'No, but I'm gonna strip him naked and bind his wrists and ankles. His mouth, too. That nightshirt ought ta give up some ropes. But it wouldn't do for him ta ever know I was here. Go on now, the both of you!'
Rachel shook her head, still unbelieving. 'I thought... I was to burn today.'
'You shall yet burn, and the young man too, if you do'nae go.' Mrs. Nettles was already pulling the nightshirt off Green's slumbering body.
'We have to hurry.' Still rubbing his bruised throat, Matthew took Rachel's hand and guided her toward the threshold. 'I have clothes and shoes for you outside.'
'Why are you doing this?' Rachel asked Mrs. Nettles. 'You're Bidwell's woman!'
'Nae, lass, ' came the reply. 'I am employed by Mr. Bidwell, but I am my own woman. And I am doin' this 'cause I never thought you guilty, no matter what was claimed. Also... I am rightin' an old wrong. Off with ye!'
Matthew picked up his lantern. 'Thank you, Mrs. Nettles!' he said. 'You saved my life!'
'No, sir.' She continued her methodical stripping of Green, her back turned to Matthew. 'I just sentenced you both ta... whatever's out there.'
Outside, Rachel staggered and held out her arms as if to embrace the night and the stars, her face streaked with tears. Matthew grasped hold of her hand again, and hurried her to where he'd left the shoulderbag, garments, and shoes. 'You can change clothes after we get out, ' he said, slipping the bag's strap over his shoulder. 'Will you carry these?' He gave her the garments. 'I thought the light one would be best for travelling.'
She gave a soft gasp as she took the dresses, and she caressed the cream-colored garment as if it were the returning to her of a wonderful treasure. Which it was. 'Matthew... you've brought my wedding dress!'
If he'd had the time to spare, he might have laughed or he might have cried, but which one he was never to know. 'Your shoes, ' he said, giving them to her. 'Put them on, we're going through rough country.'
They started off, Matthew leading the way toward Bidwell's house and the slave quarters. He had considered going out the front gate, as there was no watchman, but the gate's locking timber was too heavy for one man, and certainly for one man who had nearly been rib-busted and choked to death.
He looked up at the lantern in Isaac's window and wished the man might truly know what he meant to Matthew. Alas, a note was a poor goodbye but the only one available to him.
Through the slave quarters, Matthew and Rachel moved as if they were dark, flying shadows. Perhaps the door of John Goode's house cracked open a few inches, or perhaps not.
Freedom awaited, but first there was the swamp.
thirty-eight
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 everything?'
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 what? Me?'
'For the truth.' He removed the bottle from the stream and pushed its cork back in.
'The truth was worth so much?'
'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 murdered?'
'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 Daniel?' Her eyes had taken on a hint of fury. 'Who was it?'
'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.'
'Why? If you know the name?'
'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 ready?'
'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
