The River of Souls (20 page)

“Ease up, boys,” said the gravel-voiced Baltazar Stamper, who sat on a length of rotten log. Under his raven-feathered hat his hard-lined face was placid and unconcerned, but his musket was close at hand. “Just Muldoon and…well, look who’s joined the party.” He was staring past Matthew at the girl, and he smiled thinly and tipped his hat to show a mass of unruly black hair with tendrils of gray on the sides. “Where’d
you
come from, young miss?” 

“Rotbottom’s my home,” she answered in a tentative voice, as she came fully into the firelight beside Matthew. 

“Ah, Rotbottom!” This was spoken by the black-garbed and gaunt preacher Seth Lott, who remained on his feet and gave Quinn a slight bow and a sweep of his ebony tricorn. His hair was cut close to the scalp, like a sprinkling of dark sand. Matthew noted that the man’s keen-eyed gaze covered all of Quinn’s body from head to feet and then travelled upward again, with a couple of joyously wicked stops on the journey. “I am told much sin abides in Rotbottom, since you have no preacher there?” 

“We have some who read the Good Book,” Quinn replied, with more strength. “I’m one of ’em.” 

“Blessed are you, then,” said Lott, offering a quick smile. He returned the tricorn to his head. “Come join us, friends. We are cooking up some snakes over this bountiful fire.” 

Matthew saw that many of the men held sharpened sticks upon which were pierced pieces of white meat. He recognized the broad-shouldered, brown-bearded and husky Caleb Bovie, who regarded the three additions to the ‘party’ with an impassive expression that might have been tinged with dull-eyed contempt. The others he’d probably seen before, maybe in the boats or in the crowd at the Green Sea. They were mostly lean examples of men who had labored hard and long for very little, and wore in the lines upon their faces the tales of lives of quiet desperation. It was easy to see how any of them would be out here hoping to earn money for the ears of a runaway slave, particularly one who had murdered Sarah Kincannon, for such might lift them up at least for awhile from the common clay, or serve to buy a wife a nice piece of cloth for a new dress, or a playtoy for a child. A few of these gents, however, were intent on passing the jugs back and forth; their ruddy faces, glazed eyes and occasional giggling displayed the fact that they were out here, indeed, to join the ‘party.’ 

“Lord, boy!” said a man with a crown of white hair and a face seamed by many summers of burning suns. “You got blood all over your shirt! What happened?” 

“Indians,” Matthew answered. He felt like he needed to sit down before he fell. “From that village back there. They came up from underwater. Threw some of the boats over, and—” 

“You got away from there with your
head
?” Stamper was roasting his piece of snake over the flames. “We made sure we got past that place quick. Never been there—thank God—but I know what it is. The Catawba, Creeks, Yuchi, and Chickasaws put the people there they call ‘Dead in Life’…the outcasts. We figured the skins had already gotten past, without attractin’ too much attention. Yeah, all those torches on the river…all that singin’ and such…sure to draw ’em out.” Matthew thought the gunfire on the river might also have alerted the Dead in Life to trespassers in their realm, but he said nothing. “Heard tell of the game,” Stamper said. “You see it?” 

“A part I want to keep,” Matthew answered, “was almost
in
the game.” 

“Lost a lot of blood, looks like. Took a knife?” 

“Arrow.” 

“Broke off the shaft?” 

“No,” Matthew said. “I pulled the arrowhead out.” 

There was a moment of respectful silence, even from the drunken gigglers. Then Stamper called out, “Halleck, pass that jug over here! Let’s give this boy a drink. I think he needs one more than you do.” 

The jug was passed. Matthew had a swallow, which burned hot going down and brought tears to his eyes but he welcomed the sensation. Then Quinn took the jug, said to him, “Draw a breath,” and when he did—knowing what she was about to do—she splashed some of the liquor onto his shoulder wound. 

Comets and fireballs whirled through his head. The pain almost broke his teeth. He thought for a second his tormented flesh in that area had burst into flame. Then he was aware of being helped to the ground by Magnus, because his legs had collapsed. He sat in the firelight with his hand clasped to his shoulder and the beads of sweat glistening on his face. 

“Thank you,” said Quinn, giving the jug back to Stamper, who began its passage back to Halleck and the other drunkards. 

“Heard three shots,” Magnus said. “Killed three snakes?” 

“Snakes were killed by the sword,” Stamper answered as he chewed on the blackened meat. “Whetters, Carr and Morgan fired those shots.” He motioned toward three men on the other side of the flames. “Tell the man why you’re wastin’ gunpowder, Morgan.” 

“Wasn’t no waste!” said the wild-looking red-haired man with a hooked nose and maybe four or five black teeth in his head. “Somethin’ was stalkin’ us! We all heared it!” 

“Scared it off, whatever it was!” said one of the others, thin and balding and red-eyed from either his experiences of the night or sips from the jug. “Somethin’
big
…followin’ us through that thicket. Didn’t make a lot a’noise, but it cracked a twig or two. Gettin’ closer and closer. Thought it might’ve been one of the skins, slippin’ up to cut our throats!” 

“Those skins are a long way from here, I’m bettin’,” said Stamper, with a nostril-flare of disgust for either the runaways or the three shooters. “And no
one
of ’em is gonna try to cut anybody’s throat. They want to run, not fight.” 

“Just tellin’ you what we heard,” Morgan insisted. “Out there lookin’ to scare up a rabbit or such…then we all heard it prowlin’ through that brush. Couldn’t see it, not even with the torch. Keepin’ well-hid.” He turned his attention from Stamper to Magnus. “So we took our shots and to Hell with whatever damn devil it was.” 

“Indian, maybe?” Magnus asked. “The Dead in Life?” 

“Maybe, but I don’t believe they’d roam this far from their village,” Stamper said. “Whatever it was, you boys are damned poor shots. Wasn’t a drop of blood in that thicket.” He reached over and gave his musket a loving pat. “We’ll find out before dawn whether you hit an Indian or not.” 

Matthew looked up at the sky. Had it ever been so dark before dawn in his life? Quinn settled herself beside him and pushed the sweat-damp hair back from his forehead. 

Magnus reached down. He took for himself a stick of burnt snake meat from the hand of a long-nosed man who seemed to think just for an instant of defying Fate, but then regained his senses and sat with his knees pulled up to his chin. Magnus chewed on the meat and surveyed the group of men. He was a formidable beast, with his hair and beard matted and filthy and his face darkened by Solstice River mud. “Why’d you pull off the river here?” 

“I don’t know who got here first and started a fire,” Stamper said, “but it’s a good place to camp. High off the mud. Eat some food and wait ’til daylight. Get started again in a couple of hours.” 

Magnus nodded. “I’m lookin’ for Griffin Royce and Joel Gunn. Anybody seen ’em?” 

“I seen ’em,” said a man leaning against a tree on the other side of the fire. He cradled a musket, was thick-bodied, had a neck like a bull and a square-jawed face that looked like he could crush stones between his teeth. Even so, his blind left eye was stark white. “About an hour ago. They was rowin’ ahead of me, Ellis and Doyle. Movin’ fast. Rounded a bend, and they was gone.” 

“Hm,” said Magnus, still chewing on the reptile. 

“Why you lookin’ for
them
, Muldoon?” Caleb Bovie had snake meat in his teeth and a voice that sounded as if his throat had been scraped with a razor. “You’re out after the skins just like the rest of us, ain’t you?” 

Magnus was suddenly at a loss for words. He looked to Matthew, who took up the banner even though he was still nearly insensible. “We wondered…if those two might’ve found the runaways yet. They started off…before everyone else. So…” 

“And what the hell are
you
doin’ here and who are you?” Stamper asked, his eyes narrowed. “I saw you in Jubilee. Wearin’ fancy clothes with fancy manners. You’re from Charles Town, am I right? What are you doin’ out here on a slave hunt, boy?” 

Magnus got his jaw unlocked. He had realized, as Matthew knew, that telling these men what Granny Pegg had said would carry no weight, and might work against their aim. “Matthew’s a friend of mine. Was at my house when the bell started ringin’.” He offered a crooked, muddy-faced grin. “Don’t hold it against him that he’s from Charles Town. Wantin’ to help me start a business. Ain’t that right, Matthew?” 

“Yes, that’s right.” 

“
Business?
” Stamper snorted and a few of the others dared to laugh, but quietly. “Muldoon, only business you can do is spreadin’ a stink wherever you walk.” His hand touched the musket, just in case. “And it’s news to me that you
have
a friend. Boy,” he said to Matthew, “you must be as poor a soul as
he
is.” 

Quinn leaned toward the man. Her face was tight, her eyes dark, and she said in a voice of fire and ice, “Don’t you talk to him that way, mister. I won’t have it. You hear?” 

“Is that so?” Stamper replied, with a quick glance at the other men, for Matthew saw he enjoyed not only being the center of attention, but also being a hornet in a chamberpot. “Why? What’s he to a sad-eyed young wench from Rotbottom?” 

“He’s my husband,” Quinn said calmly, “and he’s come back to me from the dead.”

Thirteen

There followed a long, frozen silence. 

It was broken when Baltazar Stamper said, “That explains it, then. Fitzy, cut me off some more snake and put it on here!” He held up his sharpened stick toward a thin young man who obediently knelt down and started slicing the meat from a dead brown snake that lay across a rock next to two already well-carved carcasses. Stamper’s deep-set eyes glittered as he appraised Matthew and Quinn. “Mr. Matthew,” he said, “you got yourself one there, it seems.” 

Seth Lott wore a grin like an ugly gash. “My services are yours, sir, for a Christian wedding. Or might I say…a renewed marriage.” 

“Then you can do the deed to her,” said Caleb Bovie, peeling some skin from his chunk of snake. “Do her good and proper. Right here by the fire, kinda…” He struggled to find the word, his mouth working but no sound being produced. 

“Romantic,” said Stamper, who received his portion of reptile from Fitzy and put it over the fire to burn. 

“Thank you for your interest and comments,” Matthew replied, taking them in one after another with a hard-edged glare. “Perhaps in Jubilee you have little respect for women…particularly one who might be…confused…but I’d ask you to restrain your jocularity.” 

“Big words,” said Bovie, with a frown. “What do they mean?” 

“They mean…shut your damned mouths,” Magnus answered, and he rested the rusted pistol against the bulk of a shoulder. “Stamper, I hear you put two wives in the grave. Lott, you got a fifteen-year-old girl with child a couple of years ago and she’s still wanderin’ the alleys of Charles Town, lookin’ for Jesus. And Bovie…you wouldn’t know the backside of a woman from a horse’s ass, would you?” 

Bovie flushed red and started to stand up, but Stamper gave a harsh laugh and held out his stick of smoking snake meat to prevent Bovie’s rise. “Let him talk, Caleb. Entertainin’ to hear a fool prattle on. Oh, you men ought to hear what’s said about our friend Muldoon in Charles Town. Speakin’ of a certain society lady, who goes to balls and fancy dances with young handsome men. And then Magnus shows up, like a little boy with a broken heart. Beggin’ himself on her. Oh yes, I’ve heard it told in more than one tavern. How they laugh at him in that town! Our hermit Magnus Muldoon, tryin’ to…” He paused, and took a slow bite of snake. “
Be
somebody,” he went on. “When ever’body knows, and he knows it too…that he won’t ever in his life amount to any more than the pile of walkin’ shit he
already
is.” Stamper smiled faintly, with a bit of meat in the corner of his mouth. “But let Magnus reach high, I say. Let him reach up as far as he can. He ain’t goin’ nowhere, and he ain’t gonna catch no star, if that’s what he’s after. Let him reach up, and try and try to get away from what he is by grabbin’ the skirts of a—” 

“That’s enough.” 

It had been Matthew’s voice. Delivered as strongly as a pistol shot, but with better aim and elegance. 

Bovie stared holes through him. “Just ’cause you been arrowshot, boy, and lived to tell the tale don’t mean nothin’ to me. You better watch that smart mouth.” 

“Oh, let’s be friends,” said Stamper, with a shrug. “Comrades, out here on the River of Souls lookin’ to do the
right
thing. Get us some black ears to take back with us. Avenge Miss Sarah’s murder. That’s what it’s about, ain’t it?” 

Magnus had said nothing during all this. His face may have tightened and his glowering become more fearsome, but Matthew thought he was admirable in his solidity. The jugs began being passed around the fire once more, the other men began talking back and forth, and after a moment Magnus lowered his pistol and sat down with one side toward the party of avengers and the other toward the river.