Ax & Spade: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 1)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  “It’s not that simple.”

  The curtain jerked back, and a nurse stood glaring at Kamp. She said, “My goodness, this can’t be. Sir, you must leave right away. This patient is not to be disturbed under any circumstances.”

  Kamp said, “I apologize, ma’am. This is official business. Police business.” He focused back on Druckenmiller. “Sam, the last thing Crow said to me was, ‘Talk to Kunkle.’ What does that mean to you? What does Roy Kunkle have to do with this?”

  “Ach, I don’t know no Roy Kunkle!”

  “Sir! You must stop bothering the patient.”

  Druckenmiller said, “It’s okay, Sue. He really is sorry. You just can’t always tell.”

  The nurse interposed herself between the two men and began removing the bandages. She talked under her breath. “I don’t know what in the world makes a person think he can just—”

  Kamp said, “Who are they, Sam? What’s the Fraternal Order of the Raven?”

  The nurse wheeled on him and said, “You will leave now, sir!” The commotion drew the attention of other people, and within moments, another nurse and three orderlies appeared.

  The other nurse said, “The police have been notified.”

  Druckenmiller said, “It wasn’t about you. None of it.”

  Kamp leaned over Druckenmiller and removed the necklace with the key on it. “See you when you’re back on the job.”

  The nurse said, “Show this man the exit,” and the orderlies began moving him, politely but forcefully, away from the bed and hustling him toward the back door.

  One man opened the door, and the other two shoved him out. Kamp scrambled to his feet and ran for the police station, hoping he could get there ahead of the news of his visit to the hospital. As he rounded the last corner and the station came into view, he saw the acting High Constable Markus Lenz burst out the door and climb into a carriage. The carriage driver snapped the reins and the horses started off, heading in his direction. He pulled the brim of his hat low and looked at the ground. When the carriage had passed, he bounded up the front steps and in through the front door. Once inside, he went straight to the gun cabinet and opened it with Druckenmiller’s key. He found a canvas bag and filled it with all the boxes of rifle cartridges it could hold. He slung the bag over his back and was out the door before anyone could ask him what he was doing there.

  KAMP HOOFED IT back out of town the way he’d come, via the railroad tracks. The wind had picked up, and he buttoned the top button of Jonas Bauer’s coat. He imagined how Bauer must have done this same thing many times, buttoning the coat, tilting into the gales, marching to the coal mine and back again. Soldiering on. Kamp let his mind-wheels start to turn in time with his footsteps on the train tracks. He allowed himself to wonder where his family was. He pictured Shaw and their daughter. He ticked off the places they could be as well as the likelihood they might be in any given place. He even allowed himself to imagine they were dead and gone, their corpses tossed into a creek or buried shallow, like bodies from the war, zigzagged out in ditches, as hopeless and lorn as a trampled down split-rail fence. Unbearable as the image was, he considered the reality unlikely. If they had been killed, he surmised, it would have happened close to where they lived. By this time, someone, a hunter or a hired hand, would have found the bodies and told him.

  He also considered that perhaps they’d been kidnapped and that they were being held somewhere. This possibility seemed even less likely, as no demands had been communicated to him. At least not yet. He speculated further that if there had been a kidnapping, it was possible that Shaw, or more likely E. Wyles, would have resisted and in the ensuing struggle, they would’ve all been killed. This seemed implausible, if for no other reason than that he could not envision E. Wyles losing a fight. It seemed more likely that the three of them were out there, hiding but probably not lost. Kamp had waited this long to see them again. He could wait longer.

  He switched tracks in his thinking and tried to discern whether he’d learned anything of value during the day. The fact that the murderers left Crow’s corpse outside the door of the morgue meant nothing, perhaps. If they needed to get it out of the Monocacy, and apparently they did, they could have thrown the body anywhere. As for the prostitute, he’d learned nothing. He didn’t know her identity, or if she’d even existed. If she had, she’d either been shot mistakenly or murdered. Regardless, her death had been conveniently inserted into the official narrative about Crow’s demise. That the killers took the trouble to take them to the morgue was meant to indicate their level of control and the absence of fear. Why they took Druckenmiller there as well, if they did, was yet another mystery. Why not just leave him there at the Monocacy, he wondered. The conversation with Druckenmiller at the hospital yielded no new information, save the confirmation that he was working for the murderers, or was at least complicit in what they were doing. He'd discerned the rough outlines of what they demanded from Druckenmiller as well as what he got in return. The beating he took was likely punishment for him having botched some detail of the plan to kill Philander Crow. Or by going to town on him, they wanted Druckenmiller’s story to seem more credible. Maybe both.

  Kamp’s gut started to growl, and it occurred to him that there might not be any food when he got back. He veered off the tracks and took a trail to Druckenmiller’s house. He broke in the back door and headed to the cellar, where he found onions, potatoes, winter squash, a jar of apple butter and a ringwurst. He loaded the food into the canvas bag, closed the door behind him and headed for the trail.

  The canvas bag was now nearly full, and the strap cut into his neck. But Kamp kept walking the tracks, stepping from tie to tie and listening for noises in the woods. Far off, he heard the Black Diamond Unlimited. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the engine’s headlight sparkling at least a half mile away. He was close to Jonas Bauer’s former house, so he had no need to catch out. And even if he’d wanted to, the bullets weighed him down. The train caught up with him just before the bend by the trestle, and he paused while it passed. He waved to the engineer and felt the cold whoosh as it went by. He picked his way through brambles and across the ditch to the road. He saw a thin trail of smoke curling up from the chimney, but all the windows in the house were dark.

  Kamp went in the back door and listened to the silence in the house. “Hello? Anyone here? Hello?”

  He heard nothing but the wind whipping the trees. In the fading twilight he saw the Sharps rifle leaned against the doorjamb, where he’d left it. He set down the canvas bag and took out a box of cartridges. He slid one into the Sharps, and tiptoed to the front room. The bathtub had been propped against the wall, but otherwise the room looked the same. He heard a bump on the other side of the house and he raised the rifle to his shoulder and pointed in the direction of the sound. He stepped silently, staring down the barrel of the gun. He saw that the door to the bedroom where Jonas and Rachel had slept was cracked open. He shoved the door open with his foot and entered the room.

  Nyx was lying face down on the floor with her arms by her sides. Kamp kept the gun raised. He scanned the room, moving the gun barrel along with his gaze. There was no one else in the room.

  “Nyx? Nyx?” The girl didn’t move.

  He lowered the gun, opened the breech and removed the cartridge. He crouched down and rested his hand on her back. He could feel her inhaling and exhaling.

  “Nyx, are you awake?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Ridiculous question.” She rolled over and leaned on her elbows. Her hair was matted to her forehead, and her dress was dirty.

  “Let’s go. I’ll make supper.”

  She sat up and looked at him. “I understood for the first time today. I think I did.”

  “Understood what?”

  “You want to know what I did today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing! I did nothing all day but sit in this room. That’s what Nyx means, right?
Nothing. I’m nothing.”

  “Come on, girl. Stand up.”

  “What about you, Kamp? What did you do today?”

  He looked out the window and reflected on the day’s events. “Nothing.”

  Nyx put her hands in her hair and hung her head. “You can’t love them so much that they come back. You can’t think about them enough for them to be alive.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “This is what it feels like from now on.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Nyx craned her neck to look at him. “You opened that chest in the cellar. You’re wearing my father’s clothing.” He nodded. “And everyone else goes on. My parents don’t need any of their things anymore, but I still need my parents.”

  “You’re hungry.”

  He held out his hand to her, and she took it. He helped her to her feet, guided her out of the room and locked the door. He lit a fire in the stove and cooked up the vegetables he nicked from Druckenmiller’s in a stew. Kamp and Nyx sat at the kitchen table and the famished pair downed all the food. When her spoon scraped the bottom of the soup bowl, she set it down, raised the bowl to her lips and gulped the rest.

  She looked at him and said, “My mother would not have approved.”

  “Mine either. Not that we gave her a choice.”

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “I did. Three brothers.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Gone. War.”

  Nyx studied him. “You were in the war, too, right? What did you do?”

  He stared down at his food. “Marched around. Slept in the dirt. Same as everyone else.”

  “You know what I mean. What did you do? Didn’t they give you a little job?”

  “Heckenschütze.”

  “What?”

  “I was a sniper. Your father didn’t like guns. My father loved them. I don’t even remember how old I was when he taught me to shoot. I just remember always knowing how to do it.”

  “Like walking.”

  “Yah, like that. So, when they tested us in the army, I was the best at it.”

  “It’s good you’ll be teaching me, though.”

  “I’m probably not as good at it now as I used to be.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, for one thing, I got shot in the head myself.”

  “Ouch.”

  “And my balance isn’t as good as it was. That’s why I have trouble riding in wagons. I get dizzy. And besides that, I hardly ever shoot anymore.”

  “So, you got shot in the head, and then you couldn’t fight?”

  “I thought I asked a lot of questions.”

  “That’s how it was, though, right?”

  “Not exactly. After I got hurt, I was in the hospital for a long time, and by the time I got better, they were running low on guys, especially good shots. So they sent me back. But then I got in trouble, so they put me back in the hospital again.” He sliced a length off the ringwurst, slathered apple butter on it and popped it in his mouth.

  “Put you in the hospital for getting in trouble?”

  Between bites, he said, “Yah. There wasn’t anything wrong with me, though.”

  “What did they say was wrong with you?”

  He finished chewing the ringwurst and swallowed. “Madness.”

  Nyx paused and then said, “Oh, well, as long as you can teach me, I don’t really care if you’re the best at it. Or if you’re mad.”

  “Thank you for your candor.”

  She got up from her chair. “All right, show me now.” She picked up the Sharps and set it on the table. Kamp turned up the flame on the lantern and pulled a box of cartridges from the canvas bag. She looked inside the bag and saw how many boxes there were.

  She said, “Pshoo, looks like you’re going to war again.”

  “You have to shoot a lot to get good at it. These are for you. For learning. And one more condition, Nyx.” He leveled his gaze at her, and she met it. “No revenge. I’m not teaching you so that you can go kill Eberstark or get revenge on whoever killed your parents, if we ever figure out who it was.”

  “Why take the fun out of it?”

  “That’s the deal.”

  Nyx took a few breaths and didn’t speak. She drummed her fingertips on the table and then said, “Fine. I promise, no revenge. Now, how do you load this goddamned thing?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  KAMP TRIED NOT TO THINK about his brothers. They only came back to him in fragments of memory sparked by a sensory impression. The scent of a pine bough might trigger an image of his oldest brother at the very top of the tree, laughing at Kamp’s fear that he’d fall. Or the sight of wet autumn leaves brought to mind all four brothers sleeping out on the top of the mountain, before it got too cold. He let these memories pass through him, trying not to hold on to them. But that night, after having mentioned them to Nyx, he dreamt of his brothers, dreamt of them all as boys, but without the overhang of sorrow. In the dream it was spring. The daffodils were blooming along with the lilacs, and the grass in the meadow was still green. They were heading off together somewhere. He woke from the dream to a new moon, pitch dark. No sound, save for the rustling of night creatures. It occurred to Kamp in that waking instant that Roy Kunkle might have had a brother and if Kunkle’s brother were living, he should find him and talk to him.

  The next morning just after sun up, Kamp went to Nyx’s room and said, “Let’s go.”

  She was slow to rouse, and when she did, she said, “Where?”

  “Target practice. Hurry up.”

  When she found Kamp in the backyard, he was setting up old bottles at a distance of fifty feet or so from the house.

  She said, “Doesn’t that seem a little too close?”

  He set up the last bottle and walked back to her. He picked up the Sharps, which was leaning against the side of the house.

  “First thing,” he said. Listen carefully. Make sure the gun is unloaded, and never point it at anyone.”

  “Got it.”

  He held up the rifle and said, “Put it in half gacock, like this. Then, open the breech using the lever. Watch.” He went through each step slowly.

  “I see.”

  He held up a cartridge and slid it into the chamber. “Make sure the end with the bullet is pointed down the barrel.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Then you just close the breech, and it’s ready.” Kamp raised the rifle, aimed at one of the plates and fired. The shot hit the plate dead center, shattering it. He opened the breech and removed the spent cartridge. “Here, you try.” He handed the rifle to her.

  He said, “Remember, hold it steady. And squeeze the trigger. Don’t yank it.”

  “I got it, I got it.” She raised the rifle to her shoulder and looked down the barrel. She jerked the trigger back, and the gun went off. The butt of the rifle slammed back into her shoulder, and the shot sailed into the trees. She lowered the gun, dazed. “Ow.” Nyx held the rifle in her right hand and soothed her bruised shoulder with her left.

  Kamp said, “Okay, we’ll do it the right way now.”

  He reloaded the Sharps and adjusted Nyx’s stance. “Lift the rifle, and make sure it’s firm against your shoulder. And press the stock to your cheek. Hold it there, firm.” She followed the instructions. “Now, focus on your breathing. Notice how when you breathe in, the barrel moves up a little, and when you breathe out, it goes back down.”

  “So?”

  “So, everything you do or don’t do affects where the bullet goes. Be very calm, stay still, keep breathing. See the target. Fire.”

  Nyx pulled the trigger, and the shot kicked up dirt next to one of the plates.

  He said, “This time you do it all.”

  Nyx removed the spent cartridge and loaded another one. She calmly raised the rifle again and fired. One of the plates shattered. Nyx lowered the rifle and blew away the smoke curling out of the barrel.

  Kamp said, “End of the lesson.�
�

  “That’s it?”

  “I have to go. Besides, I’m sure we woke up all the nuchbars. They’re going to wonder about the commotion. We can shoot more when I get back. No shooting until then, okay? None.”

  THE WHISTLE of the Black Diamond Unlimited shrieked through the forest. Kamp put on his coat, picked up the canvas bag, went running across the road and down to the tracks. The Unlimited was headed back from Easton to Bethlehem, and it would get him there before most of the town was awake and before the courthouse started work. He jogged alongside the train, waiting to see the open boxcar door that was the signal to make his run and leap. Locked car after locked car passed him until it was only empty coal cars. He preferred not to ride suicide, but he had to make time. He zoomed up alongside one of the coal buckets and made his jump, catching the rail and landing his right foot in the iron stirrup. He swung gracefully onto the small platform at the back of the car. There was just enough room to stand on both feet.

  The side-to-side swaying of the train and the rhythmic click-clack of the wheels made Kamp drowsy right away. But falling asleep here would spell death as he’d tumble straight under the wheels. He wound the shoulder strap of the canvas bag around his wrist and then lashed it to a rung of the iron ladder that went up the side of the car, a trick that had saved him in the past. He calculated that he’d be at the Third Street Station in half an hour, and he figured he could fight sleep that long. His eyelids soon grew so heavy, however, that his chin dropped to his chest, and he began dreaming. He dreamt of a day in the war when he was set up on a ridge, sighting grey uniforms one by one, awaiting the order to start shooting. Just before he nodded off completely, a bullet whanged off the rung of the ladder just above his head and splintered the wooden side of the coal hopper on the ricochet. He snapped awake and saw a wagon drawn by two horses on the road that ran parallel to the train. The wagon kept pace with the train, and both the driver and the shooter were wearing burlap sacks on their heads. As the shooter reloaded, Kamp scrambled to untie the strap from his wrist. When he got free, he reached for the handle on the far side of the car with his right hand. He felt the bullet in his left arm an instant before he heard the shot. He managed to swing himself around the corner so that the shooter could no longer see him.