Trumpet of the Dead (Raven Trilogy Book 2)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  “Why?”

  “Three reasons, at least. They believe you’re helping Nyx Bau—”

  “I’m not helping—”

  “They believe you are, and they perceive you’re a threat to Raymond Hinsdale.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Naturally, they have an interest in protecting him. And you did nearly strangle him to death, didn’t you?” Kamp tried to push past Grigg, but the prosecutor blocked the way and took a handful of Kamp’s jacket. “Face facts. You can try to walk away. They won’t let you.”

  Kamp looked at Grigg’s hand on his jacket until the prosecutor let go. “What are they going to do?”

  “I don’t know what, specifically. I just know they’re plotting against you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have sources.”

  “What sources?”

  Grigg looked over Kamp’s shoulder. “I can’t say. I do have one additional bit of information, the professional I told you they sent after Nyx Bauer. I know the individual’s name. Adams.”

  “First name? Last name?”

  “That’s all I know. Does it ring a bell?”

  Kamp rubbed his left temple. “You want to help me, is that right?”

  “Yes, I do. Together, we can—”

  “Then stay away.” Kamp pushed past Grigg, walked down the trail and into his house, slamming the door behind him.

  ANGUS LEFT THAT AFTERNOON, strapping on snowshoes, slinging his hunting rifle over his shoulder and heading out into the woods. He hadn’t told Nyx where he was going, saying only, “I’ll be back before dark.”

  He went straight for the first of a half dozen steel claw traps he’d set the day before Nyx appeared at his doorstep. It had snowed several times since then, and Angus didn’t hold out much hope for success as he neared the first one. But a cottontail lay dead in its jaws, freshly trapped and unmolested by scavengers. Angus pried the rabbit out, reset the trap and moved onto the next. It, too, held a dead rabbit, which he bagged. Angus hurried to the remaining traps and finding those empty, made a beeline for the cabin. They’d have more than they needed for supper, and Angus’s mood, which had been low, owing to Nyx’s immanent departure, brightened considerably.

  He stepped deftly in the snowshoes, picking up his original tracks and walking back in them. When his cabin came into view through the trees at a distance of a couple hundred yards, Angus saw someone standing on the front porch, peering in the window. His initial impulse was to call out to Nyx and tell her to get back inside, but he stifled the urge. Angus’s heart began thudding as he gently lowered the game bag to the ground and slid the rifle strap off his shoulder. He raised the gun and stared down the scope. The figure was a woman, but it wasn’t Nyx. She wore a black cloak with the hood up, and she paced slowly on the porch.

  Angus took off the snowshoes, picked up the gun and walked soundlessly in a crouch. By the time Angus got to the edge of the clearing, about fifty feet from the cabin, the woman had begun pounding on the front door. Angus stopped, raised the rifle again and sighted the woman’s head.

  He curled his first finger around the trigger and said, “Raise your hands. Don’t turn around.”

  The woman said, “I’m here with the county. Census. I can show you.”

  “Ach, stay still once.” Angus approached slowly, keeping the woman in his sights until he reached the first porch step.

  “I’m only here to verify that this residence is inhabited, and if so, by how many persons.” The woman spoke without fear. “Now, sir, may I know your name?”

  “No, ma’am, you may not. What you can do is vacate the premises.” Angus moved up the steps.

  The woman said, “I recommend you answer my questions, but if you insist I’ll—”

  Angus touched the barrel to the back of the woman’s head. “I insist.”

  “Well, then, if you’ll permit me, I’m going to turn around now so that I may leave.”

  In a low voice Angus said, “What’s your name?”

  With her hands still raised, the woman turned a half-circle, and for the first time, Angus saw her face. She had high cheekbones, blue eyes, a fine nose and a square jaw. She stared straight into Angus’s eyes and showed nothing soft. No deference.

  “I said, what’s your name?”

  “Adams.” The woman glanced at his rifle and said, “Sharpshooter, huh?”

  “What of it?”

  “My husband was in the war.”

  Angus lost his focus just enough for the woman to find her blade and sink it into Angus’s left thigh. The rifle clattered to the porch as Angus tumbled backward.

  From inside the cabin, Nyx yelled, “What is it?”

  Angus said, “I’m g'shtucha!”

  The woman said, “It’s all right, Nadine, come outside.”

  “Go to hell!”

  At the moment Angus took up the rifle again and pointed it at the woman, he heard a crack at the tree line and then felt the bullet slam into his left shoulder, knocking him off the porch and onto the ground. The second bullet whistled through his hat, skimming his hairline on its way through. Angus scanned the tree line and saw men in uniforms taking up positions.

  The woman leapt off the porch as Nyx swung the front door open and came out firing a shotgun and missing Adams as she fled. Nyx jumped down, hauled Angus back inside and shut the door.

  “They’re coming,” he said.

  AS SOON AS SHE’D HEARD boot heels on the porch, the same ones she’d heard days before, Nyx had begun making ready to escape. She packed a bag with a change of clothes, a spare blanket, food, a pistol and a clutch of clean bandages. Then she’d laced up the boots Angus made her, cinching them fast. Nyx set the Henry rifle by the back door, along with three boxes of cartridges. And by the time she’d heard voices on the porch and then the gun shots, Nyx had already loaded the shotgun.

  Now, she grabbed Angus under the arms and dragged him backward across the floor of the main room. The first hail of gunfire arrived just as Nyx laid Angus on the kitchen floor. Bullets splintered the window frames and tore into Angus’s workbench.

  Nyx said, “I’m sorry, Angus, I’m so sorry.”

  “Ach, what for?”

  She threw the back door open and put the Henry, the bag of supplies and the shotgun into the bed of the dray wagon Angus kept in a small barn behind the cabin. Another volley of bullets came through the front of the cabin as Nyx crawled on hands and knees back to where Angus lay.

  She said, “You’re going to get up and run for the wagon. One, two, three.” The pair scrambled out the back door, and Nyx helped Angus into the wagon’s bed.

  Nyx gestured to the shotgun and said, “It’s loaded.”

  Angus sat up in the wagon and took the gun in his right hand, bracing it against his hip. Nyx took the reins and snapped them hard. The horse bolted out of the barn and onto the path to Long Run Road, rifles cracking behind them, echoes receding.

  20

  “IT’S CALLED A DOUCHE BATH. Otherwise known as hydrotherapy. And it ain’t punishment. It’s for your own good.”

  The first orderly talked as he stepped up onto a wooden chair. He held a bucket of water and stood directly over the naked kid, whose arms and legs had been pinned to the ground by the second orderly and three attendants. The scene played out in a small, walled off yard behind the main hospital building.

  “Doc MacBride said you need this as part of your treatment. Said you’re almost cured, in spite of your fractiousness.”

  The kid said, “He said that, huh? Yeah, that ol’ Doc MacBride, he sure does care about us inma—”

  The orderly held the bucket high and dumped the water on the kid’s face. “Also said sometimes it’s gotta get worse before it gets better.”

  The kid coughed and sputtered. “Okay, I’m awake now.”

  Another attendant handed the orderly a second bucket of water. He dumped that one as well and reached for a third.

  “Doc MacBride swears there’
s hope for you. We ain’t so sure. And if nothing else, this is one way to keep you from talking.” He emptied the bucket again. The kid shut his eyes tight and pursed his lips as the cascade hit him square in the face. He waited, then opened one eye.

  The kid said, “You know, boys, Jesus said, iff’n a man slaps your cheek, offer him the other’n as well.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’m here to tell ya, you can keep on, though I prefer you’d stop with this foolishness.”

  “Ain’t up to you.”

  “Don’t worry, though, I don’t intend t’ exact no revenge. That ain’t what I have in mind, not at all.”

  The orderly said, “What a relief,” and the other men laughed. He continued, “I heard your parents is rich, too. How in the hell did you end up here?”

  The kid raised his voice a notch. “But understand this, I been to the heavenly realm, and I seen what they do in there to evildoers, ’specially them that hurt a child. An’ second, Jesus said, ‘Better that a man have a millsto—’”

  “Christ, just shut up!” The orderly dumped another bucket on him.

  The kid coughed, cleared his throat, spat on the second orderly’s shoes and spoke even louder. “Long as we’re down here on this earth, I don’t have no truck with you fellas. You’re just tryin’ t’ do a job, awful an’ sorry as it is. But when your last moment in this mortal realm arrives, hear this, when the judgment comes on you, it’ll come fierce.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You most like won’t even hear a trumpet blast to announce it. Bang an’ that’s it. An’ the lord’s payday ain’t always on a Friday.”

  THE PROSECUTOR WAS GONE, but his briefcase remained on the top step of the porch. Kamp saw it there when Shaw and Autumn returned an hour after his conversation with Grigg. Could he trust the man? What if he planted something there to fool Kamp into doing his bidding and undo himself in the process?

  “What’s that?” Shaw said, snapping him from his rumination. She gestured to the briefcase.

  Kamp looked at her and at the sleeping child in a sling on her back.

  “A briefcase.”

  She gave him a flat stare. “What’s in it?”

  “Well, I was told it contains the records of every death handled by the coroner, going back twelve years. I don’t want it, though.”

  She raised her eyebrows slightly and shook her head.

  Kamp said, “Honest. I didn’t ask him for it.”

  “Ask who?”

  “The prosecutor. He was here. And no, I didn’t invite him. He thinks I’m going to help him, but I’m not. Told him to leave.”

  She stepped close to Kamp and ran her first finger gently across the furrow that ran the width of his forehead and then down his cheek. “Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Shaw put both hands on the back of Kamp’s neck and caressed the base of his skull. “The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword.”

  “They won’t leave us alone. That’s what he wanted to tell me. It’s starting again.”

  “Observed of all observers, quite, quite down.”

  Kamp raised his voice a notch, “You’re not listening. They’re not going to just—”

  “Shh,” she said and gestured to Autumn, who’d begun to stir. “Let it go, let it go.”

  “I can’t, you can’t.”

  She began to loose the straps that held their daughter on her back. “Help me with this.”

  Kamp took the little girl off Shaw’s back, carried her up the stairs and laid her in bed. When he got back downstairs, Shaw had retrieved the briefcase from the porch and was leafing through the files on the kitchen table.

  “How is this organized?” she said.

  “What?”

  Shaw continued searching the stack of papers. “It’s year by year. And alphabetical.”

  “What happened to ‘let it go?’ ”

  She split the stack of papers, setting half to the side. The other half she went through sheet by sheet. Kamp started a cooking fire and ground some coffee beans. By the time he’d fixed himself a cup, Shaw was focusing on a particular record with great interest.

  “1863. Here it is.” she said.

  “What?”

  “The missionary.”

  “What about him?”

  “You asked me what happened to him. Here it is.” She handed him the sheet of paper.

  Kamp sat down at the kitchen table and read it. “Return of a death. Name, Jezek, Daniel J. Occupation, clergy. Cause of death, pneumonia.”

  “That part is a lie.”

  Kamp took a sip of coffee and looked up at Shaw. “How do you know?”

  “I was there. I saw it happen.”

  “Where?” He scanned the death certificate. “The place of death is left blank.”

  “It was in the woods outside Mercy Village, the first one. They didn’t want to call it murder.”

  “Who didn’t?”

  “My father, my aunt. Jay’s father. Just about everyone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She sat down at the table across from Kamp. “A lot of people hated him.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I thought he was wonderful. Most of the young people did, too. That was part of the problem. The other missionaries disliked him because he wasn’t a good missionary. The Christian Lenapé mistrusted him for that reason as well.”

  “He was a pariah.”

  “Some men began plotting. I overheard them talking. One of my cousins, especially. He was jealous.”

  “What did you do?”

  Shaw looked at Kamp and raised her eyebrows. “I tried to stop them. On the night they planned to do it, I took a war hammer and got my cousin first.”

  “Got him?”

  “Yes, but don’t bother, you won’t find a death certificate in there for that, either. We don’t count.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  “Well, what I did didn’t help Jay. If anything, it made the rest of them angrier. They took him, burned him alive. When they were finished, they came back and gave me this, among other things.” She pointed to the crescent-shaped scar above her left eye.

  “What do you mean ‘among other things?’ ”

  “Xahònkël.”

  “What’s that?”

  Shaw could see the color rising in Kamp’s face. “The point is no one, not the Jesus Munsee, not the Moravians, no one wanted people to know what happened to Jay. They had to keep it secret, pretend it never happened.”

  “Why?”

  “You know about Mercy Village, right?”

  “No.”

  “The first one was the place I just said, in 1755. Missionaries and Indians. The second Mercy Village was in Ohio. Dozens of Lenapé, including women and children, all Christian, none armed, all murdered. Scalped.”

  “What’s your point?”

  She rubbed the scar above her eye with her first two fingers. “My point is that all people need is a reason, something they think justifies it. And once they have their reason, it starts. If the people found out Jay had been killed by an Indian, we’d all have been slaughtered.”

  “At least you did what you could.”

  She shook her head. “But only by participating in it. If I hadn’t done what I did, maybe they’d only have beaten him up and forced him to leave.”

  Kamp looked at the death certificate one more time. “It says he’s buried in the Moravian cemetery in Bethlehem.”

  “I know.”

  “Mind if I change the subject?”

  Shaw stared out the window, still in the memory.

  Kamp continued, “There was one thing Grigg said, something I need to tell you.” Shaw turned back to face him. “They’ve brought someone in to find Nyx.”

  “They who? The police?”

  “Black Feather.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Shaw, listen. Her name is—”

&
nbsp; “Her?”

  “Her name is Adams. Five feet, maybe five two. Thin with blonde hair, blonde in the war anyway. Blue eyes.”

  “That’s a detailed description.”

  “Well, she’s a hunter, very good with a knife. You need to keep an eye out for her. Trust me.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “I knew her husband. She was the one with the reputation, though.”

  “Whose side was she on?”

  “Hers.”

  21

  ADAMS HEARD RECEDING HOOF BEATS and the rifle reports trailing after them, but she didn’t feel troubled. Neither did she worry that she wouldn’t catch up with the girl soon enough. Instead, she savored the moment when she sank the blade into Angus Kamp’s thigh. She’d heard he was smart and dangerous, but not smart enough, as it turned out. Adams took a deep breath and exhaled. Letting them go, or more precisely, sending them scrambling, ensured that they’d lead her to their co-conspirators as well.

  She reflected too on the moment Nyx Bauer emerged from the cabin, shotgun thundering. While she found the girl’s method clumsy, Adams admired her assertiveness. The front door hung open and Adams went in, while the three armed men stood on the porch.

  Without looking at them, she said, “Stay.”

  Adams assumed that the pair wouldn’t have had time to set traps in the cabin before they fled. Still, she wouldn’t put it past Angus, given what she’d heard about his skill with firearms and his preference for security. As such, she walked slowly and carefully through the main room. She went to the workbench, where she saw what she expected—black powder, buck shot, cartridge papers and a fine assortment of gunsmithing tools. She noticed a bin of spare and worn out parts, including a loading-lever and a toggle-joint.

  In a tin cup Adams also saw fragments of what could only have been bone. She noted the wear on the tools and on the workbench itself. Adams inspected each weapon resting in the gun rack. She saw that the rack wasn’t full. Of all the slots, ten had a gun in them. Two were empty.

  Adams surveyed the room once more. The breakfast dishes hadn’t been cleaned, and the fire in the fireplace still smoldered. She’d surprised them, as she knew she would. On her way into the bedroom, Adams noticed a bedroll on the floor. Angus must have been sleeping there. A selfless act.