Kill the Raven: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 3)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  THIRTEEN

  KAMP PULLED HIS SLOUCH HAT LOW and fired a penny at the toll collector on the New Street Bridge. He didn’t need to look across the river to know that Native Iron had grown even since the last time he’d crossed the bridge with the kid who’d called steel works a fire-breathing abomination.

  But he didn’t have time to ruminate on the ruination of his fair city, didn’t bother to wonder what it might look like in a year, or in fifty. Even though Shaw and Autumn were already gone, half way up the line to Lehighton, Kamp wanted to go home, if for no other reason than to collect a couple things he’d need.

  He figured he could talk his way past whoever they’d stationed at his front door. Arguing wouldn’t work. It might spark conflict that would lead to violence, and ultimately reward Black Feather with their desired end. He’d be shot on the doorstep for trespassing.

  So, he walked the miles back to his small farm, eyes on the ground, boots crunching the gravel and coming up with the words he’d need to talk his way into his own house.

  NYX HEARD THE COMMOTION before she saw it. She’d been lost in a reverie on her way to the mine, a powerful memory of swimming in Shawnee Creek with the doomed Daniel Knecht.

  She remembered the way she’d felt that summer day. Clean and cold. And she remembered climbing out of the water, how the sun reflected its light in the water drops on her bare chest.

  Nyx rarely allowed herself these memories, because they had the power to pull her into the past but more importantly because they took her focus from the detection of threats in the here and now. And so it was with alarm mixed with some irritation that she snapped from her reverie and focused on the knot of men on the porch of the Black Feather Extraction Company Store.

  Permanently begrimed miners crowded in, shoving and elbowing each other to get a better look at something affixed at eye level next to the doorpost. Nyx heard them before she could see what they were talking about.

  “Ach, but she’s a wild one.”

  “They say she killed a man with her bare hands.”

  “Yah, well, I’d put her on the straight and narrow. Believe me.”

  “Better to slit her throat first and then give it to her. Just to be safe.”

  Nyx felt the blood drain from her face, felt dread in her belly and numbness in the tips of her fingers. Her heart began to thud. Head down, she moved as close as she dared before shooting a glance. It was a poster that read:

  $1000 REWARD

  Will be paid in gold coin for the apprehension

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  of

  the MURDERER NADINE BAUER

  aka NYX BAUER aka NADJA KNEFF

  aka BIX NEUER aka NOX VOLK

  Above the text was a hand-drawn picture, and Nyx felt relief when she studied it. The artist must have worked from a family photograph taken seven or eight years before. Her face had changed in the intervening years, details the artist didn’t know and failed to guess. Combined with her everyday disguise, which included close-cropped hair and several layers of coal dust, she looked nothing like the face on the poster.

  Still, Nyx fought the urge to run. She walked into the company store with a straight back, wondering whether her fellow miners had an inkling of her real identity. But given that she hadn’t been shot or bludgeoned as yet, the answer had to be no.

  The pepperbox pistol, which she’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t use, was tucked in her right boot.

  BIX NEUER? NOX VOLK? Kamp realized Nyx had probably made up a number of aliases in order to avoid detection. But looking at the wanted poster and reading the fake names, he wondered how many lies had been told and how many facts invented about her since the murders of her parents three years before.

  The creation and dissemination of a wanted poster was itself a powerful form of myth-making, he knew.

  He’d first seen it when his march home took him past Grace Lutheran Church. A group of congregants had assembled around the poster, which had been nailed to a lamppost. They clucked and muttered.

  “What her parents suffered, and now this.”

  “She was always a wild one. You just knew it.”

  “The shame.”

  The Reverend A.R. Eberstark, resplendent in a purple silk chasuble strode down the walk to where the group stood. They parted for him, and he took his place next to the lamppost.

  Eberstark surveyed the group lovingly, then said, “Our lord and master said, ‘Suffer the children and forbid them not to come unto me.’ ”

  There was nervous murmuring in the crowd, and then someone said, “But she’s a killer, a fiend!”

  “Indeed, but she’s been led astray, and deserves mercy.”

  “Yah, well, she’ll have no mercy on you, reverend.”

  Eberstark looked up as if a fly had just buzzed past his ear.

  Another congregant said, “That’s right, she never showed you no mercy.”

  Eberstark lowered his eyes and let the comment hang, then tilted his chin up and said, “It’s not this little one who’s committed these crimes. She means me no ill-will, and she’s done nothing wrong.”

  Anger rippled through the crowd.

  Eberstark let the moment build and then roared, “It’s the spirit of the Jezebel. The Jezebel spirit has invaded this girl’s very soul!”

  At the back of the crowd, a woman shouted, “He’s right!”

  He continued, “It’s the Jezebel spirit sent by Satan himself. And it must be cast out, however harsh the trials may be.” Flecks of spittle flew from the corners of his mouth, and his face matched the color of his chasuble. “We must hope that Nadine Bauer can survive the enemy’s onslaught, not to mention the exorcism.”

  “Bless you, reverend.”

  Eberstark daubed his forehead with a silk handkerchief.

  “Yes, well, first she must be found.”

  Kamp got close enough to inspect the poster, and he smiled when he saw that the picture didn’t look like Nyx. He turned and walked away, confident that no one would recognize her. And he knew she would never allow herself to be discovered.

  Still, a reward of that size would entice men to act even on the slightest suspicion. He wondered who could pay a bounty of that size until he saw the small letters at the foot of the poster, “Offered by Black Feather Consolidated.”

  Black Feather was behind the search for Nyx. And it was Black Feather who’d manufactured the scheme to disgrace him.

  Behind Black Feather was the Fraternal Order of the Raven, not the Judge or MacBride the doctor. Ultimately, it was the Order who demanded that he find her.

  After seeing that first wanted poster, Kamp saw it again and again on fences, storefronts, and trees on his march out of town. Black Feather offered no explanation as to why they, not the county and not the police, were offering a reward. It didn’t matter.

  And they provided no evidence to back up the claim that Nyx was a murderer. Given the notoriety she’d achieved, the absence of facts wouldn’t matter. What mattered was that the Order wanted Nyx Bauer, and they wanted Kamp and everyone else to find her.

  NYX MADE SURE that she and Aodh worked farther down in the mine that day than ever before. They stooped low under the last supporting timbers and then crawled another fifty yards to get at a fresh anthracite seam that glinted by the light of her candle.

  Holding her hewing shovel in both hands, she moved on knees and elbows to her starting point, a crevice fifteen inches high.

  Aodh Blackall watched her disappear into the dark. In the months since this young lad Nef Bahr had started working with him, he’d grown so accustomed to his questions that Nef Bahr’s voice had become as much a part of the underground symphony as the creaking of timbers and the groaning of rough lovers that often emanated from the dark.

  Bahr’s voice had become a comfort to him, he now realized, because the lad hadn’t spoken a word today. But Aodh knew that every man, young or old, had secrets and stored up inside him that demanded attention and sometimes silence.<
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  And many a time, the deeper he wanted to go into the mine, the deeper he wanted to go in himself. Still, he sensed something amiss in Nef Bahr, and he wanted to hear him speak.

  Aodh called out, “Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Ainna that right, Nef Bahr?”

  Nyx heard him, but the words didn’t register, as she’d already begun to hew the coal. She paused when she realized he was talking to her.

  “What?”

  “You know where tha’s from? Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life?”

  “Yah, I do,” she called over her shoulder, “though I didn’t peg you for a churchgoer.”

  “I’m not, not unless you fancy this black hole a cathedral. Not that I’ll be lookin’ for deliverance down here. And I certainly donna have anythin’ t’confess.”

  He wanted to draw out Nef Bahr, and get him talking, but the lad starting hewing again, and soon Aodh did, too.

  THE FLICKER OF FEAR NYX FELT above ground now became a raging fire. Only by dint of hard labor could she keep the flames at bay.

  Nyx wanted to tell Aodh, tell him about her parents and about Daniel Knecht and how they all met their end. She wanted to tell him about a real murderer, Hugh Arndt, and what she’d done with his corpse, about how they’d hunted her with dogs and then nearly killed her and Angus in a storm of bullets.

  Nyx wanted Aodh to know that she still had plans and hope for a future but that she had other matters to tend to first. She pushed down the impulse and made no sound, save the chunk of the coal axe sinking into anthracite and black diamonds hitting the floor.

  KAMP’S HEART STARTED TO THUMP when his house came into view. He noticed smoke twisting from the chimney. Shaw would never have left a fire burning.

  As he got closer and looked through the front window, he saw people inside. He slowed his walk when he reached the bottom stair to the porch, and he crouched as he made his way up and got a closer look. He thought maybe the men who’d evicted his family had stayed there, for what reason he couldn’t fathom. But when he got a good look inside, he saw a woman, roughly Shaw’s height, with straight black hair that reached the middle of her back.

  Perhaps sensing that she was being watched, the woman spun around to face him, and when she did, he saw a face like Shaw’s, except pale.

  When she saw Kamp, the woman said, “There’s someone here.”

  He heard footfalls thudding down the stairs, then saw a man cross the room. The door swung open, and he stood face to face with a man who looked like him.

  The man’s complexion and coloring, his height and build, the shape of his countenance: all were nearly the same as Kamp.

  The man said, “May I help you?”

  In an instant Kamp grasped the nature and scope of the deception, and he said, “Yes, you can.”

  The man stood straight, chin out.

  “How might I do that?”

  Kamp took a step closer, forgetting every word of the speech he’d rehearsed.

  “By getting the fuck out of my house.”

  The woman, who’d been standing quietly behind the man, gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Sir, I’ll ask you not to use foul language.”

  Kamp felt the spark at the base of his skull burst into flame. “Do you have a kid, too?”

  “Sir? I’m afraid I—”

  “A child. Did you scare up a child who looks like my daughter?”

  The woman put her head down and began to cry softly.

  “Jesus, enough with the act,” Kamp said.

  The man’s gaze hardened as he stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him.

  The man said, “Two years ago a house on this very site burned to the ground. Our infant daughter perished in that fire. I’ll ask you to leave the premises now, sir.”

  “Tell me your name, your real name.”

  “I don’t have to tell you—”

  “Tell me!”

  “All right, it’s Wendell W—”

  The sound of a pump action interrupted the man, and Kamp turned his head to see the barrel of an 8-gauge shotgun and behind that, a face he recognized.

  Officer Falko Stier said, “You’re trespassing. Leave.”

  Kamp didn’t comply, and in a single motion Stier flipped the weapon around and with the butt of the gun, and cracked him in the jaw, knocking him back two steps. Kamp righted himself but then doubled over, a rope of bloody saliva stretching from his lips to the wooden planks of the porch.

  Falko Stier turned to the man in the doorway and said, “Mr. Kamp, we’re sorry for this intrusion. We’ll not allow it again.”

  FOURTEEN

  AFTER FOURTEEN HOURS IN A SPACE EIGHTEEN INCHES HIGH, Nyx was ready to get aboveground, no matter the risk. Aodh had long since given up trying to talk to her, and she’d been able to work in solitude, allowing the successive waves of panic to wash over her and eventually ebb.

  The fear of being caught was now outweighed by the need to pull fresh air into her lungs and to see natural light on her skin. When she backed out of her spot on bloody knees and elbows, she stood up slowly, allowing her body to adjust to moving upright.

  Immediately, a hand clapped her on the right shoulder.

  Nyx went rigid, and she waited for what she thought was coming next, the killing blow.

  “Jaysus, Nef, but you’re a squirrel today.”

  Aodh’s fingers began to knead, coaxing the soreness from the muscles. Then he put both hands on her shoulders and pressed his thumbs into the back of her neck, and when he did, Nyx felt a powerful and not at all unpleasant shiver travel down and then back up her spine.

  She let her head tip forward and let him work his hands. At the moment relaxation and pleasure began to spread through her body, Aodh stopped massaging her shoulders, picked up his axe and shovel.

  On his way out, Aodh said, “Sometimes a man needs a friendly squeeze. But now it’s time for a beer. Let’s go.”

  When they reached the road out of the mine and began marching with their fellow miners, Nyx’s fear took hold once more. She thought again about the pepperbox pistol tucked in her boot.

  KAMP HELD HIS JAW as he shambled down the path from his home, and the pain clouded his thinking. He knew that seeking help wasn’t an option and seeking revenge would be pointless. That two people had been installed in his house in order to assume his and Shaw’s identities suggested the scope and complexity of an extensive plot, already well in motion.

  When he reached the road, he tilted his head back and squinted at the sun. It was late afternoon, and he needed to find food and then a place to sleep.

  Working his way through the woods and crouching low, he ran for the house of the Sam Druckenmiller. Once he was convinced the High Constable wasn’t there, Kamp hustled to the back door where he found a new brass lock. Then he went to Druckenmiller’s shed, where he found a new lock on that door as well.

  Kamp picked up a stone and swung it hard into the doorknob, smashing it open. He went straight to the cellar and found a ringwurst hanging on a hook. Then he hurried back up the stairs to the kitchen and took a loaf of sourdough from the counter. In the cold chest he discovered a bottle of ale. He put it all in a burlap sack, yanked the blanket off Druckenmiller’s bed and stuffed that in the sack, too.

  His only option for sleeping with a roof over his head was the one he liked the least. Kamp made his way along the familiar path beside Shawnee Creek, and when he reached the spreading chestnut tree from which the body of Daniel Knecht had once dangled, he turned toward the road.

  The red house, the former home of Jonas and Rachel Bauer and their daughters, looked much the same as the last time he’d seen it, hopeless and lorn. The windows, which had been covered with boards, were now open, the glass long gone. He walked to the front step and found that while the door was still there, the knob was missing. The door swung freely when he pushed it.

  Darkn
ess followed him inside, and he became aware that he had no candle and no matches but figured it was just as well. Seeing the interior of the house clearly could let loose a torrent of images and overload his senses.

  Kamp went to the main room, spread out the blanket and sat on it with his back to the wall. The growling in his stomach grew louder and more persistent, but as soon as he fished the ringwurst out of the bag, he realized he couldn’t take a bite. The pain in his jaw was too intense.

  He stared at the food he couldn’t eat, and the deep anger and frustration he’d been keeping at bay burst into his consciousness. Scenes from the past several weeks—the letter arriving at his door, the guns pointed at his head, the accusations and lies—all of it spun and whirled before his mind’s eye.

  And then memories from farther back appeared, the mutilated faces of Jonas and Rachel Bauer and the charred ruins of his own house, followed by battle scenes and butchered men in heaps behind a canvas army tent. He stifled the urge to scream and allowed his body to shake, though it brought fresh pain.

  As the anger and agony worked their way toward a crescendo, Kamp heard a thud upstairs. He sat up, listened and heard nothing more. Perhaps the wind had knocked something over. Another thud, and then shuffling. Someone there. He took a defensive crouch and waited in the pitch darkness.

  He heard soft footfalls on the stairs, then saw the glow of a candle and the small hand that held it. A girl, maybe ten years old, reached the bottom step and stopped.

  She wore a tattered dress and no shoes, and she was followed by another girl who looked like a little sister. The girls stared at him with frightened expressions that shifted to bemusement. The moment passed, and someone else came rushing downstairs.

  It was the mother, looking shocked and dazed and then finally the father, who rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He regarded Kamp with a furrowed brow and talked in a harsh tone.

  Kamp didn’t understand the language but recognized it as Hungarian. Rather than try to talk, he pointed at his jaw, made a punching motion and then pointed at the food and shook his head. They understood. He pulled the beer bottle from the sack and offered it to the father, who nodded.