Trumpet OF
the Dead
A thriller
KURT B. DOWDLE
This work is fiction.
Trumpet of the Dead Copyright © 2015 by Kurt B. Dowdle
“I wept and wailed when I saw the unfamiliar place.”
―Empedocles, Katharmoi
Contents
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
PROLOGUE
THE JOB REQUIRED A KNIFE. A gunshot, even at night, would’ve brought them running, churchgoers spilling out doors and leaning out windows. And he knew he wouldn’t be able to reload and shoot his way out of the yard, even with the repeater. In his right hand he held the fighting knife, a clip point model he’d stolen from his brother before he’d lit out north. He caught a flash of moonlight off the blade that carried him back to the holler. Night hunting with his brother, the first time.
Music from the church provided the accompaniment to the memory. The sound swelled, pushing upward and out. He saw the cellar door of the church swing open, and the first man emerged, scanning the tree line. Then came the prisoner, shackled hands in front. And behind him another captor. The trio reached the top of the cellar stairs and stepped onto the church lawn. The rescuer crouched lower, preparing for his run. Behind him he heard hoof beats and men shouting to each other. In less than a minute, they’d be in the yard, loading up the prisoner and taking him back.
That left more than enough time for his work. He leapt from darkness, the thundering organ covering the sound of his steps. He drew within ten feet before the first man saw him and raised his pistol. But the first captor was too slow for the blade, which entered just below his sternum. The captor fell and brought the man face to face with the prisoner who looked at his ally with a flicker of amazement and fear. The man shoved the pistol in the prisoner’s hands, and the prisoner wheeled to fire on the remaining captor.
The man said, “Don’t shoot ’im” as he fixed his gaze upon the second captor, who knew that judgment day had arrived. The organ reached its crescendo. The man adjusted his grip on the knife and coiled to make the lunge that would fell the final man standing between him and his prisoner’s freedom, not to mention his own trip home.
In the instant that he sprang, knife poised to finish the job, the man felt a sharp sting at the back of his neck, saw a blinding flash, heard a mighty blast of trumpets and was himself delivered.
1
BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA, 1872
“I NEED YOUR HELP, SON.”
Kamp looked up from his work to see a boy, four and a half feet tall, maybe eight or nine years old, staring. Kamp had been focused on sawing planks and hadn’t heard the kid approaching on the path from the road to his small farm.
“Say again?”
The kid spoke slowly, “I need your help. Son.”
“Son?”
It had been a strange day already, one of those warm days in late October full of half-lit colors at midday, edges rounded with haze. He’d risen early, well before Shaw and his daughter, to sort the lumber in order to build a new slaughterhouse to replace the one that had burned. He had worked carefully for weeks, preparing the ground, ordering some of the materials and making the rest. Kamp had counted all the costs, the tangible ones anyway. But now that construction was set to begin, he found himself questioning the project and wondering whether he’d ever wanted a slaughterhouse in the first place. As he pondered motives and unexpected turns of events, the boy grew impatient.
“I ain’t got all day.”
Kamp turned his back to the boy and returned to his labors, sawing a plank through and letting it fall.
The kid said, “You know I seen you before.”
“I’m working.”
The kid walked to Kamp’s side. “Let me help you.”
Kamp looked at the kid’s clothes. He wore a dark green velvet jacket with matching short pants. The jacket had brass buttons, and underneath it, a white shirt with a lace collar.
“You don’t look cut out for it.”
“Don’t let this clown costume fool you.”
“How’s that?”
“Son, I ain’t afraid to sweat.”
“Kamp.”
“Huh?”
“My name is Kamp.”
“Shee-it, I know what your name is, and I’ll outwork you any day.” The kid spat on the ground for emphasis. “Guaranteed.”
Kamp studied the boy. The voice and the face didn’t match. And the kid’s manner didn’t fit his age. He didn’t appear to be deranged, though.
“How old are you?”
The kid tossed his jacket on the ground and walked to the stack of planks.
“I’ll help you out with this, and then maybe you’ll listen.”
For the next two hours Kamp and the kid sorted the rest of the planks and then sawed them to their proper dimensions. By the time they finished, the kid was covered in dirt and sawdust, his straw-like blonde hair stuck to his forehead with sweat.
Kamp said, “That’s all for today.”
The kid gave a flat stare and said, “Done already?”
Kamp couldn’t place the kid’s accent. It wasn’t Pennsylvania Dutch, and it wasn’t British. He tipped his slouch hat back on his forehead, wiped the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand and sat on the ground.
The kid said, “Son, you got a cigarette?”
Kamp ignored the question and said, “Where are you from?”
“West Virginia.”
“What are you doing in Pennsylvania?”
The kid shook his head, disgusted. “Look, you intend to help me or not?”
Kamp took a deep breath and then looked up at the wispy clouds. “What with?”
“You need to tell me first whether you intend to help, then I’ll tell you what with.”
“That’s not the way it works.”
The kid balled his fists hard enough to drain the blood from his knuckles as his face went purple. “I come all this way, come to your house, ask you an honest question. I work alongside you, cheek by jowl. And you ain’t gonna help, ain’t even gonna listen?”
Kamp looked over the kid’s head, signaling the end of the conversation.
“This is as much about you as it is about me. I know about you.”
Kamp raised his eyebrows.
The kid continued, “That’s right. Long time ago, years ago I seen you. I seen you plenty. Before.”
Kamp rubbed his left temple with his first two fingers. “Really.”
“Goddamned right, really. And I seen. I know. I know what’s coming back on you.”
Kamp said, “I want to help, friend. You’re welcome here anytime, especially if there’s work to be done. But what you’re asking for, I—”
The kid said, “Remember that red felt number you used to wear? Remember that one?”
“No.” Kamp stood up stiffly and brushed the dirt from his pants.
“The hat, that red hat you always wore when you an’ your brothers was frolickin’ up yonder on that mountain?” He motioned to the tree line.
Kamp felt a stab of grief in his throat as he caught a fragment of vivid memory.
“See? You remember. I seen you up there. I was there, too.”
They heard the clatter of hooves on the road, and a fine carriage pulled by two horses came into view.
The kid gave a laugh. “You’re in for it now. She’s a hellcat, this one.”
The carriage turned onto the path to Kamp’s farm, and the horses pulled up a few yards short of where Kamp and the kid stood. The driver, formally attired, climbed down from his perch, but before he could open
the carriage door, a woman burst out and marched straight to Kamp.
“What gives you the, the gall, sir?”
Kamp removed his hat. “Ma’am, I think you mis—”
She turned on her heel to look at the kid. “He’s filthy. And these clothes are, are ruined. Do you see what you’ve done here, mister?”
“Kamp.”
She walked to the kid and talked without looking at Kamp. “Oh, I know who you are. I’ve heard stories. And I have a mind to inform the police.” She held the kid by his shoulders, inspecting his face, then let out an exasperated sigh.
Kamp took a deep breath, closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. When he opened his eyes, he focused on the woman. She wore a black, tight-fitting jacket and long black skirt, a riding habit. She was tall and lean, jaw set. Formidable.
The woman stood up and faced Kamp. “Kindly never speak to this boy again, Mr. Kamp. Understand?”
“Ma’am, I don’t know him, and—”
“May it remain so.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then looked at the woman’s face. She had brown eyes and high cheekbones. But in spite of the apparent intensity of emotion, she had no color in her face. And no blemishes, no scars. Her dark hair was pulled back and hidden beneath a riding hat, adorned with two black feathers.
Kamp put his hat back on and tipped it politely. “Good day, ma’am.”
She held his gaze for a moment and then turned her back to him. The driver, who’d stood motionless during the exchange, offered his hand to assist her.
The kid followed behind, and just before he disappeared into the carriage, he turned back to face Kamp, smiled and said, “See you t’morrow, son.”
KAMP WALKED IN THE BACK DOOR to the kitchen, fixed himself a cup of coffee, sat down at the table and listened to the silence. Shaw and their daughter had left for a walk in the woods hours ago, and Kamp took the time before they returned to reflect on the day’s events.
In the months since Kamp had completed his year-long stint as Bethlehem’s first-ever police detective, visits such as this one had become more common than Kamp would have expected and more frequent than he wanted. Lost souls and misfits made their way to his doorstep, as if by magnetic force. They’d started coming just days after he’d completed the construction of his new house, arriving one by one and always for the same reason.
They needed at least help, at most salvation, and they’d determined that only he could provide it. These wayward pilgrims perceived that Kamp somehow existed outside the normal functioning of society and because of that, he could be of assistance. What chain of logic brought them to that conclusion, Kamp couldn’t fathom, and by the time they got to him, it was usually too late for them to be helped, let alone saved.
In the past year, Kamp had used the money he’d received from the city, ostensibly for “meritorious service,” to build the new house—farther back from the road than the old one—and to pay for the needs of his growing family. Life had proceeded in much the same way it had before he became a detective and embroiled himself in a violent conspiracy that nearly killed them all. But indeed, normalcy had returned, mostly.
Kamp knew he’d never be held in the same regard as before, and truth be told, most people who knew him before already thought him strange. His failed attempt to save an accused murderer from a killing mob marked him as an outcast, and his diligent efforts to expose a number of the city’s leading figures as members of a bloodthirsty cabal made him a threat. And it seemed unlikely that Kamp’s upstanding and godly neighbors could ever forgive him for fathering a child with a Lenni Lenapé woman to whom he wasn’t even married.
And yet, Kamp never considered himself anything like a pariah, as the opinions and prejudices of others touched him little, if at all. When he returned from his service to the city, as was the case when he returned from the war, Kamp made it his ambition to lead a quiet life. As he tipped the mug and drained the last of the coffee, Kamp concluded that the appearance of an odd kid and his domineering mother wasn’t entirely outside the realm of the expected and was nothing compared to the wild, jagged scenes that still played out in his mind on a daily basis.
NYX BAUER HUSTLED along the narrow trail on the mountain above Kamp’s home, stepping over the patch of dirt where she’d buried her parents’ murderer, most of him anyway. She carried the Sharps rifle in one hand and used the other to brush the hair from her forehead. She passed the shallow grave she’d dug the year before without pausing to reflect, because she was tracking a live animal now and because she knew the man she’d put in that grave wouldn’t be coming back. She jogged to the crest of the mountain and stopped. She crouched low, found another fresh print, followed it and stepped lightly until her quarry, a black bear came into view. Nyx felt that heightened sense, the exhilaration she’d never known before she took up a rifle and began asserting her will with it.
The bear didn’t notice her, perhaps because the recent chill in the air preoccupied it with the wish for a long, deep slumber and the food it would need to prepare. Whatever the case, Nyx moved in silently and more than close enough, then leaned against a maple tree. She raised the Sharps, and waited for the bear to turn broadside and offer her the ideal angle. When it did, Nyx gently squeezed the trigger.
But in the instant between the blast and the moment the bullet did its work, Nyx saw what the bear had been watching. Two cubs came into view as she fired and just after the bullet penetrated and the mother bear collapsed. Nyx stood fixed to the ground, smoke burning her nostrils, as the newly orphaned cubs fled for the bushes. She watched the mother bear breathe her last and then Nyx turned on her heel and ran back down the trail.
KAMP HEARD LOUD FOOTSTEPS on the front porch and assumed his family had returned from their ramble. Instead, the person of Nyx Bauer, breathless and in tears, burst through the front door.
She held the Sharps out to Kamp with both hands and said, “Here. Take it.”
Nyx wasn’t one of the people who’d come to Kamp for help during the previous year. In fact, he hadn’t seen her at all, in spite of the fact that they’d been bound together, for life, by sorrow and trial.
Kamp raised his eyebrows. “How you been?”
Nyx dropped her shoulders “I’m upset!”
“I see that.”
“Take it. I don’t want it anymore!” She shoved the Sharps into Kamp’s hand, and he set it down next to the fireplace.
He said, “Well, it’s good to see you, anyhow. I was about to fix some supper.”
Nyx paused to listen, then looked up the stairs. “Where’s everyone else?”
“We’re right here.” Shaw stood in the doorway with the little girl, Autumn, asleep on her back.
Over the meal Kamp made, Nyx recounted the story of how she’d set out that morning on a hunt and picked up the trail of the bear. She told them about the fateful shot that felled the animal. While she talked, Autumn sat in Nyx’s lap, laughing and playing with the silverware.
Nyx finished the story and handed her back to Shaw.
She focused on Kamp. “Did you ever kill something and wish you hadn’t?”
Kamp looked over Nyx’s shoulder and out the front window of the house. “Of course.”
“Did you keep doing it after that?”
“Doing what?”
“Killing.”
“I did.”
Nyx shifted her gaze to Shaw. “What about you? Did you ever kill anything by mistake?”
Kamp saw Shaw stiffen, and he felt his stomach go tight. He didn’t mind Nyx’s direct questions, as he believed he understood the way her thinking worked. He knew that in order to understand a situation for herself, Nyx felt as if she had to inhabit someone else’s consciousness. But Nyx didn’t know Shaw and either didn’t understand the cultural injunction against this kind of direct question or, more likely, didn’t care.
Nyx persisted. “Did that ever happen to you? Did it?”
Shaw took a deep b
reath. “We weren’t supposed to kill anything.”
“Who’s we?”
Kamp changed the subject. “A kid came by today, a boy, maybe eight or ten years old. Blonde hair, like straw. And then his mother came looking for him.”
“What did she look like?”
“Tall, dark hair. Nasty. Sound familiar?”
“Nope.”
The meal finished, Nyx stood up and over the protests of Shaw, cleared the table. They heard her washing dishes in the kitchen sink, then the closing of the back door. Nyx was gone. Kamp looked to the fireplace and saw that the Sharps was gone, too.
Kamp and Shaw listened to the silence, watched the sun disappear behind the mountain and then looked at each other.
He said, “You don’t have to say it.”
Shaw smiled. “You can’t save her, Kamp. You can’t.”
“I never said I could.”
2
KAMP FOLLOWED THE CROAKING OF RAVENS up the mountain. He could see the trail by the light of the half moon and wouldn’t have been able to find the exact spot otherwise. And he was certain Nyx hadn’t gone back to field dress the bear. Kamp didn’t worry about Nyx, as such. He knew that her life would follow its own trajectory, same as everyone else’s, and yet he wished he could prevent suffering, for her and for anyone else unlucky enough to find themselves in her crosshairs.
He pulled cold air into his lungs and felt his legs getting warm. He almost felt healed of the injuries from the previous year, the ones that could heal, at least. The raven calls grew louder, directing him to the exact location where the bear fell. The birds scattered when he approached and promptly perched in nearby branches, squawking their imprecations.
He knelt down and got to work immediately, because the hide and the meat would soon spoil, if they hadn’t already. Since the weather had turned cold and dry, he figured he had some time. He pulled the knife from the canvas bag he carried and began skinning the bear’s legs as close to the paws as he could get, slicing each wrist joint with a hatchet and then peeling the hide back. Once he’d caped the animal, Kamp began boning out the meat with a butcher knife. He worked as quickly as he could, blade flashing in the silver light.
Trumpet of the Dead (Raven Trilogy Book 2) Page 1
