Speaks the Nightbird (Matthew Corbett #1)

Speaks the Nightbird (Matthew Corbett #1) Page 39

THE LaND WaS GOD and Devil both. Matthew had this thought during the third hour of daylight, as he and Rachel paused at a stream to refill the water bottle. Rachel dipped the hem of her bride's dress into the water and pressed the cool cloth - once white on her wedding day, but faded by the Carolina humidity to its current cream hue -  against her face. She scooped up a handful of water, which gurgled over flat stones and moved quietly through reeds and high grasses, and wet her thick ebony hair back from her forehead. Matthew glanced at her as he went about uncorking and filling the bottle, thinking of Lucretia Vaughan's repugnant idea concerning Rachel's locks.

Rachel took off her shoes and slid her sore feet into the sun-warmed stream. "ahhhhh, " she said, her eyes closed. "ahhhhhh, that feels better."

Fthrough the woods in the direction they'd come. His face was red-streaked from an unfortunate encounter with a thorn thicket before the sun had appeared, and patches of sweat blotched his shirt. This certainly wasn't horse country, though, and therefore Solomon Stiles and whoever else might be with him would also be travelling on foot. It was rough going, no matter how experienced the leatherstocking. Still, he knew bettet than to underestimate Stiles's tracking skills, if indeed Bidwell had sent men in pursuit.

"I'm tired." Rachel lowered her head. "So tired. I could lie in the grass and sleep."

"I could, as well. That's why we have to keep moving."

She opened her eyes and looked at him, a pattern of leaf-shadow and morning sun on her face. "Don't you know you've given up everythingi"

Matthew didn't respond. She'd asked him this question earlier, at the violet-blushed dawn, and neither had he answered then.

"You have, " she said. "For whati Mei"

"For the truth." He removed the bottle from the stream and pushed its cork back in.

"The truth was worth so muchi"

"Yes." He returned the bottle to his shoulderbag, and then he sat down in the wiry grass because - though his spirit was willing - his aching legs were not yet ready to travel again. "I believe I know who killed Reverend Grove and your husband. also this person was responsible for the ratcatcher's murder."

"Linch was murderedi"

"Yes, but don't trouble yourself over him. He was as vile as his killer. almost. But I believe I know the motive, and how these so-called witnesses were turned against you. They really did think they saw you... um... in unholy relations, so they were not lying." He cupped some water from the stream and wet his face. "Or, at least, they didn't realize they were."

"You know who killed Danieli" Her eyes had taken on a hint of fury. "Who was iti"

"If I spoke the name, your response would be incredulity. Then, after I'd explained the reasoning, it would be anger. armed with what you know, you would wish to go back to Fount Royal and bring the killer to justice... but I fear that is impossible."

"Whyi If you know the namei"

"Because the cunning fox has erased all evidence, " Matthew said. "Murdered it, so to speak. There is no proof whatsoever. So I would say a name to you, and you would be forever anguished that nothing can be done, just as I shall be." He shook his head. "It's best that only one of us drinks from that poisoned cup."

She pondered this for a moment, watching the flowing stream, and then she said, "Yes. I would want to go back."

"You may as well forget Fount Royal. I think the final hand has been dealt to Bidwell's folly, anyway." He roused himself and, considering that he wanted to put at least ten more miles at their backs before sundown, he stood up. He took a moment to study the map and align himself with the compass, during which Rachel put her shoes back on. Then Rachel pulled herself up too, wincing at the stiffness of her legs.

She looked around at the green-leafed trees, then up at the azure sky. after so long being confined, she was still half-dazed with the pine-perfumed breeze of freedom. "I feel so small, " she said. "Hardly worth the sacrifice of a young man's life."

"If the young man has anything to do with it, " he said, "it will not be a sacrifice. are you readyi"

"I am."

They set off again, crossing the stream and heading once more into the dense forest. Matthew might not be a leather-stocking, but he was doing all right. Even very well, he thought. He had gone so far as to cinch the buckskin knife in its sheath around his waist in the best Indian-scout tradition, so the blade's handle was within easy reach.

Of Indians they'd seen not a footprint nor a feather. The wild beasts they'd encountered, not counting the chirping birds in the trees, consisted of a profusion of squirrels and a black snake coiled on a sun-splashed rock. The most difficult part of the journey so far had been the two miles of tidewater swamp they'd negotiated upon leaving Fount Royal.

But the land was God and Devil both, Matthew mused, because it was so beautiful and frighteningly vast in the sunny hours - but in the night, he knew, the demons of the unknown would creep to their pinestick fire and whisper of terrors beyond the circle of light. He had never ventured into a territory where there were no paths at all, just massive oaks, elms, and huge pines with cones the size of cannonballs, a carpet of leaf decay and pine needles in some places ankle deep, and the feeling that one would survive or perish here almost at the whim of Fate. Thank God for the map and the compass, or he would have already misplaced his sense of direction.

The land rose, forcing them up a slight but rugged incline. at its top, a crust of red rocks afforded a view of more unbroken wilderness stretching beyond the power of the eye. God spoke to Matthew and told him of a country almost too grand to imagine; the Devil spoke in his other ear, and told him such tremendous, fearful expanse and space would be seeded by the bones of some future generation.

They descended, Rachel walking a few paces behind Matthew as he cleaved a path through waist-high grass. Her wedding dress made a rustling sound, and small thorny pods stung her legs and clung to her hem.

as the sun continued its climb, the day warmed. Matthew and Rachel walked through a forest of gigantic, primeval trees where the hot sun was bright one second, streaming between the limbs seventy feet above, and the next second the shadows were dark green and as cool as caverns. Here they saw their first true wilderness creatures: four grazing does and a huge, watchful buck with a spread of antlers easily five feet across. The does lifted their heads to stare at the two humans, the buck gave a snort and bounded between his charges and the intruders, and then suddenly all the animals turned and vanished into the green curtains.

Not very further on, Matthew and Rachel again stopped at the edge of light and shadows. "What are thosei" Rachel asked, her voice tensing.

Matthew approached the nearest oak. It was a Goliath of a tree that must've stood a hundred feet tall and had a trunk thirty feet around, but it was by no means the largest in these ancient woods. Lichens and moss had been pulled away from the trunk.

Carved into the bark were man-shaped pictograms, swirling symbols, and sharp-edged things that might have been the representations of arrowheads. Matthew saw that it was indeed not the only trunk so adorned; a dozen more trees had been carved upon, displaying the figures of more humans, deer, what might have been the sun or moon, and waved lines that possibly stood for wind or water, among a variety of other symbols.

"They're Indian signs, " Rachel said, answering her own question, as Matthew ran his fingers over a head-high symbol that seemed to either be a frightfully large man or a bear. "We must be in their territory."

"Yes, we must." ahead of them, in that vast shadowy forest, were a few more carved trunks beyond the main line of decorated trees, and then beyond those the oaks were unadorned. Matthew consulted his map and compass once again.

"Perhaps we should change our route, " Rachel suggested.

"I don't think changing our route would suffice. according to the compass, we're moving in the proper direction. I also think it would be difficult to say what was Indian territory and what was not." Uneasily, he looked around. a breeze stirred the leaves far overhead, making the shadows and sunlight shift. "The sooner we get through here, the better, " he said, and he started walking again.

In an hour of rigorous travel, during which they saw thirty or forty more grazing deer, they emerged from the green forest into a wide clearing and in so doing were greeted with an amazing sight. Nearby a hundred wild turkeys the size of sheep were pecking in the grass and brush, and the intrusion of humans startled them to ungainly flight. The wind of their wings fanned the clearing and made a sound like the onrush of a hurricane.

"Oh!" Rachel cried out. "Look there!" She pointed, and Matthew's sight followed the line of her finger to a small lake whose still water reflected blue sky and golden Sol. "I'm going to rest here, " she told him, her eyes weary. "I'm going to take a bath and wash the gaol smell off me."

"We should keep moving."

"Can we not make our camp here for the nighti"

"We could, " Matthew said, judging the sun's progress, "but there's still plenty of light. I didn't intend to camp until nightfall."

"I'm sorry, but I must rest, " she insisted. "I can hardly feel my legs anymore. and I must bathe, too."

Matthew scratched his forehead. He, as well, was just about worn to a nubbin. "all right. I think we might stay here for an hour or so." He slipped the bag's strap off his chafed shoulder and retrieved the soapcake, offering it to her further amazement. "Never let it be said I did not bring civilization to the wilderness."

at this point in their relationship, which seemed more intimate than the wedded state, it was nonsense for Matthew to walk into the dark line of woods and afford Rachel privacy. Neither did she expect it. On the edge of the lake, as Matthew reclined on his back and stared up at the sky, Rachel took off her shoes and the faded bridal dress and waded naked into the water to her waist. She turned her back to the shore and soaped her private area, then her stomach and breasts. Matthew glanced once... then again... a third time, more than a glance... at her brown body, made lean by gaolhouse soup. He might have counted her ribs, if he'd chosen. Her body was womanly, yes, but there was a hardness of purpose to it as well, a purity of the will to survive. He watched as she walked deeper into the water, chillbumps rippling across her taut skin even as the sun soothed her. She leaned over and wet het hair, then soaped a lather into it.

Matthew sat up and pulled his knees to his chin. His thorn-cut face had blushed at the image in his mind: that of his own hands, moving over the curves and hollows of Rachel's body as if they too were explorers in a new territory. a winged insect of some kind buzzed his head, which helped to distract him from that line of thought.

after her hair was washed and she was feeling clean, Rachel's attention returned again to Matthew. also returned was her sense of modesty, as if the gaol's grime had clothed her from view and now she was truly naked. She knelt down in the water, up to her neck, and approached the shore.

Matthew was eating half of a slice of ham from the food package, and had set aside the other half for Rachel. He saw she intended to emerge from the water, so he turned his back. She came out of the lake, dripping, and stood for a moment to dry herself, her face offered to the sun.

"I fear you'll have to invent a falsehood when you enter a Spanish town or stockade, " Matthew said, painfully aware of how near she stood. "I doubt even the Spanish would care to grant sanctuary to an accused witch." He finished the ham and licked his fingers, watching her shadow on the ground. "You should claim yourself to be an escaped household servant, or simply a wife who sickened of British rule. Once they know your country of birth, you should have no troubles." again that insect - no, two of them - buzzed around him, and he waved them away.

"Wait, " she said, picking up her wedding dress. "You're speaking only of me. What about youi"

"I am helping you reach the Florida country... but I'm not going to stay there with you." Rachel let this revelation sink in as she put her dress back on.

He had seen her shadow don the garment, so he turned toward her again. Her beauty - the thick, wet black hair, the lovely proud face and intense amber eyes - was enough to quicken his heart. The nightbird was even more compelling by day. He sighed and chose to stare at the ground once more. "I'm an Englishman, " he said. "Bound by the conventions and laws of English life, whether I like them or not. I couldn't survive in a foreign land." Matthew managed a brief, halfhearted smile. "I should be too longing for boiled potatoes and roast beef. Besides... Spanish is not my tongue."

"I don't understand you, " she said. "What kind of man are you, who does what you've done and expects nothing in returni"

"Oh, I do expect something, make no mistake. I expect to be able to go on living with myself. I expect you will return to Portugal, or Spain, and rebuild your life. I expect to see Magistrate Woodward again and plead my case before him."

"I expect you'll find yourself behind stronger bars than held me, " Rachel said.

"a possibility, " he admitted. "a likelihood. But I won't stay there long. Here, do you want thisi" He held up the portion of ham for her.

She accepted it. "How can I tell you how much this means to me, Matthewi"

"Whati One half slice of hami If it means so much, you can have a whole - "

"You know what I'm saying, " she interrupted. "What you've done. The incredible risk." Her face was grim and set, but tears glistened in her eyes. "My God, Matthew. I was ready to die. I had given up my spirit. How can I ever repay such a debti"

"It is I who owe the debt. I came to Fount Royal a boy. I left it as something more, " Matthew said. "You should sit down and rest."

She did sit down, and pressed her body against his as if they sat crushed by a crowd of a thousand people, instead of just alone in this God-made, Devil-touched land. He started to move away, discomforted by his own reaction to her closeness, but she gently grasped his chin with her left hand.

"Listen to me, " Rachel said, in what was nearly a whisper. Her eyes stared into his own, their faces only parted by a few inches of inconsequential air. "I loved my husband very much, " she said. "I gave him my heart and my soul. Even so, I think... I could love you the same... if you would allow it."

The few inches of air shrank. Matthew did not know who had first leaned toward the other, but did it really matteri One leaned and one met, and that was both the geometry and poetry of their kiss.

Though Matthew had never before done this, it seemed a natural act. What was most alarming was the speed of his heart, which if it had been a horse might have reached Boston by first star. Something inside him seemed molten, like blue-flamed glass being changed and reshaped by the power of a breath. It was both strengthening and weakening, thrilling and frightening -  again that conjunction of God and Devil that seemed to be at the essence of all things.

It was a moment he would remember the test of his life.

Their lips remained sealed together, melded by bloodheat and heartbeat. Who drew away first was also unknown to Matthew, as time had slipped its boundaries like rain and river.

Matthew looked into Rachel's eyes. The need to speak was as strong as a force of nature. He knew what he would say. He opened his mouth. "I - "

a winged insect suddenly landed on the shoulder of Rachel's wedding dress. His attention was drawn to it, and away from the moment. He saw it was a honeybee. The insect hummed its wings and took flight, and then Matthew was aware of several more of them circling round and round.

"I - " Matthew said again, and suddenly he was not sure at all what he was going to say. She waited for him to speak, but he was speechless.

He stared into her eyes once more. Was it the desire to love him he saw there, or the desire to thank him for the gift of her lifei Did she even know which emotion reigned in her hearti Matthew didn't think so.

Even as they travelled together, they were moving in opposite directions. It was a bitter realization, but a true one. Rachel was bound for a place he could not live, and he must live in a place where she could not be bound.

He dropped his gaze from her. She, too, had realized that there could be no future for two such as them, and that Daniel was still as close to her as the dress she had worn on the day of their joining. She drew away from Matthew, and then noticed the circling insects.

"Honeybees." Matthew scanned the clearing, his eyes searching. and there it was!

a stand of two dead oaks - probably lightning-struck, he thought - stood apart from the main line of forest, fifty yards from the lake's edge. Near the top of one of them was a large knothole. around it the air was alive with a dark, shifting mass. Sunlight made a stream of liquid down the tree's trunk shine gold.

"Where there are honeybees, " Matthew said, "there is honey." He took the bottle from the bag, emptied its water - since fresh water was an abundant resource at this distance from the seacoast and swamp - and stood up. "I'll see if I can obtain us some."

"I'll help." She started to stand, but Matthew put his hand on her shoulder.

"Rest while you can, " he advised. "We're going to have to move on very soon."

Rachel nodded and relaxed again. In truth, she would have to summon the energy for their continued journey, and a walk to a dead tree fifty yards there and back - even for the sweet delicacy of honey - strained her imagination.

Matthew, however, was intent on it, particularly after their kiss and the jarring return to reality that had followed. as Matthew started toward the tree, Rachel warned, "Take care you're not stung! The honey wouldn't be worth it!"

"agreed." But he'd seen the spill of golden nectar down the trunk from what appeared a very copious comb, and he felt sure he might at least get a bottleful without incurring rage.

The bees had been highly productive. The honey had streamed down from forty feet above all the way to the ground, where a sticky puddle had accumulated. Matthew drew the knife from its sheath, uncorked the bottle, and held it into the flow, at the same time pushing the thick elixir - a natural medicine good for all ills, Dr. Shields would have said - in with his blade. a few bees hummed around, but they did not strike and seemed mostly curious. He could hear the steady, more ominous tone of the large dark mass of them as they went about their business tending the comb.

as he worked, Matthew's mind went to the magistrate. The letter would have been long read by now. Whether it had been digested or not was more difficult to say. Matthew listened to the singing of birds in the forest beyond, and wondered whether the magistrate might be able to hear such song at this very moment, or be able to see the sun on this cloudless day. What must Isaac be thinkingi Matthew fervently hoped that he'd written the missive coherently - and eloquently - enough so that Isaac would know he was in his right mind, and adamant about Smythe being located. If that man would agree to talk, then much could be -

Matthew paused in his work, the bottle near halfway filled. Something had changed, he thought.

Something.

He listened. He could still hear the drone of the working bees. But... the birdsong. Where was the birdsongi Matthew looked toward the shadowed line of forest.

The birds had ceased their singing.

a movement to the left caught his eye. Three crows burst from the foliage, cawing loudly as they shot across the clearing.

Beside the lake, Rachel lay on her back, drowsing. The voices of the crows came to her, and she opened her eyes in time to watch the birds pass overhead.

Matthew stood motionless, staring at the impenetrable area from which the crows had come.

another movement seized his attention. Far up in the sky, a single vulture was slowly wheeling around and around.

all the saliva had left his mouth and become cold sweat on his face. The sensation of danger stabbed him like a knife in the neck.

He felt certain something in the woods was watching him.

Moving with careful deliberation though his nerves shrieked to turn and run, Matthew pushed the cork back into the bottle. His right fist tightened around the knife's handle. He began to retreat from the honey-flowing tree, one step at the time, his eyes darting back and forth across the treacherous woods.

"Racheli" he called. His voice cracked. He tried again. "Racheli!" This time he looked over his shoulder to see if she'd heard.

a heavy form suddenly exploded from its place of concealment at the forest's edge. Rachel was the first to see it, by only a second, and she let go a scream that savaged her throat.

Then Matthew faced it too. His feet seemed rooted to the earth, his eyes wide and his mouth open in a soundless cry of terror.

The monstrous bear that was racing toward him was an old warrior and fully gray. Patches of ashy malignant mange infected its shoulders and legs. Its jaws were stretched to receive human flesh, streams of drool flying back past its head. Matthew had just an instant to register that the bear's left eye socket was puckered and empty, and he knew.

He was about to be embraced by Jack One Eye.

Maude... at Shawcombe's tavern... Jack One Eye hain't jus' a burr. Ever'thin' dark 'bout this land... ever'thin' cruel, and wicked.

"Rachel!" he screamed, twisting toward her and running for his life. "Get in the water!"

There was nothing she could do to help him except pray to God he made the lake. She ran toward the water and leaped into it, swimming in her bridal dress toward deep water.

Matthew dared not look behind. His legs were pumping furiously, his face distorted by fear, his heart on the verge of bursting. He heard the thunderous impact of paws behind him, gaining ground, and he knew with awful certainty that he would never reach the lake.

He clenched his teeth and threw himself to the left - the bear's blind side - at the same time letting out a shriek that he hoped might startle the beast enough to give him extra time. Jack One Eye hurtled past him, its rear claws digging up furrows of earth. a front claw swung and made the air between them shimmer.

Then Matthew was running for the lake again, dodging and swerving with every step. again the earth trembled at his heels. The bear was bigger than the biggest horse he'd ever seen, and it could crush every bone in his body just with its forward progress alone.

Matthew leaped to the left in a maneuver that nearly snapped his knees. He almost lost his balance as the bear went past, its massive mange-riddled head thrusting in search of him. The jaws came together with a noise like a musket shot. He smelled the reeking bestial stink of the thing, and was close enough to see the broken shafts of four arrows in its side. Then he was running again, and he prayed that God grant him the speed of a crow.

again Jack One Eye was almost upon him. again Matthew lunged to the left - but this time he had misjudged both the geometry and the flexibility of his knees. The angle was too sharp and his feet skidded out from beneath him. He went down on his right side in the grass. He was only vaguely aware of Rachel's screams through the thunder in his head. The gray wall of Jack One Eye rose before him. He staggered up, fighting for balance.

Something hit him.

He had the impression of the world turned upside down. a searing pain filled his left shoulder. He knew he was tumbling head over heels, but could do nothing about it. Then he landed hard on his back, the breath bursting from his lungs. He tried to scramble away, as again that gray wall came upon him. Something was wrong with his left arm.

Matthew was struck in the ribs on the left side by a red-hot cannonball that picked him up and flung him like a grainsack. Something grazed by his forehead while he was tumbling - a musket ball, he thought it must be, here on this field of battle -  and a red film descended over his eyes. Blood, he thought. Blood. He hit the ground, was dragged and tossed again. His teeth snapped together. I'm going to die, he thought. Right here. This sunny, clear day. I am going to die.

His left arm was already dead. His lungs hitched and gurgled. The mangy gray wall was there in his face again, there with an arrow shaft stuck in it.

He decided, almost calmly, that he would do his own sticking.

"Hey!" he hollered, in a voice that surprised him with its desperate power. "Hey!" He brought the knife up and stabbed and twisted and wrenched and stabbed and twisted and wrenched, and the beast grunted roared roared breath hot as Hades smelling of decayed meat and rotten teeth stabbed and twisted and wrenched blood red on the gray streaming down a glorious sight die you bastard you bastard you!

Jack One Eye might be huge, but it had not grown to such a ripe old age by being stupid. The stickings had an effect, and the bear backed away from the mosquito.

Matthew was on his knees. In his right hand, the blade was covered with blood. He heard a dripping, pattering sound, and he looked down at the gore falling into the red-stained grass from the twitching fingers of his left hand. He seemed to be burning up from within, yet the fiery pain of shoulder and ribs and forehead was not what made him sob. He had peed in his breeches, and he had brought no other pair.

Jack One Eye circled him to the left. Matthew turned with the beast, dark waves beginning to fill his head. He heard, as if from another world, the sound of a woman - Rachel was her name, Rachel yes Rachel - screaming his name and crying. He saw blood bubbling around the bear's nostrils, and crimson matted the gray fur at its throat. Matthew was near fainting, and he knew when that happened he was dead.

The bear suddenly stood up on its hind legs, to a height of eight feet or more. It opened its broken-toothed mouth. What emerged was a hoarse, thunderous, and soul-shaking roar that brimmed with agony and perhaps the realization of its own mortality. Two snapped arrow shafts were buried in festered flesh at the beast's belly, near a bloody-edged claw wound that must have been delivered by one of its own breed. Matthew also saw that a sizeable bite had been ripped from Jack One Eye's right shoulder, and this ugly wound was green with infection.

It occurred to him, in his haze of pain and the knowledge of his impending departure from this earth, that Jack One Eye was dying too.

The bear fell back down onto its haunches. ami now Matthew pulled himself up, staggered and fell, pulled himself up again, and shouted, "Haaaaaaaaaaa!" in the maw of the beast.

after which he fell to the ground once more, into his own blood. Jack One Eye, its nostrils dripping gore, shambled toward him with its jaws open.

Matthew wasn't ready to die yet. Come all this way, to die in a clearing under the sun and God's blue skyi No, not yet.

He came up with the sheer power of desperation and drove the blade under the bear's jaw, giving the knife a violent ripping twist. Jack One Eye gave a single grunt, snorted blood into Matthew's face, and pulled back, taking the imbedded blade with it. Matthew fell on his belly, the pain in his ribs making him curl up like a stomped worm.

again the bear circled him to the left, shaking its head back and forth in an effort to rid itself of the stinger that had pierced its throat. Banners of blood flew in the air from its nostrils. Even on his belly, Matthew crawled to keep the beast from getting behind him. Suddenly Jack One Eye came in again, and Matthew pulled himself up, throwing his right arm up over his face to protect what was left of his skull.

The movement made the bear turn aside. Jack One Eye backed away, its single orb blinking and glazed. The bear lost its equilibrium for a second and staggered on the edge of falling. It caught itself, then stood less than fifteen feet from Matthew, staring at him with its head lowered and its arrow-stubbled sides heaving. Its gray tongue emerged, licking at the bleeding nostrils.

Matthew pulled himself up to his knees, his right hand clutching his ribs on the left side. It seemed the most important thing in the world to him, to keep his hand pressed there so that his entrails would not stream out.

The world, red-tainted and savage, had dwindled to the single space of distance between man and animal. They stared at each other, measuring pain, blood, life, and death each by their own calculations.

Jack One Eye made no sound. But the ancient, wounded warrior had reached a decision.

It abruptly turned away from Matthew. It began half-loping, half-staggering across the clearing the way it had come, shaking its head back and forth in a vain effort to dislodge the blade. In another moment the beast entered its wilderness again.

and Jack One Eye was gone.

Matthew fell forward onto the bloody battleground, his eyes closed. In his realm of drifting, he thought he heard a high-pitched and piercing cry: Hiyiiiiiiii! Hiyiiiiiiii! Hiyiiiiiiii! The vulture's voice, he thought. The vulture, swooping down upon him.

Tired. So... very... very... tired. Rachel. What... is to... become... of...

The vulture, swooping down.

Screaming Hiyiiiiiiii! Hiyiiiiiiii! Hiyeeeeee!

Matthew felt himself fall away from the earth, toward that distant territory so many explorers had gone to journey through, and from which return was impossible.