The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin)

by Carolyn McCray

  But now, here he was, laid low. The youth’s eyes were open and staring up at the ceiling, looking toward the Heavens as if for relief. There would be none from that source, if Parley’s past experience were any indicator of future events.

  Several of the younger boys that had looked up to the older servant with eyes of awe, now sat about the bunk, sobbing. Dr. Heale moved in close, observing the young man’s skin.

  “An overabundance of black bile,” he intoned. “There was little chance the boy would survive another night.”

  And yet, that was not the manner in which disease progressed. There was a crisis moment, after which, barring any unforeseen problems, the patient would recover. It had seemed clear to Parley that William’s crisis had passed.

  That was clearly not the case.

  But as Parley turned to move back out of the cabin in search of the captain, his eyes were caught by something unusual. Something in the sclera of William’s open and staring eyes.

  There, in sharp contrast to the white, were red spots of blood.

  CHAPTER 1

  Remembrance Wilkes stood on the deck of the Mayflower, staring out over the harbor toward the buildings that were beginning to grow near the shore of New Plymouth. Or just Plymouth, as most of the Saints had now taken to calling the place. Remmie found that somewhat confusing, as Plymouth had at one brief time been her home back in England before their journey across the ocean.

  The ship that had carried the men ashore to build was now returning, and Remmie could begin to make out the faces of several toward the front. One of them were that strange man Richard Gardiner. His face were compelling, but not handsome, the crevasses and valleys in his face worn by time and cares. But there were something about him that Remmie found appealing.

  She blushed and turned away, chastising herself for her wayward thoughts. The man were one of the Strangers, and from what she had heard, one of the less devout. That were not a man for the daughter of a pastor to think on.

  The wind carried a harsh bite to it that it had not held before, not even during the brutal months of December and January. Time had not been kind to the Company. Within those first three months of arrival, fifteen of their number had perished, eight of the Saints and seven of the Strangers.

  There were some that murmured that it was God’s curse on them, but Remmie believed that it was simply a test, to prepare them to inherit this raw and untamed land that God had prepared for them. Certainly that was what Father had said.

  Sickness abounded in the hold of the Mayflower, where all of the women and children continued to live. Moving over to the mainland was not a feasible option when the ground was still so frozen that even the process of erecting structures had been delayed. The men worked hard, switching off twenty at a time to labor on their new home, but progress was creeping.

  It was now February. Three months entire from the time of their arrival. Things must improve. They must.

  After the Company had arrived back on November 11th in Cape Cod, far to the North of their destination, they had worried that they had no claim to this land. Their first explorations were there in that first harbor, where they had found the remains of an Indian burial ground, along with unused stores of corn that were badly needed by the Company.

  That were a decision that would return to haunt the colony.

  Another child, Peregrine White, had been born without incident during that time, which had added to the joy of the colony. But all else had been a disaster.

  The stores of food brought from England had been nearly depleted by their overlong journey across the Atlantic. A contingency of men led by Captain Miles Standish had encountered a group of natives, and a pitched battle had ensued. That first encounter had convinced their Company to abandon their position in that first harbor and head even farther to the North, until they had arrived at their current location.

  And so far, naught else but death had awaited them here.

  There was speculation that the battle with the natives had been brought on by the desecration of the Indian burial grounds. That perhaps the corn stores that had been found there had been food dedicated to the dead.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Remmie caught sight of a man creeping along up on deck. Startled, she turned to see that it was John Crackston.

  “Mistress Wilkes,” he said in his soft, crackling manner. His mouth was turned up in the half smile that was his wont. “I have given thee a start.” To Remmie, the man’s voice sounded of pages crumpled up and placed on a fire. A chill ran down her spine.

  “Not so, Goodman Crackston. I am well.”

  The man nodded, his gaze fixed somewhere in the vicinity of her left eyebrow. He inclined his head in a respectful fashion.

  There was something about the man that was disconcerting. The lack of eye contact was part of her perception, perhaps. But it was also in the way he seemed to lurk about, ever observant, with that partial smile plastered onto his face.

  A wail sprang up from below deck, and the sound shot straight through Remmie’s heart. She knew what that keening signified. One more of their Company had succumbed.

  She murmured an apology to Goodman Crackston and turned to go. But before she had completely lost sight of the man’s face, she would have sworn an oath that his smile intensified.

  “Child,” came a voice at her back. Her father. “Come below. Thou art needed to comfort one of the Strangers in need.”

  Were any now Strangers? They had traversed the vast ocean together, shared joys and griefs, broken bread more times than Remmie could count.

  But none of that would mean aught to her father. There would always be a clear line between the believers and the rest as far as he was concerned.

  “Who is’t, Father?”

  “Goody Sarah.”

  A good woman. And leaving behind a son not much more than one year of age.

  A tear traced its way down her cheek, and Remmie brushed it away in anger. One more soul sent to be with God. But the rest of the Saints? They would all remain here and mourn the loss.

  It didn’t strike Remmie until she began to climb below that she had not included herself in their number.

  * * *

  “Watch thyself!”

  The warning came just in time, as one of the large logs the men were raising into place slipped out of their grasp and plummeted to the ground. Right where Parley had been standing not more than a moment earlier.

  His heart pounding in his ears, Parley shook himself and offered a wan smile and a wave to the men up above. He moved away from the group for a moment, staring out toward land, his back to the bay.

  The dark forest loomed about Parley and the rest of the building party. It was a presence in their lives, an omnipresent pressure at their backs. And the closer it got to dark, the more it felt that the forest was watching them, observing their actions. Stalking its prey.

  The day was moving on toward evening, and Parley’s breath blossomed into fog around his face, obscuring his view of the bare trees. It did not seem possible that it would continue to grow colder, and yet day by day the evidence was all around them.

  At least it had not snowed this week.

  Two more deaths, and it was only the third of February. The men were desperately behind in the building of the homes needed to shelter the colony, but the thought of everyone living aboard the Mayflower through the winter caused a shudder to course through Parley’s body.

  The sensation had naught to do with the winter air.

  Dr. Heale continued to preach the efficacy of leeches and bleeding, in order to balance out the precious humours in the body. But as soul after soul succumbed to whatever was taking them all, even the uneducated amongst them began to doubt.

  As for Parley, he knew little more. The blame was given to the illnesses that swept through the tightly grouped colony. It was certain that scurvy, pneumonia or tuberculosis had been a major problem.

  But there had been far too many times in which the soul in
question had been at the point of recovery when they passed away. And so often, along with their other symptoms, the patients manifested the same red spots in the eyes that Parley had observed in both Oceanus and William.

  Joseph called down from where he was helping the men place the log that they had now successfully managed to lift. He was perched straddling the rising wall, one leg out of the structure, the other within.

  “Parl… ah… Richard!”

  Parley grimaced. The young lad was incapable of calling him by his new name. The necessity had perhaps lessened since their arrival, but one whiff of what had forced Parley to leave England and he would be returning with the Mayflower to face trial.

  One of the men, a Goodman John Billington, who was working alongside Parley trimming the logs from the trees previously felled, turned to face him. There was a look on his face that Parley knew well. Suspicion.

  “That must be the ninth time I have heard that lad refer to you by some name other than thy own,” he said, his tone challenging.

  John Billington was a malcontent, on record with his constant criticism of the Separatist Saints and the present governor of Plymouth, John Carver. There were moments where his dissention became quite vocal.

  His children were not much better than wild animals. At one point, before they had landed, one of his sons, Francis, had been firing his father’s gun below deck. That was issue enough, with all of the passengers there in the cabin with him. But in addition, he had discharged the weapon close to an open barrel half-filled with gunpowder. One spark from the muzzle and the entire Company would have gone to a dark, wet and salty end at the bottom of the ocean.

  This was not a man that Parley wanted to allow any power. It was time to solve the name problem for once and all.

  “He refers to me by my middle name, which is Parley,” he responded after a moment to the large, surly man. “It is the name by which I was called throughout my youth.”

  If anything, John’s scowl deepened. “Art a member of the peerage that thou hast three names?”

  “Nay,” replied Parley, thinking furiously. “But my parents had designs to buy our family into the landed gentry, and thought themselves better than what they were.” He made it clear by his tone that he did not share their dream of jumping themselves up.

  “Ah,” John said, nodding his head. The explanation seemed to appease him. He called out to the men above. “Ye did not know it, but we are graced by nobility here in our midst, in the person of Goodman Richard Parley Gardiner.”

  The men laughed and several of them pointed down at Parley, their smiles not unkind. Japes were hurled down upon Parley as the men challenged one another to think of better.

  “Three names? I were lucky to have one.”

  “Me mum had three names for me, but none as what I can mention in public.”

  “Ah, thou’rt a wineskin full of naught but vinegar, now art thou not, Parley?”

  But Parley was content. He had won back his name. And all without alerting anyone to his troubled past.

  As the men descended, still chuckling over the discovery of Parley’s secret, as they thought, one of the company stiffened up, staring out toward the tree line of the forest. Parley whirled about to see what had so distressed the man.

  There, striding into the midst of the men, was an Indian. He was naked, but for some leather about his waist, with fringe that dangled down to about his knee. His hair was long, trailing down his back, where it was tied with a leather strap and two bird’s feathers. The feathers appeared as if they had come from a hawk, or perhaps an eagle.

  His appearance caused an immediate alarm amongst the men, as they had experienced more than one tense encounter with the natives at this point. But as three of the men, one of them John Billington, made as if to retrieve their muskets, the man held up his hand.

  His carriage was straight and strong, almost royal to Parley’s way of thinking. There was an openness about his face that lent his overall aspect a certain appeal. The native raised his chin and opened his mouth to speak.

  “Welcome, Englishmen!”

  * * *

  Tisquantum was troubled.

  He had spent the day in counsel with Samoset, who had earlier traveled without permission to speak with the white settlers there. Samoset was not of this tribe, but had his home to the north, as one of the leaders of the Wampanoag tribe.

  But Samoset was erratic and proud. In spite of the fact that Sachem Massasoit had urged caution in dealing with these newcomers, he had decided to go amongst them, heedless of the danger.

  From what Tisquantum could tell, Samoset had largely done so in order to obtain some of the settler’s beer. The taste for that peculiar, sour beverage Samoset had acquired, along with his broken English, from some English fishermen that had landed close to the Wampanoag tribe.

  And now Samoset had spent the night amongst these Englishmen, eating their food, drinking their strong water, sampling of their hospitality. The problem was that none of the People of the First Light understood the strange rules of hospitality that these English followed.

  Samoset had promised the men that he would return, and that he would bring Tisquantum with him. And Tisquantum’s heart ached within his breast.

  For out of all of the People, Tisquantum knew these English best. He had suffered at their hands, made friends with many, but fully understood none.

  None but John Smith. His friend.

  And it had been John Smith’s companion, Thomas Hunt, who had lured in many braves, including Tisquantum himself, with promises of work and wealth. Braves that he had then taken across the ocean to sell as slaves.

  It had been an experience that had tried Tisquantum’s soul to the utmost. But it had taught him much in the ways of the white man. Ways that he would now be forced to adopt, for the good of his People.

  For, from this time forth, Tisquantum would remove his name as he would remove a buckskin jacket in the spring. Amongst the English, who could not pronounce his name readily, he was Squanto.

  It was a name he had not used since his return to the People fourteen moons ago. But his return had been tainted. Upon arriving back in his native land, he found his entire tribe had gone to Kehtannit, the Great Spirit. A spirit sickness had afflicted his tribe, and they had all succumbed. He alone was left of the Patuxet people.

  Living with the Massasoit tribe felt as close to home as Tisquantum could hope, with his tribe passed on. But he was also, like Samoset, an interloper here.

  “When do the white men wait for me?” he asked in Wampanoag, spoken by all the People of the First Light in this part of Dawnland. Here, none were fully strangers, though they may be from another tribe. Massasoit, Patuxet… they were all Wampanoag.

  “They wait for you at the dawning of the next sun, Tisquantum,” replied Samoset, with a large grin. He understood none of Tisquantum’s concern. To him, the English were important for nothing but what they could provide. Puddings and beer and guns and dogs. Toys with which a grown man could play as if he were again a child.

  But for Tisquantum, a man without a tribe, these were men who lived on the land that his tribe had made sacred with their dead. His land. His home.

  He would welcome them, if he could. He would help them, if they would allow.

  The question remained. What would his People think of him if he allowed friendship to blossom with these men, as it had with John Smith? The love he bore for the man could not wash away the pain of losing his family. But the thought of losing the trust of his adopted tribe burned with a blue fire, low and hot.

  “Then at the dawning of the next sun, I must approach them,” Tisquantum answered after a long pause.

  Sachem Massasoit, his head covered in a headband of eagle feathers pointing straight up, framing his shaved hair. He frowned his concern. “You must be a light for us amongst these white men with their fire sticks,” he said. “They will eat the Dawnland and the People with it. You must go with Kehtannit to show them another w
ay.”

  “I will not fail you, Sachem.”

  The proud Sachem took several leaves of tobacco and crushed them, inserting the shredded plug into his pipe, preparing to smoke. He frowned once more.

  “And find the cause of the deaths.”

  The thought made Tisquantum quail. He knew these English. Knew their goodness and their arrogance. They were great brown bears, hard to rouse, but fighting for the cubs they did not yet have when threatened. For the cubs they might never have. And their roar could be heard from halfway around the world.

  Tisquantum had made the voyage across the great waters four times. Had crossed and come back.

  And yet now, in his heart, he was afraid.

  CHAPTER 2

  Parley heard a flapping of wings overhead, a flurry of flight as a bird traveled along behind him to land in the bare tree branches just above. It startled him, causing his stomach to leap up into his throat and rest there, throbbing. Glancing up, he saw one of the large vultures that was common in the area, its large, black wingspan somehow made even more threatening by its scaled blood colored head.

  The morning had started auspiciously enough, with Parley having spotted a hind bounding through the underbrush. He had snatched up a gun and made to follow the beast, hoping for some meat to add to their ever-decreasing food stores. But the beast had evaded him readily enough. It seemed that the daily routine of the medical profession had done little to prepare him for life in the wilderness.

  The bird settled into its new perch, eyeing Parley malevolently. There was aught about those birds that struck him as less than natural. Un-nature in a sense that should not be, especially in a place of such untrammeled purity as this New World.

  The vulture had found a fresh kill. Well, as fresh as anything upon which such creatures would feast.

  A length of entrails dangled from the vulture’s misshapen beak.

  Parley shuddered, cursing his body as it betrayed his scientific mind. There was no need to have such portents affect him. He was not a superstitious man.