Mister Slaughter

by Robert R. McCammon

  He heard Slaughter’s chains rattle, and involuntarily his stomach clenched.

  “May I have some water?” the prisoner asked.

  Matthew got the flask from under his seat, uncorked it and held it over Slaughter’s cupped hands. Slaughter drank silently, like an animal. Then Matthew put the flask away and sat as before, with the pistol in his lap and his hand on the grip.

  Slaughter looked around at the landscape, which was nothing but thick woods on either side. “How long did I sleep?”

  Matthew shrugged, unwilling to be drawn into any further conversation.

  “Soon be at the river, I’d guess. How much further, would you say?”

  “What does it matter?” Greathouse asked, glancing back. “We’ll be there when we’re there.”

  “Oh, it does matter, sir. It matters quite a great deal, for all of us. You see, as I said before, time is running out.”

  “Don’t start that shit again.”

  “Let me get my bearings.” Slaughter struggled to sit up on his knees, as the chains clattered like the devil’s claws on a slate roof.

  “Stop that!” Matthew and Greathouse said, almost as one.

  “No need for alarm, gentlemen. I’m bound quite securely, I promise you. All right, then. I believe we’ve passed a stone wall and a landmark on this road known as Gideon’s Oak. How far back was that?” He received no answer. “Not very distant, I’d say. You’ll be seeing a road up here about another half-mile on the left that curves into the woods. Not much of a road, really. More of a track. I would suggest you consider taking that road, before time runs out.”

  “What the damned hell are you spewing?” Greathouse sounded near the end of his tether.

  “Time will run out for you and Mr. Corbett, sir, when you put this wagon upon the ferryboat. Because when we cross the river,” said Slaughter in a quiet, easy voice, “you will lose your chance at finding the fortune that I—and only I—can lead you to.”

  Nine

  AFTER a period of profound quiet, during which could be heard the squeaking of the wheels, the jingling of the team’s traces, the battering of a woodpecker against a pine tree and the distant crowing of a delusional rooster, there followed a bray of laughter. Not of the funeral bell variety, but rather of a drunken loon.

  Matthew had never before heard Greathouse laugh with such rib-splitting abandon. He feared the man would lose his grip not only of the reins but also of his senses, as his face was getting so blood-red, and topple off his seat into the weeds.

  “Oh, that’s a good one!” Greathouse gasped, when at last he’d found his power of speech. His eyes had actually sprung tears. “A grand try, Slaughter! Now I know why you were in that asylum! You really are insane!” He was overcome by chortling again, until Matthew thought he might choke on his mirth.

  Slaughter’s expression remained constant; that is to say, he wore a blank but for slightly-raised eyebrows. “Sir, I would appreciate your remembering to address me as a gentleman.”

  “All right then, Mister Slaughter!” Greathouse was barely containing his humor, but a little anger had started to gnaw at the edge of it. “Do you think we’re a pair of damned fools? Turn off the pike onto a road to nowhere? Christ, save me!”

  “Get your laughter done,” came the silken response. “When you can listen with any sense in your ears, let me know. But I’m telling you, the road has a destination, and at its end is a pretty pot of gold.”

  “That’s enough.” Greathouse’s voice was firm, all foolishness over. He flicked the reins once, then again, harder this time, but the horses steadfastly refused to hurry. “You can tell us all about it when you’re in the gaol.”

  “Now who is the insane one here, sir? Why in the name of sixteen fucking devils would I want to tell you about it when I’m in the gaol? The purpose is to tell you about it so that I will not be in the gaol.”

  “Oh, you’ll be in the gaol, all right. Just shut up.”

  “Mr. Corbett?” Slaughter’s imploring gaze went to Matthew. “As I said, I believe you to be the more intelligent of your company. Might I at least explain to you what I’m talking about?”

  “No!” said Greathouse.

  “Mr. Corbett?” Slaughter urged. “The road is coming up soon. Once we pass it and cross the river, neither one of you is going to want to come back, and you’re going to be missing an opportunity that I have never offered anyone on earth and that I would not offer anyone on earth if I wasn’t…um…just a little anxious about my future.” He paused to let Matthew consider it. “May I?”

  “This ought to be entertaining!” Greathouse said, with a disdainful puff of air. “Lies from a madman! Have at it, then!”

  Matthew nodded warily, his hand still on the pistol. “Go ahead.”

  “I thank you. Do you wish to know why constables—armed mercenaries, is a better term for them—were hired by the Quakers to ride along with coaches and to guard travellers on this road? Because Ratsy and I were so damned successful. We worked the pike between the river and Philadelphia for almost two years, gentlemen. In every kind of weather you can imagine. We were giving the pike a bad name, I suppose. The Quakers were getting nervous about their sterling reputations as upholders of law and order. So they brought out the musketeers, and unfortunately Ratsy went down with a lead ball in his brain, dead before he hit the ground.”

  “Too bad a second shot didn’t…” Greathouse fished for the word. “Polish you off.”

  “Oh, I was shot at, all right. My horse was hit, and he bucked me. I was thrown headlong, knocked senseless, and woke up in chains in the back of a wagon much like this one. I took advantage of a bloody head to cry my case of lunacy, which I knew the Quakers must take into consideration, their being so damned brotherly.”

  “And so the reign of the daring highwaymen had ended,” said Greathouse with a quick backward glance. “Pardon me if I don’t shed any tears.”

  “You miss the point, sir. The point being, our great success. The very reason we were considered such a threat to be captured and contained.” Slaughter looked from the back of Greathouse’s head into Matthew’s eyes. “We stole a lot of money.”

  “Listen to him drool on!”

  “A lot of money,” Slaughter repeated. “At the end of the road you’re going to be passing in about ten minutes is a safebox holding more than fifty pounds.”

  Matthew expected Greathouse to laugh again, or to make some rude comment, but he did not.

  The wheels kept turning.

  “And more than the money,” Slaughter went on, staring fiercely at Matthew. “Gold rings, jewels in elegant brooches, silver stickpins, and what have you. Two years’ worth of treasure, taken from travelling merchants, dandies and damsels. I’d say in all, a fortune worth well over a hundred pounds. I’m no authority on fancy stones, so it might be much higher. What is a string of pearls selling for these days?”

  “Drool on,” Greathouse answered. “Do you think we’re complete idiots?” He flicked the reins once more, hard, as if to gain distance between himself and the prisoner, alas to no avail.

  “Mr. Corbett?” Again Slaughter’s brows lifted. “Are you a complete idiot?”

  Matthew returned the man’s stare. He was trying to read Slaughter’s eyes, his expression, or some giveaway in how he held his head or clenched his hands. He could not; the man was well-sealed.

  “I think you’re lying,” Matthew said.

  “Do you? Really? Or are you thinking, as your companion probably is, that when I am taken across the river and carried the rest of our journey, am put into the gaol at New York and then aboard a ship to be hanged in London, that the safebox at the end of that road may not be found for…dare I say…long after you gentlemen are moldering in your graves? If ever?” Slaughter showed his teeth. “I can see them now! Those men of the future, turning a shovel on a buried box! And when they open it, and see all that gleaming goodness, just what will they think, Mr. Corbett? What will they think? That someone in th
e long ago told a lie, to save their skin? Someone trussed in chains, with a pistol held on them? No, they’ll think…what complete idiot left this treasure box buried here, and never came back for it? And then their next thought will be: well, now it belongs to us, for the men of the past are dead and gone, and dead men have no need of money.” He leaned forward slightly, as if to offer a secret. “But living men need money, don’t they? Yes, living men need a lot of money, to live well. And that’s no lie.”

  Matthew was silent, studying Slaughter’s face. There was not a clue to determine the truth or fiction of his story. “Tell me this, then,” he said in a flat, even tone. “Why were you burying your loot all this distance out here, so far from Philadelphia?”

  “This was not our only refuge. I determined it would be safer to have two places to hide in, and to split the money between. In case one was found, we always had the second. The first is a house in the woods a few miles northwest of the city. There, also, a safebox is buried holding about thirty pounds and some items of jewelry. But I’m not offering that one to you; it’s not part of our accord.”

  “Our accord?” Greathouse shouted, and for all their age and slowness the horses seemed to jump a foot off the ground.

  “This is my offer.” Slaughter’s voice was quiet and controlled, almost otherworldly in its calm cadence. “I will lead you to the second house, which is at the end of the road coming up very soon. I will grant you a gift of the safebox, and all its contents. For that, you will unlock my chains and set me free at that location. I’ll take care of myself from there.”

  “Am I drunk?” Greathouse asked, speaking to the air. “Have I caught lunatic’s disease?”

  “From that point,” Slaughter continued in the same manner as before, “I vow before you as a subject of the Queen and a citizen of England that I will take the money from the first safebox and use it to purchase a voyage to…” He paused. “Where would you like me to go? Amsterdam? The South Seas? I don’t necessarily like the sun, but—”

  “I am going absolutely mad,” said Greathouse. “Hearing disembodied voices.”

  “I’m done with this country.” Slaughter was speaking to them both, but staring directly at Matthew. “Done with England, as well. All I want to do is be gone.”

  “We’re not going to let you go,” Matthew said. “That’s the end of it.”

  “Yes, but what end? Why not say I was shot while trying to escape, and that my body fell into the river? Who would ever know differently?”

  “We would know.”

  “Oh, dear God!” Slaughter cast his eyes skyward. “Have I met a pair of noble imbeciles? Two men out of all creation who have no need for money, and who can live just as well on the sweet but worthless jelly of good deeds? Here! The road’s coming up! See it?”

  They did. Curving into the forest on the left was a narrow, rutted track hardly the width of their wagon. The underbrush was wild and the trees thick around as winekegs, their branches and leaves making an interlocked canopy of flaming colors far above.

  “That’s it!” Slaughter said. “Right there, gentlemen. The path to your…Sir! You’re not turning!”

  Greathouse kept the team going, his shoulders hunched slightly forward.

  “More than fifty pounds in money, sir! Add together the jewelry and other items and you’ll both be rich men! Can’t you understand what I’m offering you?” Still the wagon trundled onward. “I vow I’ll leave the country! What more do you want? Me to rot behind bars before I swing on the gallows for killing vile creatures? Do you think the people who sent you here would turn my offer down? Do you think they care about anything but themselves?” He gave a harsh, hollow laugh. “Go on, then! Keep going, right on past, and damn your soul for it, too! Just know you could have been rich, but you were too stupid to claim your prize!”

  Matthew looked away from Slaughter’s strained face, which had begun to blotch red during this tirade.

  The wagon’s wheels made three more revolutions.

  And then Matthew heard Greathouse say, “Whoa,” to the team as if he had a stone in his throat.

  Greathouse eased back on the reins. The horses stopped.

  “What are you doing?” Matthew asked sharply.

  Greathouse set the brake. “I have to piss.” He put the reins aside, climbed down to the road and walked off into the woods.

  Slaughter had closed his eyes and leaned his head back again. He said nothing, nor did he move a muscle. Gathering his strength for another try, Matthew suspected.

  Time passed. A minute or more. Matthew looked toward the woods where Greathouse had gone but couldn’t see him for the thicket. One of the horses rumbled and shifted its weight, as if uneasy at just standing there waiting, and then it joined its brethren in chomping weeds.

  Another minute may have passed before Greathouse reappeared, walking slowly through the brush. He was staring down at the ground, and kicking at stones and acorns. “Matthew,” he said without looking up, “will you come here?”

  “What about—”

  “He’s not going anywhere.”

  Matthew returned his attention to Slaughter, who yet remained motionless.

  “Matthew,” said the prisoner, his eyes closed against the sunlight that lit up his beard like a coalfire. “A very respectable name, that. Go right ahead, I’ll just rest.”

  Matthew got down off the wagon, the pistol in hand. He checked Slaughter’s position once more before he walked the twelve paces or so to join Greathouse, but the prisoner had not moved.

  “What is it?” Matthew asked, seeing the deep furrows of worry that cut across Greathouse’s face. “Is something wrong?”

  Greathouse rummaged in the leaves with the toe of his boot, bent down and picked up a white rock, which he examined closely. “I want your opinion,” he said at last, in a restrained voice calculated not to travel the distance of twelve paces. “Is he lying about the money, or not?”

  “I don’t know.” The meaning of what Greathouse had just asked him hit Matthew like a timber board across the back of the head. “Oh, my God! You’re not listening to him, are you?”

  “Keep your voice down.” Greathouse turned the rock in his hand, examining its cracks and crevices. “What if he’s not lying, Matthew? I mean…why should he, at this stage of the game? It’s all over for him, and he knows it. Why should he lie?”

  “Because he wants to get us down that road and escape, that’s why.”

  “Escape,” Greathouse repeated. The word had been spoken gravely. “How? Chained up like he is, with the ball on his leg? And us with the pistol? How the hell is he going to escape? He may be half-crazy, but he’s surely not full-crazy.” Greathouse continued to turn the white rock in his palm as if studying every possible angle. “He knows that I won’t kill him, but he also knows he wouldn’t get far with one knee shot off. Hell, I might kill him anyway. I’m not a Quaker, and I didn’t make any damned decree with ’em.”

  “He’s lying,” said Matthew. “That’s my opinion, so there it is.”

  Greathouse gripped the rock in his fist. “You don’t think I can handle him, do you?”

  “I think we’re both asking for—”

  “Keep your voice down,” Greathouse commanded. He stepped forward, until his face was only inches away from Matthew’s. “I can handle him. I’ve handled plenty like him before—and worse, believe me—so he’s not going to be any problem.”

  Matthew shook his head. The intensity of Greathouse’s stare compelled him to fix his own gaze on the dead leaves around their feet.

  “Fifty pounds,” came the quiet voice. “And more. The gold rings and the jewelry. It would buy Zed’s freedom, Matthew. Don’t you see?”

  Matthew did suddenly see, and as he looked into Greathouse’s eyes he felt his face tighten into an incredulous mask. “That’s what you want the money for?”

  “Yes. What else?”

  Matthew had to take off his tricorn and put the back of his hand against his foreh
ead, for fear his brain had fired up a fever.

  “Whatever van Kowenhoven named as a price, we could meet,” Greathouse went on. “And pay off Cornbury for the writ of manumission as well. With that much money, we’d probably even have some to spare. You know, to split between us.”

  Matthew looked for someplace to sit down, for his legs felt weak. He needed a sturdy boulder to at least lean against, but there was nothing. In his mind was the image of a lockbox disguised as a book, and within it a black leather bag, and within that bag a handful of gleaming gold coins that made him a rich young man.

  “Now don’t think I have the slightest intention of letting him go,” Greathouse said. “That would be a crime against humanity. But listen, Matthew: we can make him believe we’re in accord, and then when we have the money, it’s right back on this road again, across the river and on to put him behind bars. What do you say?”

  Matthew had no words. He was thinking of the gold coins, and his debts, and new suits in the latest fashion, and how he needed a fireplace for his house, with the winter coming on.

  “I know…that lying to him might not be to your liking. I understand and appreciate your show of moral character, but back there he said Two men out of all creation who have no need for money. Well, I do have a need for it, and I know you do too.” Greathouse frowned, taking Matthew’s continued silence as stern disapproval. “Matthew, we can trick it out of him. We can lie to a liar. Or you don’t have to speak a word, I’ll do all the lying. I have much more experience at it than you.”

  “It’s not that,” Matthew heard himself say, though he had no memory of speaking the words. He had hornets in his head, they were buzzing so loudly he couldn’t hear. This was the moment to tell Greathouse about the gold coins; he knew it was, for if Matthew didn’t tell, Greathouse was going to take them down the forest track in pursuit of Slaughter’s safebox. There was plenty of gold in that leather bag to share. Of course there was. Fifty or more pounds spent for Zed’s freedom, for a bodyguard he didn’t need, and then the rest for all the things Matthew planned on buying. Forget the fireplace until next winter. He had enough clothes, why should he ever need any more? Yes, plenty to share.