Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

Thirty-Three

'The truth,' said Greathouse, as he ruminated over his third cup of wine, 'is that we failed.' He frowned, rethinking his statement. 'No,' he amended. 'I failed. As the one with the most experience-I won't say the most sense-I should have known he was going to try something. I just didn't know it was going to be so effective.' He took another drink, and then he grinned across the table at Matthew. 'Did I tell you they named me Gray Wolf?'

'Several times.' At this point in the evening, Matthew could not bring himself to tell his supper companion that he'd already known it.

'Well then, there you are,' Greathouse said, though Matthew wasn't exactly sure where they were in this conversation. One minute they were talking about Slaughter, the next about the great one's experiences in the Seneca village. It seemed to Matthew as if Greathouse had actually enjoyed his time there, once it was sure he'd returned from the wilderness beyond.

They were sitting in the Trot Then Gallop, on Crown Street. This being Matthew's first night back, his meal and drinks were on the house courtesy of the tavernmaster, Felix Sudbury. Many people had come forward to wish him welcome home, including Effrem Owles and his father Benjamin, Solomon Tully, Robert Deverick and Israel Brandier. Matthew had been polite, but firm in his refusal to say anything more than that the criminal he and Greathouse had been sent after was dead. Case closed. Savin' it for the Earwig , huh? Israel had asked, but Matthew said there would be no more of those outlandish tales in Marmaduke's broadsheet and he offered to vow on a Bible if they didn't believe him.

As the night progressed, the interest in knowing Matthew's business waned, since he remained steadfastly not talking, and the other patrons drifted away from him to their own concerns. Matthew had noted, however, that he'd gotten some sidelong glances from people who thought they had known him very well up to this evening, and perhaps were wondering what had changed about him in his month's journey.

One thing different, among many, was that he now believed in ghosts more than ever, since he'd seen both Walker In Two Worlds and Lark Lindsay on the street this afternoon. Several times, in fact.

Even now, as he sat with Greathouse and drank his own third cup of wine, he was sure someone was sitting at the table behind him and to his right. If he turned his head just a fraction he could make out from the corner of his eye an Indian with black facepaint and an arrangement of feathers dyed dark green and indigo tied to his scalplock with leather cords. Of course when he looked fully in that direction Walker was not there, but now in the corner of his other eye a lovely, serene blonde girl was standing over by the table where Effrem Owles and Robert Deverick were playing chess.

He had brought them back with him, he thought. How long they wished to stay-how long they would stay-he didn't know. But they were friends of his, just as much as any of the others, and they were welcome.

'What do you keep looking at?' Greathouse asked.

'Shadows,' Matthew said, and let it go at that.

When he had gone to the Grigsby house today, after Tom had boarded the Golden Eye, Matthew had knocked at the door and Berry had answered it. They had just stared at each other for a few seconds, he taking her in like sunlight after thinking he would likely die in the dark, and she seemingly frozen with his name on her lips. And then just as she'd cried out, 'Matthew!' and reached for him her grandfather had let forth a bellow from behind her and shouldered her aside to throw his arms around Matthew in a crushing embrace.

'My boy! My boy!' Marmaduke had shouted, his large blue eyes ashine in the frames of his spectacles and his heavy white eyebrows twitching on the moon-round face. 'We feared you were dead! Good God, boy! Come in here and tell us the whole story!'

The whole story was what Matthew was determined not to tell, even as Marmaduke pushed a platter of honey-drizzled biscuits and a mug of mimbo upon him at the kitchen table. Berry sat beside him, very close, and Matthew could not help but notice and be gratified by the fact that she kept placing her hand upon his arm or shoulder and rubbing there as if to make certain he was real and would not fade away like a dream upon awakening.

'Tell! Tell!' Marmy insisted, as his right hand seemed to grip an invisible quill and prepared to scribe upon the table.

'No,' Matthew had said, after he'd eaten two of the biscuits and put down half the sugared rum. 'I'm sorry, but I can't.'

'But you must! Your readers are clamoring!'

'My business depends on privacy. There'll be no more of those stories.'

'Nonsense! I've made you into a celebrity!'

'The price for that is too high,' Matthew had answered. 'From now on, I'm just an ordinary fellow who works for a living.'

Marmaduke had snatched away the platter of biscuits, but then he'd seemed to take note of Berry's hand upon Matthew's arm. He'd pushed the biscuits forward again, and sighed. 'Ah, well. I'm running low on ink, anyway. But'-and here he'd lifted a finger of triumph-'there's yet the tale of Gray Wolf to be told, isn't there?'

Matthew had shrugged. If Greathouse wanted to go down that particularly twisty road, it was his own horse-and-wagon. More like ass-and-cart, to be truthful.

Berry had put on a yellow cloak and walked with Matthew for a while, north along the waterfront. He didn't speak and she didn't speak for the longest time, as the breeze blew about them and the sunlight shimmered off the river. He stopped for a few minutes to watch a ship, its sails unfurled, gliding toward the blue expanse of the sea past Oyster Island, and then he turned away.

'Can you talk about it?' she'd asked, her voice quiet and careful.

'Not yet. Later. Maybe.'

'I'll be there when you want to. If you want to.'

'Thank you.' A few more steps in silence, and then he'd decided to speak what he'd been thinking ever since he'd walked into the Lindsays' kitchen: 'I need help with something.'

'Yes?'

'I need help with a question,' he'd said. 'A mystery. Even more than the monster's tooth, in McCaggers' attic. It's about God. Why does God allow such evil in this world? If God is supposed to watch over every little bird. Why?'

Berry didn't reply for awhile. Then she said, 'I suppose you'd have to ask a reverend.'

'No. That's not good enough. What would a reverend know that I don't? The right words and verses? The names of the saints and the sinners? Yes, all those, but not the answer.' He'd stopped abruptly, and looked deeply into her expressive dark blue eyes. 'Why doesn't God strike down evil? Why doesn't He destroy it, before it takes root?'

Again, she was reluctant to answer. She lowered her head, looking at the ground, and then lifted her eyes to his again. 'Maybe He expects us to take care of the garden.'

Matthew considered something that had winnowed itself into his brain. It was He Runs Fast, saying through the interpreter He wish spirits make sense. Matthew hadn't understood that at first, but then it seemed to become a quiet cry at the passing of his son. A cry for understanding, and the peace of acceptance. Matthew too wished that God's ways made sense, or that he could understand what sense they did make. He knew he could batter his brain against that unknown and unknowable door between the trials of Earth and the truth of Heaven every day for the rest of his life, and it would not bring him any closer to an answer.

It was the ultimate mystery, more ancient than a monster's tooth.

He wish spirits make sense.

'So do I,' Matthew had said. And then he was aware that Berry's hand was in his, and he was holding onto it like a gift given him to protect.

Now, in the Trot, Matthew drank his wine and contemplated the fact that Greathouse, for all his show of bravado, had entered the tavern about an hour before on the support of a cane. The hollows under his eyes were still dark, his face drawn and more deeply lined. Gray Wolf had wrestled with Death in the wilderness beyond and