Speaks the Nightbird

intent.

Matthew grasped the man's wrists and tried to unhinge those killing hands, but even as he fought he knew it was in vain. Hazel-ton's sweating face was pressed right into his, the man's eyes glazed from the heat of this— rather onesided—combat. The fingers were digging deep into Matthew's throat. He couldn't breathe, and dark motes were beginning to dance before his eyes. He was aware, strangely, that one horse was whinnying piteously and the other was kicking in its stall.

He was going to die. He knew it. In a few seconds, the darkness was going to overcome him and he would die right here by this blacksmith's crushing hands.

This was the moment he should be rescued, he thought. This was the moment someone should come in and tear Hazelton away from him. But Matthew realized it wasn't likely to happen. No, his fate would be interrupted by no Samaritan this sorry day.

The lantern. Where was the lantern?

On his right, still hanging from its peg. With an effort he angled his head and eyes and found the lamp several feet away. He reached for it; he had long arms, but the lantern was at the very limit of his grasp. Desperation gave him the strength to lurch the two or three extra inches. He plucked the hot lamp from its peg. Then he smashed it as hard as he could into the side of Hazelton's face.

An edge of unsmoothed tin did its work. A cut opened across the blacksmith's cheek from the corner of the eye to the upper lip, and crimson rivulets streamed down into his beard. Hazelton blinked as the pain hit him; there was a pause in which Matthew feared the man's fit of rage was stronger than the desire to preserve his face, but then Hazelton let out a howl and staggered back, his hands leaving Matthew's throat to press against the tide of blood.

Matthew sucked air into his lungs. His head swimming, he half-ran, half-stumbled toward the barn's open doorway. The rain was still falling, but not near with its previous velocity. Matthew didn't dare to look behind to see if the smithy was gaining on him, as that glance would surely slow him down a precious step. Then he was outside the barn. The rain hit him and the wind swirled about him, his left foot snagged a treeroot that almost sent him sprawling, but he recovered his balance and ran on into the tumult, aiming his flight in the direction of Bidwell's mansion. Only when he'd reached the conjunction of streets did he slow his pace and look over his shoulder. If the blacksmith had followed, he had been left behind.

Still, Matthew didn't care to tarry. He spat blood into a mud-puddle and then tilted his head back, opened his mouth to wash it with rain, and spat again. His back and shoulders felt deeply bruised, his throat savaged by Hazelton's fingers. He would have quite a tale to tell the magistrate, and he knew he was damned lucky he was alive to tell it. He started off again, walking as fast as he could, toward Bidwell's house.

Two questions remained in his mind: what had been in the burlap sack? And what had the blacksmith concealed that he would kill to protect?

 nine

THAT'S A DAMNABLE STORY!' Bidwell said, when Matthew had finished telling it. 'You mean Hazelton tried to strangle you over a grainsack?'

'Not just a grainsack.' Matthew was sitting in a comfortable chair in the mansion's parlor, a pillow wedged behind his bruised back and a silver cup of rum on a table next to him. 'There was something in it.' His throat felt swollen, and he'd already looked into a handmirror and seen the blacksmith's blue fingermarks on his neck. 'Something he didn't want me to see.'

'Seth Hazelton has a cracked bell in his steeple.' Mrs. Nettles stood nearby, her arms crossed over her chest and her dark gaze positively frightening; it was she who had fetched the cup of rum from the kitchen. 'He was odd 'fore his wife died last year. Since then, he's become much the worse.'

'Well, thank God you weren't killed!' Woodward was sitting in a chair across from his clerk, and he wore an expression of both profound relief and concern. 'And I thank God you didn't kill him, either, or there would surely be Hell to pay. You know you were trespassing on private property, don't you?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I understand your desire to find shelter from that storm, but what on earth prompted you to dig into the man's hidden possessions? There was no reason for it, was there?'

'No, sir,' Matthew said grimly. 'I suppose there wasn't.'

'I tell you there wasn't! And you say you struck him a blow to the face that brought the blood flowing?' Woodward winced at the gravity of the legal wheels that might have to turn because of this. 'Was he on his feet the last you saw him?'

'Yes, sir.'

'But he didn't come out of the barn after you?'

Matthew shook his head. 'I don't think so.' He reached for the rum and downed some of it, knowing where the magistrate was headed. His wounded tongue—which was so enlarged it seemed to fill up his mouth—had already been scorched by the liquor's fire and was mercifully numbed.

'Then he could have fallen after you left.' Woodward lifted his gaze to Bidwell, who stood beside his chair. 'The man could be lying in that barn, severely injured. I suggest we see to him immediately.'

'Hazelton's as tough as a salt-dried buzzard,' Mrs. Nettles said. 'A wee cut on the face would nae finish 'im off.'

'I'm afraid it was more than a wee ... I mean, a small cut,' Matthew admitted. 'His cheek suffered a nasty slice.'

'Well, what did he expect?' Mrs. Nettles thrust out her chin. 'That you should let 'im choke you dead without a fight? You ask me, I say he deserved what he got!'

'Be that as it may, we must go.' Woodward stood up. He was feeling poorly himself, his raw throat paining him with every swallow. He dreaded having to leave the house and travel in the drizzling rain, but this was an extremely serious matter.

Bidwell too had recognized the solemnity of the situation. His foremost thought, however, was that the loss of the town's blacksmith would be another crippling hardship. 'Mrs. Nettles,' he said, 'have Goode bring the carriage around.'

'Yes sir.' She started out toward the rear of the house. Before she'd gotten more than a few steps, however, the bell that announced a visitor at the front door was rung. She hurried to it, opened it—and received a shock.

There stood the blacksmith himself, hollow-eyed and gray-faced, a bloody cloth secured to his left cheek with a leather strap that was knotted around his head. Behind him was his horse and wagon, and in his arms he held a dark brown burlap sack.

'Who is it?' Bidwell came into the foyer and instantly stopped in his tracks. 'My God, man! We were just on our way to see about you!'

'Well,' Hazelton said, his voice roughened by the pain of his injury, 'here I be. Where's the young man?'

'In the parlor,' Bidwell said.

Hazelton came across the threshold without invitation, brushing past Mrs. Nettles. She wrinkled her nose at the combined smells of body odor and blood. When the blacksmith entered the parlor, his muddy boots clomping on the floor, Matthew almost choked on his rum and Woodward felt his hackles rise like those of a cat anticipating the attack of a large and brutish dog.

'Here.' Hazelton threw the sack down at Matthew's feet. 'This is what you were sneakin' to see.' Matthew stood up— carefully, as his back's stability was precarious.

'Go on, open it,' Hazelton told him. 'That's what you wanted to do, ain't it?'

Matthew got his mouth working. 'I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't have invaded your priva—'

'Swalla that shit and have a look.' Hazelton bent down, lifted the stitched end of the sack, and began to dump its contents out onto the floor. Bidwell and Mrs. Nettles had come in from the foyer, and they witnessed what Hazelton had fought so viciously to protect.

Clothes spilled from the sack, along with two pairs of scuffed and much-worn shoes. A woman's wardrobe, it was: a black dress, an indigo apron, a few yellowed blouses, and a number of patched skirts that at one time had fit