Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3)

Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3) Page 31

a solitary rider came along the road, under the gray November sky. The road went straight between young trees. at its end stood a red brick two-story plantation house with white trim, white shutters and four chimneys. On either side of the road, beyond the trees, were the tobacco fields, brown and barren now until april. The solitary rider reined his black horse in for just a moment, while his gaze swept across the landscape, and then he continued on his chosen path.

He was a well-dressed gent, on this cold and somber morning. He wore tan-colored breeches, white stockings, polished black boots, a dark blue waistcoat and a dark blue jacket overlaid with a design of paisley in lighter blue. On his head was a tasteful white wig, not too ostentatiously curly, and atop that a black tricorn. Black gloves, a black cloak and a white cravat completed his carefully-crafted attire.

He had just come from the Gentleman's Rest Tavern and Inn in Kingswood, where he'd spent the past two nights. They knew him there as Sir Fonteroy Makepeace, aide to Lord Henry Wickerby of the Wickerby estate near Charles Town. This title had also appeared in the very formal letter sent from Sir Makepeace by way of a young courier from Kingswood to the door of the plantation house now drawing nearer. Such was the communications of one gentleman to another, and the privileges of breeding.

as Sir Makepeace rode his horse along the drive, a groom who'd been notified to expect the visitor saw him coming and emerged from his small brick watchhouse that stood alongside the main entrance. He went up the front steps to alert the other servants by using the brass door knocker cast in the shape of a tobacco leaf, and then he hurried to bring over a footstool and hold it steady as Sir Makepeace dismounted. The groom offered to take the gentleman's horse around to the barn, but Sir Makepeace said it wouldn't be necessary, that his business would only take a short while and it was fine to just keep the animal here.

The groom gave a respectful bow and said as you wish, Sir Makepeace.

"Good morning, Sir Makepeace," said the rather stocky, balding servant who came down the steps to meet him. Climbing the steps to the front door appeared to be a bit hard on Sir Makepeace, if anyone was watching. He brought a cloth from his waistcoat pocket and blotted some beads of sweat that had risen on his face. Then he put the cloth away, looked back to make sure the groom was standing firm with his horse, and allowed the servant to usher him inside.

a servant-girl came forward to take Sir Makepeace's cloak, hat and gloves, but he said, "I'll keep these for the while, miss. I'm rather cold-natured." She gave him a polite smile and a quick curtsy.

"Mr. Powers' office is this way, please," said the male servant, motioning up the staircase.

Sir Makepeace looked up the stairs. His face showed just the slightest ripple of unease.

"Men usually keep their offices on the lower floor," said Sir Makepeace.

"Yes sir, that may be true," the servant answered, "but Lord Kent has given Mr. Powers an office on the upper level, so that he might always have a view of the fields."

"ah." Sir Makepeace nodded, though his smile did not completely take hold. "My business is with Mr. Powers, but is Lord Kent in residencei"

"No sir, Lord Kent is currently in England and shall not be back before summer. This way, if you please."

Sir Makepeace followed the servant up the stairs and to a closed door on the right side of the house. The servant knocked, there was a muffled, "Come in," and the servant opened the door for Sir Makepeace's entry. He closed it as soon as the visitor had crossed the threshold.

Sir Makepeace gave the office a quick once-over. It was richly appointed, with cowhide chairs, a brown leather sofa, and in the corner to his right a gold-and-black lacquered Chinese screen. a chandelier holding six lanterns hung from the ceiling. The desk was on the far side of the room, where a man in his mid-fifties, with dark brown hair gone gray at the temples, had removed his reading spectacles and risen from his chair. "Mr. Powersi" said Sir Makepeace, as he walked across a red carpet toward the desk.

"Yes," Nathaniel Powers replied. Since leaving his position as magistrate in New York he'd grown a gray goatee that his wife, Judith, actually thought was quite handsome. Behind him a pair of windows looked out upon the fields, and to his right a second set of windows offered another view of the fields that included several of the plantation's workbuildings.

"a pleasure to meet you," Sir Makepeace said. He removed his gloves as he approached. "I much appreciate your taking the time to see me, as I have business to conduct."

"I assumed so. I must say, though, I'm not familiar with Lord Wickerby or the Wickerby estate."

"No matter. I have here an item concerning an old account of yours that needs to be settled. To be polished off, you might say." With a frozen smile, Sir Makepeace reached into his waistcoat.

"Mister Slaughter," came a voice from behind him that caused the rest of him to freeze. "Please keep your hands at your sides."

The nobleman turned slowly toward the source of his irritation. Matthew had emerged from his concealment behind the Chinese screen, and he stood halfway between it and Tyranthus Slaughter.

"Pardon me," said the nobleman, with an air of bewilderment. "Do I know youi"

Matthew kept his own hands behind him. He was relaxed, but not lax in his assessment of his foe. Slaughter was carrying a knife or pistol-possibly both-within his waistcoat. Either one of his boots could be hiding a blade. He might even have a knife under that damned wig. But it was clear that Slaughter was somewhat diminished from their last meeting. Slaughter's face was gray and puffy, with dark hollows beneath his eyes. Sweat sparkled at his temples. Matthew wondered if Walker's arrows had not done the job on him, after all, and Slaughter's blood was poisoned. Still the most dangerous beast was one that was both wounded and trapped.

"Lyra Sutch is dead," Matthew told him. "I have the ledger book of Professor Fell's accounts to be settled." He saw Slaughter flinch on that one. "Your career has ended, sir. The man who is standing outside that door has a pistol, and so does the groom who took your horse. Of course we weren't sure who Sir Fonteroy Makepeace actually was, so we had to let you come up." He did not say that Powers' office was usually downstairs, and that this was Lord Kent's bedroom, redecorated. The point had been to get Slaughter further away from an exit, if only to underscore the difficulty of escape.

"Mr. Powersi" Slaughter lifted his hands, as if to beg a question. "Is this young gentleman madi"

Powers looked from Slaughter to Matthew and back again. "I have complete faith in his judgment. He intends to take you to New York, but from what he's told me about you over the last few days, I would have shot you as soon as you walked through the door."

"Reallyi" The gentlemanly veneer of Sir Fonteroy Makepeace cracked, and peering out with narrow, red-rimmed eyes and a half-snarl was a monster who had perhaps been born long before the small sound of a rat biting a bone in a Swansea coal mine. "But I don't see that he has a gun, sir, or anything else with which to take me anywhere I don't wish to go."

"Well, actually," Matthew said, and brought from behind his back the three-barreled black rotator pistol that Oliver Quisenhunt had been kind enough to loan him when he'd returned to Philadelphia to ask for it, "I do."

Slaughter moved.

He lowered his shoulder and like a charging bull smashed through the wood frame and glass squares of the window to his left. Matthew pulled the trigger, aiming at Slaughter's legs. a ragged-edged hole exploded in the wall, but through the billowing smoke Matthew saw the killer leap into space.

"My God! My God!" Powers was shouting. The door burst open and the servant, Doyle by name, came rushing in with his pistol drawn. Matthew got to the aperture where the window had been in time to see Slaughter below him, sliding down the sloped roof of the outbuilding on which he'd landed. His tricorn and white-curled wig were tumbling down behind him. Then Slaughter dropped to the ground, staggered and nearly fell, but gained his footing and started running with a pronounced limp toward the cluster of worksheds and barns. Beyond them was three hundred acres of open tobacco field, and beyond that the Carolina woods.

Matthew saw Slaughter run past a few startled workmen in a blacksmith's shed and then disappear into the darkness of another workbuilding. Damn, what a jump! He'd never imagined Slaughter would've risked a broken neck to make an exit, but that was the nature of the beast: death before surrender.

"Sir!" Doyle said to him. "What shall we doi"

Matthew had no idea what other weapons Slaughter might have. He couldn't ask anyone else to fight his battle for him. He opened the compartment in the rotator's handle and brought out the second paper gunpowder cartridge.

"I've got a musket!" Powers' face was ruddy with excitement. "I'll blow the shit out of him!"

"No sir, you'll stay right here." Matthew tore the cartridge and primed the second barrel. "Doyle, I want you to stay with the magistrate. I mean " He waved off his confusion as to his ex-employer's current position. "Just be his bodyguard," he said.

"I don't need a bodyguard!" Powers shouted, further incensed.

Matthew asked himself where he'd heard those words before. He said, "Your family would think otherwise." Thank God their own home was at another location. He heard people coming up the stairs. It was Corinna, the servant-girl, and Mrs. allen, the cook. Matthew got past them as they came forward to press themselves on Powers' nerves, and he ran down the steps, through the house and out the back door that led into the work area.

Though the labors of the tobacco plantation were never-ceasing, there was not so much activity here this time of year, and the workmen fewer in number. Matthew set his course for the shed that Slaughter had entered.

Matthew couldn't help wondering where he was. Not Slaughter, but the other one. The one who had taken the pickaxe from the back of Noggin's wagon and hit Noggin in the head with it while the handyman was crouched down in the woods relieving himself. a man with a broken skull could not answer a shout, no matter how desperate.

When the constable from Nicholsburg had found Noggin dead the next morning in the woods, with that pickaxe planted in his head, Matthew had known who it must be. Incredibly, who it must be. The same person who had thrown a handful of marbles against the gearwheel in the watermill. The same person Matthew had seen on a horse, following him at a distance day after day on the road south. Matthew had no doubt who it must be. a resourceful person who could take care of himself. Who could take a fierce beating and keep going, mile after mile. Who could read the ground and the sky. Who could build a fire, who knew how to hunt, and how to lay a snare. Who could push himself nearly beyond the limits of human endurance, and who had an iron will to survive. Who also knew how to steal a horse, which he'd done in the village of Hoornbeck the morning Slaughter had left with the knife peddler.

In these last few days Matthew had started leaving a jug of water and some food out for him, just before dark at the edge of the woods. The food was always gone the next morning and the jug emptied, but then again it was hardly needed because there was a stream nearby and he'd seen plenty of rabbits. One could say an animal might have taken the food, but one would be wrong. But also right, in a way. Matthew had looked for the glow of a fire, but on those many nights of travel when he couldn't find an inn and had to sleep outside, he'd never seen any fire but his own, so why should he see one nowi But he was out there, all right. Waiting. The question was, where was he nowi

Matthew reached the building that Slaughter had entered and eased into it with his pistol ready and all his senses alert. He passed slowly and carefully through a storehouse of wagon parts, extra harnesses, yokes and the like. On the opposite wall was an open door. He passed through it, and outside again.

Before him, about forty yards distant, was a large red barn. It was where the tobacco leaves were stored to age, pressed into bundles or put into hogshead barrels pending shipment. Matthew could see across the field from his position; there was no sign of Slaughter. The barn's door was partly open.

He approached the barn, briefly hesitated to solidify his resolve, and then with his finger on the pistol's trigger he went inside.

The light that streamed in was dim and dusty. Matthew saw around him stacks of barrels as tall as a man and thick bundles of tobacco leaves wrapped up with rope. Handcarts stood waiting for use, and ahead was a wagon half-loaded with barrels. He moved cautiously, taking one step and then stopping, listening for any movement.

The back of his neck was tingling.

He had nearly reached the wagon when he heard a quick sliding sound. Like the dragging of an injured leg. There and then gone. It had come from his right. He changed course for that direction, his heart slamming in his chest.

Three more steps forward, and he heard the click of a striker being cocked almost directly ahead of him.

Slaughter had a pistol.

Matthew thrust his own gun out at arm's length, and so was ready when suddenly Slaughter rose up from behind a wall of tobacco bundles less than six feet away and thrust his own pistol forward. Matthew's finger tightened on the trigger, but he didn't squeeze it. He saw Slaughter's gun barrel drift to the right. Slaughter blinked heavily, as if trying to focus on his target. Matthew thought he might have taken such a jolt in the fall that he was seeing double.

Or maybe he was nearly used up. Slaughter's face was pinched with pain and damp with sweat. The flesh around the ugly wound on his scalp was so swollen the stitches had torn open, the gash wet and glistening. Tendrils of gray liquid were trickling down the side of his face, and Matthew caught the odor of corruption.

"Shall we die togetheri" Slaughter asked, bringing the barrel to bear on Matthew. "I don't fear it."

"Lower your gun."

"No, I think I will not. I think I will pull my trigger, you will pull yours, and that will be the end of it." He managed a lopsided grin. "Does that suit youi"

"I'd rather live a little longer," Matthew answered, watching Slaughter's trigger finger. "You can choose life too, if you wish. It's not the end of the world."

"Oh, but it is. The end of my world. What else-" There came the sound of something moving, very fast.

a body hurtled through the air from Matthew's right. a knife's blade flashed in a blur and went into the side of Slaughter's neck, and as Slaughter's face contorted and he turned to shoot his attacker Matthew had no choice but to pull the trigger. He shot Slaughter in the side, about halfway down the ribcage.

Slaughter's pistol fired downward, in a burst of sparks and smoke. Pieces of tobacco leaves flew into the air. He staggered back, clutching the wound in his neck that now poured blood over his cloak, his cravat and his paisleys, and the pistol fell from his fingers.

He looked with both amazement and incomprehension into a face he didn't seem to recognize. "Who are youi" The boy was gaunt. His hair had grown out some. His clothes were dirty, his eyes were steely gray and the point of the knife he held was blood-red.

Matthew remembered what Walker had said, when he'd seen a figure behind them on the trail and Matthew had dismissed it as delirium:

Following. I saw him twice. Very fast.

Saw whoi Matthew had asked.

and Walker's answer had been: Death.

Tom answered the question with a statement, his voice cold and matter-of-fact: "You hurt my dog."

Slaughter reached into his waistcoat. He brought out a knife of his own. He lunged at Tom, but the boy had already retreated. Then Slaughter began to flail with the knife, left and right, his teeth gritted and eyes hideous with dying rage. Matthew figured it was likely the knife with which he'd planned to cut Nathaniel Powers' throat, and then make a quick escape.

Tom had lifted his blade to stab Slaughter again, but now he stopped as the bleeding wretch before him slashed wildly at the air. Slowly, Tom lowered the knife to his side. He backed away.

Slaughter was still fighting. He fell against the bundles and stabbed them in a frenzy as if striking flesh, sending brown ribbons of tobacco flying. Matthew wondered what he was trying to kill. He wondered what he had always been trying to kill, in one way or another.

Tom walked a distance and bent to the ground.

Slaughter was running down; his watch was about to stop. He dropped the knife, his head lolling.

"Matthewi" It was the voice of Nathaniel Powers, the stubborn man who didn't need a bodyguard. "Matthewi" The barn door was pulled open wider. There looked to be six or seven men at the entrance, drawn there by the sound of the shots.

Slaughter straightened himself up. He ran a hand down the front of his paisley-patterned coat, as a lord might do to smooth it before meeting his public. Even as the life's blood streamed from his neck and bloomed around the hole in his side, he looked at Matthew with eyes that yet in their gathering dark held a red glint of ferocity.

"My compliments," he allowed. "I said you were worthy. But Matthew you never could have bested me. Not alone."

Matthew nodded. as Slaughter had told him in the watermill, It would take two of you to polish me off.

But he'd been wrong. It had taken three.

Now, though, it appeared he was well and truly polished.

"You have aided my ambition," Slaughter said. "My title. Where I'm going they'll make me royalty."

Lifting his chin, he took an unsteady step toward the door. Then another, dragging his injured leg. Matthew followed behind him, as he staggered onward. at the threshold, Slaughter fell to the ground on his knees. The knot of men backed up to give him room to die. Powers had a musket, Doyle had his pistol, the groom also brandished a gun, and the others all carried either wooden clubs or other implements of violence. at the back of the group, Mrs. allen held a large rolling-pin.

Tyranthus Slaughter gasped and forced himself up. He lurched forward again, his fists clenched. Suddenly he lifted his right fist and cocked it back, as if about to hurl a thunderbolt of evil into their midst. Before him the crowd shrank away, their faces taut with fear that even their guns and clubs and rolling-pin could not overcome.

Slaughter took two more steps toward them, his fist upraised and trembling, and the crowd retreated two.

and then Slaughter began to laugh, that deep slow sound of a funeral bell.

Matthew watched as Slaughter opened his fist, and the handful of dust he was holding streamed away between his fingers.

When his hand was empty, the funeral bell ceased its tolling.

Slaughter pitched forward, and lay stretched out upon the earth.