Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

men were perched in chairs on the porch, smoking long clay pipes, with a little boy sitting on the floor beside them, and all three stared at the new arrivals as Walker led the way and Matthew supported Tom.

Walker did not go to the trading post, as Matthew would have thought. Instead, the Indian went through the gate of a picket fence to one of the white-washed houses, which Matthew saw had mounted above its entrance a wooden cross. Then Walker knocked at the door, the sound of which brought the door open and a tall man about fifty years old with thick gray hair, a trimmed beard and eyeglasses emerged.

'Ah!' the man said, with a frown of concern. 'Bring him in, please! Sarah!' he called into the house. 'They're here!'

It was a normal house with the usual spare furnishings, but Matthew noted the woman's touch in the frilled window curtains and on the fireplace mantel a blue clay pot of wildflowers. And then the woman herself appeared from another room; she was slim and had copious curls of gray hair, looked to be a few years younger than the man, and wore the expression of a worried saint as she came forward to meet the visitors.

'Go get Dr. Griffin,' the man directed, and the woman was out the door. 'You can bring him in here,' he said to Walker, and led them along a short hallway to a small but clean bedroom.

'I'm all right!' Tom had grasped some of the picture, and didn't like what he was seeing. Still, he could hardly stand up and was in no position-of either strength or willpower-to resist. 'I'm all right!' he protested to Matthew, but Matthew helped him to the bed and didn't have to use much force. As soon as Tom lay down upon the russet- colored spread he thought better of it and tried to get up again.

'Listen to me.' Walker put a hand against the boy's chest. 'You're to stay here, do you understand? The doctor's coming. You need to be tended to.'

'No, I'm all right. I don't need a doctor!'

'Son?' The man leaned forward. 'It's best you stay here, and try to rest awhile.'

'I know you.' Tom's eyesight was fading, along with his resolve. 'Don't I?'

'I'm the Reverend Edward Jennings. Walker In Two Worlds has told me what happened to you, and to Reverend Burton.'

'Told you?'

'Yes. Lie still now, just rest.'

Matthew realized that Walker had run to Belvedere and back in the time it had taken him and Tom to reach the stream. It was an answer to Matthew's question about what they were to do with the boy.

'I don't want to lie still. I've gotta get up gotta keep movin'.' As much as he desired it, the movement part was all but impossible. He looked up, almost pleadingly, at Walker or where his darkening vision had last made out Walker to be. 'I'm goin' with you. To find that man. I ain't gonna I ain't gonna stay here.'

'You are going to stay here,' Walker replied. 'You can't go any further. Now you can fight it all you please, but you're only going to wear yourself out more. The doctor's coming, just lie still.'

Tom had been shaking his head-no, no, no-all the time Walker was speaking. He rasped, 'You don't order me what to do,' and reached up to grab hold of Matthew's waistcoat as a means of pulling himself out of bed. The grasp was weak and the show of will a last flicker of the flame, however, for Tom then gave a quiet moan. 'I'm gonna kill him,' he managed to whisper. But even the powerful desire for revenge had its limits, and as Tom's fingers opened and the hand fell away from Matthew's waistcoat his head lay back against the straw-stuffed pillow and sleep overcame him in a second. His razor-slashed chest moved as he breathed steadily, but his candle was out.

The doctor arrived, escorted by Sarah Jennings and with his own wife in tow. Griffin was an earnest young physician only ten years or so older than Matthew, with sandy-brown hair and sharp hazel eyes that took in Tom's injuries and instantly called for Sarah to bring a kettle of hot water. Griffin's wife was laying out bandages and the doctor was readying his sewing kit when Walker and Matthew took their leave of the room.

'I thank you for accepting the boy,' Walker said to Reverend Jennings at the front door. A few people were milling about at the fence, craning their necks to get a view of what was happening in the parsonage. 'I trust the doctor will fix him?'

'As much as he can be fixed,' Jennings replied. 'He's been through a rough time.'

'He has. And you'll treat him well?'

'Of course. You have my word on that.'

'What'll happen to him?' Matthew asked.

'When he's able to get up and about, I suppose he'll have a choice to make. There are people here who could use help on their farms, but then again there are the homes for orphans in Philadelphia and New York.'

Matthew said nothing. That was going to be a hard choice for Tom. He thought the boy would probably get up one night and disappear, and that would be that.

'Thank you for bringing him in,' said the reverend to Walker. 'It was very Christian of you.'

'For an Indian?' Walker asked, cocking an eyebrow.

'For anyone,' came the reply. 'God be with the both of you.'

They left the parsonage, and Matthew followed Walker through the little knot of people toward the trading post. It wasn't such a terribly bad town, Matthew thought, though it was out on the raw edge of the western frontier. He saw vegetable gardens and fruit trees, and in the dim light of late afternoon lanterns were glowing in windows. He judged from the number of houses that maybe seventy to a hundred people lived here, and there were surely some outlying farms and orchards as well. There looked to be, at a passing glance, a small business area with a blacksmith's, a tavern and two or three other merchants. The locals who glanced at him and Walker did so without surprise or untoward curiosity, for surely Indians were a common sight at a trading post. He reasoned also that Walker had been here many times, and had previously met Reverend Jennings. Well, it was a relief to have Tom taken care of, and now Matthew could turn his attention to the task at hand.

They went up the stone steps to the porch. The pipe-smokers were still there, though the boy had gone. One of them called, 'Walker! What's the commotion?'

'You'll have to ask the reverend,' the Indian replied, with the polite decorum of an Englishman. Inside, in the lamplight, a squat, wide-bodied man behind the counter wore a tattered and yellowed wig and a faded red coat bearing what appeared to be military medals. He said in a booming voice, 'Afternoon, Walker!'

'Good afternoon, Jaco.'

The man's bulbous blue eyes in a face like dried mud took in Matthew and then returned to the Indian. He had six rings hanging from one ear and four from another. 'Who's your companion?'

'Matthew Corbett,' said Matthew, who reached to shake the man's hand and was met by a piece of wood sculpted and painted to resemble one, complete with carved fingernails and grooved knuckles. Matthew hesitated only a second before he took the timber and shook it, as any gentleman should.

'Jaco Dovehart. Pleased to meet you.' Again the bulbous eyes went to Walker. 'What are you all dressed up for? Never seen you in black paint. Hey! There's no trouble, is there?'

'I'm working.'

'Just wanted to make sure you fellas weren't on the warpath. What'd you bring me?'

Matthew had had a chance to take a look around during this exchange. His first impression was of a merchant's bedlam. This likely being the first building put up in Belvedere and obviously as old as Moses' beard, the crooked mud-chinked walls encouraged vertigo and the warped floorboards presented a series of frightening rises and dips. Shelves held blankets, linens, clay plates and cups, wooden bowls and eating utensils, mallets, saws, axes, shears, bottles, jars and boxes of a staggering variety, wigs, slippers, boots, breeches, petticoats, gowns, shifts, and a myriad of other items. Everything, however, appeared to be either well-worn or moldy. Pieces of a plow lay on the floor, and two wagon wheels were propped in a corner. On dozens of wallpegs hung a crowding of shirts, cravats, waistcoats, leather belts, tricorn hats, caps, coats, blanket robes and bed gowns; again, everything had a musty green tinge. Matthew thought all the items here had probably belonged to dead people.

'We're looking for a man who may have passed this way,' Walker said, his face especially fearsome caught as it was between the yellow lamplight and the blue haze through dirty windows. 'Describe him, Matthew.'

'He would have a beard. It's been described as a 'patchwork'.'

'Oh, him!' Dovehart nodded. 'Came in yesterday, about this time. Askin' to buy a horse. I told him I had a good horse last week, but I sold it to a Mohawk. Hey, Lizzie! Walker's here!'

A gaunt, sharp-chinned woman wearing what once had been a royal-blue gown with a frill of lace at the