“That’s a good horse right there,” said Elliot.
“Mm-hm. Sure is,” Adam agreed, stroking Whisky’s mane. “But where is his owner?”
Elliot looked around. “I don’t see any sign of him over here. I’ll go look around, though.”
“Alright, you go that way,” said Adam, pointing west, “and I’ll go this way.” He motioned eastward.
They spent about twenty minutes searching the place, but they had both already decided that Martin was not on the island. There wasn’t even any evidence of footprints or human activity there, except for some men fishing for mullet.
“How in the world did he get this horse over here?” asked Elliot.
“We’ll have to ask him when we find him,” said Adam.
“If we find him,” said Elliot.
Adam didn’t respond to that.
They were able to get the horse back across the creek, and they tied him to the hitching post outside the warehouse. As soon as they got back inside, Boaz told them a man had come from about a quarter mile east. He said he’d heard about Martin being missing and saw some strange activity in a patch of woods near where he was fishing.
Adam, Elliot, and Joe all took off in Emmanuel’s horse cart to the stretch of land where the man had said their friend might have entered the woods. There was by no means a forest—it was just about a half acre or so of trees. Once they started walking through the woods towards the creek, they heard some rustling and what sounded like sticks falling on the ground.
“Y’all!” said Elliot, pointing. “See there!”
Adam and Joe both looked up a tall oak. Martin was up in the tree, clinging to a branch with both his arms and legs. He was wearing light-colored breeches and a pair of fancy shoes, but that was it.
“Martin!” called Adam. “It’s us!”
Martin looked from the tree towards the creek.
“No!” said Adam. “Down here! At the bottom of the tree.”
Martin made a strange face and looked around, then finally looked down.
“What are y’all doin down there?” he said, his voice panic-stricken. “The land is crawlin with ’em! They’ll chew your face right off if you’re not careful!”
Adam made a face that clearly indicated his concern to Elliot and Joe.
“What will chew our faces off? Tell us what we should be looking for down here!”
“Are you blind, man?!” Martin screamed. “There are rats everywhere! Everywhere! They’re crawlin over the tops of each other, over your feet!”
Adam looked at the ground to humor his friend. “Well, no, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about down here. I don’t see any rats.”
“It’s because you don’t have good vision like me,” he said. “I can see everything now. I can see so many different things! And colors! There are so many colors! The rats—they’re different colors, too, you know? I always just thought they were gray or brown, but they are every color you can imagine! I don’t know how they do it, but I think they must wear disguises most of the time.”
“Good God,” said Elliot, “that boy is well and truly out of his gourd.”
“Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Sure looks that way, don’t it?” agreed his cousin Joe.
“It’s just that strange medicine doing it to him, y’all,” said Adam. He took the rope he was carrying and threw one end of it up over the highest branch he could reach. “We need to get him down from that tree somehow and get that bottle away from him. It looks like he may have it with him, but God only knows how he got it up there!”
Adam didn’t wait to see if Elliot or Joe would volunteer to go up the tree. As he started to climb, he said, “Y’all keep your eyes open in case one of us falls.”
“What do you want us to do if that happens?” said Joe.
“Well, I reckon he’ll want us to go get help or somethin,” said Elliot.
“Y’all just pay attention for now,” said Adam. “Martin, I’m coming to hide up there with you. I’m bringing a rope, too, so we can come back down.”
“Why would we want to do that?” asked Martin. “I can’t stand rats. I’m not goin down no rope into a forest full of rats.”
“Oh no,” said Adam. “Don’t worry about that. Elliot and Joe have just turned some cats loose. They’re down there catching those rats right now. We need to go back down so we can help ’em release some more cats.”
Martin appeared to be reaching for something but nearly slipped.
“What are you doing? What are you trying to get?” said Adam.
“My medicine. It’s up here in this little crook in this branch. I think I need another swig.”
“Hang on,” said Adam. “I’ll get it for you.”
“Good. Good,” said Martin. “You’re such a good friend.”
Adam was grateful this was at least a sturdy tree. He couldn’t imagine what kind of hallucinations brought Martin way out here and up into the tree. Worrying about rats scurrying all over the ground might certainly send him running, but he was surprised he came this far. Why hadn’t he just gone to the warehouse and ran upstairs?
Once he finally made it up to the branch just below Martin, he said, “I’m right here just below you. I’m going to try to stand up in this corner here, and I want you to try to come down to where I am.” He motioned to the enormous crook in the tree’s trunk, where he was easily able to stand.
“See?” he said to Martin. “There’s plenty of room. From here we can probably watch Elliot and Joe and the cats attacking all of those nasty rats. And then when you’re ready I’ve got a rope, so we can tie it to this part of the trunk here and climb down. How does that sound?”
“Are we gonna fight ’em together?” asked Martin. “You and me?”
“Uh-huh,” said Adam with a nod. “You and me.”
“We’re like brothers, aren’t we?” said Martin.
Adam nodded. “Yep. We sure are. Just like brothers.”
Martin scooted his body down the branch he was clinging to. Once he made it to the trunk, he reached over and grabbed the bottle of medicine. It was hard for him to keep holding on to the branch and the bottle, and that gave a perfect opportunity for Adam to offer to hold it for him.
“Why don’t you hand me that bottle there, brother?” said Adam. “Looks like you’re struggling a bit coming down from that branch. I’ll hold it for you until you get to where I’m standing.”
Martin looked carefully at the bottle, then looked at the ground below. He looked back at the bottle and finally handed it down to Adam.
“Don’t you dare drop it,” he said. “That’s my medicine. It has magic. It gives me magic eyes. I can see everything I couldn’t see before.”
“Yep. I’m sure you can,” said Adam. “I’m sure you don’t want to drop that.”
“No,” said Martin. “Just hold it for me.”
Adam held on to the bottle with one hand, then leaned the other hand against the tree trunk to steady himself. When Martin began to lower himself down into that joint in the branches, Adam said to him, “I need to put this medicine down for a minute so I can give you a hand.”
“Don’t drop it, though,” said Martin. “Just put it on the side for a minute.”
Adam nodded. “Alright. I’ll do that.”
He pretended to put the bottle to the side of him on the tree trunk, but instead motioned to Elliot to get ready and catch it. As soon as Elliot had his hands up and ready, Adam dropped the bottle. Fortunately, Elliot caught it. Now they would have something to take to Constable Squires to show that Martin had been poisoned.
Once Martin was next to Adam on the tree, Adam took the rope he had and tied it around Martin’s torso just under his armpits.
“I’m just putting this around you to make sure you don’t fall into those rats down there,” said Adam.
“Good plan,” said Martin. “You know exactly how to do things. You’re a smart, smart man, Adam Fletc
her. You are outsmarting the rats.”
“I try,” said Adam. “Now listen. I want you to start climbing right down this tree. The rats are nearly all gone now. Those cats have eaten them right up. When you get down there, you’ll see a bunch of really fat cats.”
“Oh good,” said Martin.
He started down the main trunk. Adam waited in the fork of the boughs to make sure the rope didn’t slip and that Martin could descend safely. Once Martin was on the ground, Elliot and Joe stood by him while Adam followed him out of the tree.
When they were both on the ground, Martin said to Adam, “I think the cats have all gone. I think we scared them. That’s what these men just said.” He was talking about Elliot and Joe.
“Yeah,” said Elliot. “Those cats, they took right off when they saw you two coming down that tree.”
“This is all good, though,” said Martin. “The rats are all gone because the cats ate them, and now the cats are all gone because we scared them. Things are normal again.”
Adam patted his friend on the back. “Almost. They’re almost normal, but hey, I’ve got a question for you.”
They walked over towards the horse cart.
“Why did you send Whisky over to Carrot Island?”
Martin looked at Adam like it was foolish to even have to ask. “To keep him safe from all those rats! It ain’t like he can climb a tree!”
“Oh sure. Of course,” said Adam. “That makes sense then. It’s a good thing he had you to look out for him.”
Martin was still very much out of his mind, but at this point at least he was under the safe watch of his friends. They could now afford to be a little more amused than they were moments earlier when they worried he would fall out of the tree.
Martin looked around. “Where’s my medicine?”
“What medicine?” asked Adam.
Martin grew hostile. “Don’t play with me! I need another swig of that medicine.”
He studied the three men walking with him and spotted the bottle in Elliot’s hand.
“You!” Martin growled at Elliot. “You stole my medicine!”
He grabbed for the bottle, nearly falling forward. Elliot stepped back and tried to hold the bottle out of reach.
“Give me that!”
Martin pulled quickly away from the loose grip Adam had on his upper arm and he tackled Elliot. Elliot threw his arm far above his head to try and hold the bottle out of reach without dropping it. Joe stooped down to take it from him, but just as Elliot was about to pass the bottle off, Martin grabbed it. Adam dove down and tried to take it from his hand, and they wrestled over it for a moment, but then the bottle slipped out of both of their hands and went flying through the air. It smashed into a tree and shattered.
There went the evidence.
Martin pulled loose and ran over to the base of the tree where the bottle had broken. He started grabbing at the ground and licking his palms, apparently trying to salvage any bit of “medicine” that had seeped into the earth by the roots.
“It’s gone, Martin,” said Adam.
He went over to the tree and tried to help Martin stand, but he refused to get up. Instead, Martin was desperately plucking bits of grass that he thought were wet with the spilled contents of the bottle, and he put them into his mouth. At this point Adam had to decide whether he, Elliot, and Joe should somehow bind Martin and force him to come back into town or just let him tire of doing what he was doing first, and then hopefully he would come back willingly.
They opted for the latter. It took about fifteen minutes, but then Martin stood and started walking towards the horse cart himself.
Adam, Elliot, and Joe quickly caught up, lest he hop in the cart and head into town on his own.
Chapter Twenty-One
ONCE THEY HAD MARTIN HOME safe in his bed—with Ricky Jones there to make sure he didn’t go anywhere—Adam headed straight for Town Creek. Even if the constable couldn’t do anything about Madame Endora poisoning him, inadvertently or not, he had a few choice words he wanted to say to her himself.
He was stunned to find as he headed north on Turner Street and then along the western edge of Town Creek that the camp was gone. All that was left were the leftover remnants of campfires and food scraps that animals had not yet scavenged. He guessed Stela had come back quickly on her horse and warned everyone of what he told her, and they, being experienced travelers, were able to pack up and move camp quickly. While he couldn’t be completely certain, he thought it was likely they had probably gone across the Newport River and were headed southward. Many of the more recent arrivals had come in boats, and they likely left the same way, but Stela and her immediate family had horses and wagons, so they would’ve needed to take the ferry. He would check as soon as he could with Mr. Austin, the ferry operator, to see if any of them had gone across on his vessel, but first he wanted to explore the campsite.
He parked the horse cart and walked around near where Madame Endora’s tent had been set up, along with the potions booth. There was nothing remarkable there—only some small holes in the ground where the tent stakes had been and some flattened grasses from objects resting on top of them, as well as foot traffic. He circled the original site where the first families had camped before they were joined by the river gypsies. He noticed something curious over by where the tents had been set up for the men in the company. There was an area of ground about a yard and a half in diameter that was bare of grass and that went down a few feet, as though it had been dug up. Adam considered the size of the hole and thought it made sense that the amount of dirt displaced from that hole could certainly have filled the space left by the barrel in the grave. It also seemed logical that the tall grass around the hole would explain the clumps of long grass he’d found in the grave.
Suddenly, he thought back to that first time he’d visited the camp. Martin had grabbed him and pulled him back between the two tents when he spotted Hardy Green, but Martin almost tripped backwards over some sacks full of what they assumed at the time were some kind of food stores, but Adam remembered thinking it was a bad idea to leave something like that out in the weather. Could those have been the sacks of dirt they’d brought to fill in the hole?
That was enough for Adam. He climbed back into the horse cart and went immediately to the landing on the east side of the Newport River. Unfortunately, the ferry operator was not there, but another man was sitting near the small shelter at the landing.
“Excuse me, sir,” Adam said as he approached the sour-faced man, who looked to be in his fifties. “I was wondering, do you happen to know if the folks who were camped out north of here left on the ferry today?”
The man gave a curious frown. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“I think they may have forgotten something. I wanted to try and catch up with them. Did they go this way?”
“Mr. Austin took one group of ’em late in the day yesterday. Then about an hour ago he took the last of ’em—three women and two horses. If you look right out there, you’ll prob’ly soon see his ferry coming around that island.”
“Do you know where they were headed?”
“It’s my understanding they’re headed down to Charleston, but I heard ’em say they were hopin to get down as far as Cedar Point by the day after tomorrow. The menfolks were going first to set up camp I think. I told ’em they had a right good long journey ahead of ’em, but it wasn’t more than about twenty-some miles.”
“Did they mention anywhere they might stop along the way?”
The man shook his head. “No, sir, but I reckon if they’re going down the Bridge Road, somewhere ’round Gales Creek or Broad Creek’d be a good place to do it. It’s a little more than halfway there, but I ’spect it’d be a good place to rest for the night.”
“He only took the women across today then?” asked Adam.
The man nodded. “That is correct. Like I said, the menfolks went on ahead to get the camps set up. I got the fe
elin’ those women like to keep their things separate.”
“They had their wagons with them, right?”
“Mm-hm. Well, one wagon went over yesterday, and the women took another one today. They were real loaded down. I was almost afraid he’d have trouble for the weight.”
Adam thought for a few seconds. Should he try to go on across after them now, or go talk to the constable first to see what he’d like to do?
AFTER HE LEFT THE FERRY landing, he went straight into town to look for Constable Squires. It would be unlikely that he’d still be at home now that it was late in the morning. He found him at the magistrate’s office.
“Adam Fletcher, what a nice surprise!” said Peter Robins, the magistrate who two years earlier had placed him into his apprenticeship to Emmanuel Rogers.
“Good morning, sir,” said Adam. “Unfortunately, I’m not here under very pleasant circumstances.” He directed his attention to Constable Squires. “Sir, they’ve already left the camp. I found an area there where I believe they filled bags with dirt to fill in the hole.”
Mr. Robins looked back and forth between the two of them. “What’s this about?”
Constable Squires grimaced. “Looks like those damned gypsies stole a body right out of the graveyard.”
“The girl’s grave we’d heard about?” asked the magistrate.
“Yep. That’s the one.”
The magistrate was aghast. “Good Lord! What on earth for?”
“She was buried in rum,” said Adam, “supposedly to preserve the body in the ocean crossing. It’s anyone’s guess what they plan to do with it. Sell it to scientists maybe.”
Mr. Robins shook his head. “In Beaufort of all places? I might believe something like that of the larger towns—New York, Philadelphia, Boston—but here? There are no laboratories where such experiments are even conducted anywhere near here!”
Adam shrugged. “I have no idea. All I know is that I’m certain they’re the ones responsible for dragging that poor girl’s body out of the grave, and they’ve already crossed over the Newport River on the ferry. They’re headed to Charleston, and they’re hoping to make it to Cedar Point on the White Oak River by day after tomorrow.”
The Gypsy's Curse Page 18
