He didn’t finish his sentence because Deputy Beautyman, who had come up behind him, socked him on the head for the second time that evening, knocking him unconscious once again.
“Finally,” Sheriff Chalfont said, sounding exhausted.
“People need to know when to shut up,” replied the deputy, going back to bandaging his ear, which was still bleeding profusely.
The cave got eerily quiet without Rufe Jones jabbering on. I was feeling a bit strange just then. Like I was floating in the cave, disembodied, peering down at myself from somewhere above. I could see how pitiable I looked. How small. And how alone. Half my face smeared with dried blood again, like it had been before I entered the Woods. Not just my own blood this time, but also Pa’s, for I had lain my face upon his chest before they covered him with the blanket. This must be the mark of my destiny, I remember thinking. My face, half red, for I live half in this world and half in the next.
“Hey, Silas,” the sheriff called to me, his voice gentle. “Why don’t you come over by me awhile?” He was sitting next to a basket of apples. It was the only food the counterfeiters had in the cave.
“I’m fine,” I answered. My nose had stopped bleeding by then, though it was swollen and painful. But I was just about numb everywhere else.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, holding an apple out to me. His arm, where the bullet had grazed him, had stopped bleeding, but his sleeve was covered in blood. That might have been Pa’s blood, too. I don’t know.
I shook my head.
“Say, Jack,” said the sheriff. “When you’re done tending to your ear there, why don’t you try to locate those rabbits we shot earlier? Let’s make Silas a nice hot stew. There’s nothing else to eat here but apples.”
“I’ll go now,” said the deputy. He replaced the blood-soaked banknotes he’d been using to bandage his ear with a fresh wad, kept in place by the melon hat, and started down the ladder.
“And, Jack,” the sheriff called out after him. “Check on the pony while you’re down there, will you? Make sure he’s tied to something so he doesn’t roam off.”
“Pony won’t run off,” I said quietly.
“Toss me a couple of those, Desi,” the deputy said. “That magical pony deserves a reward for taking down that windbag over there. You should have seen how he pelted him with his hooves. Never saw anything like it.”
The sheriff tossed him a few apples, and the deputy climbed down the ladder to the creek.
A few hours later, the cave smelled of rabbit stew. The sheriff offered me some, actually bringing the spoon to my lips like I was an infant, to entice me to eat, but I couldn’t swallow a thing. Both he and Deputy Beautyman took turns checking on me for the rest of the night. They were kind men.
TEN
I now fear neither seas nor winds.
—François Fénelon The Adventures of Telemachus, 1699
1
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Sheriff Chalfont scaled the side of the cliff to see if there was any sign of Doc Parker, but the blue-fingered man, injured as he had been by my bullet and Argos’s teeth, had taken off long before. I was relieved, though I didn’t say it aloud, for it meant I hadn’t killed him. Even though he was the reason Pa had been dragged into this whole mess, I didn’t want him dead. I’d seen enough of death.
“They’ll arrest him soon enough,” the sheriff said when he returned to the cave. “Not too many men with blue fingers in the world.” And he proved to be right about that, for Doc Parker was apprehended only a few days later while trying to stow away on a steamboat to New Orleans.
“Want to know how his fingers turned blue?” asked Rufe Jones, like a child trying to impress his teachers. Even with his hands and feet bound, and his face swollen with hoofprint-shaped bruises, he was as talkative now as he’d been the night before. “Because of the sil-ver ni-trate.”
“Because of the ferric tartrate, you idiot,” I muttered.
Rufe Jones grinned. Most of his front teeth had been knocked out, I noted, and his mouth was still bleeding. “Look at that, Roscoe!” he exclaimed, elbowing Ollerenshaw, who had finally woken up after being unconscious all night. “The kid knows his stuff! Maybe we should’ve taken him instead of his pop.”
“Just say the word, young man,” Ollerenshaw said to me, his deep voice reminding me of a cow’s moo. “You can come and work for me as soon as I get my business up and running again.”
“If either of you says one more word…,” Deputy Beautyman warned them, holding up his fist.
Rufe Jones instantly quieted, but Ollerenshaw laughed like he had not a care in the world. He had the swagger of a man who’s used to being boss, and it was clear from his silk tailcoat and slim cravat that he fancied himself more refined than the other men in the cave.
“You’ll what, Deputy?” he said, smiling smugly. “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to you when I get out of jail?”
“You’re not getting out of jail,” snickered the deputy. “We got you dead to rights. Besides, your partner there can’t wait to peach on you.”
“That’s not true!” cried Rufe Jones, terrified.
“It matters not in the least,” answered Ollerenshaw, smooth as ice. “Rufus Jones knows that any man who crosses me doesn’t last long in the world. As for me, there’s not a judge from here to New York City that I can’t bribe.”
Deputy Beautyman took another menacing step toward him, but Ollerenshaw seemed unperturbed. The deputy got down on his haunches right in front of him.
“It’s not too late, Deputy,” Ollerenshaw continued. “There’s plenty of money here, as you can see. More than enough to go around! No one will be the wiser if you—”
He didn’t finish the rest of his sentence because the deputy spat a mouthful of tobacco juice into his smirking face. This shut Ollerenshaw up well enough, at least for a while.
When it was time to go, the sheriff went first and waited by the creek while the deputy forced Ollerenshaw and Rufe Jones down the ladder at gunpoint. Then they lashed their wrists together with chains that had been pulled off the lathe, and threaded them around their ankles. There was no way the criminals could get away, even if they had somewhere to hide. But in the clear light of morning, the cliff walls on either side of the ravine were just as tall as they’d been the night before. Like the walls of Troy, I thought, looking up at them.
“Reminds me of the walls of Troy,” said Mittenwool, like he could read my mind.
He was standing right next to me, and now reached for my hand as the lawmen started lowering Pa’s body down from the cave with ropes. They had wrapped him in a fresh blanket, which covered him from head to foot like a shroud, so I was spared seeing his limbs falling limply against the cliff wall. I think it would have made it harder, seeing him flail like that.
Once Pa was down on the creek bed, the three of us, the two lawmen and me, lifted his body and laid it gently over Pony. We secured the blanket with ropes, which we wrapped under the cantle and then over the pommel, so Pa wouldn’t slide off the saddle. The blanket was green, with tiny yellow flowers embroidered all over it. It was very pretty in the morning light.
We walked back along the bank of the creek toward the overhang behind the Falls. Rufe Jones and Ollerenshaw shuffled along, side by side, between the two lawmen, while I followed with Mittenwool, next to Pony and Pa. It seemed to me, and I don’t believe I was imagining it, that Pony stepped with great delicacy upon the rocks. His gait was always very smooth and steady, as I’ve noted, but there was a gingerliness to it now. His hoofbeats echoed quietly in the quiet morning air of the ravine.
I suppose to anyone who didn’t know better, it would have looked like Pony was carrying a rolled-up carpet on his saddle. They wouldn’t have known that in the green blanket was the quiet boot-maker of Boneville and the smartest of men, who could memorize books in one sitting and ha
d invented a formula for printing photographs on iron-salted paper. They wouldn’t have known that inside the green blanket was the greatest pa a boy could ever have hoped for. Or that the boy was crying entire rivers inside.
When we got to the overhang, we found the Morton brothers where we had left them, shivering in their drawers under the saddle blankets that, because of Matilda Chalfont’s kindness, I had thrown over them. When the two of them saw Rufe Jones and Roscoe Ollerenshaw bound and gagged, they started to bawl like babies.
Sheriff Chalfont made the decision, then and there, to let them go free. He said he put faith in their contrition, and believed they would be scared away from a life of crime after all they’d seen. Deputy Beautyman wasn’t so sure, but I was fine with the decision. The sheriff gave the twins their two horses back, and their white hats, one of which was colored dark red from the deputy’s blood.
“Now people can tell you apart,” said Deputy Beautyman, pulling the bloodied hat down hard over Seb’s ears. Or maybe it was Eben’s ears, I don’t know.
Their guns were not returned to them. Nor their clothes, which the lawmen were still wearing.
“I don’t want to ever see you in these parts again,” Sheriff Chalfont warned them sternly.
“No, sir!” they said in unison, reeling from disbelief at being let go. Then, still in their drawers, with the saddle blankets draped over their shoulders, they wheeled their horses around and took off as fast as they could through the forest. I hope they ended up in California and found themselves a gold mine. I harbored no ill will. I was tired.
We buried Pa under the overhang, where the short spring grasses grew between the two sides of the creek.
“Do you want to say any words?” Sheriff Chalfont asked me after we had lowered his body into the ground.
I shook my head. I had many words to say, but none out loud.
“Was your pa a religious man?” he asked gently. “Do you want me to say a prayer?”
“No,” I said. “He was a man of science. He was a genius. But he was not religious, no.”
Mittenwool looked at me from the edge of Pa’s grave.
“O Joy! O wonder…,” he reminded me. It was that poem my mother had loved.
“O Joy! O wonder, and delight! O sacred mystery!” I said aloud. “My Soul a Spirit infinite…” I could not remember the rest. Even if I could have, my voice fell short.
Sheriff Chalfont patted my back, and he and Deputy Beautyman then pushed the dirt from the edges of the grave on top of Pa’s body. They found a smooth rock to use as a marker. They carved the words:
HERE LIES MARTIN BIRD
2
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON by the time we climbed up the path behind the Falls. The lawmen’s horses were exactly where we’d left them. We’d brought the other horses up the cliff with us, but even though there were more than enough horses for everyone to ride, Deputy Beautyman made Rufe Jones and Ollerenshaw share a mount. He put them both on the sturdy draft horse that we’d brought for Marshal Farmer.
“This is outrageous,” Ollerenshaw seethed. “I demand you let me ride my own horse!” He was looking at Pony when he said this.
“No, that there’s a demon horse,” Rufe Jones mumbled, shuddering.
“That horse is worth more money than you’ll see in your whole lifetime,” drawled Ollerenshaw. “Listen, you hayseeds!” he yelled at the lawmen. “If you think I’m letting you country bumpkins take my horse, you’re even stupider than I thought. I had him imported from Cairo just two months ago! Direct from the court of Abbas Pasha!”
“I take it you like fancy horses,” answered Deputy Beautyman, riding up alongside him.
Ollerenshaw quickly turned his face away, thinking he was about to get tobacco-juiced again. Instead, the deputy deftly lifted him off the saddle and flipped him around, so that he was now riding backward, facing the horse’s rear.
“Look, Desi!” the deputy guffawed. “One horse-ass riding another!”
Ollerenshaw fumed. “You’re going to be so sorry,” he raged slowly through his teeth. “As soon as I get out of jail, Deputy, I’ll get my horse back, and then I’m coming for you, and you’re going to wish you’d never been—”
He didn’t get to finish whatever he was going to say because the deputy took the bloody bills bandaging his ear and shoved them into his mouth. He pushed them in there pretty deep, then secured them with a rope. Ollerenshaw was rabid at this point, his eyes practically popping out of his head, the veins in his forehead like blue worms on his face. These hysterics only made the deputy chuckle gleefully, of course. He glanced back at me, to see if I approved of his handiwork.
And then he trotted Petunia back up to the front of the line.
Unfortunately, comical as it might have seemed to the deputy when he did it, he had not realized that this particular positioning left Ollerenshaw facing me the whole way back to Rosasharon, since I was still bringing up the rear of our little procession.
As we rode through the forest, Ollerenshaw took sport in glaring at me with a most malicious expression. Even gagged as he was, he succeeded in unnerving me. Something about the smoothness of his face, like a wax effigy, and the way his eyes sought mine to taunt me. I don’t know whether it was because I was riding his horse, or because it was my father who had been his undoing, but I had honestly never come across that degree of cruelty before. This is how well Pa had protected me, my whole life, that I had never come close to this kind of malignity in a human being. Sure, Widow Barnes had not been kind, and those laughing children could have been nicer. But unkindness is not the same as cruelty. It is, perhaps, the precursor to it, the first step down a path toward that inevitable end. But it is still not quite the same. And as I witnessed this cruelty now, directed at me, I was stung not only by the action itself, but by the sheer malice of it, that a grown man would choose to spend his time trying to terrify a young boy whose father he had just killed. With all the ghosts I’d seen, none had ever seemed as devoid of humanity to me as Roscoe Ollerenshaw.
I had not shed tears until now, for Pa’s death was still something I was reckoning with, and I felt the need to contain my emotions until I was safely on my own somewhere. But Ollerenshaw’s unflinching glower rattled me. I could feel myself becoming shaky, my eyes starting to water. My heart pulsed in my ears.
“That’s enough,” Mittenwool said. He was walking on my right, next to Pony, his hands in his pockets. At first I thought he was talking to me, but then I realized it was Ollerenshaw he was addressing.
What surprised me to the core, though, was that Ollerenshaw snapped his head to the left, like he had heard Mittenwool’s voice himself. This was something new.
Mittenwool then walked up to the draft horse, and got up close to Ollerenshaw’s face.
“Murderer,” he said quietly.
Ollerenshaw’s face twitched. Again, he looked around him, to see who was saying the word. That he could hear Mittenwool, even if he could not see him, was a revelation to me. Never in my whole life had I seen Mittenwool resort to this kind of corporeal tactic, where he was literally haunting someone. Taunting someone.
“Murderer,” Mittenwool repeated, and now Ollerenshaw’s eyes widened. If he had not been gagged, he might have cried out. “Murderer!”
Ollerenshaw looked at me now to see if I could hear what he was hearing. I saw in his eyes a look of total horror. I registered no expression.
“Murderer!” Mittenwool yelled loudly again. The word carried on the wind. It echoed through the air. Over and over again he screamed it. “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”
At this point, Ollerenshaw was half crazed and undone, looking wildly all around him. If he could have covered his ears with his hands, he would have, but they were tied behind him. No way to shield himself from Mittenwool’s voice. He started shaking his head left and right, je
rking his shoulders up and down as if to rid himself of the sounds in his head. It was like he was being stung by invisible hornets, the way his whole body convulsed.
“What is the matter with you, Roscoe?” Rufe Jones muttered, trying to look behind him.
But Ollerenshaw didn’t answer, probably because he couldn’t hear him over the sound of his own caterwauling. Even after Rufe Jones elbowed him to get him to stop, Ollerenshaw continued to moan. His eyes were closed, his teeth chattering, like someone with a grave fever. His face was white as ash.
It was only then that Mittenwool stopped screaming at him. Instead, he got as close as he could to Ollerenshaw’s ear. I think Ollerenshaw might even have been able to feel his breath, for his eyes opened wide.
“If you ever go near this child again,” Mittenwool whispered slowly, “or so much as look at him, you will never have another moment’s peace again for the rest of your life. I will make sure that every person you ever murdered rises from the dead to torment you, just like I will, every day and every night for as long as you live. Do you hear me, Roscoe Ollerenshaw?”
Tears came from Ollerenshaw’s eyes then as he looked blindly in front of him. He nodded wildly and wept.
“And that pony of yours?” Mittenwool continued. “That’s not your pony anymore. It’s his. If you tell anyone otherwise, or if you try to take it away from him, I will come—”
“No, no, p-please,” sobbed Ollerenshaw, who had somehow bitten through the wad in his mouth, his teeth covered with blood. He cowered and once again closed his eyes. “Please, please, please…”
Mittenwool stepped back, his face looking like I’d never seen it look before. Pale and hard and frightening. He was completely winded, as any movement in the material world always took a lot out of him, and this was more than anything he’d ever done before. He slowed down so I could catch up to him. Then he reached up and took my hand.
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