Speaks the Nightbird

by Robert R. McCammon

  “The folded paper is also worth a glance,” said Bidwell.

  Matthew unfolded it. It was a drawing, in charcoal pencil, of a good-sized building. Some time had been spent in attending to the details. Present were bricks, windows, and a bell steeple.

  “It appears,” Bidwell said, “the foul bastard…intended to build his next schoolhouse of a less flammable material.”

  “I see.” Matthew gazed at the drawing—a sad sight, really—and then refolded the paper and returned it to the box.

  Bidwell put the gemstones back into the bag. He removed from the box the pencils, the writing tablet, the eraser, and the drawing of the new schoolhouse.

  “I own the spring, of course,” Bidwell said. “I own the water and the mud. By the rights of ownership—and the hell I have gone through—I also claim for myself these gems and jewelry, which came from that mud. Agreed?”

  “It makes no matter to me,” Matthew answered. “Do with them as you please.”

  “I shall.” Bidwell placed the little bag into the box, beside the coins, the brooch, the ring, and the crucifix and chain. He closed the lid.

  Then he pushed the box toward Matthew. “It pleases me…for you to take this to the person who has suffered far more hell than I.”

  Matthew couldn’t fathom what he’d just heard. “Pardon me?”

  “You heard correctly. Take them to—” He interrupted himself as he snapped the first charcoal pencil between his hands. “—her. It is the very least I can do, and certainly it can’t bring back her husband or those months spent in the gaol.” In spite of his good intentions, he couldn’t help but regard the box with a wanton eye. “Go ahead. Take it”—the second pencil was picked up and broken—“before I regain my senses.”

  “Why don’t you take it to her yourself! It would mean much more.”

  “It would mean much less,” he corrected. “She hates me. I’ve tried to speak to her, tried to explain my position…but she turns away every time. Therefore you take the box.” Snap, died the third pencil. “Tell her you found it.”

  Realizing that indeed Bidwell must be half-crazed with humanity to let such wealth slip through his fingers, Matthew picked up the box and held it to his chest. “I will take it to her directly. Do you know where she is?”

  “I saw her an hour ago,” Winston said. “She was drawing water.” Matthew nodded; he had an idea where she might be found.

  “We must put ourselves back in business here.” Bidwell picked up the drawing that Johnstone had done—the bad man’s dream of an Oxford of his own—and began to methodically tear it to pieces. “Put ourselves back in order, and consign this disgraceful…insane…blot on my town to the trash heap. I can do nothing more for the woman than what I’ve done today. And neither can you. Therefore, I must ask: how much longer shall you grace us with your presence?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have decided it’s time to get on with my own life. I might leave in the morning, at first light.”

  “I’ll have Green take you to Charles Town in a wagon. Will you be ready by six?”

  “I shall be,” Matthew said. “But I’d prefer you give me a horse, a saddle and tack, and some food, and I’ll get myself to Charles Town. I am not an invalid, and therefore I refuse to be carted about like one.”

  “Give you a horse?” Bidwell glowered at him. “Horses cost money, aren’t you aware of that? And saddles don’t grow on trees, either!”

  “You might wish for saddle-trees, sir!” Matthew fired back at him. “As that might be the only crop your farmers can grow here!”

  “You don’t concern yourself with our crops, thank you! I’ll have you know I’m bringing in a botanist—the finest money can buy—to set our growing affairs straight! So stick that in your damned theory hole and—”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen!” Winston said calmly, and the wranglers fell quiet. “I shall be glad to pay for a horse and saddle for Mr. Corbett, though I think it unwise of you, Matthew, to travel unaccompanied. But I wish to offer my best regards and hope that you find much success in the future.”

  “Write him a love letter while you’re at it!” Bidwell steamed.

  “My thanks, sir,” Matthew said. “As for travelling alone, I feel confident I won’t be in any danger.” The demise of Shawcombe and Jack One Eye, he suspected, had made the backroads of the entire Southern colonies at least safer than Manhattan’s harbor. “Oh. While I am thinking of it: Mr. Bidwell, there is one final rope that remains unknotted in this situation.”

  “You mean Dr. Shields?” Bidwell crumpled the torn pieces of Johnstone’s drawing in his fist. “I haven’t decided what to do with him yet. And don’t rush me!”

  “No, not Dr. Shields. The burning of the schoolhouse, and who was responsible for the other fires as well.”

  “What?” Winston blanched.

  “Well, it wasn’t Johnstone, obviously,” Matthew explained. “Even someone so preoccupied with his own affairs as Mr. Bidwell can understand that. And, in time, I’m sure Mr. Bidwell might begin to wonder, as well he should.”

  “You’re right!” Bidwell agreed, his eyes narrowing. “What son of a bitch tried to burn down my town?”

  “Early this morning I had a thought about this burning business, and I went to Lancaster’s house. The place is still a wreck, as you’re aware. Has anyone else been through it?”

  “No one would go within a hundred yards of that damn murder house!”

  “I thought not, though I did appreciate the fact that the corpse has been disposed of. Anyway, I decided to search a little more thoroughly…and I discovered a very strange bucket in the debris. Evidently it was something Johnstone didn’t bother himself with, since it simply appears to be a regular bucket. Perhaps he thought it was full of rat bait or some such.”

  “Well, then? What was in it?”

  “I’m not sure. It appears to be tar. It has a brimstone smell. I decided to leave it where I found it…as I didn’t know if it might be flammable, or explode, or what might occur if it were jostled too severely.”

  “Tar? A brimstone smell?” Alarmed, Bidwell looked at Winston. “By God. I don’t like the sound of that!”

  “I’m sure it’s worth going there to get,” Matthew continued. “Or Mr. Winston might want to go and look at it, and then…I don’t know, bury it or something. Would you be able to tell what it was if you saw it, Mr. Winston?”

  “Possibly,” Winston answered, his voice tight. “But I’ll tell you right now…as you describe it, the stuff sounds like…possibly…infernal fire, Mr. Bidwell?”

  “Infernal fire? My God!” Now Bidwell did hammer his desk. “So that’s who was burning the houses! But where was he getting the stuff from?”

  “He was a very capable man,” Matthew said. “Perhaps he had sulphur for his rat baits or candles or something. Perhaps he cooked some tar and mixed it himself. I have a feeling Lancaster was trying to hurry the process of emptying the town without telling his accomplice. Who knows why?” Matthew shrugged. “There is no honor among thieves, and even less among murderers.”

  “I’ll be damned!” Bidwell looked as if he’d taken a punch to his ponderous gut. “Was there no end to their treacheries, even against each other?”

  “It does appear a dangerous bucket, Mr. Winston,” Matthew said. “Very dangerous indeed. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t dare bring it back to the mansion for fear of explosion. You might just want to bring a small sample to show Mr. Bidwell. Then by all means bury it and forget where you turned the shovel.”

  “Excellent advice.” Winston gave a slight bow of his head. “I shall attend to it this afternoon. And I am very gratified, sir, that you did not leave this particular rope unknotted.”

  “Mr. Winston is a useful man,” Matthew said to Bidwell. “You should be pleased to have him in your employ.”

  Bidwell puffed his cheeks and blew out. “Whew! Don’t I know it!”

  As Matthew turned away and started out with the treasure box, the mas
ter of Fount Royal had to ask one last question: “Matthew?” he said. “Uh…is there any way…any possible way at all…that…the fortune might be recovered?”

  Matthew made a display of thought. “As it has flowed along a river to the center of the earth,” he said, “I would think it extremely unlikely. But how long can you hold your breath?”

  “Ha!” Bidwell smiled grimly, but there was some good humor in it. “Just because I build ships and I’m going to station a grand navy here…does not mean I can swim. Now go along with you, and if Edward thinks he’s going to convince me to give you a free horse and saddle, he is a sadly mistaken duke!”

  Matthew left the mansion and walked past the still waters of the spring on his way to the conjunction of streets. Before he reached the turn to Truth, however, he saw ahead of him the approach of a black-clad, black-tricorned, spidery, and wholly loathsome figure.

  “Ho, there!” Exodus Jerusalem called, lifting a hand. On this deserted street, the sound fairly echoed. Matthew was sorely tempted to run, but the preacher picked up his pace and met him. Blocked his way, actually.

  “What do you want?” Matthew asked.

  “A truce, please.” Jerusalem showed both palms, and Matthew unconsciously held more securely to the treasure box. “We are packed and ready to leave, and I am on my way to give my regards to Mr. Bidwell.”

  “Art thou?” Matthew lifted his eyebrows. “Thy speech has suddenly become more common, Preacher. Why is that?”

  “My speech? Oh…that!” Jerusalem grinned broadly, his face seamed with wrinkles in the sunlight. “It’s an effort to keep that up. Too many thees and thous in one day and my lips near fall off.”

  “It’s part of your performance, you mean?”

  “No, it’s real enough. My father spoke such, and his father before him. And my son—if I ever have a son—shall as well. Also, however, the widow Lassiter detests it. Gently, of course. She is a very gentle, very warm, very giving woman.”

  “The widow Lassiter? Your latest conquest?”

  “My latest convert,” he corrected. “There is quite a difference. Ah yes, she’s a wonderfully warm woman. She ought to be warm, since she weighs almost two hundred pounds. But she has a lovely face and she can surely mend a shirt!” He leaned in a little closer, his grin lecherous. “And she has quite the toll in her skirt, if you catch my meaning!”

  “I would prefer not to, thank you.”

  “Well, as my father always said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The one-eyed, stiff beholder, I mean.”

  “You are a piece of work, aren’t you?” Matthew said, amazed at such audacity. “Do you do all your thinking with your private parts?”

  “Let us be friends. Brothers under the warming sun. I have heard all about your triumph. I don’t fully understand how such a thing was done—the Satan play, I mean—but I am gratified to know that a righteous and innocent woman has been cleared, and that you are also found guiltless. Besides, it would be a damn sin for a looker like that to burn, eh?”

  “Excuse me,” Matthew said. “And farewell to you.”

  “Ah, you may say farewell, but not goodbye, young man! Perchance we’ll meet again, further along life’s twisting road.”

  “We might meet again, at that. Except I might be a judge and you might be at the end of a twisting rope.”

  “Ha, ha! An excellent joke!” Now, however, a serious cast came over the wizened face. “Your magistrate. I—honestly—am very sorry. He fought death to the end, I understand.”

  “No,” Matthew said. “In the end he accepted it. As I did.”

  “Yes, of course. That, too. But he did seem a decent man. Too bad he died in a hole like this.”

  Matthew stared at the ground, a muscle working in his jaw.

  “If you like, before I leave I might go to his grave and speak a few words for his eternal soul.”

  “Preacher,” Matthew said in a strained voice, “all is well with his eternal soul. I suggest you go give your regards to Mr. Bidwell, get in your wagon with your witless brood, and go to—wherever you choose to go. Just leave my sight.” He lifted his fierce gaze to the man, and saw the preacher flinch. “And let me tell you that if I but see you walking in the direction of Magistrate Woodward’s grave, I will forget the laws of God and man and do my damnedest to put my boot so far up your ass I will kick your teeth out from the inner side. Do you understand me?”

  Jerusalem backed away a few steps. “It was only a thought!”

  “Good day, goodbye, and good riddance.” Matthew sidestepped him and continued on his way.

  “Ohhhhh, not goodbye!” Jerusalem called. “Farewell, perhaps! But not goodbye! I have a feeling thou shalt lay eyes on me at some future unknown date, as I travel this ungodly, debased, and corrupted land in the continual—continual, I say—battle against the foul seed of Satan! So I say to thee, brother Matthew, farewell…but never goodbye!”

  The voice—which Matthew thought could strip paint off wood if Jerusalem really let it bray—was fading behind him as he turned onto Truth Street. He dared not look back, for he didn’t care to become a pillar of salt today.

  He passed the gaol. He did not give the odious place a single glance, though his gut tightened as he stepped on its shadow.

  And then he came to her house.

  Rachel had been busy. She had pulled into the yard much of the furniture, and a washtub of soapy water stood at the ready. Also brought into the cleansing sun were clothes, bedsheets, a mattress, kettles and skillets, shoes, and just about everything else a household contained.

  The door was wide open, as were all the shutters. Airing the place out, he thought. Intending to move in again, and make it a home. Indeed, Rachel was more like Bidwell in her tenacity—one might say foolhearted stubbornness—than ever he’d imagined. Still, if elbow grease alone could transform that rat-whiskered shack to a livable cottage again, she would have a mansion of her own.

  He crossed the yard, winding between the accumulated belongings. Suddenly his progress was interrupted by a small chestnut-brown dog that sprang up from its drowsing posture beside the washtub, took a stance that threatened attack, and began to bark in a voice that surely rivalled the preacher’s for sheer volume.

  Rachel came to the threshold and saw who her visitor was. “Hush!” she commanded. “Hush!” She clapped her hands to get the mongrel’s attention. The dog ceased its alarms and, with a quick wag of its tail and a wide-mouthed yawn, plopped itself down on the sun-warmed ground again.

  “Well!” Matthew said. “It seems you have a sentinel.”

  “She took up with me this morning.” Rachel wiped her dirty hands on an equally dirty rag. “I gave her one of the ham biscuits Mrs. Nettles made for me, and we are suddenly sisters.”

  Matthew looked around at the furniture and other items. “You have your labors ahead of you, I see.”

  “It won’t be so bad, once I finish scrubbing the house.”

  “Rachel!” Matthew said. “You don’t really plan on staying here, do you?”

  “It’s my home,” she answered, spearing him with those intense amber eyes. She wore a blue-printed scarf around her head, and her face was streaked with grime. The gray dress and white apron she wore were equally filthy. “Why should I leave it?”

  “Because…” He hesitated, and showed her the box. “Because I have something for you. May I come in?”

  “Yes. Mind the mess, though.”

  As Matthew approached the door, he heard a whuff of wind behind him and thought the mighty sentinel had decided to take a bite from his ankle. He turned in time to see the brown dog go tearing off across the field, where it seized one of two fleeing rats and shook the rodent between its jaws in a crushing deathgrip.

  “She does like to chase them,” Rachel said.

  Within the bare house, Matthew saw that Rachel had been scraping yellow lichens from the floorboards with an axeblade. The fungus and mildew that had spread across the walls had bloomed into strange p
urple and green hues only otherwise to be seen in fever dreams. However, Matthew saw that where the sunlight touched, the growths had turned ashen. A broom leaned against the wall, next to a pile of dust, dirt, rat pellets, and bones. Nearby was a bucket of more soapy water, in which a scrub brush was immersed.

  “You know, there are plenty of houses available,” Matthew said. “If you really insist on staying here, you might move into one only recently abandoned and save yourself all this work. As a matter of fact, I know a very comfortable place, and the only labor involved would be clearing out a wasp’s nest.”

  “This is my home,” she answered.

  “Well…yes…but still, don’t you think—”

  She turned away from him and picked up a rolling pin that lay on the floor near the broom. Then she walked to a wall and put her ear against it. Following that, she whacked the boards three times and Matthew could hear the panicked squeaking and scurrying from within.

  “Those defy me,” Rachel said. “I’ve run out most of them, but those—right there—defy me. I swear I’ll clean them out. Every last one of them.”

  And at that moment Matthew understood.

  Rachel, he believed, was still in a state of shock. And who could fault her? The loss of her husband, the loss of her home, the loss of her freedom. Even—for a time at least, as she prepared herself for the fires—the loss of her will to live. And now, faced with the daunting—and perhaps impossible—task of rebuilding, she must concentrate on and conquer what she perceived as the last obstacle to a return to normality.

  But who, having walked through such flames, could ever erase the memory of being singed?

  “I regret I have nothing to offer you,” she said, and now that he was looking for it he could see a certain burnt blankness in her eyes. “It will be a time before my cupboard is restocked.”

  “Yes,” Matthew said. He gave her a sad but gentle smile. “I’m sure. But…nonetheless, it will be restocked, won’t it?”