The River of Souls (28 page)

He felt the desire of the suckpit pulling at him, even with these slow, sinuous movements. How long it took him to work his head and shoulders out of the mire, Magnus didn’t know. Still moving with slowness respectful to the pit, he was able to get his eyes cleared and saw in the afternoon’s blue light and drifting smoke the carnage of the scene: Stamper lying on his back with a pool of blood around his head, Barrows crumpled and bloody, and Bovie lying on his side. Royce was gone, and Magnus knew who he was going after. 

The man was a mad dog, Magnus thought. An animal who killed on impulse, either in rage or misguided passion. Surely the killing of Gunn had been intentional…and now this. 

He had to get out for still he felt the pit pulling at him, accepting his weight and bulk like an offering to the demons below. 

If he moved slowly enough, he thought, he might be able to swim out. There were only a few feet to firm ground. So he might use his arms as a swimmer would, to move the muck around and behind him…but even the distance of a few feet would be torturous through this paste. Even so…it had to be tried. 

He began his journey from the pit of death toward the shore of life. The motions were slow, the quicksand still heavy and clinging around him and yet it did yield to these more deliberate actions. When at last he reached more solid earth, Magnus dug his fingers into the mud and weeds but found further difficulty in pulling himself out, for the suckpit did not want to let him go. Inch by inch he worked himself from the mire, as if struggling out of a suit of tar. Several times he thought he couldn’t get out for even moving by inches his strength was nearly gone, but what fortified him was the knowledge that Royce had killed Sarah in the same kind of blood frenzy the man had just shown, and now Royce was on his way to finish his job of sealing all mouths. 

Royce could say the cursed swamp got its victims by alligator, the Dead in Life, quicksand, poisonous snake, accidental gunshot or the Soul Cryer, and it might be many years before anyone would come searching for the bodies. By that time, the swamp and its creatures would have disposed of the flesh, and Royce would be long gone. 

“No,” Magnus rasped, as he yet struggled to pull himself free. “Not lettin’ that happen.” 

A hand was offered to him. 

Magnus looked into the blue-tinged face of Caleb Bovie, who had crawled across the wet earth on his belly like the reptile that had bitten him. 

Tears of torment had streamed from Bovie’s bloodshot eyes and yellow foam coated his lips, but in spite of his obvious agony he whispered, “
Grab hold
.” 

Magnus did. Bovie had no strength to speak of, but he tried his best. It was enough. Magnus freed himself from the pit, feeling his boots being sucked off his feet as payment for escape, and he lay weary on the ground next to Bovie like an oversized scarecrow covered head to toe with the black grime of the swamp. 

“Muldoon?” Bovie asked, again in a pained whisper. “Will you help me get home?” 

“Yes,” said Magnus. 

Magnus got to his bootless feet with a determination that would have earned an awed respect from even Father Prisskitt. He started to reach down to help Bovie up, when he heard the Soul Cryer’s eerie weeping somewhere in the wilderness at his back. 

It was close, but it could not be seen. Smoke moved in the trees, and here and there in the higher branches burned sputters of flame like little torches. The dry, hot wind that had been blowing toward the river had calmed to an acrid breeze, but Magnus could see the orange glow of the fire in the sky that meant a large portion of the forest was ablaze. The main part of the fire looked to be maybe a quarter mile away, and was throwing a constellation of embers into the air that drifted down like burning stars. 

Again the Soul Cryer wept, closer still. 

Magnus walked the few paces to Bovie’s discarded sword and picked it up. He retrieved the pistol from Barrows’ dead body and cocked it. Soul Cryer smells blood, Magnus thought. It’s comin’. 

With sword in one hand and pistol in the other, the grimy black mountain of a scarecrow stood over Caleb Bovie and readied himself to fight for both their lives. 

“River’s just ahead,” said Matthew, who could see it about thirty yards distant through the trees. Quinn was holding his hand, gripped hard, and a few yards behind them came Abram, the crippled Mars and Tobey. 

“Need to rest just a minute,” Mars said. When Matthew and Quinn paused, Mars’ sons eased their father down to the ground with his back against a willow’s trunk. “Stepped in a gopher hole,” Mars told Matthew. “Heard that ankle snap like a broomstick.” 

“Does it pain you very much?” 

Mars gave Matthew half of a smile; the other half of it was sad. “Not much. You like to see my brand, suh? Now…that
did
pain me much. Pained me more, to watch my wife and sons be branded. God bless my Jenny, I miss her. You own slaves, suh?” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“What kind of work you do?” 

“I’m…”
A problem-solver
, Matthew was about to say. Instead, he said, “I’m paid to stick my nose into places where it doesn’t belong.” 

Mars laughed, a rich deep sound. “And here you be. Who’s payin’ you for this?” 

“Mrs. Kincannon.” 

“Why not the mister? He still poorly?” 

“I don’t know. He was abed when I left the Green Sea.” 

“Hm,” Mars said quietly, and stared past Matthew toward the River of Souls. A whiplash of lightning flared across the charcoal sky, followed by the rumble of thunder. “Boys, we did wrong runnin’. Should’ve faced up to things, right then and there. Course, you’d be hangin’ by now,” he said to Abram. “Kincannons weren’t gonna take your word for nothin’, against Cap’n Royce and Cap’n Gunn.” 

“I didn’t want you two comin’ with me,” Abram said. “Told you to stay put, I was the one they wanted.” 

“Weren’t gonna let you come out here alone,” Tobey answered. “Got to look out for each other, and that’s how it is. Anyway…die out here or die at the Green Sea, don’t make no difference.” He turned his attention to Matthew. “Pardon my askin’, suh, but what’s this proof you got that says Abram didn’t kill Miss—” 

Tobey’s question was stopped by the
crack
of a musket being fired from the darkness of the thicket behind them, and at once Tobey grabbed at his left side and with a cry of pain fell to his knees. Matthew had seen the flash of the pan, and now the cloud of smoke indicated from where the shot had come. 

“Down! Get down!” Matthew urged, and pulled Quinn with him to the ground. Abram crawled over to shield his father, while Tobey gasped and clutched at his bleeding side. 

“Who’d I hit?” came Royce’s voice, casual and unhurried. “I was aimin’ at you, Corbett! That’s all right, I’ll get you yet! You too, Abram! Gonna get all of you before it’s done!” 

Matthew realized that might well be the truth, for he had only the short-bladed sword as a weapon. Still…dark was falling…they might yet be able to get to the river. But what had happened to the other men…Magnus, Stamper, Gunn, Bovie and the others? 

“Corbett, you were asked a question!” Royce said from his hidden position. “What’s your proof?” 

Matthew figured the man wanted to get a fix on him when he spoke, but he couldn’t resist. He kept low to the ground, right beside Quinn and one arm over her. “The compress Dr. Stevenson gave you for the horse bite,” he said. “It broke open when Sarah grasped your arm after you’d stabbed her the first time. You knew it had. I imagine you spent some time cleaning that up after you scared Abram into running. What did you do, work it into the ground? But some of the material inside the compress was under Sarah’s fingernails. Mrs. Kincannon knows that, I showed it to her. Are you going to go to the Green Sea and kill
her
, too?” 

Royce didn’t answer. 

“No use in your killing anyone else,” Matthew told him. “You’re finished, Royce. Where are the others?” A chill passed through him, as he realized what might have happened. “Did you kill
all
of them?” 

“Not all, I had some help from the swamp. Abram? You never should’ve shown any interest in that girl. I watched you. I watched the both of you. Whisperin’ together when you didn’t think anybody was lookin’. Walkin’ together, right in the broad daylight. And in that barn at night…makes me sick to my stomach, thinkin’ about it.” 

“You were wrong, Cap’n Royce,” Abram called out. “Miss Sarah was teachin’ me to read, and that’s the—” 

The next musket shot hit the willow tree trunk and threw splinters. Abram ducked his head down against his father’s shoulder. 

“Don’t lie!” Royce seethed. “I know what you were doin’ in there! Night after night…I followed her, I saw you go in there too! Only one reason you’d be breakin’ the law and meetin’ in that barn after dark! Wouldn’t even offer me a
smile
, and her givin’ herself to that black skin! Well, she paid for it!” 

“Royce!” Matthew said, as lightning flashed above and more thunder growled. “Was Sarah carrying a book when you stabbed her? And did she drop that book to the ground? Surely you saw it!” 

“That’s a damned lie, too! Her teachin’ a
skin
to read! Don’t matter if she had a book or not, they wasn’t
readin’
in that barn!” 

Abram had crawled over to tend to his brother, who was in obvious pain but nodded to show he was hanging on. 

“You didn’t have to kill the girl!” Matthew said. “Why didn’t you go to Kincannon? Tell him what you thought was going on?” 

“Think he would have believed
me
? About his darlin’ daughter? He would’ve run me off tarred and feathered! I told her I knew what she was doin’, and if she was nice to me…show me a little favor…I wouldn’t tell. But she looked at me like she always did…like I was lower than dirt…and she’d rather have that damn black skin than me? Treatin’ that slave better than a white man?” 

“Miss Sarah brought the books and she was teachin’ me to read!” Abram shouted back. “That’s all!” 

A third shot rang out in reply. Matthew heard the ball zip past. It was a higher report than the first two shots. A pistol, Matthew thought. And did Royce have one musket or two? How quick was he at reloading the weapons? Was it worth the risk to charge at him with the sword? But he was hidden there in the thicket, and by the time Matthew crossed the fifteen yards or so between them another musket could be ready. Matthew glanced back at Abram and Tobey. The blood was oozing between Tobey’s fingers. It might not have been a killing shot but in time it would be, and time was a precious commodity. 

Matthew was still weak from his own loss of blood. He thought he was turning into a bearded ragamuffin himself, a pale piece of parchment as Magnus had said at the Sword of Damocles Ball, which seemed a lifetime away. Lightning zigzagged across the sky and thunder boomed overhead, and Matthew Corbett was caught between what he ought to do and what he feared to do. 

“Give it up!” Royce called. “None of you are leavin’ this swamp!” 

Abram suddenly stood up. He drew a knife from the waist of his breeches. “You won’t be leavin’ it either, Cap’n Royce,” he promised, and with an inhalation of breath he ran past Matthew and Quinn toward the woods where Sarah’s killer lay in wait.