searching. Matthew knew what the noise had been. The lantern's glass had broken, the lantern lying perhaps eight inches from the fingertips of Matthew's right hand. Reflexively, Matthew closed his hand into a fist.
The blacksmith discovered what he'd stepped on. He held the lamp by its handle, lifting it up for inspection. There was a long, dreadful silence. Matthew clenched his teeth and waited, his endurance stretched to its boundary.
At last Hazelton grunted. 'Lucy, I found that damn lantern!' he said. 'Was a good one, too! Hell's sufferin' bells!' He tossed it aside with a contemptuous gesture, and Matthew realized the man thought in his tipsied state that it was a lamp he had previously misplaced. If he'd been coherent enough to touch the pieces of broken glass, Hazelton might have found they were still warm. But the blacksmith thereafter turned and crunched back through the straw to the barn's bare earth, leaving Matthew to contemplate how near he'd come to disaster.
But—as was said—a miss was as good as a mile. Matthew began breathing easier, though he would not take a full breath until Hazelton had gone. Then another thought struck him, and it might well have been a hatchet to the head: if Hazelton went out and locked the door, he'd be trapped in here. It might be sunrise or later before Hazelton came to the barn again, and then Matthew would be forced to face him anyway! Better run for it while he was able, Matthew decided. But there was the problem of the straw. That which protected him would also hinder his flight.
Now, however, his attention was drawn to the blacksmith once more. Hazelton had hung the lantern up on a wallpeg beside the far stall, and he was speaking to the horse he seemed to favor. 'My fine Lucy!' he said, his voice slurred. 'My fine, beautiful girl! You love me, don't you? Yes, I know you do!' The blacksmith began to murmur and whisper to his horse, and though Matthew couldn't hear the words he was beginning to think this affection was rather more than that of a man for his mount.
Hazelton came back into sight. He thunked the hatchet's blade into the wall next to the door, and then he pulled the door shut. When he turned again, moisture glistened on his face; and his eyes—directed toward Lucy— seemed to have sunken into dark purple hollows.
'My good lady, ' Hazelton said, with a smile that could only be described as lecherous. A cold chill crept up Matthew's spine. He had an inkling now of what the blacksmith intended to do.
Hazelton went into Lucy's stall. 'Good Lucy, ' he said. 'My good and lovely Lucy. Come on! Easy, easy!'
Carefully, Matthew lifted his head to follow the blacksmith's movements. The light was dim and his view was restricted, but he could make out Hazelton turning the horse around in her stall so her hindquarters faced the door. Then Hazelton, still speaking ' quietly though drunkenly to Lucy, eased her forward and guided her head and neck into a wooden collar-like apparatus that was meant to hold horses still as they were being shod. He latched the collar shut, and thus the horse was securely held. 'Good girl, ' he said. 'That's my lovely lady!' He went to a corner of the stall and began to dig into a pile of hay provided for Lucy to eat. Matthew saw him reach down for something and pull it out. Whether it was the grainsack or not, Matthew couldn't tell, but he presumed it was at least what might have been secreted inside the sack.
Hazelton came out of the stall carrying what appeared to be an elaborate harness made out of smoothed cow's hide. The blacksmith staggered and almost fell under its bulk, but it seemed that his fevered intent had given him strength. The harness had iron rings attached to both ends: the two circles Matthew had felt through the burlap. Hazelton fixed one of the rings around a peg on the wall, and the second ring was fixed to a peg on a nearby beam so that the harness was stretched to its full width at the entrance to Lucy's stall.
Matthew realized what Hazelton had devised. He recalled Gwinett Linch saying about the smithy: He's an inventor, once he puts his mind to a task. It was not Hazelton's mind, however, that was about to be put to work.
At the center of the harness-like creation was a seat formed of leather lattice. The pegs had been placed so the iron rings could stretch the harness and lift the seat up until whoever sat in it would be several feet off the ground and positioned just under Lucy's tail.
'Good Lucy, ' Hazelton crooned, as he dropped his breeches and pulled them off over his boots. 'My good and beautiful girl.' His bum naked and his spike raised, Hazelton brought over a small barrel that appeared to be empty, from the ease with which he handled it. He stepped up onto the barrel, swung his behind into the leather seat and lifted the horse's tail, which had begun flopping back and forth in what might have been eager anticipation.
'Ahhhhh!' Hazelton had eased his member into Lucy's channel. 'There's a sweet girl!' His fleshy hips began to buck back and forth, his eyes closed and his face florid.
Matthew remembered something Mrs. Nettles had said, concerning the blacksmith's deceased wife: I happ'n to know that he treated Sophie like a three-legged horse 'fore she died. It was very clear, from the noises of passion he was making, that Hazelton much preferred horses of the four-legged variety.
Matthew also knew now why Hazelton had so desired this apparatus of strange pleasure not to be discovered. In most of the colonies the sodomizing of animals was punishable by hanging; in a few, it was punishable by being drawn and quartered. It was a rare crime, but quite morally heinous. In fact, two years ago Woodward had sentenced to hanging a laborer who had committed buggery with a chicken, a pig, and a mare. By law, the animals were also put to death and buried in the same grave with their human offender.
Matthew ceased watching this loathsome spectacle and stared instead at the ground beneath him. He could not, however, voluntarily cease from hearing Hazelton's exhortations of passion for his equine paramour.
At last—an interminable time—the barnyard lothario groaned and shuddered, indicating the climax of his copulation. Lucy, too, gave a snort but hers seemed to be more relief that her stud was done. Hazelton lay forward against the horse's hind and began to speak to Lucy with such lover's familiarity that Matthew blushed to the roots of his hair. Such speech would be indecent between a man and his maid, but was absolutely shameless between a man and his mare. Obviously, the blacksmith had banged one too many horseshoes over a red-hot forge.
Hazelton didn't try to remove himself from the harness. His voice was becoming quieter and more slurred. Shortly thereafter, he stopped speaking entirely and began to offer a snore and whistle to his object of affection.
Just as Matthew had recognized an opportunity to enter the barn, now he recognized an opportunity to depart it. He began to slowly push himself out of the straw, mindful that he not suffer a cut from the lantern's broken glass. Hazelton's snoring continued at its regularity and volume, and Lucy seemed content to stand there with her master in repose against her hindquarters. Matthew eased up to a crouch, and then to a standing position. It occurred to him that even if Hazelton awakened and saw him, he couldn't free himself at once from the harness and would be quite reluctant to give chase. But Matthew wasn't above giving Hazelton something to think about, so he picked up the man's dirty breeches and took them with him when he walked unhurriedly to the door, pushed it open, and left the site of such immoral crime. In this case, he pitied not Hazelton but poor Lucy.
Matthew saw that the flames over on Truth Street had died down. He reckoned he'd entered the barn an hour or so ago, and thus most of the schoolhouse had by now been consumed. There would be much conjecture tomorrow about Satan's fiery hand. Matthew didn't doubt that daylight would see another wagon or two leaving Fount Royal.
He laid Hazelton's breeches out in the middle of Industry Street, after which he was glad to rinse his hands in a nearby horse trough. Then he set off on the walk to Bidwell's mansion, his curiosity concerning the hidden grainsack well and truly quenched.
As the hour was so late and the excitement of the fire worn off, the streets were deserted. Matthew saw a couple of houses where the lanterns were still lit—probably illuminating talk between husband and wife of when to quit the Satan-burnt town— but otherwise Fount Royal had settled again to sleep. He saw one elderly man sitting on a doorstep smoking a long clay pipe, a white dog sprawled beside him, and as Matthew neared him the old man said simply, 'Weather's breakin'.'
'Yes, sir, ' Matthew answered, keeping his stride. He looked up at the vast expanse of sky and saw now that the clouds had further dwindled, exposing a multitude of sparkling stars. The scythe of a pumpkin-colored moon had appeared. The air was still damp and cool, but the soft breeze carried the odor of pinewoods rather than stagnant swamp. Matthew thought that if the weather broke and held, the magistrate's health would surely benefit.
He'd decided not to inform Woodward of the blacksmith's activities. It might be his duty to report such a crime—which would surely lead to Hazelton's dance on the gallows—but the magistrate didn't need any further complications. Besides, the loss of a blacksmith would be a hard blow to Fount Royal. Matthew thought that sooner or later someone might discover Hazelton's bizarre interest and make an issue of it, but for his part he would keep
