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

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  “We will bury him,” she said.

  Grimp looked past her to a knot of policemen standing off to the side. He motioned to them, and one of them took Shaw hard by the shoulders. The rest lifted Kamp’s body from the ground.

  “No.”

  Shaw tried to slap Grimp across the face, but the police officer grabbed her wrist and twisted it.

  Joe realized that one more aggressive move, and they would likely shoot her down. Maybe that’s what she wants, he thought.

  He approached slowly, acknowledging the officer who held his daughter. The officer gripped Shaw harder when he saw Joe.

  Joe said, “It’s all right. I’ll take her.”

  Shaw turned to him.

  “You can’t. You can’t just let them—”

  Autumn tugged at the hem of Shaw’s dress.

  The little girl said, “We have to leave. Daddy’s not here anymore anyway.”

  Shaw’s body went slack, then she began to sob. The officer relaxed his grip, and Joe took her in his arms.

  Joe departed the square, carrying Shaw, and his granddaughter walked beside him.

  EMMA WYLES WATCHED the scene in the square until she felt confident that Shaw, Autumn and Joe wouldn’t be harmed.

  Then she turned to Pickler and said, “We’re going.”

  Wyles knew Nyx and Angus had a head start, but both were wounded. And they may have run into trouble on the way back to their cabin, the only place they could go.

  She sprinted from the square, and Pickler, who struggled to carry the medicine bag, shambled behind her. She figured she could find her way from town to Angus’s cabin, but she was wrong.

  Soon after departing the road, she and Pickler found what appeared to be a side trail, only to reach a cliff.

  Wyles gritted her teeth and said, “Son of a bitch.”

  Pickler leaned against a tree, took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Wyles put her head down and fought to stifle a scream.

  A moment passed with neither of them saying anything until Pickler broke the silence.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes, Pickler.”

  “I think I found them.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Pickler stepped to the edge of the cliff.

  “Down there.”

  He pointed to a spot in the forest a mile or so away, where black smoke had begun to billow.

  THE SMOKE LED THEM straight to Angus’s cabin. When they got within a hundred yards, Wyles slowed to a walk and listened. She heard no voices, only the crackling of burning timbers and loud popping that she took to be ignition of cartridges inside the cabin.

  Wyles said, “Wait here,” and she walked a wide arc around the cabin, now nearly engulfed in flames. She pushed down the memory of having been trapped with Shaw and Autumn in the cellar of their burning house years before as well as the thought that Nyx and Angus were inside.

  When Wyles had nearly completed her circle, she heard shouts in the distance as well as barking dogs. Then Nyx burst from the front door of the cabin, clutching a canvas sack in one hand and a rifle in the other. Her body was bent at an odd angle as she stepped down from the porch, the back of her blouse soaked with blood.

  “Nyx.”

  She didn’t hear Wyles, or if she did, ignored her. Wyles followed her into the dense underbrush at the edge of the clearing, where she found Nyx struggling to lift Angus to his feet. The barking grew louder.

  Wyles said, “Pickler,” and soon the young pharmacist came running.

  Nyx turned to Wyes and said, “Oh, you’re here.”

  “Yes, and Pickler here is going to help you now.” Wyles turned to Pickler and said, “Take them to Joe’s.”

  “Where’s that?”

  She turned back to Nyx. “Show him. Understand? Nyx? Go to Joe’s. Now.”

  Wyles picked up the canvas sack and the rifle and handed them to Pickler. Then she took the medicine bag by the handle and started walking in the direction of the approaching dogs.

  Pickler put Angus’s arm around his shoulder and said to Nyx, “Lead the way.”

  Wyles had only walked a hundred feet or so when the first dog, a Redbone Coonhound, reached her. It was followed by a Plott and then another Redbone. Soon, half a dozen dogs had Wyles backed up against a tall tree.

  While the hounds bayed at her feet, she stood still. Thirty seconds later three men approached. Each wore an expensive-looking tweed hunting outfit with oiled boots, and they carried shotguns with fine steel barrels and maple stocks that blazed when the sun hit them.

  The man in the lead tipped his cap to Wyles and gave a loud whistle. The dogs fell silent.

  “A dreadful fire,” the man said.

  “Indeed.”

  “We ran here as soon as we saw the smoke.”

  Wyles noticed that the men were neither perspiring nor out of breath.

  She said, “Yes, well, the cabin wasn’t occupied.”

  Without emotion the man said, “Thank god. And please accept our humble apologies for the commotion.” He gestured to the dogs.

  Wyles inspected the men, whom she’d never seen before. They looked nothing like the locals. Perhaps they’d come up for the execution and stayed to go hunting. She doubted it. The first man spoke with an accent she couldn’t place.

  The lead man looked at the medicine bag and said, “Would you happen to be a doctor?”

  “Not as such.”

  “Well, we won’t trouble you further.”

  “Thank you.”

  The man tipped his cap again and whistled. The dogs bolted back in the direction they’d come, and the three men followed them.

  GRIGG AND STIER SAT on a stoop across the square from the jail and watched the fire brigade hose down the embers of smoldering buildings. Then they watched as the coroner and his assistants went about the business of wrapping the corpses in winding sheets that gave the dead the appearance of outsize chrysalises.

  Kamp’s corpse was removed first and then the sheriff’s, both placed in a police dray wagon and spirited away.

  The pair noticed the Honorable J. Blasius Grimp talking to the coroner and then walking back into the jail.

  Falko Stier rubbed the new whiskers on his cheeks and surveyed the scene. He motioned to the one body that hadn’t been wrapped in a winding sheet, Aodh Blackall.

  “Maybe they forgot about him,” he said.

  “Doubt it. More likely Judge wants him to rot,” Grigg said. “To serve notice.”

  “Can’t have that.”

  Stier stood up and crossed the square, straight to Aodh’s body. He hooked his hands under Aodh’s armpits and began dragging him.

  “Hey. Leave him be,” a uniformed officer said and then advanced on Stier.

  Stier kept dragging the body. The officer whistled to his fellow lawmen who came at once, truncheons at the ready.

  Grigg sprinted across the square, waving his arms and saying, “Stop, stop at once.”

  The police turned their attention to him, and the first officer said, “Who are you?”

  “B.H. Grigg, District Attorney, County of Northampton. May I know your name, please?”

  “Well, I, it’s important that you—”

  Grigg continued. “And this is Captain Falko Stier, Bethlehem police.”

  “We don’t need no help, fellas. Judge said leave this dead man be.” He looked at Stier. “Now fuck off.”

  Stier let Aodh’s body fall.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  Before he could lunge at the officer, Grigg grabbed a handful of Stier’s shirt and stopped him. Then he turned back to the police officer.

  Grigg said, “As I see it, you have at least two problems.”

  “How so?”

  Grigg gestured to Aodh Blackall. “First, it’s against the law to leave a dead body unburied.”

  “Don’t matter.”

  “More to the point, this man isn’t dead.”

  All eyes turned to Aodh, who’d beg
un to turn his head side to side.

  The officer said with disgust, “Jesus boom.” He unholstered his pistol and pointed it at Aodh.

  Grigg said, “Pull the trigger, and you’ll be arrested for murder.”

  The officer made a wry face. “Ach, but this goddamned guy’s already supposed to be—”

  Stier roared, “Get that goddamned judge out here. Now!”

  JOE STOOD OUTSIDE the front door of his cabin, shotgun propped against a post. Inside, Shaw packed everything she’d thought they’d need for their journey.

  It wouldn’t take her more than a few minutes to prepare, but he thought that would still be too long. People had seen him in the square, and even though they might not know the exact location of his cabin, they’d find it soon enough.

  He wasn’t surprised when he heard footfalls approaching on the trail. Joe was surprised, however, to see the familiar faces of Nyx and Angus. Both were bloody and ragged. Nyx carried a rifle and a canvas sack.

  A young man Joe had never seen before trailed along behind them. Moments later, Emma Wyles appeared on the path, medicine bag in hand.

  Joe jumped down off the porch, scooped Angus in his arms and carried him into the cabin ahead of Nyx, Wyles and Pickler. Once they were all inside, he locked the door. Wyles examined the gash on Angus’s head, then retrieved a spool of catgut and a needle and started suturing.

  Joe said, “We need to leave now.”

  “No,” Angus said, “I ain’t going nowhere.”

  Wyles finished the stitches and wiped the blood from Angus’s face with a damp cloth.

  Then she turned to Nyx and said, “Lie down on the table.”

  Joe said, “They saw me back there. They’ll find us.” Joe looked from Angus and then to Nyx, “Go back to your cabin.”

  “Can’t. It burned.”

  “Who by?”

  Nyx said, “I don’t know. It was burning when I—”

  “Me. I did it,” Angus said.

  Wyles peeled back Nyx’s shirt to reveal the gunshot wound, a raw, ragged mess caked with clotted blood. Wyles scanned for an exit wound and found none.

  “The bullet is still in there. I can go in and get it if—”

  “Leave it,” Nyx said.

  She hauled herself to a seated position, and then she stood, though she was still bent from the pain. Nyx turned to Joe and said, “I’ll stay here. I’ll make sure they don’t catch up with you.”

  Angus said, “Ach, there’s no reason—”

  Nyx said, “You’re going with Joe. I don’t know where you’re going, Emma, or where—” She jerked her thumb at Pickler.

  He cleared his throat and said, “Pickler.”

  “—or where Pickler’s going. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll just stay here for now and wait for him. And then Kamp and I can…”

  Nyx read the facial expressions of Shaw and Joe, and she knew what they meant. Angus realized, too, that he was gone. Angus closed his eyes, pulled in a long breath, hung his head and let out a deep sigh.

  The report of a rifle in the distance spurred them all to action. Joe picked up the last two boxes and went out the back door where two horses and a dray wagon awaited them.

  He said to Shaw, “Nichan, yukwe.”

  Shaw gathered Autumn in her arms and left. Angus followed them out, leaving Nyx, Wyles and Pickler.

  Nyx focused on Wyles and said, “What about you?”

  “We have business in town. You?”

  Nyx picked up the canvas sack in her left hand and the rifle in her right. She straightened her spine and gave Wyles a flat stare.

  “Best to finish all important matters once started.”

  FORTY-TWO

  “I AIN’T BRINGIN’ HIM OUT HERE.” The police officer hardened his gaze and spoke directly to Grigg. “The judge will not be disturbed, no how. Now if yous’ll just turn around and—”

  Falko Stier balled his fists and started for the front door of the jailhouse.

  The officer said, “Well, Je-zus crackers,” and he raised his shotgun.

  Grigg said, “Lower your weapon.”

  The officer aimed at the middle of Stier’s back.

  Grigg spoke louder. “You’re preparing to shoot a fellow officer. If you do, I promise to bring the full weight of the Commonwealth down upon you.”

  He knew the cop could just as easily turn and fire on him, the worth of his and Stier’s lives hovering near zero. But the possibility of prosecution, or maybe just tone of his voice broke the officer’s concentration. He lowered the shotgun.

  Stier walked a straight line, stepping through the gallows’ broken bones and striding up the stairs to the jailhouse. He turned only when he put his hand to the knob and looked back at Grigg.

  “Coming?”

  AUTUMN WEPT until she fell asleep in her mother’s arms, lulled by the to and fro rocking of the dray wagon, as Joe guided the horses down Long Run Road.

  He didn’t turn to look at his daughter. He knew she’d been crushed by the weight of the calamities that had befallen her, hardly different from those that had struck him so many years before. But now Kamp was gone.

  Joe also knew that nearly anyone they encountered on the road could be hostile. The very sight of Lenape, especially those that wouldn’t defer, was enough to provoke an attack.

  Maybe that would be just as well, Joe thought. And then he looked at Shaw and then at Autumn. Not that, not yet.

  Shaw said, “Where are we going?”

  “Easy, nichan. Rest now.”

  STIER MARCHED through the ground floor of the building, and he didn’t stop until he got to a locked door at the end of the hallway. Stier rapped knuckles on the door.

  From inside, a voice. “Go away.”

  By now, Grigg had caught up to him and said, “It’s all right. It’s not essential that we—”

  Stier knocked harder. Again, the voice, a low croak from inside the room.

  “Busy.”

  Grigg grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t worry, man. We can—”

  The rage that had pooled in Falko Stier’s gut now exploded at the point where his right shoulder met the door, splintering it at the hinges. He tumbled headlong into the room, where he found himself staring up at the Honorable J. Blasius Grimp.

  Grimp said, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  While Stier picked himself up off the bare wood floor, Grigg entered the room.

  “B.H. Grigg, District Attorney, County of Northampton. And this is my associate—”

  “Falko Stier, Bethlehem Police.”

  Grimp pursed his lips, took Stier’s measure, then swung his gaze to Grigg.

  “Bethlehem?”

  Stier said, “That’s right. Why?”

  Grimp sucked his teeth. “Well, you can have Bethlehem pay for that door. Or better yet, pay it yourself.”

  “Eat shit.”

  Grimp said to Grigg, “Get him the fuck out of here.”

  “Your honor, if I may—”

  “You may not.”

  A woman’s voice said, “Now, now, boys. Play nice.”

  Grigg and Stier turned to look at the back corner of Grimp’s chambers, where Adams sat in a chair.

  Grigg said, “Your honor, this woman is responsible for the murder of W.W. Kamp.”

  “Nickel Glock was wanted,” Adams purred, “dead or alive.”

  “And furthermore, your honor, this woman has been stalking me for the past two months. She’s made multiple attempts on my own life.”

  Grimp raised his eyebrows. “And yet, here you are.”

  “That’s not the point, your honor. This woman is a menace, an assassin.”

  Grimp took out his tin of Turtle Island Tobacco Bits and put a pinch inside his lower lip. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Grigg. And this is—”

  “Mr. Grigg. You’re telling me you’re afraid of this woman, this beautiful woman, who stands not even five feet tall and who, I might add, is missing a limb. You’r
e telling me that she’s a cold-blooded killer?”

  Falko Stier said, “Judge, you seen what she did to Duny Kunkle, and then to Kamp.”

  “You’ll be held to account, too, Judge. You can’t just let a murderer walk free.”

  “Who said I’m letting her walk free?” Grimp motioned to Adams’ wrist, which was chained to the radiator. “And as for holding me to account, well, you’re deluded.”

  Grigg said, “If you’re not charging her with a crime, why is she shackled?”

  Before he could answer, Adams said, “He wants the reward for Kamp. He doesn’t want me to get it.”

  “Bullshit,” Stier said.

  Grigg looked at Adams, whose gaze shifted from Grimp to Stier and then to him. She’s weighing her options, he thought. There’s something else she wants to say.

  Grigg said to her, “If all he wanted was the reward, you would’ve already acquiesced and been set free. There’s something else he wants, isn’t there? Something he wants you to tell him.”

  The Honorable J. Blasius Grimp said in a flat tone, “It’s time for you to leave, gentlemen.”

  Neither Grigg nor Stier moved.

  Grigg said to Adams, “What does he want to know about? The lies about Nickel Glock?”

  Adams’ expression didn’t change.

  Grimp said, “It can only get worse from here, gentlemen, I assure you.”

  Grigg sensed that he was close to the core of the mystery, that Adams knew the whole story. He leaned toward her.

  “What does he want to know?”

  She drew in a deep breath then said, “He wants to know about how Black Feather is connected to the Fraternal Order of the Raven and their plan for the mine. They’re getting ready to—”

  The sound of the gun blast ruptured one of Falko Stier’s eardrums, and before he and Grigg could react, Adams’ brain had splattered against the back wall of Grimp’s chambers.

  By the time Stier looked at Grimp, the Judge had already trained the Colt revolver on him. Stier rolled to the side as Grimp fired, catching him in the right shoulder. Grigg hooked Stier under the armpits and dragged him out of the room as the Honorable J. Blasius Grimp kept firing.