Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

'Oh, you'll be in the gaol, all right. Just shut up.'

'Mr. Corbett?' Slaughter's imploring gaze went to Matthew. 'As I said, I believe you to be the more intelligent of your company. Might I at least explain to you what I'm talking about?'

'No!' said Greathouse.

'Mr. Corbett?' Slaughter urged. 'The road is coming up soon. Once we pass it and cross the river, neither one of you is going to want to come back, and you're going to be missing an opportunity that I have never offered anyone on earth and that I would not offer anyone on earth if I wasn't um just a little anxious about my future.' He paused to let Matthew consider it. 'May I?'

'This ought to be entertaining!' Greathouse said, with a disdainful puff of air. 'Lies from a madman! Have at it, then!'

Matthew nodded warily, his hand still on the pistol. 'Go ahead.'

'I thank you. Do you wish to know why constables-armed mercenaries, is a better term for them-were hired by the Quakers to ride along with coaches and to guard travelers on this road? Because Ratsy and I were so damned successful. We worked the pike between the river and Philadelphia for almost two years, gentlemen. In every kind of weather you can imagine. We were giving the pike a bad name, I suppose. The Quakers were getting nervous about their sterling reputations as upholders of law and order. So they brought out the musketeers, and unfortunately Ratsy went down with a lead ball in his brain, dead before he hit the ground.'

'Too bad a second shot didn't ' Greathouse fished for the word. 'Polish you off.'

'Oh, I was shot at, all right. My horse was hit, and he bucked me. I was thrown headlong, knocked senseless, and woke up in chains in the back of a wagon much like this one. I took advantage of a bloody head to cry my case of lunacy, which I knew the Quakers must take into consideration, their being so damned brotherly.'

'And so the reign of the daring highwaymen had ended,' said Greathouse with a quick backward glance. 'Pardon me if I don't shed any tears.'

'You miss the point, sir. The point being, our great success. The very reason we were considered such a threat to be captured and contained.' Slaughter looked from the back of Greathouse's head into Matthew's eyes. 'We stole a lot of money.'

'Listen to him drool on!'

'A lot of money,' Slaughter repeated. 'At the end of the road you're going to be passing in about ten minutes is a safebox holding more than fifty pounds.'

Matthew expected Greathouse to laugh again, or to make some rude comment, but he did not.

The wheels kept turning.

'And more than the money,' Slaughter went on, staring fiercely at Matthew. 'Gold rings, jewels in elegant brooches, silver stickpins, and what have you. Two years' worth of treasure, taken from travelling merchants, dandies and damsels. I'd say in all, a fortune worth well over a hundred pounds. I'm no authority on fancy stones, so it might be much higher. What is a string of pearls selling for these days?'

'Drool on,' Greathouse answered. 'Do you think we're complete idiots?' He flicked the reins once more, hard, as if to gain distance between himself and the prisoner, alas to no avail.

'Mr. Corbett?' Again Slaughter's brows lifted. 'Are you a complete idiot?'

Matthew returned the man's stare. He was trying to read Slaughter's eyes, his expression, or some giveaway in how he held his head or clenched his hands. He could not; the man was well-sealed.

'I think you're lying,' Matthew said.

'Do you? Really? Or are you thinking, as your companion probably is, that when I am taken across the river and carried the rest of our journey, am put into the gaol at New York and then aboard a ship to be hanged in London, that the safebox at the end of that road may not be found for dare I say long after you gentlemen are moldering in your graves? If ever?' Slaughter showed his teeth. 'I can see them now! Those men of the future, turning a shovel on a buried box! And when they open it, and see all that gleaming goodness, just what will they think, Mr. Corbett? What will they think? That someone in the long ago told a lie, to save their skin? Someone trussed in chains, with a pistol held on them? No, they'll think what complete idiot left this treasure box buried here, and never came back for it? And then their next thought will be: well, now it belongs to us, for the men of the past are dead and gone, and dead men have no need of money.' He leaned forward slightly, as if to offer a secret. 'But living men need money, don't they? Yes, living men need a lot of money, to live well. And that's no lie.'

Matthew was silent, studying Slaughter's face. There was not a clue to determine the truth or fiction of his story. 'Tell me this, then,' he said in a flat, even tone. 'Why were you burying your loot all this distance out here, so far from Philadelphia?'

'This was not our only refuge. I determined it would be safer to have two places to hide in, and to split the money between. In case one was found, we always had the second. The first is a house in the woods a few miles northwest of the city. There, also, a safebox is buried holding about thirty pounds and some items of jewelry. But I'm not offering that one to you; it's not part of our accord.'

'Our accord?' Greathouse shouted, and for all their age and slowness the horses seemed to jump a foot off the ground.

'This is my offer.' Slaughter's voice was quiet and controlled, almost otherworldly in its calm cadence. 'I will lead you to the second house, which is at the end of the road coming up very soon. I will grant you a gift of the safebox, and all its contents. For that, you will unlock my chains and set me free at that location. I'll take care of myself from there.'

'Am I drunk?' Greathouse asked, speaking to the air. 'Have I caught lunatic's disease?'

'From that point,' Slaughter continued in the same manner as before, 'I vow before you as a subject of the Queen and a citizen of England that I will take the money from the first safebox and use it to purchase a voyage to ' He paused. 'Where would you like me to go? Amsterdam? The South Seas? I don't necessarily like the sun, but-'

'I am going absolutely mad,' said Greathouse. 'Hearing disembodied voices.'

'I'm done with this country.' Slaughter was speaking to them both, but staring directly at Matthew. 'Done with England, as well. All I want to do is be gone.'

'We're not going to let you go,' Matthew said. 'That's the end of it.'

'Yes, but what end? Why not say I was shot while trying to escape, and that my body fell into the river? Who would ever know differently?'

'We would know.'

'Oh, dear God!' Slaughter cast his eyes skyward. 'Have I met a pair of noble imbeciles? Two men out of all creation who have no need for money, and who can live just as well on the sweet but worthless jelly of good deeds? Here! The road's coming up! See it?'

They did. Curving into the forest on the left was a narrow, rutted track hardly the width of their wagon. The underbrush was wild and the trees thick around as winekegs, their branches and leaves making an interlocked canopy of flaming colors far above.

'That's it!' Slaughter said. 'Right there, gentlemen. The path to your Sir! You're not turning!'

Greathouse kept the team going, his shoulders hunched slightly forward.

'More than fifty pounds in money, sir! Add together the jewelry and other items and you'll both be rich men! Can't you understand what I'm offering you?' Still the wagon trundled onward. 'I vow I'll leave the country! What more do you want? Me to rot behind bars before I swing on the gallows for killing vile creatures? Do you think the people who sent you here would turn my offer down? Do you think they care about anything but themselves?' He gave a harsh, hollow laugh. 'Go on, then! Keep going, right on past, and damn your soul for it, too! Just know you could have been rich, but you were too stupid to claim your prize!'

Matthew looked away from Slaughter's strained face, which had begun to blotch red during this tirade.

The wagon's wheels made three more revolutions.