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

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  Kamp said, “How do you know? Did you have another dream?”

  “Common sense. This is how it is, and there is only one–”

  “You don’t know that. I almost have it figured out. I’m close.”

  Joe looked at him with a flat expression.

  “Joe, I’ve almost got it. And once I do, we’ll be out of danger. They’ll be safe.”

  “You’ll never be safe.”

  “Why not?”

  Joe said, “You think you’re fighting against a man. Or a group of men. You’re not. You’re fighting against a way. Their way. As long as you fight alongside them, you can’t see their way. You’ve been inside their room the whole time, and you didn’t know it. Once you’re outside, they punish you. You leave, or you’re exterminated. You’re outside their room now. That’s how it is.”

  “I disagree.”

  Joe banged the dead ashes from his pipe on the bedside table. He opened his tobacco pouch and packed the bowl. “Has the Judge ever shown you his tobacco pouch?”

  “I don’t see how—”

  “Next time you see him, ask him where he got it.”

  Kamp said, “What did you do to make the Judge so angry?”

  Joe struck a match on the table and lit the pipe. “You have one choice. If you decide that you must see your family now, I will take you there. But from there, you must all leave. Move away and never return.”

  “What’s the other option?”

  “Return and finish your business.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Fulfill the responsibilities of your job. Earn the deed to your property, and make peace with your enemies. And then you may see your family again.”

  “But you’re saying you don’t think it’s possible.”

  “I’m saying that’s your choice, and I’m leaving tonight. Go with me, or ride back with that girl. Think about it and decide.”

  KAMP COUNTED the costs of each course of action, while he lay in bed that night. The throbbing in his arms and hip made it difficult to think, but little by little, he worked his way to a conclusion. It must have been around midnight when he swung his legs over the side of the bed and planted his bare feet on the wood floor. He tested the strength in his muscles before standing and felt a powerful, agonizing surge in his injured hip. Kamp stood up and let the pain have its say. He took a couple of halting steps and found that he could walk. He stepped out of the bedroom into the front of the cabin. He expected to see Joe resting by the fire, but instead there was Nyx sitting in a chair. The Sharps was lying on the table in front of her.

  He said, “Where’s Joe?”

  “Gone. He left a long time ago.”

  “He did?”

  “He said he knew what your decision would be.”

  Nyx watched him absorb the information. She said, “I heard your whole conversation with him through the door. I knew what you’d do too.”

  The Sharps had been disassembled, and she was cleaning the parts while she talked. “Don’t worry, Joe taught me how to do it. I’m going to need more ammunition, too. Joe said you could teach me how to make the cartridges myself and that you knew somewhere around here to get all the stuff.”

  He walked to the front window and looked outside. “What’s your plan, Nyx, apart from learning to make your own ammunition?”

  “Every day I’m getting better at shooting. You should see me.”

  “When are you going back to Bethlehem?”

  Nyx began reassembling the Sharps. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  KAMP AWOKE the next morning to find he wasn’t ready. His left arm, though free of the splint, didn’t want to move, and neither did his hip. He hauled himself out of bed and fixed a cup of coffee, which helped. He lit a fire in the fireplace and set the canvas bag on the table. Kamp removed each record book and file, making stacks on the floor. He began grouping individual records according to their purpose and relevance: birth and death certificates, real estate and business transactions, and criminal records. He searched for records associated with the property on which his former house was situated. Kamp learned that the parcel of land was originally included in a much larger area that had been divvied up in the mid-1700s. Records showed that the land was originally held by a Lenape tribe called the Munsee, of whom Joe and Shaw were members. According to the records, the Munsee sold the land as part of the “Walking Purchase,” the deal in which the Lenape were said to have agreed to sell as much land as a man could walk in a day to the heirs of William Penn. That the brothers Penn hired three men, not one, to do the walking and that the men ran instead of walked and that the original treaty on which the deal was based was unsigned and unratified and, at worst, an outright forgery did not appear in the official records. Kamp knew this to be true from his own study. The document included a clause that “upon completion of the transaction, it will be necessary for all indigenous persons to vacate the entirety of the acquired area posthaste.”

  According to the records, the land passed to the Penn brothers via the Walking Purchase. They granted several hundred acres to one of the runners, a certain Felix Rauch, who divided the land into a number of parcels. One of the parcels was purchased from them by another man named Walter Gottschalk. Kamp recognized this name as the ancestor whom Joe sometimes mentioned. According to Joe, Walter Gottschalk took this name in order to assimilate into what had become a foreign land. In the records Kamp saw that the deed for Walter Gottschalk’s parcel had been passed to Gottschalk’s son, then grandson, and finally to his great-grandson, Abraham Gottschalk in 1799. Kamp could find no further transactions related to the deed, and it did not appear to have been transferred to anyone else. He did, however, find another deed for the same property, dated 1845. The new deed made no mention of the previous deed, and it stated that the property belonged to one Abraham Cain. Kamp also recognized this name. The man was Tate Cain’s father. He concluded, though he didn’t have all the details, that he’d found the source of the animosity between Joe and the Judge.

  From there, Kamp worked his way through books of records for persons with the last name beginning with the letter “K, focusing on two names in particular. He looked for the name “Knecht, Daniel” in the book of criminal records. He knew that Knecht had been arrested and jailed for at least a dozen offenses including disturbing the peace, criminal mischief, petty theft and vagrancy. But there was no record of any of Knecht’s crimes. Kamp found Knecht’s birth and death certificates. He scanned the death certificate and saw that it read:

  “Knecht, Daniel: Cause of Death: Accident (neck trauma).”

  The certificate was signed, “Abner Johannes Oehler, Northampton County Coroner.” He then looked up the property records for the house where Knecht had lived in Easton and found that the records were incomplete. Specifically, the document detailing the transaction for the house was missing the portion that indicated to whom the house belonged. Someone had cut that part off.

  Kamp looked for records for Roy Kunkle. He found document after document detailing Kunkle’s misdeeds. Kunkle had been arrested a total of seventeen times for offenses ranging from destruction of property to fighting and resisting arrest. Most of the incidents appeared to have taken place in or around the mine where Kunkle worked as an employee of Confederated Coal. In most cases the arresting officer was a member of the company’s police force. Kamp found Kunkle’s death certificate, which read:

  “Kunkle, Roy: Cause of Death: Accident (neck trauma).”

  It too was signed by the coroner A.J. Oehler. He continued searching the Kunkle family’s records and learned that Roy Kunkle’s father had died but that he had a twin brother, Anton Kunkle, who lived in Bethlehem.

  Kamp also researched the history of 31 Iroquois, address of The Monocacy, and found documents indicating that the building had been sold in December of the previous year. No individual name appeared as an owner of the building. The official new owner was a business entity called “Black Feather Consolidated.” Kamp scoure
d the records for real estate transactions that had taken place in South Bethlehem during the previous year and found that in most cases the buyer was Black Feather Consolidated. Prior to the previous year, however, the name Black Feather Consolidated did not appear in any real estate records.

  Lastly, Kamp searched the new business filings for the last two years and found a document indicating that three persons filed for a business license to create Black Feather Consolidated. The three men, the principals of the company, affixed their names: Joseph Moore, Walker Gray, and a third man named James Shelter, the owner of a shipping company. According to the document, Black Feather Consolidated intended to do business in the areas of “manufacturing, transportation and energy,” and the filing had been signed and sealed by the Honorable Tate Cain. In the documents he researched, Kamp saw the outlines of the creation of a cartel, formed privately by three men and linked, albeit legally, to the Judge. He also saw that work had been done at a number of levels to hide, obfuscate or otherwise wipe clean inconvenient details. What Kamp knew he lacked, though, was proof of wrongdoing. For instance, there was nothing connecting Moore and Gray to Roy Kunkle or to the deaths of Daniel Knecht and Jonas Bauer. Knecht, Bauer and Kunkle had all worked in coal mines, an industry in which neither Gray nor Moore had any involvement, as far as Kamp knew.

  “How goes?” Nyx walked into the room and saw the files covering the table and a good part of the floor. “What’s this?”

  “Part of a story.” He began cleaning up the documents, and she helped him.

  “How much of it?”

  “Not enough. Nyx, did your father ever talk about a man named Joseph Moore?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “What about a Walker Gray?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about James Shelter? Did he ever mention him?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I was thinking about what you said about how there must have been something hidden in the house that people were looking for.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, on that night, before it happened, probably a few hours before everyone went to bed, I remember Danny was in the cellar. He was down there for a long time. He must’ve been looking for whatever it was. Do you think he found it?”

  “Maybe.” Kamp pulled the silver coin from his pocket. “Did he ever show you this?”

  “Who, Danny?”

  “Your father.”

  “No. Let me look at it.” He handed the coin to her. She turned it over slowly in her palm. “Hey, that little guy. That face. That looks like the face someone carved into the wall at our house. Was it the same person?”

  Kamp said, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, it has to mean something.” She looked at him. “Doesn’t it?” They finished picking up the files from the floor, making a single stack of records on the table.

  He looked at the files and exhaled. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way. Bring the Sharps.”

  KAMP CLIMBED into the wagon and covered himself with a wool blanket, and Nyx took the reins.

  She said, “Where are we going, and how come you can’t drive?”

  “Once you get to the road, turn left and go for a few miles or so. I’ll keep an eye out and tell you when to turn.”

  Nyx got the horse moving to a trot and called back over her shoulder. “Do you want to tell me where we’re going?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then do you want to tell me your long story?”

  As they made their way down the road, Kamp told her what he’d learned regarding the coin, the Fraternal Order of the Raven, the Monocacy, Black Feather Consolidated and anything else that seemed relevant to the situation.

  When he finished, Nyx said, “Oh, shit.”

  He popped his head out from under the blanket and said, “The turn is coming up. Right after this bend.”

  She guided the horse down a dirt road just wide enough for the wagon. They continued for another mile, and he instructed her to turn off the road, go through a meadow and finally into a grove of trees. He climbed out of the wagon and tied up the horse.

  Nyx said, “Now what?”

  “Now we walk.”

  Kamp limped off into the woods, barely pulling his right leg behind him. After the first few minutes the stiffness in his hip began to ease, and he found he could almost walk with a normal gait. They followed a footpath through the forest for half an hour, crossing a small stream, picking their way over dry rocks to the other side, where a wood cabin came into view. A trail of smoke issued from the chimney. Before they reached the front steps, the door of the cabin swung open, and a man stood in the doorway. Kamp kept walking toward the cabin with Nyx following.

  The man said, “Normally I shoot on sight, but in your case, I guess I’ll make an exception.”

  Kamp said, “Nyx Bauer, this is my cousin Angus Schmidt.”

  Nyx said, “Nice to meet you.” Nyx studied the man, who bore a subtle resemblance to Kamp. Angus appeared to be a few years younger than Kamp with oiled hair, combed straight back, and finer features.

  Angus said, “Pleased to meet you too. Come in once, come in.” They followed Angus into the cabin, which was part living quarters and part workshop. The back wall of the main room was taken up by work benches and long gun racks, filled with rifles.

  Kamp sat down stiffly in a chair. Angus noticed his discomfort. “You doesn’t look so good, cousin. I heard you was in trouble down there.”

  “Angus, we need cartridges for the Sharps.”

  “Ach, I don’t have none ready.”

  “I was hoping you had the materials.”

  “Yah, that I do have. Lemme see that rifle.” Nyx handed Angus the Sharps.

  Angus said, “Jesus, but this one’s been through the wringer.” He inspected the gun from every angle. “I need to go to work.” Angus immediately disassembled the Sharps, laying out all the parts on a table. He cleaned and oiled each part and put the rifle back together.

  Angus pointed to the muzzle. “There’s a burr there, a small one. That’s going to cause problems with accuracy.”

  Nyx said, “It’s accurate enough.”

  Angus took out a set of tools, including a file, and he re-crowned the muzzle. “See, good as new.” He handed the Sharps back to Nyx and went to one of the cabinets against the wall. Angus removed a number of items and placed them on the table. “There’s your bullets, your nitrated papers, and the dowel.”

  He went back in the cabinet and pulled out a metal canister. A label on the canister had a picture of two small children, a boy and a girl, playing next to a brook. The label read “Shawnee Mission Soap Flakes.” Angus removed the lid and showed them that it was filled to the top with black powder.

  “Pour seventy grains.” Angus looked at Kamp, then Nyx. “Seventy grains. Every time. Got it?” He turned to Nyx. “And remember, with this powder and that paper, any spark will set it off. This mix is very naerfich.”

  Kamp said, “One more thing.” He held up the silver coin. “Have you ever seen one of these?”

  Angus took the coin and studied it. “Heard about them. Never seen one.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “I heard that if you see one, the next thing you know, yer dode.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, back when they was making Bethlehem long rifles, they used to carve that face into the stock.”

  “Why?”

  “You know the story. If a soldier asked them what the picture meant, they could say, ‘Oh, that’s nothing. Just a little Indian.’ But to them, it was a symbol.”

  “Of what?”

  “Don’t know. Secret, probably. People have secrets.”

  “Why do you think it’s on this coin?”

  Angus looked at it again. “You got an engine on one side there. And you got the little Indian on the other with that pickax and shovel behind him. And there are some words there. Different language. Coin has eight sides. Don’t k
now what any of it means. They know what they’re doing, though.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s not easy to make coins this good. You need a special machine.”

  “What kind?”

  “A special screw press. Steam-driven. Gives you these nice, clean edges. Perfect shape. No flaws.”

  “Do you know anyone who has one?”

  “I don’t. But a guy come through a few months back. Told me he helped deliver one.”

  “Where?”

  “Oh, Lemme think. Saucon, I believe.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “Nix. Nussing.”

  Kamp stood up to leave. “Angus, I owe you one.”

  Angus laughed. “Yah, at least one.” He gave Angus a hug.

  Angus said, “Give ’em hell.”

  “Thanks, Angus.”

  They headed out the door and back onto the trail with Kamp leading the way. Nyx looked over her shoulder as they made their way back to the stream. Angus stood in the doorway, waving goodbye.

  After they’d crossed the stream, Nyx said, “He’s a good man.” She snapped him out of a reverie.

  “What?”

  “Your cousin. I said he’s a good man.”

  “He sure is.”

  “How come he lives all the way out here, where there’s no one else?”

  “He used to be a girl.”

  “What?”

  He said, “Angus used to be a girl. Agnes. He always wanted to be a boy, though. When people found out, they wanted to kill her. Even her own family. Especially them. So, he moved out here.”

  “Does that bother you, that she’s like that?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Nyx kept asking questions until she realized that the conversation had ended for Kamp. He’d slipped back into his reverie, reliving the days he’d spent with Agnes and his other cousins when they were children. Rolling down the hill behind their house, catching frogs by a pond. He remembered the beautiful child Agnes had been. That day, he saw the same beauty in his cousin’s face, though so much had been stolen.