The Judge Hunter

by Christopher Buckley

  “Huncks.” He pointed.

  Beside the two sham graves Bartholomew had dug weeks ago was a third one. Huncks ran to it. He fell to his knees and began to claw at the earth. Balty remained where he was, frozen.

  Huncks let out an animal wail and fell forward onto the mound, moaning and clenching fistfuls of dirt, drenching the earth with tears.

  Their arms and legs had been tightly bound. Their faces revealed what they’d suffered. Their mouths were full of the earth that had choked and suffocated them. Amity’s face—formidable, blusterous, defiant—suggested that at the end she had drawn some strength from knowing that at least she was going to her death in the company of her two men, husband Bartholomew and son Micah.

  Huncks refused to leave them where they’d died so wretchedly. He found a spot some distance from the house by the stream, a peaceful place bowered by willows. They were digging the new graves when they heard Thankful’s wails.

  She’d come to start the day’s work. They found her, Micah clasped to her breast, rocking back and forth on her knees as she brushed dirt from his hair and face. Balty and Huncks kept their distance, leaving her to her grief, sunk anew in their own.

  When she had no more tears, Thankful stood and wiped her face with her apron. She told Balty and Huncks to bring the bodies into the house so that she could attend to them. She washed them, removing every particle and speck from eyelids, ears, nostrils, determined to erase every trace of their ordeal and send them to God unsullied as the day they entered into life. She washed and combed their hair. Balty and Huncks helped get them into their Sabbath clothes and sew them into burial shrouds improvised from bed linen. Searching for these in a closet, Balty came across the three pillows he’d ruined, and wept. It was late afternoon by the time all this was finished.

  They laid the bodies on a cart and pulled it, making a kind of procession, to the place by the stream. There they lowered them gently into the welcoming earth. Thankful stood between Balty and Huncks. She took each by hand. They stood in silence, the only sound the burble of water on mossy stones and the evening coo of mourning doves.

  * * *

  That night they sat at the kitchen table in the farmhouse, saying little. Huncks cradled the whisky jug on his lap but didn’t raise it to his lips, badly wanting a drink.

  “You can’t stay,” Balty said.

  “No,” she said.

  “Is there somewhere you can go?”

  “There’s a settlement of friends in New Netherland. Vlissingen.”

  “I know it,” Huncks said. “On the Long Island.”

  “If thou go to New Amsterdam to find thy judges, then take me that far, if it is not inconvenient.”

  Thankful stood. “I’m tired.” She went into the bedroom and closed the door. Balty and Huncks listened to her sobs though the wall.

  – CHAPTER 28 –

  Mrs. Cobb’s Flower Beds

  Balty woke to the sound of hooves.

  He leapt from bed. Huncks was already up, at the front door, shirtless, pistol in each hand. Four constables. They reined to a halt at the graves. One dismounted, picked up a stick, and began poking at them.

  Huncks put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Get the girl.”

  Balty went to the bedroom and touched Thankful’s shoulder. She started awake with a gasp.

  “Soldiers.”

  Balty returned to Huncks. Huncks handed him one of the pistols.

  “Go behind the house. If things happen, go. Leave the horses. Too easy to track. Stay low, make for the woods. The field where we took Jones—can you find it?”

  “Past the boulder and the big dead tree?”

  “Wait for me. If I’m not there by nightfall, I won’t be coming. Get to Fairfield. Stay off the King’s Highway. Dr. Pell will look after you. Do you have the letter?”

  “Yes. I think.”

  “Balty.”

  “Yes, somewhere.”

  “Fairfield. Remember. Pell.”

  “Yes.”

  All the constables had dismounted by now and were poking at the graves.

  “What are they doing?” Balty asked.

  “Looking for bodies. Unless they’ve come to plant potatoes.”

  “Why?”

  “My guess is the good Reverend sent them. Doubtless leaving out mention of his Quiripi godson. Very neat.”

  The constables now turned their attention to the farmhouse.

  “Go, now,” Huncks said. “Balty?”

  “Yes?”

  “Take care of yourself, eh? Use the pistol if you must. Get close to your man.”

  Balty led Thankful out the back. They crouched and watched.

  Huncks presented himself to the constables, framed in the doorway, pistol tucked into the back of his trousers.

  “Morning. How may I help you gentlemen?”

  The sleeve of the youngest-looking constable bore the insignia of sergeant.

  “Identify yourself,” he said.

  “Huncks. Colonel, late of the Connecticut militia. What’s your business here?”

  “The law is our business.”

  “I see that from your uniform, sergeant. But what law in particular?”

  “There’s been a report of murder. Three murders.”

  “Grave business.”

  “This place yours?”

  “No. Belongs to friends. I’m looking after it for them.”

  “Where would they be, these friends?”

  “Saybrook.”

  “What takes them to Saybrook?”

  “They’ve gone to fish. The shad are running.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Cobb. Bartholomew, Amity, Micah. Husband, wife, son.”

  The sergeant and his men exchanged glances.

  “It’s them we seek.”

  “Who reported these murders, might I ask?”

  “That’s our business.”

  “Come, sergeant. If my friends have been murdered, surely you’d not begrudge telling me who reported it?”

  “What do you know about these graves here?”

  “Graves? Those are Mrs. Cobb’s flower beds.”

  The sergeant took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I see no flowers.”

  “Come back in August. She likes the late bloomers. Bishop’s weed, hyssop, and such. Now you mention it, I remember she said something about gathering seeds in Saybrook. Will that be all, then?”

  “We need to search the house.”

  “For what?”

  “Look here, Colonel, I’ll thank you not to interfere with our business.”

  “I would never interfere with the law, sergeant. Show me your warrant and I’ll welcome you in.”

  One of the men muttered contemptuously at the sergeant, “Going to let him push you around?”

  The sergeant said to Huncks, “I ask you again. Step aside and let us about our business.”

  “I say again show me a warrant and the house is yours.”

  “We don’t have a warrant.”

  “Then I respectfully suggest you go back to New Haven and obtain one from the magistrate. That’s how we do it in Connecticut.”

  Another of the men said to the sergeant, “Get on with it. We’ll be here all day.”

  “You try my patience, Colonel.”

  “Tell me what you’re looking for, and I’ll tell you if it’s here.”

  Another of the men said, “Enough of this.”

  The sergeant said, “A Quaker woman. Name of Thankful.”

  “Haven’t seen her.”

  “If you’ll stand aside, we’ll see for ourselves.”

  “Why do you seek her?”

  “She’s wanted for questioning,” the sergeant said in a pleading tone.

  “About what?”

  “The murders. Look, I won’t ask you again.”

  Huncks shook his head. “Not without a warrant.”

  One of the men raised his musket and aimed at Huncks. “Here’s ou
r warrant. Go on, lads.”

  The sergeant ordered the man, “Smith, lower that!”

  Smith kept his musket shouldered. “Go on,” he ordered his companions.

  “Smith! I gave you an order!”

  The two other constables approached Huncks. He reached behind for his pistol as he stepped aside to admit the first man. He brought the barrel down on his head, dropping him. He yanked the second constable forward by his chest strap and butted his nose with his forehead. The man staggered back, nose broken, spurting blood. Smith fired. The shot went through the constable and into Huncks’s shoulder.

  Huncks bounded toward Smith as he tried to reload. He swung his pistol at the side of the man’s head, crushing his skull. Smith fell to the ground, dead.

  The sergeant ran to his horse and was half onto the saddle when Huncks caught him and jerked him down to the ground. He straddled him with his legs, cocked the pistol, and put the muzzle to his forehead.

  “Please! I’ve a family!”

  “Who sent you? Answer, boy, or by God, I’ll put a ball between your eyes.”

  “Jones! The Deputy Governor!”

  “Where did he give you the order?”

  “At his house.”

  “Was he alone? Answer fast, or you’re dead.”

  “No.”

  “Who else?”

  “The pastor. Davenport.”

  “What were you told?”

  “That the Quaker girl, the one who’s been causing all the trouble . . . she went mad and killed the family she worked for.”

  “What else?”

  “That she buried them. In front of the house.”

  “Davenport’s Indian, the one called Repent, with the markings on his face. Was he there?”

  The sergeant said, “Outside. On the street.”

  “Get up.”

  The sergeant got to his feet. He was trembling. His trousers were soaked at the crotch.

  “You’ve been deceived, sergeant,” Huncks said wearily, uncocking his gun and stuffing it into his waistband. “And now two of your men are dead. You should have controlled them better. How old are you?”

  “Twenty, sir.”

  “Sergeant, at twenty?”

  “I’ve been constable three years.”

  “I didn’t ask for your life history. How is it you’re sergeant?”

  “My father’s cousin is married to the magistrate. So when Sergeant Wilcox fell ill—”

  “Enough. What’s your name?”

  “Bartlett. Amos Bartlett.”

  Balty and Thankful were watching now from the front room. They couldn’t hear what was being said. Seeing Huncks’s shoulder drenched with blood, Thankful said, “He’s wounded. We must—”

  “No,” Balty whispered.

  Huncks went over to the graves.

  “The Indian, Repent, he killed them. Buried them alive. Vengeance. The boy was thirteen. We found them yesterday and gave them better graves. You’ve been played, sergeant. What will you do now?”

  “I must make a . . . report.”

  “To whom?”

  “Captain Thripp. Chief constable. He’s visiting a sick aunt in Guilford. That’s why I was called . . . But it’s the magistrate who decides . . .”

  “Feake.”

  Bartlett nodded.

  “Tell me, sergeant. Will justice will be done?”

  “Mr. Feake is a person of integrity.”

  “I’ve witnessed his integrity. When he sentenced the Quaker girl to be flogged to death for showing her titties in church. She whom Jones and Davenport seek to hang for these murders. If you act on what I’ve told you, you’ll be doing your future no good. But that’s up to you. Come, let’s get your dead and wounded into the cart.”

  Huncks and Bartlett put them in. Huncks hitched the dead men’s horses to the cart.

  “I’ll say goodbye to you, sergeant. I wore a uniform at your age. I ride for Hartford.”

  “Why do you tell me this?”

  “Because I’m hoping that’s what you’ll report.”

  Bartlett stared.

  Huncks smiled. “As a professional courtesy. Soldier to soldier.”

  Sergeant Bartlett nodded.

  * * *

  Huncks and Balty and Thankful left the Cobb farm. Only Thankful looked back. If Sergeant Bartlett was true to his word, the constables wouldn’t be watching the King’s Highway. Still, taking no chances, Huncks led by a circuitous way: north for seven miles, then southwest along an old Indian trail through deep woods. Twenty miles later they emerged from the woods at the northern edge of Fairfield, a small, neat town whose lights were just starting to go on as they rode in, slumped forward in their saddles from weariness.

  – CHAPTER 29 –

  Doctor Pell

  Mrs. Pell answered the door. She stared at the three bedraggled people before her. Then, squinting at Huncks, his shirt caked stiff with blood, she said, “Hiram! Good Lord—come in, come in!” She shouted, “Thomas! Thomas!” The woman’s got bellows for lungs, Balty thought.

  Dr. Pell hove into view, a trim, elegant man in his early fifties with a long nose, spectacles at the end of it, lips pursed in reproof at his wife for summoning him so brusquely from his Madeira. Seeing Huncks, his eyebrows shot up.

  “Hiram!” He barked at Mrs. Pell, “Why didn’t you tell me it was him, foolish woman? Don’t stand there gawking. Hot water. Get my instruments ready!”

  He led Huncks into his surgery, in a building attached to the main house. Balty started at the arms and legs hanging on the walls, then saw they were prostheses. They gave the room a macabre aspect.

  Pell slid his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose and examined the entry wound.

  “Musket?”

  Huncks nodded.

  “And these?”

  “Friends,” Huncks said.

  “Lucy!” Dr. Pell bellowed.

  “What?” she shouted from another room.

  “Are you seeing to the water?”

  “What did you suppose I was doing? Needlepoint?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” her husband muttered.

  Mrs. Pell arrived, toting a kettle.

  “What’s your name, love?”

  “Thankful.”

  “What a sweet name. I’d be thankful if you’d reach me that copper bowl there.” She poured steaming water into it and went about sorting her husband’s instruments.

  “Do you want something for the pain?” Pell asked.

  “Wouldn’t refuse a brandy.”

  “Brandy! Quickly, woman! Stop fussing with the water. Can’t you see the man’s in agony?”

  Balty sensed this marital opera bouffa between the Pells was contrived.

  “Yes. Coming.” Mrs. Pell took a bottle off a shelf, poured a large measure into a glass, and gave it to Huncks.

  “Here you are, my dear. Who did this to you? Never mind. Let the butcher have at you first. If you survive his ministrations, you can tell us all about it then.”

  She took Thankful by the hand. “Come, love. Let’s get you out of those clothes and into a hot bath.” She said over her shoulder, “If Hippocrates can spare us.”

  “Hippocrates will manage,” Dr. Pell said, scissoring Huncks’s shirtsleeve. “As he always does.”

  “I see you and Lucy are as domestic as ever,” Huncks said, wincing as Pell began probing the wound.

  “Marry a rich widow and reap the whirlwind. Ah, there you are.” He nudged the tip of the probe against the ball. Huncks gasped.

  “What range?”

  “Fifteen paces.”

  “Fifteen? Should’ve smashed right through the bone.”

  “Went through someone else first.”

  Dr. Pell chortled. “Lucky you. Unlucky him. Lucy! Oh, that woman.”

  Balty said, “Could I help?”

  “That bit of wood there. Give it to Hiram.”

  It was indented with tooth marks. Balty handed it to Huncks. Huncks regarded it dubiou
sly. “Who’s been chewing on this?”

  “If you die of infection, it won’t be from that.”

  Huncks tossed the bite stick over his shoulder. “I’ll take my chances.”

  Pell inserted the extractor. Huncks sucked in his breath and bared his teeth.

  “Should’ve taken laudanum.”

  “I know you prefer your victims to be drugged,” Huncks grunted. “So they won’t realize you’ve no idea what you’re doing. Jesus Christ!”

  Pell pushed the extractor deeper.

  “I prefer my victims, as you call them, drugged so that I don’t have to listen to them whinge. Steady.”

  He withdrew the musket ball and held it up to the candlelight, then dropped it into a metal pan with a plunk. “Laudanum has the added virtue of rendering my victims pliant when I present my bill.”

  He poured brandy into the wound, which made Huncks hiss, then smeared ointment on it and bandaged the shoulder.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood. You’ll need to stay off your feet a few days. Eat plenty of red meat.”

  Balty groaned.

  “How about a proper drink?” Huncks said.

  “Indeed,” said Dr. Pell. He turned to Balty. “We’ve not been introduced.”

  “Balthasar de St. Michel.”

  Dr. Pell looked amused. “Well, there’s a name. Vous parlez français?”

  “Bien sûr. Depuis enfant. Mon père était en service au roi Henri Quatre. Et après, au roi Louis Treize.” Of course. Since I was a child. My father was in service to King Henri IV. After, to King Louis XIII.

  Pell’s eyes widened. “Bless me. De mon part, quand j’était jeune homme, j’était en service au roi Anglais Charles le Premier. Comme gentilhomme du cabinet. A ce temps, j’ai poursuivi une dame d’honneur dans la cour de sa reine française, Marie-Henriette. Une dame vraiment ravissante. Malheureusement, il a fini mal quand . . .” Myself, as a young man, I was in service to the English king Charles I. As a gentleman of the chamber. I conducted an affair with a lady-in-waiting to his French queen, Marie-Henriette. A ravishing girl! Alas, it ended badly when . . .

  Huncks groaned. “If you two are going to croak at each other like frogs on a lily pad, I will need laudanum.”