently and bloodily. He could smell the blood and feel the pain of the untimely grave in this place. If the squirrels and hard liquor had not made his stomach churn, this surely did. “Do you know why Abram did it?” he had to ask.
Silence from the elderly slave.
“Surely you must,” Matthew prodded, now staring directly at her. “I would think you know everything here. Nothing would get past you, would it?”
“Hm,” she replied, her eyes half-lidded like those of a lizard lying in the hot sun. “Silver on your tongue don’t make me cough up lead.”
“Well, lead is going to be delivered to three men tonight. They ought to be brought back for a trial, but—”
Granny Pegg suddenly blinked and looked at Matthew as if seeing him anew and afresh. “Oh!” she said. “Oh, yes! Now I recall what Miss Sarah said about you. Said you seemed official. Said you were…” She paused, drawing it up from her well. “The law,” she remembered.
Matthew recalled it, saying perhaps I do represent the law. It occurred to him that maybe he did, and just as much as what he had done to champion Rachel Howarth he should now do to see that the killer of Sarah Kincannon was properly brought to justice. But this wasn’t his country anymore, he knew nothing of this plantation and the people on it, and anyway the slaves would be killed out there on the river or in the swamp once the mob caught up with them. So he ought to be quit with this, head home and mind his own business.
Granny Pegg stood up. She was barely as tall as Matthew’s shoulders, and as slim as a shadow. “You’re the law?” she asked him. “Got that power to you?”
“What power do you mean?”
“The power to do the right thing, and see it through.”
“All men have that power.”
“But all men don’t use it,” she said. “Do you?”
“All I want to know is,” Magnus said, with an air of desperation, “how did this happen? Why would a slave kill Miss Sarah?”
“Why would anybody kill Miss Sarah?” Granny Pegg came forward from her pew to stand before them. “Not meanin’ no disrespect to either of you fine gen’lmen…but things you hear said…ain’t always how things are.”
“I’m listening,” said Matthew.
“But I cain’t tell, suh, ’cause what I might say would be agin’ the law…and you bein’ the law…well suh, I cain’t speak it.”
Matthew was confounded by this, but he realized what Granny Pegg was telling him. Something had happened here in accordance with Sarah Kincannon’s murder that was also a violation of the law, and therefore the elderly woman believed herself to be walking on dangerous ground by going any further. Still…she had something important to convey, and he had to find a way to allow it.
“Do you know why Abram murdered Sarah?” he asked.
“Don’t know that Abram did murder Miss Sarah,” was the reply. “Know Cap’n Gunn say he saw Abram standin’ over Miss Sarah holdin’ a knife, out back of the barn, and her lyin’ still on the ground.”
“Who is this Captain Gunn?” Matthew asked.
“Joel Gunn, the second overseer,” Magnus supplied.
“Two overseers here? Joel Gunn and Griffin Royce?”
Granny Pegg nodded. “Peas in a pod,” she said.
“This happened when? A little more than an hour ago, I’m guessing?”
“Happened after dark, yes’suh. Happened after the time we’s forbid to leave our houses, down in the quarter. Ain’t supposed to be no slaves nowhere near that barn or so close to the big house after that time.”
“Yet Abram was there? Why?”
Granny Pegg simply stared impassively at him, and Matthew thought she knew why but could not tell.
At last she seemed to reconsider her silence, and she drew a long breath before she spoke. “Mars is my grandson. Abram and
Tobey my great-grandsons. My son and daughter…long sold off, to another plantation in Virginia. They’s old now…like their momma. Well, I wish I could die but I just keep on livin’. They tease me…say when I die they gonna roll me up like a piece of parchment, I’ll be so thin. But I keep on livin’.” She offered the faintest and most tormented of smiles. Her eyes gleamed in the candlelight. “If I can ask…what is your name?”
“Matthew Corbett.”
“Oh yes, I remember Miss Sarah sayin’ so. Matt’ew,” she pronounced it. She came forward two steps more, now only a few feet away from him and Magnus. “If I told you that Abram did not kill Miss Sarah, would you believe me?”
“I don’t know,” Matthew said truthfully.
“Fair enough, suh,” she answered, with a lifting of her sharp little chin. “If I told you them men the bell called are gonna go out there and hunt and kill three innocent slaves…and let the real killer hide behind more killin’…what would you say back to me?”
“I’d say…I need proof of that.”
“Ain’t no proof to be got. That’s the trick of it. That’s what he’s hidin’ behind.”
“Who?” Magnus was confused and far beyond his depth. “The slave?”
“The killer,” said Granny Pegg, still staring into Matthew’s eyes. “Not my Abram.”
Matthew asked, “And then, in your opinion, who did kill Sarah?”
“Somebody jealous as fury. Somebody wantin’ her all for hisself, when she wanted nothin’ to do with him. Somebody who misstook what Miss Sarah and Abram were doin’, there in that barn, over many nights.”
“You have an opinion as to who this somebody might be?”
“Cain’t prove it. That’s the trick.”
Before Matthew could respond to this, the chapel’s door opened and a man and woman entered. The woman came in first, was obviously startled by the presence of others than Granny Pegg in the room, and she drew herself up short. “Mr. Muldoon?” she said, and then with a wary look at Matthew through swollen and red-rimmed eyes, “And who are you, sir?”
The River of Souls Page 8