Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

'No,' Matthew said.

'He's left clear tracks. Still moving slowly. The hill wore him out.'

'I think we're all worn out.'

Walker nodded. 'I think you may be right.' He regarded the sun again, which was turning red in a cloudless sky as it dropped toward the west. 'We need to make camp before dark. Find someplace as safe as possible.'

'Not here!' Lark objected. 'Not in rattlesnake country!'

'Miss,' said Walker, with weary authority, 'it's all rattlesnake country.' He looked at Matthew, who had been kneading the blood back into his fingers since Lark had released him. 'You can get your hat now.'

They went on about two hundred more yards before Walker said the place would do for the night. It was a grassy clearing atop a small hillock, surrounded by huge oaks. They found as much comfort as was possible on the ground. Walker gave Matthew a portion of the dried meat and some for himself. Faith sat staring at nothing when Lark offered her a piece of ham and some cornbread; she reacted by clamping her hand over her mouth when Lark tried to push a bit of the ham between her lips. Then Faith curled herself up into a ball at the base of an oak and refused to respond to Lark's entreaties to eat. His meal done, Walker promptly climbed up into a tree and sat amid the branches while the sun went down, painting the western sky vivid red edged with purple. 'No need to waste this.' Lark offered Matthew what her mother had rejected. 'Do you want it?'

'I'll take the cornbread, thank you.' He was delighted to get something that reminded him of happier suppers at home. 'You ought to eat the ham yourself.'

'I'm not very hungry.'

'That may be so, but hungry or not you ought to eat it anyway.' He chewed on the cornbread, which was absolutely delicious, and watched as she looked at the ham in her palm as if it had been cut from the haunch of a gigantic rat. Then, overcoming her revulsion for what the last family meal had been, she followed his suggestion, after which she promptly got up, rushed away into the thicket and vomited.

Matthew stood up, retrieved the waterflask from her canvas bag and took it to her. She was sitting on her knees, having crawled a distance away from her stomach's refusal. Without looking at him she accepted the flask, uncorked it, took a drink, swished the water around in her mouth and spat it out. She took a longer drink, corked the flask again and handed it back.

'Pardon me,' Lark said, pushing the hair out of her eyes.

Matthew said nothing, but sat down a few feet away. He took off his tricorn, which he doubted he would be wearing much anyway, since his scalp prickled underneath it. Lark was a pretty girl, he thought. Very young, and fresh-faced. Or had been. He wished he had seen her yesterday. He wished so many things. But wishing seemed a waste of time, out here. He looked up and saw in the darkening sky the first few stars in the east. He wondered who might be looking at them in New York. Berry? Effrem Owles? Zed? Even Lord Cornbury, on his evening walk?

He wondered if he would ever get back there. He wondered if Greathouse was still alive, and at that point he had to stop wondering for that, too, was folly.

'How are you responsible?' Lark asked.

Matthew knew what she meant. He knew his statement had been working at her, ever since he'd spoken it. 'If it weren't for me-my actions-Slaughter would now be in the gaol at New York.'

'You let him go?'

'No, not so directly. But I remained silent about something when I should have spoken. I forgot my job, and I in essence betrayed a friend. That silence when you know you should speak up, but you don't that's the killer.'

'You're saying you made a mistake?'

A mistake. It sounded so small when she said it. So inconsequential. 'I did,' he answered. 'A mistake that I shall be turning over and over in my head for the rest of my life.'

She shifted her position, sitting down and pulling her knees up toward her chin, her hands hooked together. 'That could be a very long time.'

'I hope,' Matthew replied, and found that he could still smile, if only briefly.

Lark was quiet for awhile. A flock of birds flew across Matthew's line of sight, winging home before full darkness fell. 'My mother,' Lark said. She couldn't continue, and had to wait. 'My mother,' she tried again, 'was a very good woman. A well-educated woman, and very kind, to everyone.' She drew in a long breath and slowly, almost painfully, released it. 'I don't think she's coming back.'

'You don't know that. She may be better in the morning.'

'You mean when her head clears? If it clears? I mean, she can never go back to what she used to be. Neither one of us can. Ever. And I guess you can't, either.'

'That's right,' Matthew said.

'My father always said there were only two directions in life. Up or down. He was always talking about how good the land was, and how good God was to us. He said no matter how hard things got, all you had to do to touch God in this country was to reach up. Just try to meet God as much as you can, I guess is what he meant. Just try. I suppose that's the best anyone can do, is try.' Now Lark managed a tight smile, but it quickly slipped away. 'I used to sit on his knee and listen to him, and I believed everything he said. Reach up, reach up, he said. Just try, is what he was telling me. And don't give up, because then you never meet God. But I suppose I stopped listening to all that, when I was too old to sit on his knee anymore. I thought it was just something you told a child, when the harvest went bad and the going got rough. But it was for him, and my mother, as much as it was for me. He never quit trying. Neither did she. Trying to reach up.'

In the last of the light Matthew saw the glint of her tears, and then how they slowly coursed down her cheeks one after the other. But her face remained tragically serene.

'I'm going to get him,' Matthew promised. 'Tomorrow.'

'How? I've seen what he can do. What he will do. How are you going to get him?'

'One arrow,' said Walker In Two Worlds, who was standing only a few feet away; he had come upon them in total silence. 'That's all I need to put him down. If I can get close enough, and get a clear shot, it's done.'

Matthew said, 'I don't want him dead. I want him taken back, to stand trial in England.'

'In England?' Walker frowned. 'Trial or not, I'd say he's earned the hangman's noose here first. Then they can take him over and hang him again, as they please. But don't worry, I'll be sure to spare him for the rope, if you think he's worth the knot.'

Matthew was about to reply that he himself thought Slaughter wasn't worth a cupful of drool, but that higher powers across the ocean wanted him before the docket; he was interrupted in the formation of this reply when there came a shrill cry from Faith Lindsay. At once Lark was up and tearing through the thicket toward her mother, with Walker and Matthew close behind.

Faith was sitting up, clinging to the trunk of the tree beside her; she cried out again, a sound of utter, mindless terror, before Lark could kneel down and comfort her. Matthew turned his back, wishing to give them at least a little privacy, and walked a distance away. Now that the sun was just a purple blush to the west, the air was chill but not uncomfortably cold; the cloaks would do for the mother and daughter. He looked up at a sky filled with stars. On any other night he would have thought this an absolutely beautiful view, and he might have wandered out along the harbor-possibly with Berry at his side, if she'd liked to go-and taken it all in, but tonight the darkness was not his friend.

'You need to sleep.' Walker was standing behind him. Matthew immediately heard the edge of tension in the Indian's voice. 'While you can.'

Matthew gave words to his suspicion:

'Do you think he's coming tonight?'

'If I told you I did, would it help you sleep any better?'

'No.'

'The fact is, he's not far away. He knows we'll catch up with him tomorrow. It's likely his spyglass has already shown him that his gift did not make the proper impression. So if I were of a mind to murder someone, I would strike before dawn.'

'We'd best both stand guard then.'

'You need sleep,' Walker repeated. 'He's sleeping too, you can count on it. If he's coming, it will be when