Luke’s blood chilled. “No!” he interrupted. “There’s no need to kill this man. He can’t go to the authorities, because if he does, he’ll get shipped right back to . . . to . . . where are you from?” he asked the slave desperately.
“Plantation just outside N’Awlins.” The old slave’s words were the first and only ones he had spoken since giving Luke his name just after tumbling out of Matt Fulton’s delivery wagon. He seemed to part with his words reluctantly, like a Vanderbilt paying his taxes.
“New Orleans,” Luke said, nodding. “See? He can’t go to the law any more than you can, because if he does, he’ll find himself on his way back to New Orleans before the day is out.”
“I can’t take that chance,” the stranger said coldly. “How do I know he don’t want to go back?” His grip tensed and his eyes narrowed and Luke knew there was about to be a second murder if he didn’t take action right now. But what could he do?
The slave looked the stranger in the eyes and spit on the floor, hawking up a gob of saliva that floated gracefully through the air and landed with an audible splat at the stranger’s feet.
He was going to die.
“Wait!” Luke practically shouted. “We can keep him out of the way and I can guarantee he won’t be able to go anywhere.”
The basement fell deathly silent and nobody moved. Finally the stranger said, “How?”
Luke realized he had been holding his breath and blew it out forcefully. Maybe he could save the old guy’s life. The slave didn’t seem to care one way or the other; he continued glaring at the stranger.
“The hidden room at the end of this hallway was built specifically to hide escaping slaves. There’s only one way out of it, and the door has no handle on the inside. We simply stash Jedediah here,” he gestured at the old man, “inside the room – he would be spending the night in it anyway – and everyone will be happy.”
“Show me,” the stranger said, so Luke did.
6
Luke’s stomach was doing flip-flops as he grabbed Matt Fulton by the ankles. He tried not to look at the deliveryman’s ruined head. The two hadn’t exactly been friends, but they had maintained a business relationship for over five years, a relationship involving tavern supplies and freedom-seeking slaves, and the sense of regret he felt at being responsible for the man’s death was like a physical weight hanging from his neck.
He breathed a sigh of relief that the homicidal stranger had agreed to spare the slave’s life—at least for now—after being shown the secret room and accepting that there was no way out once locked inside. They had ushered Jedediah into the room together and then retreated down the tunnel, with Luke pushing the earthen door closed behind him.
The slave had not said another word after his brief, and nearly deadly, confrontation with the stranger. Luke sensed a rage smoldering inside the old man that was so strong it was almost as terrifying as the .38 the stranger waved around so carelessly. He felt certain that were it not for the revolver, the ancient slave would have been able to whip the outlaw in a fistfight, the difference in their ages notwithstanding.
Luke shuddered as he pictured the horrible fate facing the old black man if the stranger were to shoot him and Sarah after they disposed of Matt Fulton’s body. No one else in the world knew of the secret room’s location, and no one else in the world knew the slave had traveled here to Paskagankee, Maine. The man would slowly starve to death, but only after several long weeks spent alone, desperately trying to make his food and water last.
Luke guessed the stranger would not kill him yet, and risk not finding the entrance to the secret room again, but he had no illusions about the man allowing him and Sarah to live once he no longer needed them. He had to survive the next few hours, and stay alert while protecting Sarah. Perhaps an opportunity to overpower the stranger would present itself.
He grunted as he lifted Matt’s body, thankful the stranger had elected to carry the corpse by the armpits, where his grotesquely misshapen head lolled lifelessly just inches away from the stranger’s trousers.
Matt’s blood looked as black as tar—even blacker than the old slave—by the dim light of the torches. It had splattered onto the ground where he fell, draining from his head wound as he lay dying in the dirt, and Luke prayed death had been instantaneous, that the deliveryman had not suffered. He realized he had never had a single conversation of a personal nature with Matt Fulton; didn’t know whether the man had a family, or if he enjoyed a hobby. Knew nothing about him at all, when he came right down to it.
A sense of hopelessness overwhelmed Luke without warning and he shook his head violently. He would not allow himself to give up. He had to remain focused. Sarah was counting on him. Luke had dared hope he might grab Matt Fulton’s gun from the wagon and turn it on the stranger, but of course the man had been a step ahead of him. He plucked it off the well-worn seat and slid it inside the waistband of his trousers as they walked past carrying Matt’s body, smiling wickedly at Luke as if reading his mind.
“Put him in the back,” the stranger muttered through clenched teeth. Together, the two men swung the body of the dead deliveryman into the wagon, dropping him onto the floor among the supplies. The stranger withdrew a pocket watch from his vest and examined it carefully, turning it this way and that to catch the light from the torches.
“We gotta hurry,” he said. “They’ll be here soon.” Luke said nothing and the man continued. “I’m guessing I had maybe two hours on ‘em, and we’ve already wasted far too much of that time.”
“Why are they chasing you?” Luke asked.
The man glanced at Luke, eyes narrowed to slits, and said, “Shut up and get in the wagon.”
***
The forest felt alive and malevolent as Luke forced the horse off the road and into a narrow gap between the trees. They had traveled no more than a quarter-mile from the tavern when the stranger said, “This is far enough. We’ll hide the wagon here and dump the body in the woods. With a little luck neither of ‘em will be found until I’m long gone.”
“The sheriff’s going to know Matt made his delivery the minute the wagon’s discovered. Supplies are missing. The first thing he’ll do is come to the Paskagankee Tavern; it’s the only place for thirty miles in any direction Matt delivers to.”
“I don’t give a damn about the tin-star lawman in this two-bit village,” the stranger said. “All I need is one night. The men looking for me will assume I kept traveling when they can’t find me in your hayseed town. They’ll move on toward Canada and when they do, I’ll head south. What happens around here after that ain’t my concern.”
The wagon lurched to a halt. The forest was ancient, primeval, filled with millions of massive fir trees broken up by the occasional hardwood, and underbrush so thick it was nearly impossible to walk, much less drive into with a delivery wagon. Once they had replaced the branches and brush matted down by the horse and the big wooden wagon wheels, Luke felt a sense of defeat wash over him. He was convinced the abandoned wagon would be invisible to passersby, and would not be discovered until a concerted search had been launched.
“Now,” the stranger said with a look on his face that was half grimace and half leer, “let’s us three take a little stroll with a corpse, shall we?”
“Please,” Luke said, knowing he was wasting his breath but trying anyway, “allow Sarah to wait here. She doesn’t need to be exposed to the nighttime disposal of a murdered man.”
The stranger shook his head and turned a glare Luke’s way. “I swear,” he said, “you can’t possibly be so stupid as to think we’re going to carry a dead man into the woods and leave your little woman all alone back here, so she can hike into town and raise the alarm. Please tell me you ain’t that stupid.”
Sarah placed a hand on Luke’s arm and shook her head, a tiny smile on her face. Don’t make this volatile man any more unstable than he already is, she was trying to tell him. I’ll survive.
Luke hoped she was right. He wasn�
��t so sure.
The three clambered off the front of the wagon in the suffocating darkness, one anxiously, two reluctantly. Luke stepped to the ground and then helped Sarah down with one hand, steadying himself against the wagon with the other. The thick brush instantly closed in around them, surrounding them from all sides, filling Luke with a sense of claustrophobia. The moon, two-thirds full tonight, had disappeared almost immediately after they left the road, lost somewhere high above the canopy formed by the ancient forest.
The silence seemed preternatural, the only sounds being their heavy breathing and the scratching of branches and brush against clothing. They fought their way to the rear of the delivery wagon, and the stranger said, “We’re gonna carry the stiff along the side of the wagon, then deeper into the forest, as deep as we can manage without wasting too much time. I’m almost out of time.”
Luke wondered about the men chasing this homicidal stranger. The thought occurred to him that maybe he could intentionally delay the disposal progress long enough for the murderer’s pursuers to catch up with him, but he discarded the idea almost immediately. If this man—with his cold eyes and amoral personality and the ability to murder an innocent man as easily as if he were lighting a cigar—was as worried about his pursuers as he appeared to be, it didn’t seem likely he would be the only one to suffer the consequences were he to be caught. Luke guessed he and Sarah would as well.
The two men struggled under the dead weight of Matt Fulton’s body, climbing over downed trees, around boulders and through scrub brush. After maybe ten minutes, during which time they made little progress, the stranger grunted, “Far enough,” and dropped Fulton’s upper body to the forest floor. It landed with a thud.
Luke eased the distributor’s ankles to the ground and stood hunched over, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He knew Matt was beyond caring what happened to him, but still Luke hated the desecration of the man’s corpse. He hoped it would be found soon so he could receive a proper burial, in front of family and friends.
The stranger had bent over to catch his breath at the same time Luke did, and now he straightened and said, “Let’s go,” still breathing heavily. “We’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us, and it won’t be long before the boys hunting me stumble on to your place. If you want to live – and more importantly, if you want your wife to live – you’ll make damned sure I’m tucked away inside that secret room with your new black friend before that happens.”
Luke nodded and they began retracing their steps. They reached the wagon much more quickly now that they were not burdened by the weight of the body, and almost without breaking stride Luke took Sarah by the hand and continued toward the road. He believed without question the man’s threat to kill he and Sarah if they were intercepted, and there was no way of knowing how close the stranger’s pursuers were. For all he knew, they might be in town already.
Minutes later the strange trio reached the road and turned left, walking quickly toward the tavern. They encountered no other travelers, an unsurprising development given the location and time of night.
For the first time since this horrifying saga had begun more than two hours ago, Luke found himself with a few minutes to think, and something occurred to him that was so obvious he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it until now: all they had to do was make it back to the Paskagankee Tavern undetected and seal the stranger in the secret room! The man would then be trapped and Luke could alert Sheriff Cowles to the situation. Cowles could round up as many men as he thought necessary – the more, the better as far as Luke was concerned – then come out to the tavern, open the room, and subdue the stranger.
This plan, of course, if successful, would result in the discovery of the secret room. Such a discovery would shut down the Paskagankee stop along the Underground Railroad forever, and quite possibly result in jail time for Luke. But under the circumstances, incarceration was the least of his worries.
He glanced over at Sarah, her face blurred and indistinct in the inky northern Maine nighttime blackness. He flashed her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and kept walking.
***
Several hundred yards south of the Paskagankee Tavern, the stranger growled, “Stop right here.” He flicked his wrist, indicating they should enter the forest on the side of the trail, and after a moment’s hesitation, Luke plunged off the road and into the underbrush. Sarah followed right behind him. The stranger brought up the rear.
A sense of disquiet, not quite panic but damned close, gripped Luke’s heart. What was happening? Why would the stranger herd them into the forest when they were now so close to the hiding place he claimed to need so badly?
In his head Luke knew the man was not going to kill them; not both of them, anyway. Not yet. He still needed at least one of them, because although the stranger now knew the secret room’s location and how to enter it—assuming he had been paying attention—no one else in the world would know he was in there. He would be trapped forever if he killed both of them.
Of course, it was entirely possible he intended to put a bullet in Luke’s head. He needed one of them, but he didn’t need both, and from the stranger’s point of view, it would make sense to eliminate the one who could cause him the most trouble.
Luke thought desperately, trying to decide what to do if the stranger leveled his Colt at him. There weren’t many good options. He supposed he would lunge at the man and try to wrestle the gun away from him. Of course, as the stranger was walking behind him, he might never see the kill shot coming.
All of this went through Luke’s head in a matter of seconds, and then, no more than ten feet into the woods he struggled through the underbrush and nearly ran right into a horse. The animal was secured to a tree, standing motionless, staring through the near-complete darkness at Luke with accusing eyes.
The stranger brushed past Sarah and then Luke. He reached into a saddlebag and rummaged through it quickly before pulling out a large disk, roughly the size of a chef’s serving platter, only much thicker, and apparently, much heavier. The stranger hefted it with his left hand and reached back into the saddlebag. He pulled out a second item, this one smaller and lighter. It was a long, clear tube, filled with what looked in the darkness like a thick liquid.
The gunman spoke quietly, his voice hard and gravelly. “These things stay with me. Now, let’s get to that secret room so I can snuggle up with an old black man.” He gestured again with his gun, indicating that Sarah and Luke should return to the road. They began working their way back through the brush, Luke wondering what in the hell was going on.
7
Luke had been getting increasingly nervous the closer they came to the Paskagankee Tavern. Push was coming to shove, and he began to wonder whether he had been fooling himself to think the homicidal stranger would really allow himself to be locked in the slave’s hiding place, leaving himself completely at Luke’s mercy.
The man was vicious and brutal, that much had become obvious the moment he pulled the trigger on the defenseless Matt Fulton, but for all that, he didn’t strike Luke as dumb. Just the opposite, in fact. He seemed intelligent and, even worse, cunning and clever.
Luke decided he would find out soon, because the hulking structure of the Paskagankee Tavern suddenly materialized out of the predawn darkness as if by magic and now loomed before the exhausted trio like some haunted house straight out of a two-penny serial novel. They trudged through the front entrance, trooped past the bar and into the kitchen, then descended the stairs to the basement.
No one spoke. Luke felt as though the supper he had eaten nearly ten hours ago might come back up at any moment. It was now or never. Would the stranger suddenly recognize the flaw in his hastily devised plan and simply shoot Luke and Sarah before high-tailing it out of Paskagankee on his hidden horse, hoping to outrun his pursuers? Or would he slip inside the secret room, leaving himself at the mercy of Luke and Paskagankee’s only lawman, Sheriff Stanley Cowles?
Luke strode to the wa
ll and felt around for the latch hidden in the seam between the granite blocks. With one tug, the massive block rolled outward on its hinge and stopped. Luke breathed deeply and said a silent prayer, then turned and lifted his hand to the opening and waited to see what would happen.
The stranger eyed him critically and walked into the hidden entryway. Luke’s plan was going to work! Another step or two and the man would be inside the passageway to the secret room and Luke could pull the lever, effectively trapping him inside, ending this nightmare.
Then the man turned, his body half in and half out of the entryway. He fixed Luke with a baleful stare and then, ever so slowly, a smile crept across his face. The smile was hard and devoid of any good humor, and it told Luke the man knew exactly what he had been thinking. He had known all along.
“Well?” the stranger said.
“Well, what?” Luke said.
“Please. You can’t believe I’m stupid enough to allow you to lock me in here with only a hundred year old slave for company. Why, the minute the door closed, you’d be running as fast as your little legs would carry you to the local sheriff’s house. Hell, you’d probably steal my horse just because you could.”
“I…no, I…of course not.” Denials were pointless, yet Luke couldn’t stop himself from issuing them.
“It don’t matter,” the stranger said, waving his revolver like he was shooing away a pesky mosquito. “I’ve got the perfect solution to our little problem.”
Luke felt all hope slipping away. He closed his eyes, wishing this whole cursed night was just a bad dream, wishing he would wake up and be in his bed and it would be seven-thirty in the morning, but when he opened his eyes the stranger was still standing there, waiting. “What?” he finally whispered.
“Your beautiful bride will join me inside this impressive little hidey-hole. Consider it my personal insurance policy, because if anyone besides you, and you alone, is standing there tomorrow morning when you open that door, pretty little Sarah here will be the first to die. She’ll catch a bullet in the head before she knows what hit her. But you’ll know, though.” He gave a sly, hideous wink, “because I’ll make sure you’re watching when I pull the trigger.”
Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) Page 4
