Lock & Key

by Gordon Bonnet

Murrell seemed amused by Darren’s timidity. “I trust you passed a good night,” he said. “Slept soundly? I expect you’re not used to our rough conditions. You have the look of someone who is used to feather beds.”

  Crenshaw snickered a little.

  “It was fine,” Darren said.

  “And your companions? All congenial enough? Did you have any illuminating night time conversations?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment, looking at Murrell with a slight frown. Did the preacher know about the talk he had had with Jane Bell? The question seemed innocent enough, but there was that knowing look in Murrell’s expression that left one with the feeling he could see a man’s thoughts.

  “We mostly conversed in snores,” he said.

  Murrell laughed, and the laugh terminated in a cough, and he spat off to the side. “My apologies. Not the most genteel of behavior, but you must excuse it because I am ill.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “I am glad you are a forgiving man,” Murrell said. “It is an excellent mark of character. It will come in handy to you.”

  Well, that sounded sinister.

  “I was wondering again when you are planning to let me go,” he said. “I mean, I’d love to join your band of Merry Men and all, but I really need to get down to Concord. I have business to conduct.”

  “Ah, yes. Business with the estimable Brother Zebulon. I am curious, why are you so eager to meet with him? What attracts you about his rather unusual brand of the Christian religion?”

  “I’ve always been interested in the groups that practiced austerity. Self-denial. Mortification of the body. You know, like those monks who bashed themselves over the head with things.”

  Was that real? Or had he seen it in a Monty Python movie?

  “I haven’t heard of those,” Murrell said. “But I understand that self-flagellation was widely practiced at one time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And as one who was once on the receiving end of thirty lashes across the bare back, I can tell you that it is an excellent way to sharpen your senses.” He gave Darren a slight smile. “On the other hand, you don’t have the look of someone who relishes pain. In fact, I’d have thought you were cut from the opposite cloth.”

  “Well, you know,” he said, “looks can be deceiving.”

  “That they can,” Murrell said. “In fact, I have only lived as long as I have by seldom taking anything on its face value.”

  He glanced over at Crenshaw, who watched him with a vicious-looking smile. He swallowed. “But you didn’t answer my question. When can I leave?”

  “Oh, perhaps, when you tell me the truth about what business you have in Concord. And when I am quite certain that you will not, when you get there, go to the first law authorities you meet and tell them where we are encamped.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “For one thing, because you hold a grudge against my fine compatriots, Mosher and Johnson, for knocking you off the path and bringing you here at knifepoint. It would be a forgiving man indeed who could overlook such a thing. And you, my friend, have not answered my questions, either. Why are you interested in meeting with Zebulon Bell? What does the miller have to do with it? And you needn’t repeat your answer, that you intend to join the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ Risen and Triumphant Through Suffering. You and I both know that this is a lie. So as between gentlemen, perhaps you can now tell me the real reason, or it will be my unfortunate duty to ask Mister Crenshaw here to test out his new knife on your throat. Please understand that I would regret very much having to do so. Such things should not be necessary between equals.”

  He glanced at Crenshaw again, whose smile had turned positively predatory. He forced himself to turn back to Murrell, and then made a decision. Jesus, I hope this is the last time I have to explain all of this, he thought, because I’m getting sick of doing it.

  “Well,” he said. “The truth is that I’m from a hundred and fifty years in the future, give or take. I’m here because someone from my time went back and changed something, and I’ve been given the task of finding out what it was and setting it right. What he changed has something to do with Zebulon Bell and his family, so that’s why I’m trying to talk to him. And if Mister Crenshaw tries to kill me, he’ll find that I’ll disappear before the knife strikes home.” He shrugged. “But he’s welcome to try, because at the moment I think I’d be better off back where I started, as I seem to be accomplishing bugger-all here.”

  There. That’d give the creep something to chew on.

  Murrell looked at him for a moment, an inscrutable expression on his face. “Well,” he said. “I’ve had more than one poor lost soul beg for his life. Many have told me heartbreaking stories about grief-stricken widows they’d be leaving behind, or destitute children, or poor, gray-haired, weeping mothers having to attend their sons’ funerals. I’ve been promised wealth, promised silence, promised anything it would take. But your story—no, I’ve not heard anything quite like that.” He coughed again, quietly, and wiped the sweat from his brow. “I don’t quite know what to tell you, except that you amuse me, in a strange fashion.

  “Crenshaw, I hate to tell you this, because I know you’ve been eager to try out your new blade, but I think we must give our guest a little more time before sending him on to his Heavenly reward. I’m not sure yet what I want to do with him.” He looked at Darren again, and one dark, well-shaped brow rose a little. “Yes. You amuse me. And for now, that is sufficient.”

  He coughed again, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and there was a smear of blood on the stained tan cloth of the man’s shirt. “I will take a rest now. I trust you to stay here in camp. While you are here, you are under my protection, and Crenshaw? That fact is to be made clear to our other companions. But should you leave the perimeter of the camp, I cannot be held responsible for your fate. Do we understand one another?”

  He nodded.

  “Excellent. And perhaps you would be so good as not to have further conversation with my friend, Jane. I would expect that even in your century,”—here he smiled a little again—”there is such a thing as observing the laws of decorum when it comes to speaking to another gentleman’s woman.”

  He nodded again.

  I was right—he did know about that. But how? Did Jane tell him? Is she playing with me, too? No way to tell. Nothing to do now but wait and see what happens, and run when I get a chance… with or without her.

  • • •

  The morning dragged on. Boredom, coupled with the combined anxiety of not knowing if he was going to be executed, and wondering how he would complete the task he’d been given, made him twitchy. Darren saw no sign either of Murrell or of Jane Bell, but he did notice Crenshaw talking to several other men, who glanced over at him and snickered.

  This did not improve his mood.

  It was after lunch—roasted chunks of deer meat from the previous evening—that he saw an opportunity, and ironically, it came about because of his kidnappers, Mosher and Johnson. Mosher had been halfheartedly working at scraping some pieces of the deer hide when Johnson walked by and bumped him, causing Mosher to skewer the palm of his hand with his own knife.

  Mosher let out a bawl, and turned around, clutching his bleeding hand. “Watch where you put your great ugly foot, you clumsy pig!”

  Johnson rounded on him, and yelled back, “Who’re you calling a clumsy pig, you snaggle-toothed goat?”

  “Goat?” Mosher shouted. “If I was a goat, I’d be running scared from the likes of you. I know what you like to do with goats.”

  This prompted Johnson to tackle Mosher, and the next few minutes were filled with the sounds of fists hitting bodies, and inarticulate shouts punctuated by clear, and rather creative, insults.

  “… god-forsaken son of a dog…”

  “… lump-faced misbegotten fathead…”

  “… ugly stinking mud-wallowing maggot…”

  “… filthy flea-infested sheep-humper…”
>
  Soon, the two had an audience cheering them on, and the fighting pair was lost to view from being encircled by an enthusiastic crowd. Crenshaw had moved toward them, a scowl on his face, but at the moment Murrell’s ill-favored second-in-command wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Murrell himself was still apparently asleep in his lean-to. It looked like luck was on Darren’s side, and his indecision lasted only a moment. There wouldn’t be another chance like this. He couldn’t afford to wait for Jane. He’d have to take his chances in the woods.

  He dashed off into the trees.

  There was a shout behind him. Someone had spotted his escape. He didn’t turn.

  Shit. Of course I would be seen. Damn my luck.

  He ran as fast as he was able to, dodging between trees and fighting through clinging underbrush, and waiting any moment to feel a knife in his back.

  His pursuer shouted again.

  “Wait! Wait, it’s me!”

  He glanced over his shoulder, barely slowing.

  “You’re heading the wrong way!”

  He slowed, and Jane Bell caught up with him, breathing hard.

  “Did anyone else see me?”

  “I don’t know. I heard the commotion, and put my head out just in time to see you dash off. Murrell has been sleeping all this time. He’s in a bad way today. But I think the noise roused him, too, and you can bet that when he sees you’re gone he’s going to send someone after you. Or probably more than one. You’ve got to get some miles behind you, and quickly.”

  She led him back a little way along the path he’d taken, but then they branched off to the left and downhill. The noise of the camp still drifted toward them. Whether it was the ruckus caused by the fight, or a more serious noise because they’d discovered he was missing, was impossible to tell.

  “Come on,” she said. “We need to get back to the road down to the town. It isn’t that far. After that, it’s less than an hour’s walk to Concord.”

  “Do you think Murrell would come into the town to find us?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment. Finally she said, “He might. He’s vindictive. He doesn’t like losing. And he never forgets it if someone double-crosses him. If he figures out I had a part in your escape, I don’t want to think about what he’d do to me.”

  “He knows,” he said. “This morning, he told me not to talk to you again.”

  “Did he? Well. I guess I’d better never let myself get caught, then.”

  Her voice sounded light, but there was a tremor as she spoke the words.

  “How good are they at tracking?”

  “Good. Most of his men were born in the woods. They’re like animals. Like wolves. Especially Crenshaw. He’s the worst of the lot.”

  A voice spoke, from off to the side. “Oh, now, Miss Jane, that’s downright hurtful. You sure do know how to stick a knife in a man’s heart.” And Crenshaw came out from between two trees, a long knife in his hand, and a nasty grin on his face.

  She stopped, her breath catching in her throat, then backed up, and ran into Darren.

  “Now, if you two will come back to the camp all peaceable, we can probably work this out.”

  “Not likely,” she said. “Unless you call cutting both of our throats ‘working this out.’”

  “Well, that’s one way to work things out, don’t you think?” Crenshaw lunged toward her. She jumped aside, and his knife missed by inches.

  “Ain’t you gonna defend the lady, schoolmaster?” Crenshaw said, and laughed. “Ain’t you got a schoolbook to beat me about the head and shoulders with?” This time he swung at Darren, and the knife nicked his cheek, drawing blood.

  “Ow! Shit!” He clapped a hand to the side of his face.

  “Listen at him swear,” Crenshaw said, clearly impressed. “Maybe you ain’t a schoolmaster after all.”

  “I told you that, you moron,” he said, still holding his cut cheek.

  “Moron, am I?” Crenshaw said. “You’ll see how much smarter you feel when your guts are spilling out onto the ground.” He lunged again, but this time Jane leaped under his swinging arm, and her knee connected solidly with his crotch. Crenshaw doubled up and collapsed to the ground.

  “You… whore…” he gasped out, and tried to lift the knife, but Darren stepped on his arm, and the knife tumbled from his grasp.

  Jane picked it up, looking at it curiously, as if she had never seen such a thing before. Then she looked at Crenshaw, and changed her grip on the knife handle.

  “No,” Darren said, staring at her in horror. “You can’t kill him!”

  “Why not?” she asked in a conversational tone. “He’s killed many a man, and many a woman, too. He’ll come after us if I don’t.”

  “But you don’t want to be like him!”

  Crenshaw, still clutching his aching groin, was already struggling to get up. “You filth… I’ll kill you both…”

  And Darren did what was probably the only thing he could. He cocked his fist back and punched Crenshaw in the face as hard as he could.

  He was no fighter—he had never hit another person in anger before—and he didn’t anticipate how much the impact would hurt. It sent a shock wave of pain up his arm to the shoulder. He spent next the few moments screaming obscenities and clutching his fist to his chest. But Crenshaw was knocked backwards, lost his balance, fell, and struck the back of his head on a tree.

  After recovering his composure, but still massaging his injured hand, Darren went over to the fallen highwayman. Crenshaw’s chest still rose and fell regularly, but his eyes were closed.

  “Lights out,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Jane nodded, pocketing the knife. They jogged away between the dark trees, and soon the sight of Crenshaw’s inert body, and the sounds of noise from the camp, were both lost.

  “Thank you,” she said, after a little time had passed.

  “I was saving myself as much as I was saving you.”

  “No. I mean, thank you for stopping me from killing him. I would have done it, you know.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “It would have changed me. I know that. I still would have done it, but it would have changed me. I’ve seen it happen since I’ve been with Murrell. When someone new joins his band, he makes the new man kill someone. It’s like a proof of loyalty. Sometimes it’s someone they’ve captured, like they captured you. Other times, he makes the new man kill one of the old members. Part of it is to keep the others in fear—if you don’t continue to be useful to me, and loyal to me, I might have you killed next. And the new men change, once they’ve done it. You can tell. Even if they get away, or leave and start a new life, they’ll never be the same men they were before. Killing someone like that, cutting his throat in cold blood, I think it destroys part of the killer’s soul.”

  He shuddered. “I think you’re exactly right.”

  All discussion ceased, as the afternoon moved toward evening, and they walked quickly, silently, through the never-ending trees toward the road to Concord and safety.

  • • •

  They struck the road at a little before sunset, and not far from the place Darren had been waylaid the previous day. Once on the road, they made better time. He was footsore and exhausted by this time, but they didn’t dare slow for fear of Murrell’s men catching them.

  It was nearly pitch dark before they came to the first house. It was a small log cabin, set back from the road, with a candle burning in the window and smoke curling from a chimney. This seemed like a good sign, and he went up to the door and knocked on it.

  There was the sound of footsteps, and then a male voice spoke, without opening the door.

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “We’re trying to get to Concord, and we need a place to spend the night.”

  “That don’t tell me who you are.”

  “My name is Darren Ault. My… friend, here, is Jane Bell.”

  “You ain’t one of them highwaymen, are you?”

>   “No. In fact, we’re trying to get away from them.”

  “Then get the hell away from my house. I ain’t sheltering you if them murdering savages is on your trail.”

  There came the sound of something being dragged in front of the door, then the footsteps receded.

  “Look, you’ve got to help us!” he said, but further pounding on the door produced no result other than making his bruised hand ache worse.

  “We need to keep moving,” Jane said. “We’ll get no further with him. There’s an inn in the town that might give us shelter, although how we’ll pay for room and board I don’t know.”

  By this time, it was completely dark, and they stumbled more than once on unseen ruts in the road. At least, he reflected, its being dark means that Murrell’s gang is less likely to be able to track us.

  Another ten minutes of walking brought them to the town, where there were candles in many windows, and ahead the sound of talking from a building that was obviously a tavern. The rushing of water sounded nearby, the stream that passed through Josiah McCaskill’s mill, finally meeting a much larger river glinting under starlight in the distance. He went toward the tavern, with Jane following. He pushed his way through the doors, and stood blinking in the light of candles and oil lamps.

  He had not counted on the effect of a stranger bursting into the room, his face cut and bloodied, wearing a dazed expression. Everyone turned toward them, and all conversation stopped.

  “What…” said a fat, bald, copiously mustached man who was holding three beer mugs in one huge hand. “What happened to you, stranger?”

  “We were kidnapped by highwaymen.”

  That was all it took. He and Jane were immediately surrounded by people wearing concerned looks, voicing words of support, two of them murmuring prayers of protection under their breath.

  “Not that Devil-Man who has holed up in the valley?” someone said. “The one who calls himself a man of God?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “And all you came away with was that scratch?” the innkeeper said, his voice lowered with awe.

  “Well, I bruised my hand punching one of them in the face.”

  “You’re one brave man,” came a reverent voice.