Speaks the Nightbird mc-1

by Robert R. McCammon

  In fact, the fire was so close to the gaol that Matthew was struck with dread like a blow to the belly. If the gaol was aflame, and Rachel was trapped in her cell...

  He started running toward Truth Street, his face tight with fear. He passed the spring, where one horse-drawn wagon was pulling away with a load of water barrels while a second had just arrived. "What's burnin?" a woman yelled at him as he went by a house, but he dared not answer. A score of citizens were converging onto the scene, some of them still wearing their night-clothes. He beat the water-wagon to its destination, and was keenly gratified to find that the fire was not burning down the gaol but was instead destroying the schoolhouse.

  It was a hot conflagration and was working with great speed. There was Bidwell, wearing a powdered wig but clad in a blue silk night-robe and slippers, hollering at the onlookers to make way for the approaching wagon. The horses got through, and the six firemen aboard the wagon jumped down and began to haul the barrels off. One of them scooped a bucket into the water and ran forward to dash the flames, but—as in the case of the previous fire Matthew had witnessed—it was clear to all that the schoolhouse was doomed.

  "Get that fire out! Hurry, all of you!" came a shout that was part command and part plea. Matthew saw the schoolmaster, bareheaded and wearing a long dark green robe with yellow trim. Johnstone was standing perilously close to the roaring blaze, leaning on his cane with one hand and motioning the firemen on with the other, sparks flying around him like red wasps and his face contorted with urgency. "Hurry, I beg of you, hurry!"

  "Alan, stand back!" Bidwell told him. "You're in danger there!" A man grasped Johnstone's arm and attempted to pull him away from the flames, but the schoolmaster's mouth twisted with anger and he wrenched his arm free.

  "Damn it!" Johnstone bellowed at the firemen, who were obviously doing their best to throw their buckets of water but were being hindered by the sheer cruelty of the heat. "Put that fire out, you idiots! Can't you move any quicker?"

  Unfortunately they could not, and all but the schoolmaster seemed to realize the futility of the battle. Even Bidwell simply stood with his hands on his hips and made no effort to bully the firefighters to a frenzied pace.

  As the schoolhouse was a small structure and the fire was so eager, Matthew doubted that sixty firemen with sixty buckets could have saved it. The second wagon arrived, bringing three additional men. Several more stalwarts from the crowd stepped forward to help, but it was a matter not of enough hands and hearts but of enough buckets and time.

  "Damn it!" Johnstone had ceased his pleading now, and had become visibly enraged. He hobbled back and forth, occasionally aiming a shout of disgust or derision at the ineffective firemen, then cursing the blaze itself. Fire had begun to chew through the schoolhouse's roof. In another few moments Johnstone's raving stopped; he seemed to accept that the fight was truly lost—lost, even, before it had begun—and so he retreated from the flames and smoke. The firemen continued to work, but at this point it was more to justify their presence than anything else. Matthew watched Johnstone, who in turn watched the fire with glazed eyes, his shoulders slumped in an attitude of defeat.

  And then Matthew happened to turn his head a few more degrees to the right and his heart rose to his throat. There not ten feet away stood Seth Hazelton. The blacksmith, who still wore a bandage bound to his injured face, was attentive to the spectacle of the flames and thus hadn't seen his antagonist. Matthew doubted if Hazelton was aware of very much anyway, as the man held a brown clay jug at his side and took a long swig from it as Matthew observed him. Hazelton's slow blink and slack-jawed countenance spoke as to the contents of that jug, and his dirty shirt and breeches proclaimed that Hazelton was definitely more interested in wine than water.

  Matthew carefully stepped backward a few paces, putting two other onlookers between them just in case the blacksmith might glance around. The thought—an evil thought, but compelling just the same—came to him that now would be an excellent time to search Hazelton's barn. What with the man here at the fire, and weak from strong drink as well...

  No, no! Matthew told himself. That barn—and whatever was hidden in it—had caused him trouble enough! Hang it, and let it go!

  But Matthew knew his own nature. He knew he might present every reason in the world not to go to the blacksmith's barn and search for the elusive burlap sack, up to and including further lashings. However, his single-minded desire to know—the quality that made him, in the magistrate's opinion, "drunk beyond all reason"—was already at work in him. He had a lamp and the opportunity. If ever he was to find that well-guarded bag, now was the moment. Dare he try it? Or should he listen to that small voice of warning and chalk his back-stripes up as a lesson learned?

  Matthew turned and walked briskly away from the fire. One backward glance showed him that Hazelton had never noted his presence, but was again indulging in a taste from the jug. Matthew's jury was still in deliberation concerning his future actions. He knew what Woodward would say, and he knew what Bidwell would say. Then again, neither of them doubted Rachel's guilt. If whatever Hazelton was hiding had something to do with her case...

  He was aware that this was the same reasoning that had lured him into trying to open the grainsack to begin with. Yet it was a valid reasoning, in light of the circumstances. So what was the decision to be?

  As he reached the conjunction of streets, his scale swung in the direction that Matthew had known it would. He looked over his shoulder, making sure that the blacksmith was not coming up from behind, and then he held the lantern before him and broke into a run toward Hazelton's barn.

  When Matthew reached the barn, he lifted the locking timber and pulled the door open just enough for him to squeeze through. The two horses within rumbled uneasily at his presence as he followed the glow of his lantern. He went directly to the area where he remembered finding the sack, put the lamp down on the ground, and then started searching through the straw. Nothing there but straw and more straw. Of course Hazelton had moved the sack, had dragged it to some other location either inside the barn or perhaps inside his house. Matthew stood up, went to another pile of straw on his right, and searched there, but again there was nothing. He continued his explorations to the very back of the barn, where the straw was piled up in copious mounds along with an ample supply of horse apples. Matthew thrust his hands into the malodorous piles, his fingers questing for the rough burlap without success.

  At last he realized it was time to go, as he'd already been here longer than was sensible. The sack, if indeed it remained in the straw, was not to be found this night. So much for his opportunity of discovery!

  He stood up from his knees, picked up the lantern, and started for the door. As he reached it, something—an instinct of caution perhaps, or a stirring of the hairs on the back of his neck—made him pause to blow down the lantern's chimney and extinguish the candle since he no longer needed the incriminating light.

  Which turned out to be a blessing of fortune, because as Matthew prepared to leave the barn he saw a staggering figure approaching, so close he feared Hazelton would see him, roar with rage, and attack him with the jug. Matthew hung in the doorway, not knowing whether to run for it or retreat. He had only a few seconds to make his decision. Hazelton was coming right at him, the blacksmith's head lowered and his legs loose at the knees.

  Matthew retreated. He went all the way to the rear of the barn, where he sprawled flat and frantically dug both himself and the lantern into a mound of straw. But before he could do half a good job, the door was pulled open wider and there entered Hazelton's hulking dark figure.

  "Who's in here?" Hazelton growled drunkenly. "Damn your eyes, I'll kill you!" Matthew stopped his digging and lay very still, the breath catching in his lungs. "I know you're in here! I closed that damn door!" Matthew dared not move, though a piece of straw was fiercely tickling his upper lip.

  "I closed it!" Hazelton said. "I know I did!" He lifted the jug and Matthew heard him gul
p a swallow. Then he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said, "I did close it, didn't I, Lucy?"

  Matthew realized he was addressing one of the horses. "I think I did. John Shitass, I think I'm drunk too!" He gave a harsh laugh. "Drunk as a damned lord, that's what I am! What d'ya think of that, Lucy?" He staggered toward one of the horses in the dark, and Matthew heard him patting the animal's hindquarters.

  "My sweet girl. Love you, yes I do."

  The noise of Hazelton's hand on horseflesh ceased. The blacksmith was silent, possibly listening for any sound of an intruder hiding in the bam. "Anybody in here?" he asked, but the tone of his voice was uncertain. "If you're here, you'd best get out 'fore I take a fuckin' axe to you!" Hazelton staggered back into Matthew's field of vision and stood at the center of the barn, his head cocked to one side and the jug hanging loosely. "I'll let you go!" he announced. "Go on, get out!"

  Matthew was tempted, but he feared that even drunk and unsteady the blacksmith would seize him before he reached the door. Better to just lie right here and wait for the man to leave.

  Hazelton said nothing and did not move for what seemed a full minute. Finally the blacksmith lifted the jug to his lips and drank, and then upon reaching the bottom he reared back and flung the jug against the wall nearly square above Matthew's head. The jug whacked into the boards and fell, broken into five or six pieces, and the startled horses whinnied and jumped in their stalls.

  "The hell with it!" Hazelton shouted. He turned around and made his way out of the barn, leaving the door open.

  Now Matthew was faced with a dangerous choice: should he get out while he could, risking the fact that Hazelton might be waiting for him out there just beyond the doorway, or should he lie just as he was? He decided it was best to remain in his prone position for a while longer, and indeed he took the opportunity to bury himself more completely in the straw.

  Within a minute or two, Hazelton returned carrying a lighted lantern, though the glass was so dirty it hardly counted as illumination. The lantern was not so fearsome to Matthew as the short-handled hatchet Hazelton gripped in his right hand.

  Matthew took a deep breath and let it out, trying to flatten himself even further under his covering of straw and horse apples. Hazelton started staggering around the barn, probing with the dim light, the hatchet held ready for a brain-cleaving blow. He gave the nearest strawpile a kick that might have broken Matthew's ribs. Then, muttering and cursing, Hazelton stomped the straw for good measure. He paused and lifted the lantern. Through the mask of hay that covered his face, Matthew saw the blacksmith's eyes glitter in the foul light and knew Hazelton was looking directly at his hiding place.

  Don't move! Matthew cautioned himself. For God's sake, be still!

  And the sake of his own skull, he might have added.

  Hazelton came toward Matthew's refuge, his heavy boots crushing down. Matthew realized with a start of terror that the man was going to step on him momentarily, and he braced himself to burst out of the straw. If he came up hollering and shrieking, he reasoned he might scare Hazelton into a retreat or at least might cause him to miss with the first swing of the hatchet.

  He was ready. Two more steps, and the blacksmith would be upon him.

  Then: crack!

  Hazelton stopped his advance, the straw up around his knees. He reached down with his free hand, searching. Matthew knew what the noise had been. The lantern's glass had broken, the lantern lying perhaps eight inches from the fingertips of Matthew's right hand. Reflexively, Matthew closed his hand into a fist.

  The blacksmith discovered what he'd stepped on. He held the lamp by its handle, lifting it up for inspection. There was a long, dreadful silence. Matthew clenched his teeth and waited, his endurance stretched to its boundary.

  At last Hazelton grunted. "Lucy, I found that damn lantern!" he said. "Was a good one, too! Hell's sufferin' bells!" He tossed it aside with a contemptuous gesture, and Matthew realized the man thought in his tipsied state that it was a lamp he had previously misplaced. If he'd been coherent enough to touch the pieces of broken glass, Hazelton might have found they were still warm. But the blacksmith thereafter turned and crunched back through the straw to the barn's bare earth, leaving Matthew to contemplate how near he'd come to disaster.

  But—as was said—a miss was as good as a mile. Matthew began breathing easier, though he would not take a full breath until Hazelton had gone. Then another thought struck him, and it might well have been a hatchet to the head: if Hazelton went out and locked the door, he'd be trapped in here. It might be sunrise or later before Hazelton came to the barn again, and then Matthew would be forced to face him anyway! Better run for it while he was able, Matthew decided. But there was the problem of the straw. That which protected him would also hinder his flight.

  Now, however, his attention was drawn to the blacksmith once more. Hazelton had hung the lantern up on a wallpeg beside the far stall, and he was speaking to the horse he seemed to favor. "My fine Lucy!" he said, his voice slurred. "My fine, beautiful girl! You love me, don't you? Yes, I know you do!" The blacksmith began to murmur and whisper to his horse, and though Matthew couldn't hear the words he was beginning to think this affection was rather more than that of a man for his mount.

  Hazelton came back into sight. He thunked the hatchet's blade into the wall next to the door, and then he pulled the door shut. When he turned again, moisture glistened on his face; and his eyes—directed toward Lucy—seemed to have sunken into dark purple hollows.

  "My good lady, " Hazelton said, with a smile that could only be described as lecherous. A cold chill crept up Matthew's spine. He had an inkling now of what the blacksmith intended to do.

  Hazelton went into Lucy's stall. "Good Lucy, " he said. "My good and lovely Lucy. Come on! Easy, easy!"

  Carefully, Matthew lifted his head to follow the blacksmith's movements. The light was dim and his view was restricted, but he could make out Hazelton turning the horse around in her stall so her hindquarters faced the door. Then Hazelton, still speaking " quietly though drunkenly to Lucy, eased her forward and guided her head and neck into a wooden collar-like apparatus that was meant to hold horses still as they were being shod. He latched the collar shut, and thus the horse was securely held. "Good girl, " he said. "That's my lovely lady!" He went to a corner of the stall and began to dig into a pile of hay provided for Lucy to eat. Matthew saw him reach down for something and pull it out. Whether it was the grainsack or not, Matthew couldn't tell, but he presumed it was at least what might have been secreted inside the sack.

  Hazelton came out of the stall carrying what appeared to be an elaborate harness made out of smoothed cow's hide. The blacksmith staggered and almost fell under its bulk, but it seemed that his fevered intent had given him strength. The harness had iron rings attached to both ends: the two circles Matthew had felt through the burlap. Hazelton fixed one of the rings around a peg on the wall, and the second ring was fixed to a peg on a nearby beam so that the harness was stretched to its full width at the entrance to Lucy's stall.

  Matthew realized what Hazelton had devised. He recalled Gwinett Linch saying about the smithy: He's an inventor, once he puts his mind to a task. It was not Hazelton's mind, however, that was about to be put to work.

  At the center of the harness-like creation was a seat formed of leather lattice. The pegs had been placed so the iron rings could stretch the harness and lift the seat up until whoever sat in it would be several feet off the ground and positioned just under Lucy's tail.

  "Good Lucy, " Hazelton crooned, as he dropped his breeches and pulled them off over his boots. "My good and beautiful girl." His bum naked and his spike raised, Hazelton brought over a small barrel that appeared to be empty, from the ease with which he handled it. He stepped up onto the barrel, swung his behind into the leather seat and lifted the horse's tail, which had begun flopping back and forth in what might have been eager anticipation.

  "Ahhhhh!" Hazelton had eased his member into Lucy's cha
nnel. "There's a sweet girl!" His fleshy hips began to buck back and forth, his eyes closed and his face florid.

  Matthew remembered something Mrs. Nettles had said, concerning the blacksmith's deceased wife: I happ'n to know that he treated Sophie like a three-legged horse 'fore she died. It was very clear, from the noises of passion he was making, that Hazelton much preferred horses of the four-legged variety.

  Matthew also knew now why Hazelton had so desired this apparatus of strange pleasure not to be discovered. In most of the colonies the sodomizing of animals was punishable by hanging; in a few, it was punishable by being drawn and quartered. It was a rare crime, but quite morally heinous. In fact, two years ago Woodward had sentenced to hanging a laborer who had committed buggery with a chicken, a pig, and a mare. By law, the animals were also put to death and buried in the same grave with their human offender.

  Matthew ceased watching this loathsome spectacle and stared instead at the ground beneath him. He could not, however, voluntarily cease from hearing Hazelton's exhortations of passion for his equine paramour.

  At last—an interminable time—the barnyard lothario groaned and shuddered, indicating the climax of his copulation. Lucy, too, gave a snort but hers seemed to be more relief that her stud was done. Hazelton lay forward against the horse's hind and began to speak to Lucy with such lover's familiarity that Matthew blushed to the roots of his hair. Such speech would be indecent between a man and his maid, but was absolutely shameless between a man and his mare. Obviously, the blacksmith had banged one too many horseshoes over a red-hot forge.

  Hazelton didn't try to remove himself from the harness. His voice was becoming quieter and more slurred. Shortly thereafter, he stopped speaking entirely and began to offer a snore and whistle to his object of affection.