Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

he's rested and ready. But make sure, before you sleep, that your pistol is loaded, and that it's near at hand.'

'All right.'

'May I ask you something?' Lark had left her mother, and was approaching. Her question had been directed to Walker. 'Can you make us a fire? She's afraid of the dark.'

'I'm afraid of the light.'

'A small fire,' Lark persisted. 'Please. It doesn't have to last very long, just so I can get her to sleep.'

Walker pondered the request. He looked at the woman sitting against the tree with the dark brown cloak wrapped around her, her eyes swollen and vacant, her mouth slack. He drew his knife from its sheath. 'A small fire,' he agreed.

Walker was true to his word. With the knife he dug a shallow hole next to Faith, filled it with a fistful of tinder, and struck a spark. A few broken-up sticks were added. The fire that resulted was little more than a warming glow, but it served its purpose. Lark sat beside her mother and smoothed her hair as Faith stared into the flames.

Matthew found his own place to sleep, under the stars. Walker had disappeared; whether into the tree branches again or out into the woods, Matthew didn't know. He prepared his pistol, first by pouring gunpowder down the muzzle. Next he took a lead ball from his shooter's bag, placed it against one of the cloth patches Dovehart had sold him and, using the small ramrod that was actually secured in the pistol just underneath the barrel, rammed the patch and ball home. He returned the ramrod to its place. The final step would be to prime the flashpan, but that would be done in advance of actually using the weapon. He stretched out, hearing his backbone crack, and put the gun at his right side, just under his fingertips.

He heard Lark speaking to her mother.

'Do you believe in God?'

There was only silence.

'Say it for me, Faith. Come on, as we say every night.'

The silence stretched. Then, in a hoarse and ragged voice, Faith the little girl asked, 'Will we get to Mrs. Janepenny's tomorrow?'

'We will.'

'I don't like this way.'

'It's the way we have to go. Now, try to relax. Close your eyes. That's right, very good. We need to speak it, the same here as we do at home. All right? Do you believe in God?'

Only silence. And then, faintly: 'Yes, Momma.'

'Do you believe that we need fear no darkness, for He lights our way?'

'Yes, Momma.'

'Do you believe in the promise of Heaven?'

'Yes, Momma.'

'So do I. Now go to sleep.'

Matthew was having his own problems. How to bid sleep come on, knowing that when Slaughter crept to their camp it would be with intent to murder, and his victim of choice would be a certain problem-solver from New York who, having escaped one rattler, was the prime target for another. Matthew remembered asking Slaughter at their first meeting why he'd decided to try to kill Mariah at the red barn behind the hospital instead of running for freedom, and Slaughter had answered I was compelled by my Christian charity to release Mariah from her world of pain, before I fled. It seemed to Matthew that perhaps the hatred of people and desire for murder in Slaughter even overwhelmed his common sense. Just as some men were willing slaves to any number of vices, against all possible reason, so Slaughter was devoted to the extinction of human life. Or, more likely, he simply saw the opportunity to kill and took it, no matter what. Matthew closed his eyes. And opened them again. He was tired enough, but his nerves were jangling. He put his fingers against the pistol's handle. Suddenly being a magistrate's clerk seemed not such a bad occupation. He recalled Nathaniel Powers saying to him, at City Hall in midsummer after the magistrate had released Matthew from his duties in order to enter the employ of the Herrald Agency, I think your education is just beginning.

God help me survive the next test, Matthew thought.

'Can I sit here with you? Just for a minute?'

He was aware that Lark had joined him. He sat up, glad to have some company. 'Yes,' he said. 'Please do.' He reached over to brush some sticks and rocks away from where she was going to sit. 'I apologize for the furnishings,' he told her, 'but at least the place has a nice view.'

He doubted if his attempt at humor had made her smile, as he couldn't see her face in the dark. Behind her, the small fire was dying. Under her cloak, Faith appeared to have at last drifted to sleep, which in itself was a blessed event. Lark sat down and offered him the flask of water. He took it, drank some and returned it.

Neither of them spoke. Overhead the night had revealed an awesome river of stars, and within that gigantic river were swirls of light like celestial currents. Some stars appeared to burn red, or blue. Some seemed to pulse with unknown energy. Far off above the horizon, a spark of fire leapt, gold against black, turned orange and winked out just as suddenly. It was the way of all things, Matthew thought. Beginnings and endings, even for stars.

'Matthew,' Lark said. 'I wanted to tell you I don't blame you for anything.'

He didn't respond, but he was listening very carefully.

'You shouldn't blame yourself,' she went on, and whether she was looking at him as she spoke or not, he couldn't tell. 'You had your own reasons for what you did, and I'm sure you thought they were important. They must have been important. But if you weren't if you weren't a good man, Matthew, you wouldn't be out here right now. You wouldn't care what happened to us. And you wouldn't be trying to make things right.'

'I don't think I can ever-'

He stopped speaking, because Lark had placed a finger against his lips.

'You can,' she said. 'By taking him where he needs to be. By not giving up. Everything that's happened is in the past now. It's done. Do you hear?'

He nodded. Her finger moved away.

'Let yesterday go,' Lark said, 'so it will not betray tomorrow.'

Did he feel something leave him? A heaviness? A sadness that had leeched deep? A sense of guilt, like a self-built gallows? He wasn't sure. If he did, it was not dramatic; it did not have the power and majesty of a river of stars, or a celestial current. But he thought that by the grace of this young girl-older and wiser than her years would suggest-there was the lighting of a small spark of hope within him, there in his darkness, and by it he might find his way home from this wilderness his soul wandered.

'Would you hold me?' she asked, in barely a whisper.

He did. She put her head against his shoulder, and pressing her face in tightly she began to cry with muffled sobs, so her mother-her child-might not hear and awaken. He stroked her hair, and rubbed warmth into her neck, and still she clung to him and wept like any heartbroken girl of sixteen years might, on a night when the stars burned with fierce beauty high above the ugly realm of rattlesnake country.

Matthew didn't know how long he held her, or how long she cried. Time had indeed stopped for the Englishman. But at last her sobbing quietened, her crying ceased, and she lifted her face from his damp shoulder.

'Thank you,' she told him, and she got up and returned to her mother's side.

Matthew lay back down, the pistol under his fingers. His legs were hurting and his back ached, but for the first time in a long while-maybe since he'd decided to break open the red octopus-his mind knew a calming touch of peace.

His eyes closed.

He slept soundly, and at least for a short while he feared not.

Twenty-Three

When Matthew awakened, it was as any animal of the forest might: instantly alert, his senses questing, and with the memory of what Walker had just quietly spoken to him.