Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3)

Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3) Page 18

Matthew had lost all calculations of time and distance. He knew they'd been travelling through the woods for what seemed like several hours, but exactly how long and how many miles they'd come, he had no idea. a light rain was falling from a sky more twilight than afternoon, which further distorted his senses. His legs, usually a reliable informant as to distance, had passed through ache and pain into numbness. No longer either could he feel any sensation in his feet. The woods were thick, and the path through them-windey-twistey, as Greathouse might have said-led up over rocky hillsides and down through swampy hollows. It was sometime during the descent into one of these hollows that Tom's knees gave way and he went down into the thicket. It was a quiet falling, like the rain, and if Matthew had not glanced back at the boy and seen him already on the ground he would not have known it.

"Wait!" he called to Walker, who was about thirty yards ahead and already going up the next hill. Instantly the Indian checked his progress and stood among the golden-leafed birch trees with his dark green cloak wrapped around himself, resembling nothing more than a black-eyed, fearsome and feathered head floating amid the questionable beauty of nature.

Matthew went back the fifteen yards or so to where Tom was trying to get his feet under him. It was obvious the boy, as hard barked as he might be, was running low on wood to feed his fire. His bruised face was ghastly purple, one of his eyes swollen shut and the other nearly so. The razor cuts across his chest were as scarlet as whipstrikes. It had astounded Matthew, back in the sad cemetery of New Unity, how Tom with his slashed hands had gripped hold of one of the two shovels and started feverishly digging in the wet earth. Matthew had joined in the work, as Walker had watched from a distance. They must have made a sight, Matthew thought. Both of them with wounded hands, staggering around in the cold rain trying to do the Christian thing. after the boy had fallen down twice and twice picked himself up with mud on his knees, Walker had taken the shovel from him and told him to go sit down under a tree. In time, they had two graves, as Tom had asked; one large, one small. Neither was very deep, and this had been at Walker's insistence for, as he'd said before the work had begun, Belvedere was not going to come to them. They left the cemetery, which now held forty markers. The last two were boards taken from a crumbling cabin and pounded into the ground. When Tom turned his back to the graves he had so carefully maintained, Matthew noted that it was without emotion. But Matthew thought he understood why: a show of emotion would be a use of resources that Tom needed to get through today. Either that, or the boy had iron control over what he revealed or did not reveal.

In any case, the three travelers departed from New Unity, and left its occupants and their stories for some future generation to ponder.

Now, in the deeper forest some number of miles distant from Belvedere, Matthew reached Tom and offered his hand to help the boy up.

Tom angled his head so his better eye looked at the hand. "If I'd wanted your help," he said, his voice distorted by his injured lip, "I would've asked." So saying, he hauled himself to his feet and staggered past Matthew, who turned to find the Indian standing there right beside him.

"How do you do thati" Matthew asked.

"Do whati"

"Never mind." He watched Tom fall again, get up once more and keep staggering onward, up the hill where Walker had just been standing. "Should we rest awhilei"

"No." Walker turned and began striding rapidly after the boy, while Matthew quickened his pace to catch up. "Boy!" Walker called.

"I've got a name."

"Tom," Walker amended. He'd heard Matthew call him that, in the cemetery. "How is it you know this way to Belvederei It's a Seneca trail."

"How is it you speak such good Englishi"

"I've lived with the English. Have you lived with my peoplei"

"No. I was lookin' for a shorter way to Belvedere one day, and I found it."

"How is it you didn't get yourself lost in the woodsi" Walker asked, slowing his stride to remain alongside Tom. "Or did youi"

"I can tell my directions, if that's what you're askin'." Tom shot him a quick dark glance from his better eye.

"Who taught youi"

Tom suddenly stopped, so abruptly that Walker also stopped and Matthew narrowly avoided a collision with the both of them. "Who taught mei" There was acid in the boy's brogue. His mouth twisted. "I'll tell you who, then. My father, partly. Taught me how to read the ground and the sky. Taught me my directions. How to build a fire. How to hunt, and lay a snare. But after he died, and I was on my own then there were lots more things I had to best learn in a hurry, and I knew if I didn't learn 'em right the first time, I wouldn't get no second chance. So I stole when I had to, and I hid out when I had to." He glanced at Matthew, as if marking him as an intruder in this brutal paradise. "See," Tom continued, "I learned real quick that the way to stay alive is to keep movin'. I forgot about that, and I got soft and liked an inside bed, and a house with a table you ate off of, and readin' the Bible to an old man, and pretendin' I had some kind of family again. That's why they're dead, 'cause I forgot that at any minute this world can kick your door down and come in swingin' a razor." He nodded. "Look what I let happen, back there." His eye found Walker again. "Who taught me, you're askin'i My father, some. But in this world, it's the Devil teaches you the lessons you never forget."

"You couldn't have stopped Slaughter," Matthew said. "No one could've."

Tom thrust his face toward Matthew's. "Maybe you could've," he answered. "I told you, maybe you should've killed him when you could. But don't fret about it, don't you fret." He held up a finger of his razor-slashed right hand. " I'm gonna kill him, so don't you fret."

Matthew almost recoiled from the cold ferocity in the boy's voice. It was hard to remember that he indeed was a boy, of thirteen or fourteen years, because his sentiments and expressions were those of a older man mauled by life. Scarred by life, would be the more correct phrase. To see what lay behind those eyes, Matthew thought, would be a frightful view. a desolation, perhaps; a loneliness, for certain. anger was holding him together, a rage against the world. and who could blame him, with all the death and misery he'd witnessedi So he might be young in years, Matthew thought, but it was an illusion, for his trials had left him withered within.

Tom was through talking. He turned and started up the hillside again, but halfway up his remaining strength failed him, for he staggered against a boulder and slid down to the ground. He put his hands to his face and sat there, hunched over and otherwise motionless.

"He's almost done," Walker said quietly. "He's fighting it, but he knows it too."

"What are we going to do with himi"

after a silence in which Walker was obviously deliberating the question, the Indian approached Tom, with Matthew following behind. "I suppose, if you can read the ground so well, that you've seen the tracksi"

Tom lowered his hands. Matthew had expected to see the tears of either loss or frustration on Tom's cheeks, but there were none. The boy was again sealed up tight. "I have," Tom replied. "Good-sized bear about two hours ahead of us, movin' slow."

Matthew felt a start of alarm; his own scars had been left by a meeting with a bear, three years ago, and he didn't wish for another encounter.

"That's why I'm not running us faster," Walker said. "I'm going on ahead, to scout. You two meet me at the stream, and don't dawdle."

Tom nodded, familiar with the landmark Walker specified, and then the Indian took off running at a steady pace up the hillside, among the trees, and out of sight.

"Give me a minute," Tom said, as Matthew waited. He reached into his mouth and worked a loose tooth, after which he spat red on the ground. Then, with a soft groan that spoke volumes, the boy pulled himself up and stood unsteadily, balancing with a hand against the rock. "Maybe find myself a walkin'-stick," he said, his voice slurred. "I'll be all right."

at the top of the hill, a slim branch from a fallen tree was found to suit Tom's purpose, and he hobbled on it while trying to walk as fast as he could go. Matthew thought that Tom's revelation of his sense of the world's evil had sapped some of the strength the boy had been hoarding, and even Tom's depth of willpower had its bottom.

Tom's description of the murder of John Burton had been horrific, even if the boy was unable to remember all the details. It had been like a bad dream, he'd told Walker and Matthew. James started barking, the door had crashed in and the man was suddenly there. Tom recalled that he'd worn a black tricorn-Matthew's hat-and how he'd grinned in the guttering candlelight. Dogs were born brave, and so James had attacked the intruder and been crushed down by the chair across his back. Boys were also born brave, and sometimes foolish, and when Tom had gone at Slaughter he hadn't seen the glint of the drawn razor until it came at him, slashing his outstretched hands, followed by a fist that had slammed into the side of his face and sent him sprawling. He'd remembered, in a blur, seeing what Slaughter was doing to the reverend, and when he'd grabbed at Slaughter from behind an elbow hit him in the mouth and another fist struck and the razor streaked across his cheekbone and tore ribbons from his shirt. Then he was stumbling out across the porch, dripping blood and only half-conscious, but the conscious part was screaming at him to run, to get to the woods, because he knew James was finished from how the dog had shrieked, and no man could stand up to a razor the way it was cutting pieces from the reverend's face.

He had gone instead to the barn to get the hayfork, but there the darkness had crashed upon him and he remembered falling. and there he'd stayed, until James' cries had called him back to the world, and he'd gotten up and walked in a haze of blood and pain to the cabin with the hayfork ready, the Devil's weapon to kill the Devil. But Slaughter had gone, probably in a hurry to get to Belvedere before nightfall, and had taken with him two items: the boots and Tom's long black coat, which certainly was too small for him to shrug into but would serve well enough as a cloak over his asylum clothing.

"I don't intend to kill Slaughter," Matthew said to Tom as they continued on along the trail. "Though he might deserve it. I'm going to catch him and take him to New York. Let the law punish him."

Tom grunted. "Tall words. He'll have somethin' to " It was getting harder for him to talk, and he had to get his breath and make another effort at it. "To say about that. Best I kill him. When the time comes."

The afternoon moved on, and so did the two travelers along the Seneca trail. When Matthew thought Tom couldn't make it another step, the boy seemed to draw from amazing reserves and keep going. By Matthew's imprecise calculation of time, about two hours after Walker had left them they came upon a shallow stream that ran clear and quick across rocks. Both Tom and Matthew drank from it and rested against the trunk of a massive oak tree that Matthew saw was carved with Indian symbols.

They didn't have long to wait. Walker came at his steady run along the trail from the opposite direction, knelt down and drank from the stream and then said, "Belvedere is only a mile distant." He turned his attention to Tom, who was already trying to stand up but whose legs would not obey; he was worn to a nub. "Help him," he told Matthew.

"I don't need no help," was the boy's angry, if hoarsely whispered, response. But whether he admitted it or not, he did, for he couldn't stand up even with the walking-stick until his pride allowed Matthew to lend a shoulder.

at last they emerged from the forest onto the road again, or at least what served as a road, and there stood the town of Belvedere before them. The smell of a settlement was very different from the smell of the woods. In the air lingered the scents of cooked food, burned firewood, moldy timbers, wet cloth and that oh-so-ripe fragrance of well-filled fig-pits. Belvedere itself was no different from any of dozens of small communities that had grown up around a trading post originally built to barter skins from Indians and trappers. Most of the houses that Matthew saw were in need of whitewash and some were green with mold, though here and there an enterprising soul had put a brush to work. But all their roofs and walls were still standing and they all looked to be occupied, for their chimneys smoked. a long structure with a front porch had brightly-colored Indian blankets nailed up on the walls, and above its door was a red-painted sign that proclaimed, simply, Belvedere Trade. Two men were perched in chairs on the porch, smoking long clay pipes, with a little boy sitting on the floor beside them, and all three stared at the new arrivals as Walker led the way and Matthew supported Tom.

Walker did not go to the trading post, as Matthew would have thought. Instead, the Indian went through the gate of a picket fence to one of the white-washed houses, which Matthew saw had mounted above its entrance a wooden cross. Then Walker knocked at the door, the sound of which brought the door open and a tall man about fifty years old with thick gray hair, a trimmed beard and eyeglasses emerged.

"ah!" the man said, with a frown of concern. "Bring him in, please! Sarah!" he called into the house. "They're here!"

It was a normal house with the usual spare furnishings, but Matthew noted the woman's touch in the frilled window curtains and on the fireplace mantel a blue clay pot of wildflowers. and then the woman herself appeared from another room; she was slim and had copious curls of gray hair, looked to be a few years younger than the man, and wore the expression of a worried saint as she came forward to meet the visitors.

"Go get Dr. Griffin," the man directed, and the woman was out the door. "You can bring him in here," he said to Walker, and led them along a short hallway to a small but clean bedroom.

"I'm all right!" Tom had grasped some of the picture, and didn't like what he was seeing. Still, he could hardly stand up and was in no position-of either strength or willpower-to resist. "I'm all right!" he protested to Matthew, but Matthew helped him to the bed and didn't have to use much force. as soon as Tom lay down upon the russet-colored spread he thought better of it and tried to get up again.

"Listen to me." Walker put a hand against the boy's chest. "You're to stay here, do you understandi The doctor's coming. You need to be tended to."

"No, I'm all right. I don't need a doctor!"

"Soni" The man leaned forward. "It's best you stay here, and try to rest awhile."

"I know you." Tom's eyesight was fading, along with his resolve. "Don't Ii"

"I'm the Reverend Edward Jennings. Walker In Two Worlds has told me what happened to you, and to Reverend Burton."

"Told youi"

"Yes. Lie still now, just rest."

Matthew realized that Walker had run to Belvedere and back in the time it had taken him and Tom to reach the stream. It was an answer to Matthew's question about what they were to do with the boy.

"I don't want to lie still. I've gotta get up gotta keep movin'." as much as he desired it, the movement part was all but impossible. He looked up, almost pleadingly, at Walker or where his darkening vision had last made out Walker to be. "I'm goin' with you. To find that man. I ain't gonna I ain't gonna stay here."

"You are going to stay here," Walker replied. "You can't go any further. Now you can fight it all you please, but you're only going to wear yourself out more. The doctor's coming, just lie still."

Tom had been shaking his head-no, no, no-all the time Walker was speaking. He rasped, "You don't order me what to do," and reached up to grab hold of Matthew's waistcoat as a means of pulling himself out of bed. The grasp was weak and the show of will a last flicker of the flame, however, for Tom then gave a quiet moan. "I'm gonna kill him," he managed to whisper. But even the powerful desire for revenge had its limits, and as Tom's fingers opened and the hand fell away from Matthew's waistcoat his head lay back against the straw-stuffed pillow and sleep overcame him in a second. His razor-slashed chest moved as he breathed steadily, but his candle was out.

The doctor arrived, escorted by Sarah Jennings and with his own wife in tow. Griffin was an earnest young physician only ten years or so older than Matthew, with sandy-brown hair and sharp hazel eyes that took in Tom's injuries and instantly called for Sarah to bring a kettle of hot water. Griffin's wife was laying out bandages and the doctor was readying his sewing kit when Walker and Matthew took their leave of the room.

"I thank you for accepting the boy," Walker said to Reverend Jennings at the front door. a few people were milling about at the fence, craning their necks to get a view of what was happening in the parsonage. "I trust the doctor will fix himi"

"as much as he can be fixed," Jennings replied. "He's been through a rough time."

"He has. and you'll treat him welli"

"Of course. You have my word on that."

"What'll happen to himi" Matthew asked.

"When he's able to get up and about, I suppose he'll have a choice to make. There are people here who could use help on their farms, but then again there are the homes for orphans in Philadelphia and New York."

Matthew said nothing. That was going to be a hard choice for Tom. He thought the boy would probably get up one night and disappear, and that would be that.

"Thank you for bringing him in," said the reverend to Walker. "It was very Christian of you."

"For an Indiani" Walker asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"For anyone," came the reply. "God be with the both of you."

They left the parsonage, and Matthew followed Walker through the little knot of people toward the trading post. It wasn't such a terribly bad town, Matthew thought, though it was out on the raw edge of the western frontier. He saw vegetable gardens and fruit trees, and in the dim light of late afternoon lanterns were glowing in windows. He judged from the number of houses that maybe seventy to a hundred people lived here, and there were surely some outlying farms and orchards as well. There looked to be, at a passing glance, a small business area with a blacksmith's, a tavern and two or three other merchants. The locals who glanced at him and Walker did so without surprise or untoward curiosity, for surely Indians were a common sight at a trading post. He reasoned also that Walker had been here many times, and had previously met Reverend Jennings. Well, it was a relief to have Tom taken care of, and now Matthew could turn his attention to the task at hand.

They went up the stone steps to the porch. The pipe-smokers were still there, though the boy had gone. One of them called, "Walker! What's the commotioni"

"You'll have to ask the reverend," the Indian replied, with the polite decorum of an Englishman. Inside, in the lamplight, a squat, wide-bodied man behind the counter wore a tattered and yellowed wig and a faded red coat bearing what appeared to be military medals. He said in a booming voice, "afternoon, Walker!"

"Good afternoon, Jaco."

The man's bulbous blue eyes in a face like dried mud took in Matthew and then returned to the Indian. He had six rings hanging from one ear and four from another. "Who's your companioni"

"Matthew Corbett," said Matthew, who reached to shake the man's hand and was met by a piece of wood sculpted and painted to resemble one, complete with carved fingernails and grooved knuckles. Matthew hesitated only a second before he took the timber and shook it, as any gentleman should.

"Jaco Dovehart. Pleased to meet you." again the bulbous eyes went to Walker. "What are you all dressed up fori Never seen you in black paint. Hey! There's no trouble, is therei"

"I'm working."

"Just wanted to make sure you fellas weren't on the warpath. What'd you bring mei"

Matthew had had a chance to take a look around during this exchange. His first impression was of a merchant's bedlam. This likely being the first building put up in Belvedere and obviously as old as Moses' beard, the crooked mud-chinked walls encouraged vertigo and the warped floorboards presented a series of frightening rises and dips. Shelves held blankets, linens, clay plates and cups, wooden bowls and eating utensils, mallets, saws, axes, shears, bottles, jars and boxes of a staggering variety, wigs, slippers, boots, breeches, petticoats, gowns, shifts, and a myriad of other items. Everything, however, appeared to be either well-worn or moldy. Pieces of a plow lay on the floor, and two wagon wheels were propped in a corner. On dozens of wallpegs hung a crowding of shirts, cravats, waistcoats, leather belts, tricorn hats, caps, coats, blanket robes and bed gowns; again, everything had a musty green tinge. Matthew thought all the items here had probably belonged to dead people.

"We're looking for a man who may have passed this way," Walker said, his face especially fearsome caught as it was between the yellow lamplight and the blue haze through dirty windows. "Describe him, Matthew."

"He would have a beard. It's been described as a 'patchwork'."

"Oh, him!" Dovehart nodded. "Came in yesterday, about this time. askin' to buy a horse. I told him I had a good horse last week, but I sold it to a Mohawk. Hey, Lizzie! Walker's here!"

a gaunt, sharp-chinned woman wearing what once had been a royal-blue gown with a frill of lace at the neck-now sickly green-stained and more ill than frill-had entered from a door at the back, holding what appeared to be a pair of candlesticks made from deer's legs, hooves and all. Her hair was coal black, her eyes were coal black, and so were her front teeth when she grinned. "Walker!" She put the bizarre candlesticks down and glided forward to offer her hand, the fingernails of which were also grimed with coal black.

"Lady Dovehart," said Walker, and as he kissed the hand Matthew saw spots of color rise on the cheeks of her sallow face.

"Watch out, now!" Dovehart cautioned, but it was spoken in good humor. "I don't go for none of them damned manners!"

"You ought to," the lady replied, with a coquettish and rather hideous smile at Walker. "What is this world comin' to, when an Indian's got better manners than an English-borni"

"I'm sure the world will survive," Walker answered graciously, turning his attention again to the trading post master. "But you were speaking about the bearded mani"

"Yeah, he came in and asked about a horse. I told him the only fella I knew might sell him a horse was Constable abernathy. Now!" Dovehart motioned with his wooden hand. "Here's where it gets interestin'. Round about three, four in the mornin', somebody broke into abernathy's barn and tried to steal a horse. Only he didn't know that mare's a right terror, and the sound she put up brought abernathy runnin' out in his nightshirt with a pistol. abernathy took a shot at the man, that mare bucked the bastard off, and he took out through the woods. all mornin' long abernathy, his brother Lewis and Frog Dawson-you know Frog, that crazy bastard-have been ridin' up and down the road huntin' that fella."

"But they didn't find him," Walker said.

"No, didn't find him. But abernathy said when they found him, they was gonna take his skin and trade it to me for a nice bag of hickory nuts."

"any blood on the roadi"

"No, not that either. Shot must've missed, but it scared him plenty."

Matthew thought that what might have scared Slaughter-if indeed he could be frightened-was being thrown for a second time from a horse. The first time had ended in his capture. He wondered if after this incident Slaughter might swear off horses and keep his boots on the ground.

"Odd, though." Matthew watched, his face expressionless, as Dovehart actually used his wooden hand to scratch the back of his neck. "That fella could've just walked up to the constable's door and bought the mare. He had plenty of money in his bag."

"He bought something herei" Matthew asked.

"Oh yeah, sure did. He bought you kept the tally, Lizzie. What was it alli"

"a haversack, for one. Some salted meat, for two."

Salted meat from this placei Matthew wondered if Slaughter might be lying dead in the woods from food poisoning, which would make his job all the easier.

"and the ammunition for his pistol," Lizzie said. "For three."

"The ammunition," Matthew repeated.

"That's right. a dozen balls." Dovehart rubbed his nose so furiously with the wooden hand that Matthew expected to see splinters sticking out of it. "and everythin' else a shooter needs, of course. Two flints, powderhorn and powder, cloth patches. He got himself a deal."

Matthew glanced quickly at Walker, but the Indian was examining a gaudy brown-and-red striped waistcoat that hung from a wallpeg.

"What'd the man doi" Lizzie asked, drawing closer to Matthew. "I mean, besides tryin' to steal the constable's horsei"

"He's a killer. Escaped from me and my associate yesterday. I suspect he didn't want to meet the constable face-to-face. Probably couldn't bring himself to pay a penny to the law, either. But I think he's gotten a little over-confident."

"He seemed all right," Lizzie said. "He had a nice smile, and his voice was refined. Said he was on his way to Philadelphia, that he had to get there for some business and Indians stole his horse last night when he was camped. I thought that was kind of peculiar, but then again all kinds of people pass through here goin' north and south."

"Did you inquire as to what kind of business he was ini" Matthew asked.

"I did. Just to converse, you see." She used that lofty word as if she'd been waiting years to drag it out from its shuttered attic. "He said he was between jobs, but that he was goin' back into the business of settlin' accounts."

Matthew thought that over. It meant something, certainly. But whati

"Oh!" Lizzie snapped her black-nailed fingers. "almost forgot. He bought a spyglass, too."

Walker In Two Worlds lifted his gaze from his inspection of the English waistcoat, which he'd found had a stitched-up tear in its back that had likely been made by a knife. The brown bloodstain very nearly blended into the color of the stripes.

"Special on that one," Dovehart announced.

Matthew put a hand against the pocket of his own waistcoat and felt the jewelry there. He said, "You have gunsi"

"Surely! Got a nice musket no, wait the barrel fell off that one a few days ago, needs a bit of work. are you handy with gunsmithin' tools, siri"

"How about a pistoli" Matthew asked.

"Three for your approval, sir! Lizzie, show the man!"

Lady Dovehart leaned down, opened a box on the floor and brought up, one after the other, three flintlock pistols in various stages of decay. Two looked to be more dangerous for the firer than for the target, but the third-a little brown bullpup of a gun, hardly a handful-appeared to be in fairly decent shape but for the green patina on all exposed metal parts.

"Twelve shillings, an excellent choice!" said the master. "But for you, seeing as how you're a friend of a friend, ten!"

"I have no money, but I have this." Matthew brought out the first trinket that came to his fingers; it was the silver brooch with the four black stones.

"Hmmmm." Dovehart picked the brooch up with his good left hand to examine it more closely. Before he got it up to his face, his wife snatched it away.

She held it near a lantern. "Ohhhhh," she crooned. "It's pretty! You know, my favorite color's black. Kinda royal-like lookin', ain't iti" She elbowed her husband in the ribs. "Sell the young sir his pistol, Jaco."

"Including the same items you sold the man we're afteri" Matthew prodded. "Flints, powderhorn, powder, patches and a dozen ballsi"

"all right. Very well. Sold."

"Including also a pair of stockingsi" Matthew had seen a few on one of the shelves. How clean they would be he had no idea, but he needed a pair anyway. "and," he continued, "I'd like that, if it fits." He pointed to another item that had caught his eye; it was a fringed buckskin jacket, hanging from a peg next to the waistcoat Walker had been ogling.

"Well, sir." Dovehart frowned. "Now, I'm not so sure that we can-"

"Try it," the lady said. "Go on, it looks about right."

"God a'mighty!" Dovehart fumed as Matthew shrugged into the jacket, which was on the large size across the shoulders and had a burn mark along the left arm as if a torch had been passed over it. Otherwise, it was fine. "I'm tryin' to run a business here!"

The lady was already pinning her brooch on, and she picked up a little oval handmirror that was cracked down the middle to admire her new acquisition.

"Jacoi" Walker had come up to the counter again. "Do you have another spyglassi"

"Huhi No, that was our one and only. Lizzie, stop grinnin' at yourself! God save us from prideful wives!" That comment was directed at Walker, but Matthew saw Dovehart quickly shift his gaze as if it had been originally meant for him. Obviously, the matter of Walker not having a wife was a thorny subject, best left alone.

"One more thing," Walker continued calmly, as if the comment had never existed. "He'll need a carry-bag for all that."

"Got anythin' else to tradei"

Matthew started to reach for another item from his pocket, but before he could get there Walker said with a hint of steel in his voice, "Good will is a valuable commodity. I'd expect you could find something." He stared across the counter into Dovehart's eyes and became utterly immobile, as if nothing on earth could shift him from the position.

"Well " Dovehart glanced nervously at Matthew and then back to the Indian. "I suppose there's an old shooter's bag up on the top shelf over there. Ought to do."

Walker found it and gave it to Matthew. It was made of deerskin with the hair still on it and had a drawstring closure, as well as a braided leather strap that fit around the shoulder.

"alrighty! You through robbin' mei" asked the master, with a measure of heat in his face.

"I'll remember your good will," Walker answered, "the next time the pelts come in."

"and I hope it's soon! Been waitin' for a good load of 'em nearly a month now!"

In his buckskin jacket and new stockings, with his bullpup pistol and the necessaries in the shooter's bag around his shoulder, Matthew bid good-bye to the Doveharts-the master still fussing about lost business, the mistress fixed on her mirror-and followed Walker out into the darkening afternoon. a drizzle was falling again, proclaiming a nasty night. Matthew's stomach rumbled; he looked toward the single little tavern, identified by the sign Tavern, and said, "I'll buy us a meal." Surely the tavern-keepers would accept the engraved silver ring for two bowls of corn soup and a few slices of whatever meat was available.

"I am not allowed in there," said Walker, who did not slow his pace past the tavern. "It's for Englishmen and Dutchmen only."

"Oh. I see."

"They think we smell. It upsets their appetite." He went on a few more strides before he spoke again. "Constable abernathy's house is around the bend there. I can find where Slaughter was thrown, and where he entered the woods. I can find his track, and his direction. But it has to be done before dark. We can make another mile, maybe two. are you ablei"

am Ii he asked himself. The lights in the tavern windows were fading behind them. It seemed to him that it was the last call of civilization, before whatever lay out there, ahead.

Slaughter. In the dark. With a razor and a pistol. Settling his accounts.

"I am," Matthew said.

Walker began to move at a slow run, and Matthew grit his teeth and kept up.