Mister Slaughter

PaRT FOUR: Rattlesnake Country Chapter Twenty-One

 

  after Lark had told her story, Matthew walked for the second time into the blood-stained kitchen, not to further test his stomach but to reaffirm that this hideous, unbelievable sight was inconvertibly true.

  The scene of carnage had not changed. He put his hand to his mouth once again, but it was only a reflex action; he had not yet lost his breakfast of cattail roots nor the midday meal of dried meat and a handful of berries, which meant that he was either toughening up or that the food was too precious to expel. He thought the latter was more likely, for he never wished to be tough enough to take a sight like this without feeling sick.

  He walked around the kitchen, avoiding the blood and in the case of Peter Lindsay, the brains that had been blown out the back of the head. He was looking for details, as the sunlight through the window shimmered in the gore and the flies buzzed back and forth on their industrious journeys.

  No boots on the man's corpse. Slaughter's old boots, taken of course from Reverend Burton, were lying on the floor. Couldn't Slaughter just ask for a damned pair of bootsi Matthew wondered. Or at the very least take them without stealing someone's lifei God damn the man! Steady, steady, he told himself. There was no use in losing control. He was shaking a little bit, and he had to get a grip. Slaughter would not be Slaughter, if he asked for things he desired. No, Slaughter's way was to take, and to kill, and however senseless it seemed to Matthew it must make some kind of sense to the killer. Or not. Matthew thought that Slaughter was a breed apart; a human being who detested the very air that other humans breathed, who hated people right down to their shadows. But to kill children

  Matthew picked up a green marble from the table. No, it was not altogether green. It had within it a swirl of blue. It was a beautiful thing, polished and smooth. He had it in mind that he should put two or three of these marbles in his pocket, to rub between his fingers, to remind himself that beyond the ugliness and evil of what had happened here there still remained beauty in the world. But he had no wish to rob the dead and, besides, marbles were for boys. He was far from boyhood now. Getting older, he thought, by the minute.

  He put the marble back where it was, looked at all the food on the table and knew that Greathouse might be able to cast the corpses out of his mind and feast on the leftovers, but Matthew would rather have eaten cattail roots and dried meat for a week rather than touch any of this tainted groaning board. Or perhaps, he suspected, he wasn't hungry enough.

  The pot of soapy water on the table drew his attention. In it he saw floating hair of many colors. Slaughter had gotten his shave; one more step toward his presentation as an earl, a duke, or a marquis, the better to cut the throat of some wealthy widow and throw her in a pauper's grave.

  God damn the man.

  Walker In Two Worlds came into the room. This was also his second visit here; his face was impassive, his eyes fixed only on Matthew. But he looked tired and drawn, and even his feathers seemed to have wilted like the petals of a dying flower.

  "Slaughter went up the hillside," he reported. "I caught sight of him, moving among some boulders. He got into the woods before I could draw my bow. "

  Matthew nodded, knowing Walker had chosen the better part of valor-and shown good sense-not to continue the pursuit without having the little bullpup pistol covering his back.

  "It's very thick up in there," Walker said. "Many places to set a trap. "

  "He'll keep going. " Matthew opened his left hand and looked at the two gold coins Lark had given him. They were both five-guinea pieces, the same type as he'd taken from the lockbox in Chapel's house. Some well-to-do traveler or merchant had come to grief on the Philadelphia Pike, and coughed these up for Slaughter and Rattison. "I wonder if he really thinks I'll give up. "

  Now Walker did turn his gaze away from Matthew and with hooded eyes regarded the dead man and the two children. "Will youi"

  Matthew saw a small blood-splattered pillow on the floor, next to one of the chairs. It displayed an embroided picture of a robin sitting on a tree branch.

  "I don't understand your god," said Walker, in a toneless voice. "Our spirits created the world and the heavens and all that we are, but they never promised to keep their eye upon every little bird. I thought your god showed more " He searched his memory for the word. "Compassion. "

  Matthew couldn't reply. Rain fell equally on the just and unjust, he thought. The Bible surely contained more verses and lessons about misery and untimely death. But how could God turn a blind eye to something like thisi The question begged for an answer. More than that; it screamed for an answer. But there was no answer, and Matthew put the two gold coins into his waistcoat pocket along with the other items of jewelry and got out of the kitchen before his sense of dark despair crushed him to his knees.

  Walker followed him. Outside, the girl and her mother sat in the shade of a brilliant yellow elm tree. The girl's back was pressed hard against the trunk, her glazed eyes staring straight ahead, while the mother was chattering with a strange childlike abandon and playing with the hem of her daughter's light blue dress.

  Faith looked up at Matthew as he approached. "are you Mr. Shaynei"

  Her voice was high-pitched and childlike. Matthew thought it was nearer to the voice of a girl seven years old. The sound of it was unsettling, coming from the throat of a woman in her early thirties. But Matthew had already seen the emptiness of the woman's eyes, the scorched shock where a mind used to be, and he thought that here was a patient for the doctors in Westerwicke.

  "No," Matthew said. Lark had previously given him their names and the names of the dead. The girl had come out of the barn like a sleepwalker, her face devoid of expression but for the tear tracks on her cheeks and the grim set of her mouth, and she'd opened her hand to show him the gold coins.

  He says you're square as far as he's concerned, she'd said. Her eyes had rolled back into her head, her knees had buckled and Matthew had caught her just before she fell, as the bedraggled woman in the blue apron with yellow trim emerged from the barn crying for her momma.

  Matthew had known it was going to be bad, in the house. He had eased Lark to the ground against the tree, and he and Walker had gone inside to find the aftermath of Mister Slaughter's visit. Neither one of them had stayed but a moment, in that sunny kitchen with all the food upon the table. It appeared that only one person had left the table well-fed.

  Gone, Lark had said when she could speak again. Not more than ten minutes. Back of the barn.

  Walker had told Matthew to stay where he was, that he was not going to do anything stupid but that he was going to find Slaughter's trail across the apple orchard, and he had set off at a cautious trot. Matthew had sat down beside Lark to hear the story when she was able to give it. Several times Faith Lindsay had asked him if he was Mr. Shayne, and once had inquired when Ruth could come to play.

  Matthew had returned to the house when, after Lark had finished her tale, the girl had begun crying with her hands to her face. Just a little at first, as if she feared releasing what she was holding back within; but then, suddenly and terribly, she had broken. It had begun as a wail that Slaughter must have heard as he climbed the hillside toward the deeper woods. and as Lark had sobbed and trembled her mother had rubbed her shoulder and whispered in the little-girl voice, "Don't cry, Momma, don't cry. We'll get the lace tomorrow. "

  Lark had lifted her agonized face and stared at her mother, who said brightly, "For the dolls, Momma. You know. To make their dresses. " Which was when Matthew had gone into the house for the second time, preferring for the moment the silent company of the dead to the tortures of the living.

  "Why are you wearing thati" Faith asked of the Indian, as Walker came up beside Matthew and Lark blinked, looking around herself as if trying to determine who was speaking.

  "I am a Seneca," Walker replied. The woman was obviously puzzled, for she frowned and shook her head. She ret
urned to her task of smoothing and smoothing and smoothing the hem of Lark's dress.

  Matthew knelt down beside Lark. "The man's name is Tyranthus Slaughter. He's a " She already knew that part about him being a killer, so it was not necessary. "Escaped prisoner," he said. "Walker In Two Worlds is helping me track him. I'm going to take him to the gaol in New York. "

  The girl's mouth gave a bitter twist. "You arei Howi"

  "I have a pistol in my bag. Walker has his arrows. We'll run him to ground, eventually. "

  "Eventually," she repeated. "How long is thati"

  "as long as it takes. "

  "He said he's going to Philadelphia. We told him about Caulder's Crossing, that it was just a few miles from the Pike. " She caught her breath, as if she'd suddenly been struck. Her eyes again filled with tears. "Why did he have to kill themi Why did he have to kill themi"

  "Shhhhh, Momma, don't cry," Faith fretted.

  "Matthew. " Walker stood over him. "We shouldn't waste time or daylight. We can catch him before dark, if we start now. "

  "Start nowi" Lark's bloodshot eyes widened. "You can't leave us here! Not with in there. "

  "There's no time to bury them. " It was a statement of fact, and spoken with the hard truth of the Indian.

  "Caulder's Crossing is eight miles. I can't walk with my mother, like she is. Not alone. and what if he comes out of the woods while we're on the roadi If he caught us out there " She left the rest of it unspoken.

  That was why Slaughter had destroyed the wagon's wheel, Matthew thought. He'd seen it in the barn. Lark and her mother could have taken the wagon to town, but Slaughter had wanted to slow his pursuers down in case the bribe didn't work. Thus Matthew and Walker were now encumbered by a desperate sixteen-year-old girl and a woman with the mind of a seven-year-old.

  "You look funny," said Faith to the Indian.

  He ignored the comment. "You'll have to either stay here or walk the road. We don't have time to throw away. "

  "Spoken," Matthew said quietly, "like Mr. Oxley. "

  Walker turned upon him with something like cold fury on his face, though it would have been barely perceptible to anyone but Matthew. "Did you see what I saw in that kitcheni The hand of a monsteri If you want him to escape, just keep standing here enjoying the shade. Do we go, or noti" Exasperated when Matthew didn't immediately respond, Walker asked Lark, "are there saddles for the horsesi"

  "No. They either pull the plow or the wagon. "

  Walker spoke in his own language, and from the sound of it even an Englishman couldn't have expressed a more vehement oath.

  Matthew had decided. "There's a third choice. They come with us. "

  "You are mad," Walker shot back, in his own calm but devastating fashion. "Those woods at the top of the hill are thicker than what we went through this morning. We'd be slowed to a crawl. "

  "at least we'd be moving. "

  "Yes, at the pace of a girl and a girl," he said. "Matthew, we can't take them up in there! One broken ankle, and we're done. "

  "Slaughter won't have an easy time of it, either. He'll be moving faster than us, yes, but he's still leaving a trail, isn't hei" Matthew held up his leather-wrapped hand when Walker started to protest again. "If he's not heading for Caulder's Crossing, he's heading for the Pike. Maybe he hopes he can get a ride from there. But if his trail leads to the Crossing, that's where we can leave them. " He motioned toward Lark and her mother, the former paying close attention and the latter totally oblivious.

  Walker stared at the ground. after a moment he said tersely, "They'll need food. a piece of the ham and some cornbread should do. Something to carry it in. and cloaks or a blanket. Warm, but light. a flask for water. The sturdiest shoes they have, too. "

  Lark got up and, with a quick glance and a nod of thanks at Matthew, set her jaw and started into the house. at once Faith was after her. "Momma! Momma! Where're you goingi"

  "I'm going inside," Lark answered, pausing at the door.

  "Inside," the woman said.

  "Inside our house. I have to get us some things before we go. Do you understand that, Motheri"

  "Our housei" There was something ominous in the reply. She kept her gaze fixed on her daughter's face, and Matthew saw the woman's lips try to make words. Nothing came out at first. Then she said, in a dazed voice that was midway between a woman's and a child's, "I'm not I'm not your mother. "

  "Yes, you are. I'm Lark. Don't you know mei"

  "Lark," she repeated, as if she'd never heard it before.

  "Mother, we have to leave here. I'm going inside now. I want you to stay-"

  "I don't want you to go inside, Momma," said the little girl, clutching at Lark's hand. It must have been a painful grip, for Matthew saw Lark flinch. "Please. " She leaned her head forward, her eyes wide, and whispered, "I'm afraid of that place. "

  "I'm afraid of it, too. But I have to go. " Lark slowly eased her hand free. "Faith," she said, "I want you to stay out here, with them. "

  "Mr. Shayne and the funny man. "

  "That's right. Will you do that for mei" Something dark, like the shadow of a passing cloud, moved across her face. "Will you do that for your mommai"

  "Yes'm," came the reply. all seemed to be well again, in the land of faraway and long ago. But not entirely well; again she leaned forward, and this time whispered, "The funny man doesn't have on enough clothes. "

  Lark went into the house. Faith came over toward Matthew and Walker-but not too close-and sat down once more on the ground.

  When Matthew looked into Walker's face, he saw the Indian's eyes burning holes through him. Walker abruptly turned away, and strode in the direction of the orchard.

  In less than three minutes Lark re-emerged, ashen-faced and silent, with a dark brown cloak, a second cloak the gray of morning mist, and around her shoulder a canvas bag stitched with red and yellow flowers. She had not changed her shoes, as they appeared sturdy enough, but she'd brought for her mother a leather pair to trade for the fabric slippers Faith wore. as Lark put the shoes on her mother's feet, Faith did not seem to note all the blood on the slippers that were removed. Then Lark put the dark brown cloak around Faith's shoulders, fastened it at the throat, and they stood up.

  "Where are we goingi" Faith asked, as Lark took her hand.

  "To Mrs. Janepenny's house," was the response. "I think I'd like to get that lace. "

  "Isn't Daddy comingi"

  "No. We'll meet Daddy later on. "

  The answer seemed to make Faith happy. But as Matthew, Lark and Faith met Walker behind the house and began to make their way through the orchard toward the rocky hillside ahead, the woman abruptly stopped and looked back, and Matthew stopped also. Lark pulled at her mother's hand and said firmly, "Come on, we have to keep going. "

  "This isn't the way. To Mrs. Janepenny's. I don't know where " again, the voice was wavering between age and youth, anguish and innocence. "I don't know where I am," she said, and Matthew saw the bright tears begin to roll down her cheeks.

  "You're with me, dear," Lark answered. Matthew thought it took a brave soul to keep a steady voice, to betray not a quaver nor a tremble, for surely she knew that this was not the worst part; surely she knew that the worst would come when-if-her mother's mind fully awakened from this protective dream. "You're with me. That's all that matters. "

  "I am I am Faith Burgess," the woman said, as if speaking to the house. "Faith Burgess," she repeated, and now lifted her chin as any child might, in defiance of some imagined horror that might lie beyond the walls.

  "We're going to Mrs. Janepenny's by a different way," Lark told her. "Look at me. " The woman tore her gaze away from the house, the cords standing up in her neck, and obeyed. "We're going up the hill and through the woods. I want you to be careful where you step. If you need help, ask me. But try to keep up, because we're in well, Mr. Shayne and his friend are in a hurry, and they've offered to take us with them. all righ
ti"

  "The hilli" Faith's manner of speech had fully become the child's again. "What hill, Mommai"

  "The one I'm going to help you climb," said Lark.

  Faith nodded, but her eyes were blank. "Yes'm. "

  Matthew saw that Walker had gone ahead. He was waiting on one knee at the base of the hill about forty yards away. The hill was stubbled with large boulders and spindly pines, and at the top the woods boiled up in a thick chaos of green, yellow, purple and red. as Walker had said, many places to set a trap.

  Faith turned her back to the house. She began walking, her hand held firm in Lark's, and together they left the dead behind.