Dead Man's Reach

by D. B. Jackson

  And this time when he pulled the trigger, the weapon fired with a report that reverberated through the lanes.

  For the span of a heartbeat, all was still save for the receding echo of that gunshot. Then the stunned silence gave way to shouts of outrage and screams of panic. More stones hit off the façade of the house and flew through the unglazed windows. Someone cried, “He’s shot the boy!”

  Richardson yelled back at the mob, aiming his musket again. The second man moved to the window and aimed his weapon toward the open doorway. Some who had advanced on the entrance retreated again. Several ran around toward the back of the house, no doubt hoping to gain entry that way.

  Ethan spotted a young man being led away from the Richardson home toward another house. There was blood on his hand and on both of his thighs, but that appeared to be the extent of his wounds. He had been fortunate; all of them had. It seemed Richardson—the idiot—had fired pellets into the crowd, endangering dozens.

  And in that moment, Ethan caught sight of the second lad.

  He was slight, with wheaten hair, and he couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. His coat had been peeled away to reveal the front of his shirt, which had several holes in it and was soaked with blood.

  Two men carried the boy, their faces pale, though not so much as the child’s. His face was white as the snow, and contorted in a rictus of pain. They took him to one of the other houses and shut the door on the mob. A few seconds later two men rushed inside this same structure; Ethan hoped they were physicians.

  He felt sick to his stomach. The battle for Richardson’s house went on; he could hear men battering the rear, but he hadn’t the heart to watch more. He walked back toward Lillie’s shop.

  Before he was halfway there, he turned and made his way to the house into which they had taken the boy. He couldn’t try to save the boy without revealing to everyone there that he was a conjurer. But he wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t make the attempt. Reaching the house, he rapped hard on the door.

  Almost immediately it swung open. The man who blocked Ethan’s way into the house had blood on his coat and breeches.

  “Are you a surgeon?” he asked.

  Ethan hesitated for no more than an instant. “I have experience healing wounds of this sort.”

  The man seemed unsure, but he stepped aside. Ethan rushed past him into what appeared to be the dining room. The boy lay on the table in the center of the chamber. His shirt had been removed; his chest and abdomen were a bloody mess. A man stood beside the table, his hands crimson, shocking. Ethan assumed he was a physician.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  “My name is Ethan Kaille, Doctor.”

  “Your name is not familiar to me. Are you a surgeon?”

  Ethan stepped closer to him. He was aware of Reg hovering at his shoulder, eyeing the boy. “I have the ability to heal,” he said, keeping his voice low and holding the man’s gaze. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  The doctor’s eyes widened. “I believe I do,” he whispered.

  “I can close the wounds, stop the bleeding.”

  “The bleeding is only half the problem,” the doctor said. “The boy was struck with swan shot. At least one of the pellets seems to have lodged in a lung. There may be others in his heart or his stomach. Unless we can extract them, he’s going to die.”

  Ethan sagged and stared down at the boy.

  “Can you get them out?” the doctor asked. “Is that within your … your talents?”

  “No,” Ethan said, his voice thick.

  The doctor grimaced.

  Ethan thought he still might be able to help the lad, but before he could say as much to the doctor, a second gentleman hurried into the room, halted at the sight of Ethan, and scrutinized him with a critical eye.

  “Who is this?”

  “My name—”

  “Are you a physician?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then off with you. The boy needs care, not more trouble with rabble and ruffians.”

  The doctor appeared ready to tell the man that Ethan was a speller, but Ethan stopped him with a shake of his head. The boy needed a surgeon; he needed more than the crude healing Ethan could offer.

  “I’ll be going,” he said to the doctor. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

  “We’ve called for other surgeons,” the man said. “I’m sure they’ll come; one of them might be able to save him.”

  Ethan paused, although he didn’t look back. “I hope so.”

  “Pray for the boy.”

  I believe in neither prayer nor God, Ethan wanted to say. But he kept this to himself and left the house.

  Chapter

  FOUR

  Ethan stepped back onto Middle Street. A church bell had begun to peal nearby and more men had surrounded Richardson’s house. He could hear raised voices from within the residence, and he assumed that some of the mob had managed to get inside. He wondered if they would kill the customs man or merely turn him over to the sheriff. He couldn’t say that he cared much one way or another.

  Reg was still with him, watching Ethan as he walked. Ethan didn’t know what the spirit expected of him, and he was too angry and too disturbed to treat with him just then.

  “Dimitto te,” Ethan whispered. I release you.

  Closer to Lillie’s shop, a few men lingered near the sign and effigies that Richardson had tried to remove, but they barely took notice of Ethan. They were watching the mob and seemed to have all but forgotten the importer Lillie.

  Ethan knocked on the door. The merchant unlocked it, waved him inside, and shut it again, taking care to secure the lock once more.

  “What happened?” Lillie asked. “Where have you been? I thought I heard a gunshot before, but I can barely see through that window, and I didn’t dare venture outside. Is Ebenezer all right?”

  “Ebenezer?” Ethan repeated, picking up his greatcoat. “You’re worried about Richardson?”

  “Of course. He and I have been friends for years. And if you remember, it was your concern for him that drove you out into the street in the first place.”

  Ethan could hardly blame Lillie for being concerned for his friend. The merchant hadn’t seen the shooting; he didn’t know what Richardson had done. But at that moment Ethan was too enraged and grief-stricken to care.

  “You all but ordered me into the street,” he said.

  “And did you help him? Is he all right?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.” He shrugged on his coat and headed toward the door. “To be honest, I hope they kill him.”

  “What? How dare you say such a thing!”

  Ethan whirled, leveling a finger at Lillie with such passion that the merchant fell back several paces. “He fired into the crowd, without a thought for who he might hit!” He pointed in the general direction of the house in which the boy lay dying. “There’s a boy—I doubt he’s seen his thirteenth birthday! And he’s dying, murdered by your friend!”

  Lillie paled, but raised his chin. “If he was in that mob, with the rest of the rabble, he probably deserved it. Ebenezer wouldn’t shoot a child without cause.”

  “Aye, he would. I’ve just seen it.”

  Ethan pulled the door open.

  “Where are you going now?”

  “I’m done here for today. I’m going to the Dowsing Rod for an ale.”

  “I hired you! You leave when I tell you to!”

  “No, sir. I leave when I’m good and ready. You pay me by the day. You can have this morning for free. The afternoon is mine.”

  “But that mob—”

  Ethan wanted to put as much distance between himself and this shop as he could. But he read genuine fear in Lillie’s round face and so paused on the threshold.

  “They no longer care where your goods come from. Not today they don’t. I don’t know what they’ll do to Mister Richardson; I meant what I said before: I don’t care a whit about him. But I believe that you and
your shop are safe, at least until tomorrow. Go home, Mister Lillie.”

  Ethan swept out of the shop and pulled the door closed with a bang, intending to make his way back to Sudbury Street and Kannice’s tavern. But the mob had worked itself into a frenzy once more, and Ethan could guess why. He squeezed through the throng until he had a clear view of the Richardson house.

  The customs man, and the other gentleman who had entered the house and brandished a musket alongside him, stood together near the doorway. Young toughs gripped their arms so that they couldn’t escape. Another man held the muskets, and yet another held a cutlass; Ethan didn’t know where he had gotten it. Richardson and his companion had been beaten. Their faces bore cuts and bruises, and their clothing was torn and bloodstained. The mob shouted obscenities at them. One man held aloft a rope that had been tied into a noose. Seeing this, the crowd cheered. Richardson and his friend were borne down to the street none too gently and dragged toward a post, which the fellow with the rope was already turning into a makeshift gallows.

  Without giving much thought to what he was saying, Ethan had told Lillie that he hoped Richardson would be killed. Now, with that outcome seeming likely, he had second thoughts. Hanging the villain in the street would only confirm for Lillie and other Tories that the crowd was made up of ruffians and bloodthirsty miscreants.

  Apparently, he was not the only person on Middle Street thinking this way. Another man stepped forward from the crowd and approached the would-be hangman. He was tall, broad-shouldered. Ethan recognized him as one of the leaders of the mob, and thought he might have seen him on other occasions when men took to the streets to make their case against the importers.

  This gentleman and the hangman conversed for several moments; their exchange appeared, at least from a distance, to be most congenial. At last the hangman pulled down his rope and shook hands with the tall man. Many in the crowd jeered.

  Soon enough, however, the mob found another means to make sport with Richardson and his friend. They bound the two men’s hands and then began to drag them through the lane, while men and boys in the throng kicked and beat the prisoners and pelted them with stones and refuse.

  Ethan wondered if the two would have been better off with ropes around their necks. Rather than remain there and watch, he walked southward along Middle Street, away from the revelers and back over Mill Creek. By the time he reached the Dowsing Rod, he could no longer hear the crowd, though the church bell still pealed in the distance.

  When Ethan entered the Dowser, Kannice and Kelf were at the bar, she polishing the wood, he drying tankards. A few British soldiers sat at tables, drinking ales and eating oysters, but otherwise the tavern was empty.

  Kannice smiled at the sight of him. “You’re here early.”

  A couple of the soldiers swiveled in their chairs to see who had come, but after regarding Ethan for a few seconds, they went back to their meals.

  “Aye,” Ethan said, crossing to the bar. “My work’s done for today.”

  She frowned. “Done? I don’t understand.”

  “I left. I had no interest in collecting this day’s wage.”

  Her frown deepened.

  “I thought you’d be pleased,” Ethan said, his voice falsely bright. “We haven’t passed a day together in weeks.”

  She knew him too well.

  “I don’t like the sound of this. What’s happened, Ethan?”

  He glanced at Kelf, who filled a tankard and placed it in front of him. “My thanks, Kelf.” He took a long pull, draining most of the cup’s contents.

  “Ethan?”

  “There was a mob there today. I think they planned to make an example of Lillie, as they have some of the other importers in recent days. But then Ebenezer Richardson showed up. He tried to bring down some signs they’d put up, and before long the mob turned their ire on him. One thing led to another and … and he fired a musket into the crowd.”

  “May the Lord have mercy,” Kannice whispered.

  Ethan shook his head. “If only. He shot a boy. I doubt the lad will last the night.”

  “And Richardson?” Kelf asked.

  “He’s being dragged through the streets as we speak. I’m not sure he’ll see the morrow either.”

  Kannice canted her head to the side, her brow furrowed as she searched his eyes. “And Lillie sent you away?”

  “No. As I said, I left. He was more worried about Richardson than the lad; he said the boy probably deserved what he got. I should have quit on the spot, told him I wouldn’t be coming back.” He looked away. “Some would say I should have done that some time ago. But all I did was leave. I suppose I’ll be going back in the morning. I’m not sure what that makes me.”

  “What will you tell him when you go back?” Kannice asked.

  Ethan sighed. “I don’t know.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “I know what you’d like me to do.”

  “You have to decide what you want, Ethan. You need the money; I understand that.”

  “Aye, but now there are other considerations.”

  Lillie had been paying him fifteen shillings a day, which, while not a fortune, was more than enough to keep him fed and housed. As much as he wanted to end their arrangement, he wasn’t sure that he could afford to take so drastic a step. Besides, in all his years as a thieftaker, he had never abandoned an inquiry or stopped working for a client before his job was done. He was known to be reliable as well as honest and competent. He didn’t wish to mar this well-earned reputation.

  But could he bring himself to work for the man after all that had passed this morning?

  “No one would blame you if you quit,” Kannice said, reading the doubt on his face.

  “Lillie would. And so would his friends.”

  “You don’t have to work for them. There are other jobs. Even if you give up this one, you won’t be idle for long.” A smile crossed her lips. “And while you’re looking for a new employer, you and I could make up for lost time.”

  “I’ll be in the back,” Kelf said, stomping into the kitchen, his ears bright red.

  “So you’d be willing to take me back if I stopped working for Lillie?”

  Kannice’s expression turned serious. “I’ve been ready to take you back all along, Ethan. You’re the one who wouldn’t stay.”

  “I was waiting for an invitation.”

  “And I was waiting for some indication that you wanted one.”

  He gave a small, mirthless laugh. Kannice took his hand, and laced her fingers through his.

  “Let me get you some bread and chowder. I’d wager every coin in my till that you haven’t eaten a bite today.”

  “You’d win that wager.” He fished in his pocket for a half shilling.

  “Ethan, don’t.”

  “I’m not so desperate that I can’t pay for my supper. Not yet at least.”

  She glared at him, trying with only some success to look stern. At length she relented and held out her hand. “Very well.”

  He gave her the coin and she started back into the kitchen to get his meal. But then she halted and faced him once more.

  “Do you know the boy’s name?” she asked.

  “No. But I have a feeling we all will before long.”

  * * *

  Christopher Seider.

  He was the son of a German laborer. And he was eleven years old.

  The other young man who had been shot was Samuel Gore, the son of a captain in the colonial militia.

  Word of the shootings spread through the city like smoke from a fire, until by nightfall no one was speaking of anything else. Gore was expected to recover, although Dr. Joseph Warren, who had treated the young man, said that he might never regain the full use of his hand.

  Seider’s condition was far more grave. He was alive still, though only barely. Several doctors, including Warren, had tried to remove the shot from his lung, but none had succeeded. Most said it was merely a matter of time before the lad died.

  K
annice’s tavern filled up as it always did, but on this night her patrons were unusually subdued. They ate and they drank, but conversations were spoken in hushed voices. Ethan heard not a thread of laughter.

  Diver and Deborah came in and walked to a table a good distance from Ethan’s. Diver wouldn’t even look at him. Ethan considered joining them and telling Diver that he had decided he would no longer work for Lillie. But he was still wavering on what he should do come the morning, and he wasn’t convinced that Diver would care even if he did choose to terminate his arrangement with the merchant. He had been working for Lillie this morning, when Christopher Seider was shot. Nothing else mattered.

  Instead, Ethan sat alone, sipping an ale. Like every person in the Dowser, he awaited news of the boy’s condition, looking toward the door each time it opened. But again and again he was disappointed.

  As he sat, he turned over the morning’s events in his mind, sifting through his memory of what had been said and done. And so it was that at last he recalled something that should have been foremost in his mind.

  “Veni ad me,” he whispered. Come to me.

  Uncle Reg winked into view in the chair across the table from him, his eyes burning as bright as brands. He had balled one of his glowing hands into a tight fist; with the other hand he gestured wildly. Ethan had no idea what he was trying to convey, but he didn’t think he had ever seen the ghost more angry.

  Calm down. Ethan said this in his mind. No one who wasn’t a conjurer could see Reg, and Ethan didn’t wish to draw the attention of every person in the Dowser by appearing to speak to himself. You’re angry with me. Because you didn’t want me to dismiss you earlier today?

  Reg threw his arms wide. Ethan knew that if he were capable of speech, he would have berated him.

  I’m sorry. I was thinking about the boy and nothing else.

  The specter’s expression softened. He offered a curt nod, and then opened his hands: a questioning gesture.

  There’s been no word yet, but I fear the worst. You wished to tell me something?

  Another nod.

  You felt a conjuring a short while before Richardson fired into the crowd. I did, too. At the time, you couldn’t say where it came from. Do you know now?