Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

With a sudden intake of breath, Slaughter turned. His hands still clasped together and bound by the leather cuffs, he took a single step forward that brought him face-to-face with Jacob.

Greathouse froze, and behind him Matthew's knees also locked.

'Dear Jacob,' said Slaughter in a soft, gentle voice, as the red glint flared in his eyes. 'No one is coming to take you home. Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day. You will stay here for the rest of your life, and here you will die. Because, dear Jacob, you have been forgotten, and no one is ever coming to take you home.'

Jacob wore a half-smile. He said, 'I hear ' And then something must have gotten through into his head that was not music, for the smile cracked as surely as his skull must have broken on the fateful day of his accident. His eyes were wide and shocked, as if they remembered the whipsaw coming at him, yet he knew that to see it coming was already a lifetime too late. His mouth opened, the face went slack and as pallid as those that screamed behind the bars. Instantly Dr. Hulzen had come forward to put his hand first on the man's arm, and then his arm around the man's shoulder. Hulzen said close to his ear, 'Come, Jacob. Come along, we'll have some tea. All right?' Jacob allowed himself to be pulled away, his expression blank.

Slaughter watched them go, and Matthew saw his chin lift with pride at a job well done.

'Take your shoes off,' said Greathouse, his voice husky.

'Pardon, sir?'

'Your shoes. Off. Now.'

With some difficulty because of the leather cuffs, Slaughter removed them. His dirty feet with their gnarled yellow nails did not make a pleasant sight, nor did the air remain unsullied.

'Drop them in the trough,' Greathouse told him.

Slaughter shot a glance at Ramsendell, who made no effort to interfere. The papers had been signed and the money changed hands; he was quits with the fiend.

Slaughter walked to the horse trough. He dropped his shoes into the water one after the other.

'It's not I mind it so much,' he said, 'but I do pity the poor horses.' And he gave Greathouse the smile of a wounded saint.

Greathouse pushed Slaughter to the wagon. Then he took the pistol from underneath the seat, cocked it and, standing behind the prisoner, put the barrel against Slaughter's left shoulder. 'Dr. Ramsendell, I presume he's been thoroughly checked for hidden weapons?'

'You'll note he's been given clothes with no pockets, and his body has been gone over, yes.'

'And that was quite the thrill,' said Slaughter. 'Of course, they left the joy of looking up my arsehole for you.'

'Remove the cuffs,' Greathouse said. The doctor slid a key into the padlock that held the leather cuffs closed. When they were off Greathouse said, 'Back here,' and pulled Slaughter to the rear of the wagon. 'Get up there,' was the next command. 'Slowly.' The prisoner obeyed without a word, his face downcast. Greathouse told Matthew, 'Hold the gun on him.'

'Please,' Slaughter replied with an air of exasperation. 'You don't think I want to be shot, do you? And I don't think the Quakers would like that, by the by.'

'Aim at his knee,' Greathouse advised as he gave Matthew the pistol and climbed up into the back of the wagon. 'We said we wouldn't kill you. Sit down.'

Slaughter sat, staring at Matthew with a bemused expression.

From the burlap bag Greathouse withdrew the irons. They consisted of wrist manacles connected by chains to a pair of leg shackles. The chains were short enough so that Slaughter, if he could stand at all, would stand only in a very uncomfortable back-bowed crouch. Another chain connected to the right leg shackle ended in a twenty- pound iron ball, sometimes called a 'thunderball' due to the rumble it made across a gaol's stone floor. When Greathouse finished locking the second leg iron, he put the key into the pocket of his shirt.

'Oh dear,' said Slaughter. 'I believe I have to shit.'

'That's what breeches are for,' Greathouse answered. He took the pistol from Matthew and eased the striker forward. 'You drive, I'll guard.'

Matthew untied the horses, got up in his seat, released the brake and took the reins. Greathouse climbed up beside him, turning around so as to face the prisoner. He placed the gun on his lap.

'Take care, gentlemen,' Ramsendell said. In his voice there was a lighter note that could only be relief. 'A speedy trip to you, and God's protection.'

Matthew got the horses turned and started them toward the Philadelphia Pike again. He wished he could flick the reins against their backsides and get them trotting, but an earlier attempt at a 'speedy trip' had met with nothing but the slow plod of old hooves. Now the horses were hauling about two hundred more pounds, as well.

Behind him, as they pulled away, Matthew heard the shrieks and jabbering of the mad beyond the barred windows.

'Farewell, friends!' Slaughter called to them. 'Farewell, good souls! We shall meet again, on the road to Paradise! Ah, listen to my public,' he said in a quieter voice. 'They do so love me.'

Eight

'I smell rain.'

It was the first thing Slaughter had said since they'd left the Publick Hospital for the Mentally Infirm behind them about four miles. Matthew had already noted the large wall of dark-bellied clouds beginning to roll in from the west, and he too had detected the faint but telling metallic odor in the air that forecast a storm. He wondered, though, how Slaughter could-

'You might ask yourself,' the prisoner went on, 'how I am able to smell anything, due to my present physical aroma. Alas, I was not always so. In fact, I much enjoyed the bath and shave day. Not that I was allowed to hold the razor, of course. But those pleasures were taken away from me, when the doctors became so frightened of my mere shadow.' He paused, waiting for a response from either Greathouse or Matthew, but none was forthcoming.

'A good shave,' he went on, as if conversing with his companions in the House of Lords, 'is a thing to treasure. The smooth leather of the chair, that leans you back just so. The steaming hot towel, to prepare your face. The warm lather, smelling of sandalwood, applied with a supple badger-hair brush. Not too much now, we mustn't waste such an expensive commodity! And then the razor. Ah, gentlemen, did the mind of man ever create a finer instrument? The handle made of walnut, or bone, or ivory, or that beautiful mother-of-pearl. The blade itself, slim and sleek and oh so very feminine. A beauty, a symphony, a shining piece of art.' He rustled his chains a bit, but Matthew kept watching the road and Greathouse kept watching Slaughter.

'Red beards, brown beards, black beards,' said Slaughter. 'I've polished them all off. Oh, how I'd like to polish you off. You're in need of a shave, sir.'

Matthew had brought along a small bag, which was under his seat next to his water flask, that included his own razor and shaving soap. He'd scraped his face clean of whiskers upon rising this morning, whereas Greathouse might typically go several days without, as Slaughter put it, a polish.

Slaughter said nothing more for a few moments. They passed a rider in buckskins, who nodded a greeting and then continued on his way south. Matthew glanced again at the slow advance of dark clouds. Though both he and Greathouse had brought light cloaks and were sitting on them as cushions against the splintery plank seat, he wished he'd packed his sturdy fearnaught coat, for he knew due to experience that a chilly rain could make a road trip a trial of misery. But the thing about October was, it was so unpredictable.

Slaughter cleared his throat. 'I trust that you two gentlemen do not grudge me for telling poor Jacob the truth,' he said. 'You know, I like the young man. I feel pity for him, that those doctors won't tell him the truth. My fondest hope is that, due to the truth I told him, his mind will clear enough for him to walk back to the barn, take a rope and hang himself.'

Matthew knew Greathouse wouldn't be able to restrain a comment on that one, and sure enough came the husky voice: 'Oh, that's your fondest hope, is it?'