“What is it, then?” Greathouse prodded.
Matthew started to speak. To say what? He wasn’t sure. Possibly I am a rich man or It’s not fair, I found the money, me alone, and it’s not fair…
The world spun about him, and in the air he smelled the faint burned scent of autumn’s decay.
Matthew said, with what seemed a genuine labor, “I…am…” And then the rest of it spilled out: “…afraid of him.”
Greathouse grunted, his face screwed up in a scowl. But slowly the scowl eased, Greathouse dropped his white rock and put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “Listen, so am I. A little, maybe. But I’ll take care of everything. Just follow along with me, all right?”
Tell him, he thought. And demanded of himself: Tell him!
But he did not, and he stood looking down at all the leaves at his feet as if the earth might open and swallow him up in an instant.
“Come on.” Greathouse clapped his shoulder. “Let’s get to it.”
Matthew followed Greathouse to the wagon, where Slaughter still lay with his eyes closed like a beast dozing in the shifting sunbeams. Two more flies had found him and were whirling about his face. Matthew wondered how many he’d dined on since he’d been lying there.
Greathouse slammed his palm against the side of the wagon, which caused Slaughter only to lift his eyelids to half-mast and yawn. “Saying we might believe you,” Greathouse told him roughly, “and that we might be interested. How far down that road do we go?”
Slaughter worked his head from side to side, stretching his neck. “To the end of it, as I’ve already said.”
“How far?”
“Oh…six miles west, along the river. Then the road takes a turn to the southwest. Another four miles, I’d say. Ten miles in all.”
“Ten miles? That’s a long way, with these horses.”
“You make a journey,” said Slaughter, “with the horses you have.”
Greathouse suddenly reached over and grabbed hold of the prisoner’s beard, which served to secure Slaughter’s full attention. “If we drive ten miles to the end of that road and no safebox is buried there, I won’t be pleased. Those doctors may have promised the Quakers you’d get to New York alive, but I’m a Baptist. If I decide not to kill you, I’ll at least give you some marks to remember. I may even tear off that damned beard.” He gave it a steady pull, but Slaughter gave no reaction. “Do you understand me? Just nod.”
Slaughter did.
Greathouse released him. He wiped his hand down the leg of his breeches, leaving a dirty smear. He said to Matthew, “Get up there and work the horses back.”
Matthew climbed up onto the seat and put the pistol beside him where he could reach it in a hurry if he heard the chains rattle. He lifted the brake, took the reins and started urging the team to backstep as Greathouse took hold of one of the wheels and pushed against it. Soon they had retreated the wagon to just beyond the turnoff. Then Greathouse climbed up again, took the pistol and turned around on the seat to watch Slaughter.
“All right, Matthew,” said Greathouse. “Let’s go.”
Matthew hesitated on the verge of flicking the reins. Tell him, he thought. But it was a quieter, less urgent voice. There was still time. Maybe in the next mile or two. He would have to think about it a little more. And it might not be necessary to tell. Not necessary at all. If the safebox was really there, and it held the treasure as Slaughter said…then why would it ever be necessary?
Still, he had a taste of ashes in his mouth, and his fine suit did not seem to hang so well on his frame as it had before.
He flicked the reins. The team started walking, one of the horses snorting at this indignity of the driver not knowing whether he was going backward or forward.
They entered the woods on the narrow road. The canopy of trees closed above their heads. It was only after another minute or so that Matthew pulled himself out of his thoughts to realize they were heading directly into the oncoming storm.
Ten
BENEATH a sky the color of lead and just as heavy, they heard the wind approaching through the forest. On a hillside in the distance, through a break in the trees, they saw huge branches whipping back and forth and hundreds of scarlet leaves spinning into the air. Then the white veil of rain descended over the view, and though it was yet a half-mile away they braced for the blast.
Matthew had given the reins to Greathouse about an hour ago and taken over the task of watching the prisoner. Both Matthew and Greathouse wore their cloaks tight about them, and now as the sound of the wind came nearer Greathouse shouted, “Keep the gun dry!”
Matthew put it inside his cloak and kept his hand on the grip. The horses nickered and lifted their heads nervously to protest their course, but Greathouse’s firm control of the reins kept them from going off the road and into the thicket. Matthew saw the prisoner watching him almost incuriously, as one might watch to see what a dog would do when doused with a bucketful of water.
“Here it comes!”
The first swirl of the wind, deceptively meek, came just a few seconds after Greathouse’s voice. And then there was a keen high shrill of air that built to almost a feminine scream and the next blast of wind hit Matthew in the back and almost lifted him off the seat. He had the quick sensation of thinking that the wind was going to get into the flapping folds of his cloak and send him flying. Leaves of a hundred hues of red, purple and yellow struck him, as if the very forest had turned assaulter. He felt the tricorn flip off his head, and that was when Slaughter made his move.
Through the tumult of whirling leaves Matthew saw Slaughter come up from his position of repose like a snake striking from beneath a rock. The noise of the wind masked the rattle of chains, and when Matthew opened his mouth to cry out he knew his voice would be tattered to pieces before it reached Greathouse, who was trying to keep the horses from turning against the onslaught. Slaughter reached out toward Matthew with a claw-like hand, the knives of his nails flashing at Matthew’s eyes.
And even as Matthew struggled to get the pistol out of his cloak and failed to dislodge it, he brought up his other arm, fist clenched, to ward off the coming blow and…
…he saw Slaughter grasp his tricorn, which had blown off his head and which the prisoner had caught before it could go flying off the wagon.
“There you are, Matthew,” said Slaughter, bent with the weight of his irons and speaking close to the younger man’s ear. “You wouldn’t want to lose such a fine hat.” He pushed it into Matthew’s fist until the fist opened to accept it.
“What is it?” Greathouse had looked over his shoulder, his eyes widening as he took in the scene. The horses were still unnerved and tossing their heads against the bit. “Sit down, Slaughter! Now!”
The order could not be obeyed before the rain struck. It came rushing in on the heels of the wind, hit with a cold impact that made breath hitch in the lungs, and within seconds had drenched the three travellers to their skins. Slaughter sank down amid the leaves that littered the wagon, and curled himself up as best he could. Greathouse hollered out a great curse as rain streamed through his brown woolen cap and down his face. Matthew dumped the water out of his tricorn and put it back on, and when he sat there shivering he wasn’t sure if it was due to the chill rain or the fact that Slaughter’s fingernails could have torn out his eyes.
The wind ceased, but the rain kept pouring down. Waterfalls sprang from the treetops. The air itself turned grayish-green, visibility was cut to the edges of what might have been roiling seafoam, and it seemed they were no longer travelling through forest but across an undersea kingdom.
The horses, back to their old stolid selves, pulled the wagon onward with no further dissent. Presently their hooves began to sink in mud. Thoroughly wet and miserable, Matthew thought that now must surely be the time to admit his discovery of the money, and end this travail. They’d already come, by the reckoning of his tailbone, at least six miles due west from the pike and the road was yet to turn to the
southwest as Slaughter had said. Before the storm had hit, Matthew had expected Greathouse to point this fact out to the prisoner, but then again they might not have quite made six miles yet; it was hard to tell, with just these unbroken woods all around. They’d had several glimpses of the river, off to the right, but not a single view of any dwelling built by the hand of man.
Matthew wondered what his fate was going to be when he told. More than a scolding, for sure. A knock on the head, if he was lucky. More than one, depending on Greathouse’s mood, and in this damned rain his mood was certainly going to be deepest black.
“What the hell is this?” Greathouse suddenly said, and Matthew dared to look over his shoulder at what the other man had already seen.
On their left the woods had been cleared away, and emerging from the rain-thrashed gloom were the simple wooden markers of a small cemetery. Matthew counted thirty-eight graves. The surprising thing about it was that the cemetery was so orderly and well-kept, free of weeds, vines and underbrush that normally would have quickly overgrown such a sylvan setting.
“A cabin ahead,” Greathouse said, and in another sticky quarter-revolution of the wheels Matthew also saw it, a dark shape sitting on the right. Then, a second dark structure came out of the rain on the left, this one with a collapsed roof. A third cabin stood just beyond that one, also seemingly abandoned, and as more of them emerged on both sides of the mudtrack Matthew realized it was a village. Or, at least, what had once been a village.
“Slaughter!” Greathouse called, and the prisoner stirred. “Is this the place?”
“No,” came the reply, as he sat up and gazed around with rain running from his beard. “This is New Unity. Rather…it used to be, before I went into the loon house. I wonder what happened to the people.”
“You sure you didn’t kill them?”
“It was an active village when I last passed this way.”
In another moment Matthew caught a whiff of woodsmoke, and he spied a light glinting behind the shutters of a cabin just ahead on the right. “There!” he said, but Greathouse only nodded because he’d already spotted the sign of life. That and the smoke fighting its way up into the sodden air from a fieldstone chimney.
“I think it’s best we get out of this for awhile, if they’ll accept any visitors.” Greathouse started to turn the team toward what appeared to be New Unity’s single occupied dwelling.
“What’re you doing?” Slaughter was up on his knees. “You can’t stop here!”
“I say one miserable wreckage of a village is as good as another in a downpour, especially if there’s a roof and a fire.”
“You can’t!” Slaughter insisted, a note of desperation in his voice. “We’re so close to the fort!”
“The fort? What’re you talking about?”
“Where the safebox is buried. The Dutch settlement at Fort Laurens. We have to keep going, we can get there by—”
“Nightfall?” Greathouse interrupted. “In this rain? Only if we’re kept out of that cabin at gunpoint.” He urged the horses through the muck and off the road. Both he and Matthew had already seen what appeared to be a small barn just beside the cabin, and none of Slaughter’s pleadings about keeping on to Fort Laurens made a whit of difference to either of them; they were drenched, cold and uneasy about this journey, both for their own reasons, and the lamplight behind a shutter was for the remainder of this day at least as good a shine as gold.
If they would be accepted by the occupant here, and that was the question. “Matthew!” Greathouse said. “Go knock at the door.”
“Me? Why me?”
“You’re dressed as a gentleman. A soaking wet one, but a gent all the same. Go.”
Matthew got down off the wagon and went up three stone steps to the cabin’s door, which was set on a porch supported by large flat rocks. The place was made of timbers chinked together with mud, the same as the rest of New Unity’s constructions. Everything was weather-beaten, dark-stained and dismal. The windows were shuttered tight, but through their cracks Matthew saw what appeared to be the light of several candles. He glanced back at the figure of Greathouse, sitting with as much dignity as could be maintained in a cold drenching downpour, and then he balled up his fist and knocked against the door.
He waited, not without trepidation, and heard footsteps approaching across the planks within.
“Who’s there, please?” came a voice from the other side. A feeble, quiet voice, but carrying perhaps also an expectant note. The voice of an elderly man, Matthew thought.
“Travellers,” Matthew replied. “The storm caught us. May we rest here for awhile? Or at least, in your barn?”
There was a pause. Then: “How many are you?”
“Three.”
“Going to…where?”
“Fort Laurens,” Matthew said.
Again, a pause. Matthew thought the speaker must’ve gone away. Then, quite abruptly, the door was opened. The old man who peered out held a candle in a wooden holder. The flickering light painted him with orange and yellow. He was lean, rawboned, and of medium height, yet had been much taller in his youth for now his back was stooped with the ravages of age. His face was a mass of lines and wrinkles, like a map that itself had been left out in the rain and crumpled by a careless fist. His remaining tufts of hair were wintry white and as fine as the first frost, but his white eyebrows had grown as thick as summer’s cornfields. He angled his head to the left and then to the right, and Matthew realized the man’s sunken eyes might only be seeing him as a man-shaped shadow.
“All of you, please come in,” said the old man. He opened the door wider, and Matthew motioned to Greathouse that their request had been granted. “Come in, come in. Warm yourself,” the old man urged. Matthew waited to make sure Greathouse could handle the prisoner on his own, getting him out of the back of the wagon, and then he entered the cabin and went directly to the cheerful crackling fireplace, where he set the pistol atop the mantel, took off his tricorn and basked in the gratifying heat.
“I am John Burton.” The old man had left the door open for his other two guests and had come up beside Matthew. With an age-spotted but steady hand, he lifted the candle nearer Matthew’s face. “Your name, sir?”
“Matthew Corbett.” He heard the rattle of chains coming. “Mr. Burton, I need to tell you that—”
He was interrupted by the noise of the thunderball, which Slaughter had been carrying in his manacled hands, slamming to the boards just outside the door. Matthew winced, thinking that visitors to a stranger’s cabin ought not to destroy the porch floor within the first minute.
“Oh, forgive me,” Slaughter said in the doorway, his back bent with the irons. “I carry a heavy burden, sir.”
“Sit down,” Greathouse told him. He shrugged off his wet cloak and threw it upon the prisoner. “Wipe the mud off your feet before you enter a man’s home.”
“If I had shoes, my feet wouldn’t be so muddy, now would they?”
To the credit of his nerves, John Burton had jumped only a bit when the ball had fallen, and had not lost hold of the candle. Matthew saw in the stronger light that Burton’s eyes were nearly opaque, and by the flame glowed with a murky yellow that Matthew thought must be the color of London’s fog. Possibly the man wasn’t completely blind, but most of his sight was surely gone.
“You have a man in chains,” Burton said, again tilting his head this way and that. “A prisoner. Taking him to Fort Laurens, then?”
“Yes, sir,” Greathouse answered. “My name is Hudson Greathouse. Matthew and I are from New York. We appreciate your letting us warm ourselves.”
“Your prisoner. He has a name?”
“Tyranthus Slaughter, at your service,” he said from his seat on the porch, where he was fouling Greathouse’s cloak with his filthy feet. “And you are?”
“John Burton. I should say, Reverend John Burton. I was the minister here.” He hesitated, silent for a few seconds, and then seemed to make a decision. “I am the m
inister here,” he said firmly. “Pick up your chains, and come in.”
“You drop that ball again,” Greathouse warned as Slaughter struggled to his feet, “and I’ll take two balls for one with my boot. Understand?”
Slaughter looked up at him from his crooked posture and grinned wryly. “Put your threats back in your pocket, sir. I promise as a gentleman to be on my best behavior. All right?”
Greathouse motioned the prisoner in. Then he picked up his cloak, surveyed the damage and with a noise of disgust threw it off the porch onto a mound of wet leaves. He closed the door, walked past Slaughter and stood next to Matthew warming himself at the fire. “Ahhh!” he said, holding his palms out. “Much better!”
“Pardon our condition,” Matthew told the minister, realizing they were dripping puddles on the floor. He’d taken stock of the room and seen that, however nearly-blind Burton might be, the place was nevertheless clean and neat. It was by no means up to the standards of the houses in New York, but it was also far from being the hovel that it had appeared from without. On the floor was a mat of woven river reeds. Two chairs, one with a footstool, were arranged before the fieldstone fireplace. A small round table was set between them. Wood had been brought in, and stacked next to the hearth in a leather carry-all. A larger table stood on the other side of the room, also with two chairs, and near it was an old trunk with its lid up displaying iron pots, pans and other cookware within. A ladder led up to what appeared to be a sleeping-loft. Matthew noted a bookcase with ten volumes in it, though how Reverend Burton could read was a mystery. A plain pinewood cupboard stood at the rear of the room. Next to one wall was a minister’s lectern, simple but sturdy, and open atop it was a thick black-bound book that could only have been the Holy Bible. In the corner beside the lectern was something that made Matthew’s brows go up: a little pile of straw that seemed to be the nesting place for an unknown entity.