Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

and fall, and fall and rise up. But it is good land here, that's for sure. And I'm hoping, with the beneficent grace of the Lord, that we won't be alone in this valley too much longer. But the nearest people from here would be at Caulder's Crossing, sir. About eight miles. A little hilly to get there, not bad.'

'And I'd presume the road connects somewhere to the Pike?'

'Yes, sir. On a few miles past the Crossing.'

'I'd presume also that Philadelphia is probably twenty or so miles?'

'Near twenty-five. Aaron, go get another chair. Faith, you and Robin sit on this side here, and Aaron can sit beside Lark.'

'Philadelphia is my destination. From there, I sail to England,' said the reverend. Faith set the ham platter at the center of the table, and alongside it the horn-handled knife sharp enough to slice through the burnt crust. 'Another thing, if you please. Your barn. Might you have a horse I could ride to Caulder's Crossing? As I said, these boots-'

'Oh, reverend! We have a wagon!' Faith said, as she put down the bowl of baked apples and sat beside Robin. 'We'd be honored if you'd let us harness the team and carry you to the Crossing ourselves.'

'How delightful,' Burton answered. 'This is truly an answer to a tired man's prayer.' All the food was on the table. Aaron brought in another chair and sat to the left of Lark, who had taken a seat down by her father and was looking at Reverend Burton's black tricorn hanging on one wall hook behind him, and at the long black coat hanging on another. He'd come in with that coat, which appeared to be far too small for him, wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak. His dirty, dun-colored clothing looked to have been worn day and night for God only knew how long. Still months in the wilderness, with the heathen tribes.

'Reverend?' Faith looked at him, her blue eyes sparkling, the sunlight through the windowpanes shining in her hair. 'Would you lead us in a blessing?'

'I certainly shall. Let us close our eyes and bow our heads. And let me get what I need, it will just take a moment.'

Lark heard the reverend open his haversack. Getting his Bible, she thought. Had he seen a sinner coming?

She heard a click, opened her eyes and lifted her head, and she saw Reverend Burton pull the trigger of the flintlock pistol he was aiming at her father's skull.

Sparks flew, white smoke burst forth, and with a crack! that rattled the panes in the sun-splashed window a small black hole opened in Peter Lindsay's forehead, almost directly between his eyes as he too looked up in response, perhaps, to some internal warning of disaster that was far more urgent than waiting for a minister's blessing.

Lark heard herself scream; but it was not so much a scream as it was a bleat.

Her father went over backwards in the chair, slinging dark matter from the back of his head onto the pinewood wall. A hand reached up, the fingers clawing.

Reverend Burton laid the smoking pistol down upon the table, and picked up the horn-handled knife.

He rose to his feet, his chair falling over behind him with a crash. He grasped the nape of Aaron's neck, as the boy looked up at him with a mixture of shock and wonder. Aaron's mouth was open and his eyes were already dull and unfocused, like the eyes of a small creature that knows the predator is upon it. Reverend Burton drove the blade down into the hollow of the boy's throat until the handle could drive no deeper. Then he let the handle go, and Aaron slithered off the chair like a boneless, gurgling thing.

The reverend's gaze moved across the table. The hard, frozen-water eyes fixed upon Faith Lindsay, who made a noise as if she'd been struck in the stomach. Her own eyes were red-rimmed and dark-hollowed. She had aged twenty years in a matter of seconds. She tried to stand up, collided with the table and knocked over her son's jar of marbles, which rolled crazily among the platters, cups and bowls. Then her legs collapsed like those of a broken doll, she staggered back against the wall and slid down making a beaten whimpering noise.

'Momma!' Robin cried out. Her face had gone pasty-white. She also tried to stand, and so was on her feet when Reverend Burton's hand took hold of her head.

Whether he was trying to break the child's neck with the severe movement that followed, or whether he was just aiming her where he wanted her to fall, Lark did not know. Lark's head was throbbing with a terrible inner pressure; her eyes felt about to burst from her skull. The room, the air, the world had turned a blurred and misty crimson. She made a gutteral hitching noise-nuhnuh nuh, it sounded-and watched, paralyzed with fear, as Reverend Burton flung Robin against the hearth, followed her, and picked up an iron frying pan from one of the fireplace trivets.

Robin was up on her knees, sobbing quietly, when he hit her on the head. Her sobbing ceased as she fell, her chin striking the floor. Her hair was in her face. Miraculously, she began to sit up again. The reverend stared at her with true amazement, his brows slightly lifted and his teeth parted, as if witnessing a resurrection. He hit her again with the pan, the sound like the strange commingling of a low-throated church bell and a clay pitcher breaking in two. She fell forward into the fireplace, her face disappearing into the white ashes. Then Reverend Burton let the frying pan drop, and in her state of near-madness, her mind slipping back and forth between horrors, Lark saw hot embers touch fire to her little sister's hair and crisp the locks to powder and smoke.

There was a silence. Which went on, hideously, until the breath rushed again into Faith Lindsay's lungs and she began to scream, her mouth wide open. The tears that shot from her eyes were ruddy with the blood of ruptured tissues.

Reverend Burton stood looking at the dead girl. He pulled in a long draught of air and shook his head back and forth, as if to clear his own mind and vision. Or perhaps, Lark thought, he had sprained his neck killing her sister. She tried to speak, to shout or scream or curse, but found her voice had left her and all that emerged was a hoarse rattling of enraged air.

'Hush,' he said to Faith. And louder, when she did not: 'Hush!'

When she still did not-or could not-Reverend Burton returned to the table, took up a handful of cornbread and pressed it into her mouth until she gagged and choked. Her bright blue eyes, wide to the point of explosion, stared at him without blinking as her chest slowly rose and fell.

'There. Better,' he said. His head swiveled. His gaze found Lark, whose voice was reborn in a shuddering moan. With both hands she gripped hold of the chair beside her, as if its oak legs made up the walls of a mighty fortress.

He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his right hand. 'Don't think ill of me,' he said, and then he went to Aaron's body and, pressing down with a boot against the chest, pulled the knife out. He wiped it on one of the good napkins. Then he righted his chair, sat down at his place at the head of the table, sliced himself a piece of ham, spooned out a baked apple and a helping of beans, and began to eat.

Faith was silent, still staring but now simply at the far wall. Lark still gripped hold of the chair, her knuckles white. She did not move; she was thinking, crazily, that if she didn't move he wouldn't see her, and soon he would forget that she was even there.

He chewed down the ham and licked his fingers. 'Have you ever been irritated by a fly?' he asked, as he carved the baked apple. His voice made Lark jump; she thought she had spoiled her invisibility, and she thought she was stupid and weak and she couldn't help but begin to cry, though silently. 'One of those big green flies, that buzz around and around your head until you can't stand for it to live another minute. Another second,' he amended, between bites. 'So you think, I am going to kill this fly. Yes, I am. And if it doesn't go easily, I shall pull off its wings before I crush it, because I don't like to be flouted. Then you watch the fly, and it may be slow or fast or very fast indeed, but soon you make out its pattern. Everything alive has a pattern. You see its pattern, you think one step-one little fly's buzz- ahead of its pattern, and there you have it.' He emphasized his point by rapping his spoon against the table. 'A dead fly. Not so different with people.'

He reached for the cornbread, paused to take note of Lark's crying, and then continued his solitary feast. 'I hate flies. They'll be in here in a while. Nothing you can do to keep them out.'

'You're not ' Lark didn't know if she'd meant to speak, but there it was. Still, the words were sluggish, and her throat strangled. 'You're not you're not '

'Not really a reverend, no,' he admitted, with a small shrug. 'But if I'd come to your door and said, Good morning, I'm a killer, where would it have gotten me?'