Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

'Got anythin' else to trade?'

Matthew started to reach for another item from his pocket, but before he could get there Walker said with a hint of steel in his voice, 'Good will is a valuable commodity. I'd expect you could find something.' He stared across the counter into Dovehart's eyes and became utterly immobile, as if nothing on earth could shift him from the position.

'Well ' Dovehart glanced nervously at Matthew and then back to the Indian. 'I suppose there's an old shooter's bag up on the top shelf over there. Ought to do.'

Walker found it and gave it to Matthew. It was made of deerskin with the hair still on it and had a drawstring closure, as well as a braided leather strap that fit around the shoulder.

'Alrighty! You through robbin' me?' asked the master, with a measure of heat in his face.

'I'll remember your good will,' Walker answered, 'the next time the pelts come in.'

'And I hope it's soon! Been waitin' for a good load of 'em nearly a month now!'

In his buckskin jacket and new stockings, with his bullpup pistol and the necessaries in the shooter's bag around his shoulder, Matthew bid good-bye to the Doveharts-the master still fussing about lost business, the mistress fixed on her mirror-and followed Walker out into the darkening afternoon. A drizzle was falling again, proclaiming a nasty night. Matthew's stomach rumbled; he looked toward the single little tavern, identified by the sign Tavern, and said, 'I'll buy us a meal.' Surely the tavern-keepers would accept the engraved silver ring for two bowls of corn soup and a few slices of whatever meat was available.

'I am not allowed in there,' said Walker, who did not slow his pace past the tavern. 'It's for Englishmen and Dutchmen only.'

'Oh. I see.'

'They think we smell. It upsets their appetite.' He went on a few more strides before he spoke again. 'Constable Abernathy's house is around the bend there. I can find where Slaughter was thrown, and where he entered the woods. I can find his track, and his direction. But it has to be done before dark. We can make another mile, maybe two. Are you able?'

Am I? he asked himself. The lights in the tavern windows were fading behind them. It seemed to him that it was the last call of civilization, before whatever lay out there, ahead.

Slaughter. In the dark. With a razor and a pistol. Settling his accounts.

'I am,' Matthew said.

Walker began to move at a slow run, and Matthew grit his teeth and kept up.

Nineteen

They had penetrated possibly a mile and three quarters into the thick forest that lay alongside the road directly across from Constable Abernathy's house before Walker said, 'We'll stop here.'

The decision had a strategic importance, because the place he'd chosen was among a group of large boulders in a slight hollow overhung by pines. Working quickly, Walker found a series of fallen treelimbs that, with Matthew's help, he placed overhead in a criss-cross pattern between a pair of the largest rocks. Smaller branches and handfuls of pine needles were then spread across this makeshift roof to provide further shelter from the drizzling rain. Matthew had no qualms about getting wet tonight, but he was appreciative of any measure of comfort.

Walker wasn't finished with their camp, though, for as soon as the shelter was done he went to work preparing a fire using broken-up pine needles and small bits of pine bark and papery white birch bark that were as dry as he could find. The tinder was sparked by not the rubbing of two sticks together, which Matthew had expected, but by the method any English trapper or leatherstocking might have used, the striking of a flint and a small piece of steel. Walker worked intently but patiently, adding more bark and then broken branches to the little tongues of flame. Soon, they had a not unrespectable fire and a decent amount of warmth.

The Indian had previously shed his bow and quiver, as well as his fringed knife belt and his rawhide bag. He sat with his back against a boulder, warming his hands, and then he opened the bag and removed from it a fist- sized, black and oily-looking hunk of dried meat. He sliced some off with his blade and gave it to Matthew, who didn't particularly care if it was beef, venison, bear meat or beaver tail. And it might have been beaver tail, for its pungence, but it was chewy in the mouth and went down just as well as brisket at Sally Almond's. Walker ate some, cut Matthew another piece and himself a second, and then returned the rest of it to the bag.

'Is that all?' Matthew asked.

'It's enough.'

Now Matthew knew why the man was so thin. But even though Matthew was still famished, there was no asking for anymore, and that was that. Now that he'd had some time to sit and stretch his legs out, he wondered if he could ever stand up again. Truly, the morning was going to bring a battle of mind over matter. Sitting in the warmth and the orange light, he felt how very tired he was, how very near the edge of absolute collapse. Yet he knew also that when he closed his eyes he would see the carnage in John Burton's cabin again, and hear the buzzing of the flies.

True to his claim, Walker had found the crushed place in the thicket where Abernathy's mare had thrown Slaughter. The Indian had knelt down and found Slaughter's tracks among the dead leaves, and had announced to Matthew that their quarry was heading into the deeper woods on a southwesterly course. Probably wanted to avoid the road for awhile, Matthew reasoned; at least until a few miles had been put between himself, the constable and the men who were after his skin. Matthew assumed Slaughter would either veer his course to meet the road further ahead or might find some other backwoods route to Philadelphia.

'We go at first light,' Walker said as he added a few more small broken sticks to the fire. 'By that, I mean we're moving at first light.'

'I understand.'

Walker stared at him, his face impassive. 'You did well today.'

'For an Englishman?'

'Yes.'

'Thank you,' Matthew answered. Whether he would do so well tomorrow was another question entirely.

'We might catch up with him in the afternoon, if we're fast and he's slow. I had hoped he might have been injured in his fall, but he's not limping.'

'Too bad,' Matthew mumbled. It was all he could do to keep his eyes from sliding shut.

'Yes, unfortunate for us. But he didn't get the horse.' Walker arranged the cloak around himself. 'Listen to me, Matthew.'

An urgent note in the man's voice made Matthew push back the dark.

'I'm going to sleep now. My demons will find me. You are not to awaken me, no matter what you hear. Don't touch me. Do you understand that?'

'Yes.'

Walker said no more, but curled up beneath his cloak and for all intents and purposes disappeared within its folds.

Matthew sat up for a minute or two longer, until his chin dropped upon his chest. The fire still burned, its warmth soothing. Matthew stretched out alongside the flames, listening to the soft crackling of the wood and the softer sound of rain upon the shelter's roof. Behind his closed eyes he did again see the bloody horror of Reverend Burton's cabin, the broken dog and Tom's battered face, but the worst was that he saw in his mind's eye Slaughter out there in the night somewhere, going on and on, mile after mile, a monster moving across fields of carnage.

Then, mercifully, he dropped into sleep as off a precipice.

He woke up just as suddenly.

And lay there, very still, drowsy and fogged, listening to the night.

Far off, an owl hooted. Once, again, and a third time.

The rain had stopped, he thought. He couldn't hear it falling any longer.

The owl hooted once more. The same one or another? It seemed to be from a different direction, and nearer to their camp.