Speaks the Nightbird mc-1

by Robert R. McCammon

  The man came after him. "I'll kill you, you damn sneak!" he raged, and he swung a booted foot directly at Matthew's head. Matthew knew in a flash that if he didn't move, his skull would be bashed in, so he scrabbled forward and at the same time threw up an arm to ward off the blow. The kick got him on the right shoulderblade, bringing a cry of pain from his bloody lips, but he kept frantically crawling and pulled his legs underneath himself before the man could get balanced to kick him again. Matthew staggered up, his knees buckled, but he forced them to hold true with sheer willpower, and then he turned to face his attacker, his back pressed against the wallboards.

  By the lantern's light he recognized the man. He'd seen this fellow in passing yesterday morning, when he and the magistrate had met Paine at the public stables behind the blacksmith's foundry. It was indeed the blacksmith; by name, according to the sign of his business, Seth Hazelton. The smithy was a squat, round-bellied man of middle age, with a wet gray brush of hair and a coarse and dripping gray beard. His face was as rugged as weathered rock, his nose a hooked precipice. At the moment his intense blue eyes were lit with the fire of sheer, white-hot fury, and the knotty veins stood out in relief on his bull-thick neck. He paused in his onrush, as if recognizing Matthew as the magistrate's clerk, but the respite was only for a few seconds; his face flamed anew and, bellowing a cry of mingled wrath and anguish, he hurtled forward again.

  Matthew was fast when he needed to be. He gauged Hazel-ton's swinging blow, ducked under the fist, and ran for the way out. The smithy, however, was also quick of foot when it deemed him to be so; he bounded after Matthew like a corpulent hound and caught the boy's shoulder in a grip fashioned hard by the contest with iron. Matthew was spun around, two hands set upon his throat, he was lifted off his feet and carried backward to slam once more into the wall with a force that near shattered his spine. Then the hands began to squeeze with deadly intent.

  Matthew grasped the man's wrists and tried to unhinge those killing hands, but even as he fought he knew it was in vain. Hazel-ton's sweating face was pressed right into his, the man's eyes glazed from the heat of this—rather onesided—combat. The fingers were digging deep into Matthew's throat. He couldn't breathe, and dark motes were beginning to dance before his eyes. He was aware, strangely, that one horse was whinnying piteously and the other was kicking in its stall.

  He was going to die. He knew it. In a few seconds, the darkness was going to overcome him and he would die right here by this blacksmith's crushing hands.

  This was the moment he should be rescued, he thought. This was the moment someone should come in and tear Hazelton away from him. But Matthew realized it wasn't likely to happen. No, his fate would be interrupted by no Samaritan this sorry day.

  The lantern. Where was the lantern?

  On his right, still hanging from its peg. With an effort he angled his head and eyes and found the lamp several feet away. He reached for it; he had long arms, but the lantern was at the very limit of his grasp. Desperation gave him the strength to lurch the two or three extra inches. He plucked the hot lamp from its peg. Then he smashed it as hard as he could into the side of Hazelton's face.

  An edge of unsmoothed tin did its work. A cut opened across the blacksmith's cheek from the corner of the eye to the upper lip, and crimson rivulets streamed down into his beard. Hazelton blinked as the pain hit him; there was a pause in which Matthew feared the man's fit of rage was stronger than the desire to preserve his face, but then Hazelton let out a howl and staggered back, his hands leaving Matthew's throat to press against the tide of blood.

  Matthew sucked air into his lungs. His head swimming, he half-ran, half-stumbled toward the barn's open doorway. The rain was still falling, but not near with its previous velocity. Matthew didn't dare to look behind to see if the smithy was gaining on him, as that glance would surely slow him down a precious step. Then he was outside the barn. The rain hit him and the wind swirled about him, his left foot snagged a treeroot that almost sent him sprawling, but he recovered his balance and ran on into the tumult, aiming his flight in the direction of Bidwell's mansion. Only when he'd reached the conjunction of streets did he slow his pace and look over his shoulder. If the blacksmith had followed, he had been left behind.

  Still, Matthew didn't care to tarry. He spat blood into a mud-puddle and then tilted his head back, opened his mouth to wash it with rain, and spat again. His back and shoulders felt deeply bruised, his throat savaged by Hazelton's fingers. He would have quite a tale to tell the magistrate, and he knew he was damned lucky he was alive to tell it. He started off again, walking as fast as he could, toward Bidwell's house.

  Two questions remained in his mind: what had been in the burlap sack? And what had the blacksmith concealed that he would kill to protect?

  nine

  THAT'S A DAMNABLE STORY!" Bidwell said, when Matthew had finished telling it. "You mean Hazelton tried to strangle you over a grainsack?"

  "Not just a grainsack." Matthew was sitting in a comfortable chair in the mansion's parlor, a pillow wedged behind his bruised back and a silver cup of rum on a table next to him. "There was something in it." His throat felt swollen, and he'd already looked into a handmirror and seen the blacksmith's blue fingermarks on his neck. "Something he didn't want me to see."

  "Seth Hazelton has a cracked bell in his steeple." Mrs. Nettles stood nearby, her arms crossed over her chest and her dark gaze positively frightening; it was she who had fetched the cup of rum from the kitchen. "He was odd 'fore his wife died last year. Since then, he's become much the worse."

  "Well, thank God you weren't killed!" Woodward was sitting in a chair across from his clerk, and he wore an expression of both profound relief and concern. "And I thank God you didn't kill him, either, or there would surely be Hell to pay. You know you were trespassing on private property, don't you?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I understand your desire to find shelter from that storm, but what on earth prompted you to dig into the man's hidden possessions? There was no reason for it, was there?"

  "No, sir," Matthew said grimly. "I suppose there wasn't."

  "I tell you there wasn't! And you say you struck him a blow to the face that brought the blood flowing?" Woodward winced at the gravity of the legal wheels that might have to turn because of this. "Was he on his feet the last you saw him?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "But he didn't come out of the barn after you?"

  Matthew shook his head. "I don't think so." He reached for the rum and downed some of it, knowing where the magistrate was headed. His wounded tongue—which was so enlarged it seemed to fill up his mouth—had already been scorched by the liquor's fire and was mercifully numbed.

  "Then he could have fallen after you left." Woodward lifted his gaze to Bidwell, who stood beside his chair. "The man could be lying in that barn, severely injured. I suggest we see to him immediately."

  "Hazelton's as tough as a salt-dried buzzard," Mrs. Nettles said. "A wee cut on the face would nae finish 'im off."

  "I'm afraid it was more than a wee ... I mean, a small cut," Matthew admitted. "His cheek suffered a nasty slice."

  "Well, what did he expect?" Mrs. Nettles thrust out her chin. "That you should let 'im choke you dead without a fight? You ask me, I say he deserved what he got!"

  "Be that as it may, we must go." Woodward stood up. He was feeling poorly himself, his raw throat paining him with every swallow. He dreaded having to leave the house and travel in the drizzling rain, but this was an extremely serious matter.

  Bidwell too had recognized the solemnity of the situation. His foremost thought, however, was that the loss of the town's blacksmith would be another crippling hardship. "Mrs. Nettles," he said, "have Goode bring the carriage around."

  "Yes sir." She started out toward the rear of the house. Before she'd gotten more than a few steps, however, the bell that announced a visitor at the front door was rung. She hurried to it, opened it—and received a shock.

  There s
tood the blacksmith himself, hollow-eyed and gray-faced, a bloody cloth secured to his left cheek with a leather strap that was knotted around his head. Behind him was his horse and wagon, and in his arms he held a dark brown burlap sack.

  "Who is it?" Bidwell came into the foyer and instantly stopped in his tracks. "My God, man! We were just on our way to see about you!"

  "Well," Hazelton said, his voice roughened by the pain of his injury, "here I be. Where's the young man?"

  "In the parlor," Bidwell said.

  Hazelton came across the threshold without invitation, brushing past Mrs. Nettles. She wrinkled her nose at the combined smells of body odor and blood. When the blacksmith entered the parlor, his muddy boots clomping on the floor, Matthew almost choked on his rum and Woodward felt his hackles rise like those of a cat anticipating the attack of a large and brutish dog.

  "Here." Hazelton threw the sack down at Matthew's feet. "This is what you were sneakin' to see." Matthew stood up— carefully, as his back's stability was precarious.

  "Go on, open it," Hazelton told him. "That's what you wanted to do, ain't it?"

  Matthew got his mouth working. "I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't have invaded your priva—"

  "Swalla that shit and have a look." Hazelton bent down, lifted the stitched end of the sack, and began to dump its contents out onto the floor. Bidwell and Mrs. Nettles had come in from the foyer, and they witnessed what Hazelton had fought so viciously to protect.

  Clothes spilled from the sack, along with two pairs of scuffed and much-worn shoes. A woman's wardrobe, it was: a black dress, an indigo apron, a few yellowed blouses, and a number of patched skirts that at one time had fit a pair of very broad hips. A small, unadorned wooden box also slid from the sack, and came to rest against Matthew's left shoe.

  "Sophie's clothes," the blacksmith said. "Ever'thin' she owned. Pick up that box and open it." Matthew hesitated; he was feeling at the moment like a complete horse's ass.

  "Go on, open it!" Hazelton commanded. Matthew picked it up and lifted the lid. Within the box were four ivory hairpins, a comb fashioned from golden-grained wood, a silver ring that held a small amber stone, and another silver ring etched with an intricate rope-like design.

  "Her ornaments," the blacksmith said. "Weddin' ring, too. When she passed, I couldn't bear to throw them things away. Couldn't bear to have 'em in the house, neither." He pressed a hand against the bloody cloth. "So I put 'em in a sack and hid 'em in my barn for safekeepin'." Hazelton's dark-rimmed eyes stared furiously at Matthew. "Thought it was someplace nobody'd go pokin'. Then I come in and there you be, tryin' to drag it out." He turned his gaze upon Woodward. "You be the magistrate, huh? A man of the law, sworn to uphold it?",

  "That's correct."

  "If it be so, I want some satisfaction. This whelp come in my barn uninvited and go to diggin' out my dear wife's belongin's. I ain't done nothin' wrong, I ain't tryin' to hide nothin' but what's mine and nobody else's business." Hazelton looked at Bidwell for a response. "Maybe I did go some crazy, like to try to kill that boy, but damn if I didn't think he was tryin' to steal my Sophie's things. Can you blame me, sir?"

  "No," Bidwell had to admit, "I cannot."

  "This boy"—Hazelton lifted an accusing, bloodstained finger to point at Matthew—"cut my face wide open, like to blinded me. I'm gonna lose work over it, that's for sure. A wound like I've suffered won't bear the furnace heat 'til it's near mended. Now you tell me, Mr. Bidwell and Mr. Magistrate, what you're gonna do to give me my satisfaction."

  Bidwell stared at the floor. Woodward pressed his fingers against his mouth, realizing what had to come out of it, and Matthew closed the lid of Sophie Hazelton's ornament box. At last the magistrate had to speak. "Mr. Hazelton, what would you consider a proper satisfaction?"

  "If it was up to my quirt, I'd lash 'im," the blacksmith said. "Lash 'im until his back was laid open good and proper."

  "His back has already received injury," Woodward said. "And he'll have your fingermarks on his throat for some time to come, I'm sure."

  "Don't make no mind! I want him whipped!"

  "This is a difficult position you put me in, sir," the magistrate said, his mouth tightening. "You ask me to sentence my own clerk."

  "Who else'll sentence 'im, then? And if he wasn't your clerk, what would your judgment be?"

  Woodward glanced quickly at Matthew and then away again; the younger man knew what torments of conscience Woodward was fighting, but he also knew that the magistrate would be ultimately compelled to do the correct thing.

  Woodward spoke. "One lash, then," he said, almost inaudibly.

  "Five!" the blacksmith thundered. "And a week in a cell, to boot!"

  Woodward drew a long breath and stared at the floor. "Two lashes and five days."

  "No sir! Look at this!" Hazelton tore the bloody bandage away from his face, revealing a purple-edged wound so ugly that Bidwell flinched and even Mrs. Nettles averted her eyes. "You see what he done to me? Tell me I ain't gonna wear a pretty scar the rest of my life! Three lashes and five days!"

  Matthew, dazed at all this, sank down into the chair again. He reached for the rum cup and emptied it.

  "Three lashes," Woodward said wearily, a vein beating at his temple, "and three days." He forced himself to meet the power of Hazelton's stare. "That's my judgment and there will be no addition or reversal to it. He will enter the gaol at six o'clock in the morning and will receive his lashes at six o'clock on the third morning. I expect Mr. Green will administer the whip?" He looked at Bidwell, who nodded. "All right, then. As a magistrate under the King of England and the governor of this colony, I have made my decree."

  The blacksmith scowled; it was an expression fierce enough to scare the shine from a mirror. But then he pushed the cloth back against his injury and said, "I reckon it'll have to do, then, you bein' such a fair-minded magistrate and all. To Hell with that sneakin' bastard, is what I say."

  "The decree has been made." Woodward's face had begun to mottle with red. "I suggest that you go pay a visit to the physician."

  "I ain't lettin' that death-doctor touch me, no sir! But I'll go, all right. It smells like a pigsty in here." He began to quickly stuff the clothes back into the burlap sack. The last item in was the ornament box, which Matthew had set down upon the table. Then Hazelton held the sack in his thickly corded arms and looked defiantly from Woodward to Bidwell and back again. "It's a damn bad world when a man has to wear a scar for de-fendin' his wife's memory, and the law won't lay the lash on good and proper!"

  "The lash will be laid on good and proper," Woodward said coldly. "Three times."

  "You say. Well, I'll be there to make sure, you can mark it!" He turned around and started out of the parlor.

  "Mr. Hazelton?" Matthew suddenly said. The blacksmith stopped and cast a brooding gaze upon his antagonist.

  Matthew stood up from the chair. "I wish to say . . . that I'm very sorry for my actions. I was grievously wrong, and I beg your pardon."

  "You'll have my pardon after I see your back split open."

  "I understand your emotions, sir. And I must say I am deserving of the punishment."

  "That and more," Hazelton said.

  "Yes, sir. But. . . might I ask something of you?"

  "What?"

  "Might you let me carry that sack for you to your wagon?"

  Hazelton frowned like five miles of bad road. "Carry it?

  Why?"

  "It would be a small token of my repentance." Matthew took two steps toward the man and extended his arms. "Also my wish that we might put this incident behind us, once my punishment is done." Hazelton didn't speak, but Matthew could tell that his mind was working. It was the narrowing of the smithy's eyes that told Matthew the man knew what he was up to. Hazelton, for all his brutish behavior and oxlike countenance, was a crafty fox.

  "That boy's as crazy as a bug in a bottle," Hazelton said to Woodward. "I wouldn't let 'im loose at night, if I was you." And with that pronouncemen
t the blacksmith turned his back on the company, strode out of the parlor and through the front door into the drizzling rain. Mrs. Nettles followed behind him, and closed the door rather too hard before she returned to the room.

  "Well," Woodward said as he lowered himself into his chair like a suddenly aged invalid, "justice has been served."

  "My regrets over this situation," Bidwell offered. "But to be truthful about it, I would have imposed the five lashes." He looked at Matthew and shook his head. "You knew better than to disturb a man's private property! Boy, you delight in causing grief wherever you wander, don't you?"

  "I have said I was wrong. I'll repeat it for you, if you like. And I'll take the lashes as I deserve . . . but you must understand, Mr. Bidwell, that Hazelton believes he's made a fool out of all of us."

  "What?" Bidwell made a face, as if he'd tasted something foul. "What're you going on about now?"

  "Simply that what Hazelton revealed to be in that sack was not its contents when it was hidden beneath the hay."

  There was a silence. Then Woodward spoke up. "What are you saying, Matthew?"

  "I'm saying that the weight of the sack when I tried to dislodge it was much heavier than old clothes and some shoes. Hazelton knew I was trying to ascertain its weight, and of course he didn't want me touching it."

  "I should say not!" Bidwell dug into a pocket of his waistcoat for his snuffbox. "Haven't you had enough of Hazelton for one day? I'd mind my step around him!"

  "It's been . . . oh, about forty minutes since our meeting," Matthew went on. "I believe he used the time to either remove what was originally in that sack and replace it with the clothes, or he found another similar sack for the purpose."

  Bidwell inhaled a pinch of snuff and then blinked his watering eyes. "You never quit, do you?"

  "Believe what you like, sir, but I know there was something far more substantial than clothing in the sack I uncovered. Hazelton knew I'd tell the tale, and he knew there might be some suspicion about what he would hide and then kill to protect. So he bandaged himself, got in his wagon, and brought the counterfeit sack here before anyone could go there and make inquiries about it."