House of Corruption (30 page)

God had no use for murderers, did he?

I am here
.

Grant set his rifle to the floor and looked out the window. He searched the dawn, hoping to find that voice. It was a dream, or the faint residue of one, but it was something, something to drive away the painful realization he would probably be dead in twenty-four hours.

I am here
.

A woman stood at the base of the tower—young and petite with ruddy cheeks and smooth hair. There was something about her eyes, deep and black. When her lips parted he envisioned his wedding night and his wife’s timid, awkward embraces, how masculine he felt, how soft she felt in his arms.

“Mahonri,” she said.

“Emily?”

“Why did you leave me?”

“I didn’t...”

“Why did you let him hurt me?”

“Emily?”

“Let me in.”

“I don’t—”

“
Let me in
.”

His muscles shuddered. Didn’t she know her danger? Didn’t she fear those murderers outside? Terror boiled up in his throat, the familiar knowing she would be hurt, abused, unless he could protect her.

“
Let me in
.”

Emily was dead.

Rufus. The man’s name was Rufus.

He lingered around Bountiful from time to time—everyone in town knew him, a sot who begged for odd jobs or prospected or tried to raise chickens or goats without much success. Though alcohol was as hard to find as gold in those parts, somehow he reeked of the stuff. The locals kept a loose eye but saw no real threat; indeed, they more worried about what it would take to get Poor Old Rufus baptized.

Brother Grant should have been home that fateful evening. He promised to be home by dark, to be there with a wife and unborn child who labored in their simple home. Yet that summer had proved a restless one. It may have been the everyday tedium, the plainness in Emily’s face and her growing belly, the fading memory of their courtship. Perhaps it was the feeling he was becoming an ordinary man living a mundane life.

Perhaps it was the arrival of Molly Crane. He and Molly had been friends as children, kindred spirits, until her family went south to Saint George and she had married and disappeared from his life. Now she had returned, husband dead from cholera, rebuilding her life as she cared for her aged aunt. When they had seen each other again, their reunion unexpected and pleasant, Grant felt different around her—virile, more masculine, younger. He had never told Emily about his friendship. He had known Molly for years. They were friends. What did it matter if he wanted to talk to her?

What did it matter to anyone if—on that terrible night—he took a long and private road to Molly Crane’s house? What did it matter if he waited until after dark to do so?

“I never touched her,” he whispered.

“
You opened your heart to her
,” she said.

“No.”

“
You were with her
...”

“Go away.”

“
...when you should have been with me
.”

Grant felt the pounding of the horse’s rhythm, the hot baking glare of the sun and the dust in his mouth as he rode far and fast and angry. He imagined Poor Old Rufus in the distance. He felt the satisfaction as he caught him in some backwater town in the middle of the desert, the relief as he slid his Colt from its holster, the kick of the pistol as the first bullet caught the old sot in the leg. Rufus had crawled on his belly, crying for his mama, trails of spit and snot and blood running down his face. Grant pulled the trigger a second time, a third. Each shot smothered the pain yet made it larger, spread the poison until he was numb with it, numb with hot bullets and acrid smoke and Rufus bawling like a baby.

You see what you did to her?

By the fifth bullet Rufus had stopped crying. By the sixth Grant could no longer see him, his eyes filled with sweat and tears and smoke, for he knew he was dead—dead to God, dead to Emily, dead to the world, dead to himself.

You see what you did to me? 

Dead.

He heard Emily’s screams, imagined her broken body in that dry creek bed with blood splashed across her skirts. He smelled the stink of booze and blood.

“
Let me in
.”

She could not survive outside. He knelt beside the trap door, his fingers upon the latch.

“
Let me in
.”

He wanted to stop. He could not stop. He pulled at the heavy bolt.

“
Let me in
.”

He jerked the bolt free. A hand clasped his wrist.

“Stop,” Savoy said, aghast. “What are you doing?”

“
Let me in
.”

“She has you, Mister Grant!”

The trapdoor shuddered and, with a heavy blow, flew open with a crash. In the room below, many Eng Banka held a notched log as a battering ram, stabbing up. Savoy threw the door closed, struggled to secure the heavy bolt. The log thudded against the door—once, twice—and the heavy impact knocked Savoy aside. They stabbed up a third time and the log ripped the trapdoor from its hinges.

Four gallon bottles, filled with liquid, launched up into the room, their necks stuffed with oily rags spitting licks of flame.

The first bottle shattered against the rim of the bell. Yellow kerosene splashed, caught the fire, and exploded in a ball of flame. The other three bottles dropped—
pop, pop, pop
—and each exploded, fire washing over the floor. Savoy and Grant retreated. Backpacks kindled, their provisions igniting. Fire consumed Savoy’s notebook, his journal, his camera. He threw his coat off and batted at the rising inferno.

“What have I done?” Grant wailed.

“Your canteen,” Savoy shouted back.

“
What have I done?
”

The top of the notched log emerged through the opening in the floor. A masked native, limber as a monkey, crawled up into the belfry. Savoy pulled his pistol and fired. The bullet caught the native’s leg; he dropped, struck the edge of the opening and fell to the floor below.

Three more masked natives scrambled up the log on hands and feet, quick as oily spiders. Grant moved toward his Winchester—too late—before they piled upon him. When Savoy raised his pistol, a native slid a knife against Grant’s neck.

Savoy dropped his pistol and kicked it away.

30

Reynard and Kiria followed a low tunnel. Behind them trailed fell voices, dry and ragged and angry—then silent, as if they had never been there. With Reynard’s torch illuminating the way, they raced as quickly as they dared. Only once did they look back, as if expecting to see the phantoms standing behind them.

“We are dead,” Kiria said. “In hell.”

Reynard was tempted to agree. He did not tell her that this place, the very air he breathed, felt saturated with such feeling that stirred up the curse beneath his skin. Seeing dead men talk made some kind of perverse sense. What could he say? That his eyes absorbed more light, that he could hear the nuances of underground echoes and dripping water? That he could smell her blood beneath her skin?

He had heard of men sworn off opium for years, suddenly taken with cold sweats and trembling. Such were not committed to recovery, he believed, their hearts had not fully given it up. How
could
they give it up? A man so entrenched could never again be clean.

Unclean
.

That is what he felt: a growing contamination beneath the earth, getting stronger with every step.

They discovered the corpse of another monk sprawled on the floor, swathed in rotten scraps of cloth, the flesh on his bones like dried jelly. His skull was missing. Reynard knelt and examined the dirt, discovering faint traces of footprints. He stood and, without a word, followed them down the tunnel.

“Any idea where this tunnel might lead?” he asked.

“I knew the monks had the wine cellar,” she said, following, “but this does not seem part of the complex. My grandfather mined in the cliffs behind the house, years ago, but I never thought near the monastery.”

“Those…” He paused, unsure. “My Latin is wanting, but it was clear they…well,
they
wanted us to go this way. They knew and used this tunnel. The brick we crawled under was relatively new; I suspect that wall was added to seal them inside.”

“Please, no more,” she said with disgust.

She pressed her palms against her cheeks, regarding the dark tunnel as it continued down a long and gentle slope, the walls growing narrower as they went. She bit at her fingernail. She looked at Reynard, at the torch crackling in his hand, then back where the whispers lingered in their wake. She considered him with a troubled expression. He caught her look and stopped walking.

“What would you have us do?” he asked. “I do not know where else to go.”

“No,” she said. “I just…”

“Then it’s me,” he said. “You are afraid of me.”

“No,” she said.

“You saw me in Marseille.”

“I...”

“Did I hurt you?”

“This is not—”

“Did I
hurt
you?”

“No.” Kiria crossed her arms. “I had given a poor woman one of my shawls. You found her. Found my shawl.”

“Following a scent,” he said glibly.

“You tore it apart.”

Reynard’s mouth dried up. He wanted to curse, to command her to stop being such a prattling fool and making up hurtful stories. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness.
I did not hurt her
, he told himself,
did not hurt her, did not hurt her
, and all his feelings came in such a torrent he was sure she could see them on his face.

“I wish I could give you comfort,” he said, trying to sound as casual as he could, “but I cannot. I could say violence and unearthly persuasion forced me to manifest, and that may be true. I could tell you the Beast is still with me. I feel it every day. I strive to keep it away. I cannot say what will happen if we continue forward. All I know is that I feel
something
.”

“What?”

“I do not know, but it waits at the end of this tunnel.”

“I do not enjoy the prospect of traveling alone in the dark with you,” she said. “For more reasons I care to give.”

“Fair enough.”

“Can you guarantee my safety?”

“I can only do my best.”

“That does not make me feel any better. I am forced to trust you, Reynard. This from the man certain I would drown him in the Jebata. My old literature professor would call this a bit of dramatic irony.”

“I wouldn’t concern yourself,” he said. “My life has proven less literature, and more penny dreadful.”

For a long time they walked beneath the earth, silent.

This subterranean realm was a honeycomb of caves, narrow channels of rock they squeezed through, only to open wide into black expanses bristling with stalagmites. The torch caught every nuance of distorted shape and revealed a faint yet visible path. Within an hour they lost all sense of direction. In two they doubted they were still mortal, but empty spirits wandering the underworld.

To stave off their fear and hunger and fatigue, Reynard spoke, telling stories, sharing more personal details than he had with anyone. He did his best to add color to his tales, did he best to make her smile—especially the one about stealing his father’s horse and getting thrown into the neighbor’s rose garden. Kiria laughed until she wiped tears from her eyes.

“Incorrigible,” she said.

“And you,” he said. “You must have been a hellion, roaming the jungles like an ape. I imagine clothes were optional as a child?”

She laughed again. “There’s not much to tell.”

“There must be something.”

“It is true that Borneo is wild and full of danger.”

“Yet your grandfather came here.”

“His reasons were his own,” she said. “I spent most of my childhood in Carlovec Manor. Those days saw many guests and much commerce, but when the railroad moved and the township died, we were alone. Though we found comfort at the monastery, it was Mother’s heritage that kept me feeling safe. She understood the wild...how best to survive it.”

“You said she was Catholic.”

“Devout, converted shortly before she met my father. The monks’ rituals brought order, but it was never enough. The local legends are more alive...but then, Borneo is alive. There are spirits everywhere. We enjoyed friendship among those longhouses upriver, but soon they would have nothing more to do with us.”

“Why?”

“My father’s mood, his very spirit…it degenerated over time. It soured everything.”

“The curse is demanding,” he said.

“An understatement. Before I knew of his condition, I thought he was addicted to drink or opium, as was the case with many fathers of well-to-do families.” She laughed a sad, hollow sound. “If only we were so fortunate.”

Reynard felt a sudden rush of feeling, a tenderness he had denied himself from the very moment they met in New Orleans. Occasionally he gave himself permission to feel it, standing beside her in the abattoir aboard the
Kalabakang
, hearing her weep through a door, the sight of her alone on a steamer’s deck. There were times he found her so beautiful he could not look at her. More often, he could not help but look.

He had been so critical of her, so demanding. He had, as she once said, given her little but distrust and blame. Of course she mistrusted him. She had every reason to fear him.

I do not want to hurt you.

You are what you do
, his father once said.
Boys have all sorts of inklings; doesn’t mean they should follow them all
.

“It was clear he suffered,” she continued, unaware. “I heard the servants whispering. I knew the Dayaks regarded us with suspicion. I heard the monks’ prayers.” She breathed in deep. “Father’s passions became more desperate, his rages more severe, until that night...”

She stopped, touched at her face.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I...” Their eyes met. “I have such nightmares, Reynard.”

Her hand slid onto his arm. He noted a change in her composure, softer and more frightened, but not of him. He smelled her impending tears, but she refused to let them fall. He admired her composure. What he had mistaken as complicity he had come to know as her strength of spirit; he wished he could be as strong.