Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter mc-3

by Robert R. McCammon

  Matthew thought that the low firelight might indeed pass for the footlamps. On the boulder behind Walker his shadow was thrown as upon a canvas backdrop. "And that was enough to drive you insane? Playing a part on the stage?"

  "No, not that. In fact, it was a very interesting experience. I was tended to, fed and watered very well, and I was taught your language by some very capable teachers. People came to see me by the hundreds. The thousands, I suppose. I was shown off at garden parties and in grand ballrooms. I was may I say the object of affection from a few daring ladies. But that was then. Later when first a new Indian was brought to the stage, and then another, and another yet Jonathan Redskin's days of valor were numbered. I was cast as the villain in a new play, which served to prolong my career, but the truth was I could not act. My finest scene was a death sprawl, in which I lay motionless at center stage for three minutes with my eyes open. But I was no longer a boy, and I was no longer a sensation. I was simply one of many."

  Walker paused to add a few more sticks to the fire. "One of many," he repeated. "In a foreign land." He took a long breath and let it slowly out. "I was sold," he said flatly. "To another acting company. They toured the countryside. I was required to do the same as I had done, in town halls, pastures, barns and warehouses. Wherever we might set up. Of course the people flocked in, to see oh, I was called 'The Savage Adam' that time around. Things were good for awhile, but soon there was always another Savage Adam, it seemed, who had just passed that way and played a week's engagement. In one village I was accused of being an Englishman in makeup, because I'd spoken to a man there who thought my speech was too civilized. So I was sold again. And sold again, about a year after that. Then, sold once more within six months. Until at last " He looked directly at Matthew. "Have you ever seen a mishap of nature?"

  "A mishap?"

  "A person," Walker corrected, "who is a mishap of nature. A malformed human being. A dwarf, or a man with claw hands, or a woman with three arms. A boy who sweats blood. Have you ever seen any of those?"

  "No," Matthew replied, though he could certainly relate to any boy who sweated blood.

  "I was the Demon Indian," said Walker, in a quiet, faraway voice. "The Lucifer of the New World. The sign on my cage said so. The red paint on my face, the horns on my head those said so, too. And Mr. Oxley, the show's owner-poor old drunken Mr. Oxley-told me to make sure I rattled the bars of my cage, to throw myself against them, and holler and growl like a fiend from Hell. Some nights I had part of a chicken to gnaw upon. Then when the people had gone, I came out of my cage and took off my horns and all of us-all of us mishaps of nature-packed up to go to the next town. And there stood Mr. Oxley with his silver watch-very much like this one-telling everyone to hurry, telling everyone that tomorrow night in Guildford there was a fortune to be made, or the next night in Winchester, or the night after that in Salisbury. He said, hurry there! Hurry up! He said we had to hurry, through the night along the little roads, because time was wasting, because time was money, and because time never stops for an Englishman."

  Walker turned the watch in his hands. "Mr. Oxley," he said, "hurried himself to his death. He was already worn out. It was the gin that finished him off. The rest of us divided what money we had and that was the end of the show. I dressed in my English suit, went to Portsmouth and bought passage on a ship. I came home. I went back to my people. But I brought my insanity and my demons with me, and they will never let me be."

  "I still don't understand what you mean."

  Walker closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them again. "From the first moment I saw the city of London," he said, "the demons came to me. They began their whispering in my ear, day and night. In my dreams I see them as high-collared Englishmen with gold coins and jewels in their fists. They have eyes like fire-pits, and they say, Look upon what will be. All those buildings, roads, coaches, and people. A hundred thousand chimneys, spouting black smoke. All that noise, like the beating of great drums that you can never find nor understand. All that confusion, and constant rushing like mad human rivers. The demons whispered: this is the future. Of everywhere. Not only of the English New York, and Philadelphia, and of every town the English build upon the earth. But for the Seneca, or the Mohawk, or any of my nation there will be no place left, among all those buildings and roads and noise. Oh, we'll fight for a place, yes, but we won't win. That's what my demons tell me; that's what they've shown me, and to make me insane they have ensured that no other of my tribe will believe it, because it is beyond belief. The world will be strange. My nation will no longer be part of it. All we have created all that is important to us gone, under the buildings and the roads, and all we hear will be lost to the noise."

  He looked at Matthew and nodded. "Don't think you shall escape it. Someday you'll see your world and not know it, and think it strange monstrous, even. And you and your Englishmen will yearn for what was lost, and never be able to find it again, for that is the demon's trick. To point the way forward, but to close the way back."

  Matthew ventured, "I suppose that's called progress."

  "There is progress," Walker agreed, "and there is rushing toward an illusion. The first takes wisdom and a plan, the second can be done by any drunken fool. I know how that story ends." He regarded the watch again. "I will think of Mr. Oxley whenever I look at this. I will think of him hurrying through the night, toward a fortune that never existed, with a wagon full of mishaps of nature. And I will think that the greatest thing for a man-and maybe the hardest thing-is to make peace with the passage of time. Or the stopping of his own time." He returned the watch to the bag, and gathered up his cloak, his bow and quiver, and the belt with his knife. "It's not raining anymore. I'll find another place."

  "You can stay here."

  "No, I can't. I won't be far away, though. I believe we have four or five hours before light, so there's still plenty of time to sleep. Take it while you can."

  "All right. Thank you." It was all Matthew could think to say. He watched as Walker strode off into the dark beyond the fire, which seemed a familiar place for the Indian to be. At last Matthew lay down and tried his best to relax, if that would ever be possible again. But weariness is weariness, after all, and slowly he began to drift off. His last sense of anything was hearing the voice of a nightbird far away in the woods, which stirred some memory that did not linger, but departed on silent wings.

  Twenty

  "So," said the Reverend, "you've had a good year, then?"

  "Yes, sir. Very good," Peter Lindsay answered. "A bumper crop of corn, apples a'plenty, and pumpkins still on the vine. You must have seen them, out in the field."

  "I did. Peter, you're a blessed man. To have such a farm as this, and such a lovely family. I was speaking with a fellow not long ago about greed. You know, how greed can lead a man into the valley of destruction. It's good that you're not greedy, Peter, and that you're satisfied with your position in life."

  "I am, sir, and thank you."

  "Well, we certainly need the glories of the farm, don't we? Just as we need " He paused, tapping his chin with one forefinger, which had a long and ragged nail.

  "The glories of Heaven?" asked Peter's wife, Faith, who was preparing the midday meal at the hearth across the room. Her kitchen was a glory of its own: clean and tidy, with walls of pale yellow pinewood, an orderly arrangement of cups and platters on shelves and in the arched fireplace itself the frying pans, trivets, spider skillets, iron pots, bake kettle, pot hooks and other vessels and tools that kept a home in operation and the family fed.

  "Exactly that," the reverend agreed.

  The youngest child, Robin, had been helping her mother. Now she came toward the reverend, who sat at the head of the table nursing a cup of cider, and showed him something she'd brought from the other room. She was eight years old, blonde-haired, and very proud of her small embroidered pillow, which indeed had upon it the representation of a robin perched on a tree branch.

  "I made this myse
lf," said the child.

  "You did? How wonderful! Now, you're saying your mother didn't help you one bit, is that right?"

  "Well " The child grinned. Her eyes were a bright, warm blue, like her mother's. "She helped got me started, and she helped got me finished."

  "Oh ho! But I'm sure there was a lot of work between starting and finishing." He handed the pillow back. "Ah, what's this, then?" The middle child, the thirteen-year-old tow-headed boy named Aaron, had come forward as well to show off his favorite possession. "A fine collection," said the man as he took a small white clay jar and admired the bright variety of different colored marbles within. "How many do you have?"

  "Twenty-two, sir."

  "And you use them for what purpose? Games?"

  "Yes, sir. But just to look at, too."

  "I'd think any boy would like to have these."

  "Yes sir, any boy sure would."

  "Aaron?" said Faith Lindsay. "Don't bother Reverend Burton, now."

  "He's no bother. Not at all. Here you are, Aaron." He returned the jar of marbles and then lifted his bearded chin slightly to gaze at the eldest child, who stood next to the fireplace in the process of helping her mother cook the cornbread, the beans, the baked apples and the piece of ham for this special occasion.

  She was sixteen years old, with the pale blonde hair of her mother and sister, the same lovely oval-shaped face and high cheekbones, and the lustrous dark brown eyes of her father. She stared fixedly at Reverend John Burton, as she paused before spooning the beans into a bowl.

  "Would you like to show me something, Lark?" the man prodded.

  "No, sir," came the firm reply. "But I would like to ask you something." Sitting opposite the reverend, her father-a wiry man in his late thirties, wearing a blue shirt and tan-colored breeches, his face lined and freckled by the sun and his scalp bald but for cropped reddish-brown hair on the sides and a solitary thatch at the front-glanced quickly at her, his thick eyebrows uplifted.

  "Go right ahead, please," said the reverend, in a gracious voice.

  "Why are your fingernails like that?"

  "Lark!" Peter frowned, the lines of his face deepening into ravines. At the same time, Faith shot a stern look at her daughter and shook her head.

  "It's all right. Really it is." Reverend Burton held his hands up and stretched the fingers out. "Not very attractive, are they? It's a pity I couldn't keep my nails like a gentleman ought to, among the Indians. My travels among the tribes unfortunately did not include weekly use of scissors. I presume you have a pair here? That I might use later?"

  "Yes, we do," Peter said. "Lark, what's gotten into you?"

  She almost said it, but she did not. I don't trust this man. Even thinking such a thing of a reverend, a servant of God, was enough to make the red creep across her cheeks and her gaze go to the floorplanks. She began spooning the beans into the bowl, her shoulders slightly bowed forward with the weight of what she was thinking.

  He looks at me too long.

  "I am hungry," the reverend said, to no one in particular. "Ravenous would be the word."

  "Done in just a minute," Faith assured him. "Robin, would you put the cornbread on its platter?"

  "Yes, Momma."

  "Get out the good napkins, Aaron."

  "Yes, ma'am." He put the jar of prized marbles down on the table and went to a cupboard.

  Lark Lindsay glanced quickly at Reverend Burton, and then away again; he was still watching her, with eyes the pale blue color of water. The water of Christ, she thought her mother and father might say. But she was thinking more of frozen water, like the pond in midwinter when nothing can drink from it. She finished spooning out the beans, set the bowl on the table in front of her father, and then her mother asked her to refill the reverend's cup of cider from the jug so she turned her attention to that task.

  He had arrived about an hour ago. Lark, her father and brother had been out in the orchard behind the barn, filling up more baskets from God's bounty, when Aaron had said, Papa? Somebody's on the road. Comin' this way.

  It was rare to have a visitor. The nearest minister lived on the other side of Caulder's Crossing, which itself was almost eight miles south along the road. They had been overjoyed to have a guest, and Lark knew her father would take it as a sign of the beneficent grace of the Lord, which he talked about often. The land might be hard and the living a trial, Peter Lindsay said, but all you had to do to touch God in this country was to reach up. Which Lark had always thought was a roundabout way of saying that if you worked hard enough, God would reward you. But sometimes that wasn't exactly true, because she remembered several years when everybody worked themselves to the sweat and the bones, but the crops were paltry and all reaching up did was give you a withered apple from a higher branch.

  She refreshed the reverend's cup of cider. He shifted his leg slightly; beside him, on the floor, was his haversack. My Bible is in there, he'd said. I like to have my Bible right next to me, where I can get to it fast when I see a sinner coming.

  And Peter and Faith Lindsay had laughed-a polite laugh, seeing as how some preachers did not appreciate laughter-and Aaron and Robin had smiled to hear their parents laugh, but Lark had looked at Reverend Burton's face and wondered why it was so scratched up, as if he'd been running through brambles.

  "Momma? Momma?" Robin was pulling at her mother's apron, the nice blue one with the yellow trim instead of the older scorched one she usually wore. "Is this all right?" She showed that the cornbread had crumbled and fallen apart a bit when lifted from pan to platter, but Faith said it was just fine, dear.

  Upon his arrival, the reverend had made himself comfortable in the kitchen and had told them the story of his life: how he'd grown up as a vicar's son in Manchester, and how he in his middle age had crossed the Atlantic on a vow to his father to bring salvation to the Indians. He had been among the savages for many months now, had carried the Lord's light into many heathen hearts, but oh how he missed Manchester. England was calling him home, he'd said. There to find a new place of service, and new flocks to tend. "We're pleased to have you here after you've travelled so long and far," Peter said as Aaron brought the good napkins to the table.

  "Long and far, indeed. And I'm so glad to find a place to rest. I fear my feet are blistered, as these boots are just a shade small. You have some very nice boots, I see. They look comfortable."

  "Yes sir, they are. Been broken in well enough by now, I'd guess."

  "Hm," said the reverend, and he took a drink from his cup. The smoky-burnt smell of the ham was filling up the kitchen, as Faith always let the skin char just before she took it off the fire. Burton put his cup down and held it between both hands, and Lark could not help but take another furtive glance at the long, jagged nails. He had washed his hands and face in the kitchen bucket, and scrubbed the nails with a brush too, true enough, but the reverend smelled to Lark as if he had also gone long and far without a bath. Of course, if a man of God was out in the wilderness for months carrying Christ to the Indians then what opportunity might he have had for an encounter with soap? It was ugly for her to be thinking this way, she thought. Ugly as sin, to be throwing shadows on such a bright, sunny day as this one had dawned.

  But she couldn't help it, and she thought that later-when Reverend Burton had gone-she ought to confess her sin of haughtiness or pride or suspicion or whatever it was. And it wasn't just the ragged nails that made her think of claws, either; it was the strange beard of many colors-dark brown, red, chestnut brown, silver-with a streak of charcoal black across the chin. God help her cleanse her soul of this sinful thinking, Lark thought, but it was the kind of beard that Satan might grow, the Devil wanting to be such a cock of the walk.

  "Tell me, Peter," said the reverend, as Faith and Robin began to bring the plates to the table. "I passed several houses back there that looked to be deserted. There are no people nearby?"

  "My brother had a farm back that way. When his wife-rest her soul-died in '99, he took the chi
ldren and went to Philadelphia. Some of those houses are older; they were empty when we came here. You know, towns rise up and fall, and fall and rise up. But it is good land here, that's for sure. And I'm hoping, with the beneficent grace of the Lord, that we won't be alone in this valley too much longer. But the nearest people from here would be at Caulder's Crossing, sir. About eight miles. A little hilly to get there, not bad."

  "And I'd presume the road connects somewhere to the Pike?"

  "Yes, sir. On a few miles past the Crossing."

  "I'd presume also that Philadelphia is probably twenty or so miles?"

  "Near twenty-five. Aaron, go get another chair. Faith, you and Robin sit on this side here, and Aaron can sit beside Lark."

  "Philadelphia is my destination. From there, I sail to England," said the reverend. Faith set the ham platter at the center of the table, and alongside it the horn-handled knife sharp enough to slice through the burnt crust. "Another thing, if you please. Your barn. Might you have a horse I could ride to Caulder's Crossing? As I said, these boots-"

  "Oh, reverend! We have a wagon!" Faith said, as she put down the bowl of baked apples and sat beside Robin. "We'd be honored if you'd let us harness the team and carry you to the Crossing ourselves."