Trail's End

by E. L. Ripley

  The other thing that Jeremiah probably didn’t like was that he was having this conversation alone, without Saul and Thaddeus present. But he knew as well as Tom did how helpful those two would be if there was ever any real trouble.

  “Be discreet,” the older man said finally. “And hurry.”

  Phillip ducked his head and turned to go. Tom followed without a word, and in a moment, they were on the porch. Phillip went down the stairs and paused to gaze up at the night sky.

  “You did not tell him everything,” he said as Tom drew up alongside him.

  Tom had left out the part about shooting the two men.

  “I’m beat. You want to tell him what you heard me say, be my guest. I shot them, and I’d do it again. I wish there’d been another way. One that I really thought might have worked.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tom woke in his bed.

  His bed. How strange that sounded in his mind. When had he last been able to say that? He’d never owned a house and never stayed in the same city for more than a few weeks at a time, let alone the same bed.

  Summer was coming, but there would be a while more of this morning chill before it got here. He’d made a habit of rising as soon as he woke; it was always easier to face the day that way.

  Not this morning. He saw Ben Garner and that other man, the one in the scarf. He’d made decisions the night before, and he’d resolved not to worry over them. That resolution hadn’t held: here he was, lying in bed, trying to figure where he’d gone wrong.

  He hadn’t gone wrong. If he hadn’t struck first, he and the kid would’ve been killed. And sending for help was all they could do; the Quakers couldn’t protect themselves, and even at his best, Tom was only one man.

  The sun was coming up out there, and normally Tom would’ve been on his way back from his walk by now, but it had been a late night. He dragged himself out of bed and paused to knock on the kid’s door. The usual rustling came from the other side. Sleep had been Asher’s vice as long as Tom had known him, and if it was his worst vice, so be it. The kid would get himself up and be out in the fields working with the others; Tom wouldn’t have to pretend to be his pa and coax him out of bed.

  At the front door, he considered his walking stick, then leaned it against the wall and made his way out without it.

  He left the house and made for the pond where the men bathed, got cleaned up, and limped back. Everyone was already out and moving in the pale light. He got biscuits from Mrs. Rollins and took some back to the house for the boy, then ventured back out. A man named Germaine waved to him and jogged over.

  “Peace be with thee.”

  “Good morning,” Tom replied.

  “Have you seen Phillip, Tom?”

  “He’s gone on an errand to Des Crozet. I’d expect him back soon.” Tom considered the fields, and the trees and hills beyond. His whole time on the trail, he’d been looking over his shoulder. He still was.

  Now he’d be looking over that way as well.

  It was typical of him to be the last to arrive in the sewing room, and today was no exception. The feeling in Mrs. White’s house was better than it had been yesterday, but Tom was most worried about her. She knew that Tom had been the one to rouse her husband last night. She might have heard everything that was said, or Jeremiah might have told her nothing. Or she might have gone back to sleep and he might not have said anything.

  Tom didn’t know. He took his seat beside her and picked up his work, but paused when he put on the thimble that Phillip had brought him. Phillip wasn’t in any danger; the gang was to the northeast, and the road to Des Crozet was just about due south.

  He’d be all right, but Tom still didn’t like it. He should’ve been the one to ride for help, but that would’ve been too much. If the law came to Friendly Field, he’d stand a good chance of going unnoticed. If he went looking for the law—well, that wasn’t a good idea. Tom wasn’t afraid to die, not the way he had been a year ago, but he still wasn’t about to put the noose around his own neck.

  “Good morning,” he greeted the women.

  “Peace be with thee,” they all dutifully replied.

  Mary didn’t look cross with him for his rudeness the night before, when he’d gone off into the woods with the boy instead of coming to dinner. He’d have liked to give her some explanation for what he was doing, but he didn’t want to lie to her. And he didn’t want to tell her the truth, either. It wasn’t fair to her; what was she supposed to think? She wasn’t one of these women prone to unreasonable worry and trepidation, but still . . . His absence from her table last night probably bothered her, and he didn’t care for that.

  She sat as she always did, with a straight back and a little smile that made her appear as though she knew everything, and that nothing could possibly bother her. It was that bearing that had drawn his eye in the first place; it reminded him of Miss Ayako, a cardplayer from overseas who had taught Tom a pair of important lessons. First, that he wasn’t as good as he thought he was. Second, that he couldn’t have everything he wanted, even if he put his mind to it.

  “Are you well, Mr. Smith? You appear fatigued,” Mrs. White remarked.

  She’d heard everything. Did all of these Quakers have poker faces? It was starting to look that way.

  “I’ll manage,” he told her easily, leaning over to take a peek out the window. A slim figure in a lovely dress was sweeping Thaddeus’ porch. Tom couldn’t see her face, but that dress was certainly new to Friendly Field. “Is that Thaddeus’ new housekeeper?” he asked. According to the kid, that was Miss Adams’ position.

  “It is,” Mrs. White replied. Her poker face could hold, but the room itself gave it away.

  It seemed the pretense of the young woman being a housekeeper wasn’t doing much good. Well, the ladies might not approve, but Tom wasn’t bothered. There were real problems to worry about, and propriety wasn’t one of them. Thaddeus was an aging widower, and Tom was no puritan. Why shouldn’t he pay some girl to take some of the chill out of his evenings?

  Tom watched a little longer, and the housekeeper looked south. Tom leaned over farther. It was about time for Phillip to be coming back. Yes, Sebastian was out there as well, and he was waving. It had to be Phillip.

  Tom set aside his work.

  “Ladies, I apologize. I’ll be back shortly.” He left the house and hurried down to the grass, limping out as quickly as he could. Phillip spotted him and changed course, swinging down from the back of his mare.

  The girl on Thaddeus’ porch was watching, but Tom didn’t pay her any mind.

  “Well?” he asked quietly.

  “I was able to relay the message,” Phillip reported. He looked fine; it hadn’t been a particularly demanding task. So what was this worry in his eyes?

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The sheriff and his deputies were concerned of the danger in pursuing these men.”

  Tom shrugged. “Dangerous, sure enough. But there’ll be bounties aplenty to make it worth their while.”

  “Seems not. They plan to wire Boise and see what they think.” Phillip folded his arms, searching Tom’s face. “I imagine you will have your intended result.”

  He was right: word would get around, and someone would come. Maybe even the Army if there weren’t any lawmen brave enough try their luck. The trouble was that it would take time. Tom wasn’t surprised that help wasn’t immediate from Des Crozet; there was a sheriff there, and a few deputies—he’d hoped they might round up a few men from town and that would be enough, but would it? Maybe not.

  Tom didn’t know how big the Porter gang really was. They’d done big jobs; it must have taken quite a few hands to accomplish. The notion of chasing after a dozen outlaws on this terrain wasn’t very appetizing, and going after that number of competent ones didn’t appeal to Tom at all.

  It wasn’t good news, b
ut there was no changing it.

  “Good. We’ll be all right,” Tom told Phillip, and they shook hands.

  The door of Saul Matthews’ house banged open, and they both turned at the sudden noise. Eliza spilled out onto the porch, face pale and streaked with tears. Phillip and Tom both had the same notion, but Phillip was faster. He took off running, and Tom did the best he could without his stick.

  The girl caught herself on the railing and stayed there, knuckles as white as her face. Phillip bounded onto the porch and to her side.

  “What’s the matter?” he demanded, but the girl didn’t have a reply for him. She stood, fingers locked on that railing, eyes fixed on the ground. Tom went to the door and peered in. Where was Saul? Tom would’ve expected him to be eating breakfast by now at least. He occupied his days caring for the animals; it wasn’t heavy labor, but it had to be done, and even the elders were never idle.

  “Saul?” he called out.

  Phillip pulled Eliza away from the railing and made her sit in a chair on the porch, then joined Tom. “She won’t say anything.” He was equal parts baffled and worried, much like Tom.

  “Stay with her,” Tom told him, and limped into the house. It was dim and quiet, and everything appeared to be in its place. Of the three elders, Saul was the one with the most comfortable home, but that was because the man had pains in his joints. There were a few more rugs, cushions, and blankets.

  The place smelled, as most of these Quaker houses did, of freshly cut wood. Another scent caught his nose, however.

  It grew stronger as he made his way up the stairs. There were only two rooms up there; all these houses were alike. One was Saul’s bedroom, and that door was standing open. The rug was askew where Eliza had likely kicked it in her scramble to get out of the house. Tom knew the coppery smell of blood, and he knew that look on Eliza’s face. Saul was dead.

  Tom hadn’t seen this coming. Saul had looked fine the day before, and he wasn’t so old. He hadn’t been sick. Had he just gone in his sleep? It wasn’t unheard of.

  He froze in the doorway.

  Now that he was close enough, it wasn’t just the blood he smelled: there was just the very first hint of rot as well. Saul was in his bed under the covers. The handle of a knife stuck out of his chest, but that wasn’t what had Tom’s attention.

  The dead man’s mouth was open and full of black feathers.

  Tom had seen his share of violence, but never anything like this. Dark, dried blood marred the quilt, and some had pooled on the floor beside the bed. Light-headedness struck as he entered the room, and he put a hand on the dresser to steady himself. The night before he’d killed a man, maybe two, and he hadn’t felt this. Last night, he had known exactly what was happening.

  This, he didn’t understand. An old man dying in his sleep was one thing, but it hadn’t been Saul’s heart or his lungs. It had been this knife.

  Swallowing with a dry throat, Tom moved closer to the bed. The knife was the sort used for cooking.

  He jerked the drapes aside, and the scene was no less ghastly in the light.

  It wasn’t just feathers in the man’s mouth—there were twigs there as well, and maybe even parts of what might’ve once been a bird’s nest.

  Every bedroom in Friendly Field had a wooden cross hanging in it. Saul’s was on the floor by the bed, broken into pieces.

  Boards creaked; people were coming up the stairs. Jeremiah was the first through the door, Hattie O’Leary was with him, and Phillip tried to crowd in behind.

  Hattie cried out and fell to her knees; Jeremiah tried to catch her, but just ended up going down himself.

  Tom reached out to Hattie, but Jeremiah pushed him out of the way and lurched to his feet, mouth hanging open.

  “God have mercy,” he said.

  Hattie let out of a sob; she didn’t see Tom’s hand held out to her, just Saul and that knife.

  Phillip saw the body, but he only froze for a moment. He hauled Hattie upright and pulled her back to the stairs.

  Jeremiah put his hands on his head, and he was starting to turn blue. Tom hit him on the shoulder.

  “Breathe,” he said.

  Jeremiah did so, then set his jaw. The sound of his teeth grinding could probably have been heard in Connecticut.

  There was more creaking from the stairs, but Tom didn’t care who it was. There was something about the bloodstain that didn’t look right, not that he’d seen so many men stabbed.

  He jerked the knife out of Saul’s breast, and Jeremiah made a choking noise. Tom drew back the quilt to reveal the wound.

  There were two. The one that had killed him, and another just beside it, but perhaps less severe. Tom was no doctor.

  That was enough. He put the knife down on the bed and turned his back on the scene before going to the window and opening it. The smell of the corpse ripening was weak, but it still made him ill.

  Thaddeus reached the top of the stairs, gasping and sweating, and made it through the door.

  “Oh, heaven,” he said, and the words came out as faintly as a sigh.

  Tom looked at each man for a moment, then left the bedroom and made his way downstairs. He didn’t stop until he was on the porch, and there he sat on the step. The commotion hadn’t gone unnoticed, and Phillip was trying to maintain some kind of order. Tom should’ve helped him, but he just looked up at the morning sky and the crows flapping around up there and cawing.

  Even the ladies over at the White residence were on the porch, gazing across the grass as Eliza was led away, weeping.

  The new lady, the housekeeper—it looked like she was watching from the window of Thaddeus’ house, but Tom couldn’t be sure.

  It was fully ten minutes before Jeremiah and Thaddeus emerged.

  “Everyone?” Thaddeus was asking, face gray.

  “Yes.” Jeremiah’s voice was firm. Tom didn’t look, but he heard the older man pause. “Go on,” he said, and Thaddeus cast an uncertain glance at Tom before heading off into the grass.

  “Friends,” he announced, “everyone in the fields must come in. We must all gather in the church. Help me, George. Run out and find Sebastian and Hansel.”

  Tom didn’t hear the rest; Jeremiah was standing beside him. Tom didn’t have to look to know what kind of expression the other man had on. He gripped the banister and got to his feet.

  “So the devil is here,” Jeremiah said bitterly.

  Tom snorted, and the other man looked over at him sharply.

  “What?” he said. “Do you mean to say your outlaws are responsible?”

  “No. But neither is the devil,” Tom pointed out, and only after he said it did he remember whom he was talking to. There was no devil, no witchcraft—he knew that like he knew the sky was blue, but the Quakers didn’t look at things the way he did.

  “A murderer. Witchcraft,” Jeremiah said, watching the people make for the church, more than a few of them turning to look back at the two figures on the porch. “I can hardly believe it.”

  He was telling the truth; his was the face of man questioning everything.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tom was standing in the grass when he spotted Asher approaching.

  “Did you find it, kid?”

  “What, Mr. Calvert?”

  “What you were looking for. When we came here,” Tom said as the last few Quakers disappeared into the church. He and the kid were supposed to be there as well, but he was dragging his feet. It would be time for lunch soon, but in a few minutes food would be the last thing on anyone’s mind.

  “I am not certain I understand you.” Asher frowned up at him, but he could sense that something was wrong. He was wary.

  “I guess I’m just glad we got to enjoy this place while it was peaceful. For a little while. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  “Peace is not what I came he
re to find,” the boy replied. That was true; the kid hadn’t ever said anything like that. Tom had been the one who wanted peace.

  Tom snorted. “Fair enough. What do you want?”

  “I will tell you when I find it.”

  That was as good an answer as any.

  “What has happened?” the boy pressed.

  “Someone killed Saul Matthews.”

  The boy took that in with surprisingly little difficulty. And why wouldn’t he? Ever since he had met Tom, it seemed as though there’d been nothing but killing. Even Asher had been forced to take a hand in it, in a manner of speaking. After Tom was too far gone to see to things himself, the boy had hunted game for them, and cleaned and butchered the animals without assistance. He could handle a gun or a knife nearly as well as Tom could now. He wasn’t as good a shot, but that would come in time—or perhaps not, not if Friendly Field suited him.

  Tom wished Asher would just meet a girl he really liked. That had a way of changing things.

  Mary was in that church, and any moment she’d find out what was going on. He swallowed.

  “Mr. Calvert, who killed Mr. Matthews?”

  “That’s what I can’t figure, kid. It wasn’t the Porter gang. I can’t think of a way that could be it. They used feathers, put them in his mouth. Same feathers as we saw on that thing you found. But if whoever made that was offended by us taking it, why not come for us? Why Saul? I don’t know, kid. Let me think on it.”

  And they couldn’t wait any longer. They went to the church and let themselves in, finding the whole pack of Quakers in shock. Tom pushed Asher toward the pews in the rear and limped into the aisle, making for the front.

  Jeremiah and Phillip were up there, and Thaddeus as well, but Thaddeus was off to one side, dazed. Jeremiah was the one doing the talking, but he paused at the sight of Tom.