Mister Slaughter (43 page)

I charge you to be my arrow
, Walker had said.

And Lark speaking:
Reach up . . . reach up
 . . .

Matthew saw he was going to pass one of the big rocks, just a few feet to his right. Once beyond that, it was over the falls and done.

If he died, he thought, Slaughter would go on and on, truly unstoppable. If he died, then Walker and Lark had offered up their lives for nothing.

It was a hard thing to think about. It caused him, in a way, to
want
to die. To punish himself, maybe, for being so weak.

The big rock was coming up, very fast.

He began to weep, for Walker and Lark, for her family, for himself too.

Because he realized very clearly that his lot in life was not some place beyond pain of mind and body. His lot in life was, in fact, directly in harm's way. He had asked for that, when he'd signed on with the Herrald Agency. And maybe that was the lot in life of all people, and realizing that either broke you or built you. Just as Lark said her father told her: there were only two directions in life, up or down. He was looking at that big rock coming nearer, and as he wept he was thinking that the good thing about tears is sometimes they wash your eyes clear.

Slaughter would be along soon, for sure. Looking for him, to finish the job. Matthew thought he maybe had seven or eight minutes. Maybe. But if he only had two minutes, or
one
minute, he ought to get out of this stream and not let a waterfall break Walker's arrow.

The big rock was right there.

Painfully, Matthew kicked toward it, and he reached up.

It took him a long time to get out. Seven minutes? Ten? He had no idea. He was hurt and hurting, no doubt about it. Spitting blood from a cut inside his mouth where his own teeth had bitten flesh, his head throbbing, his vision fading in and out, the muscles of his legs stiff and cramping, his neck nearly wrenched. But he got out by swimming from one big rock to the next, grabbing hold of the mossy beards and pulling himself onward, until at last he could stand up and hobble into the woods.

He staggered like a drunk through the dense thicket, lost his footing almost at once and slid into a hollow full of vines and fallen leaves. There he lay on his back, the world slowly spinning around him. He hoped that if Slaughter followed the stream he might think the waterfall had done his work for him; still, Matthew knew he was not safe, that he ought to get up and keep moving, but he could not. He forced himself to turn over, get up on his knees and start digging into the leaves, winnowing himself in like a wounded mole.

It was while he was occupied at this camouflage that he heard the voice through the woods.

"All right, come out! Do you hear?"

Matthew's heart nearly burst. He flattened his body and pressed into the leaves. The smell of dirt and decay was up his nostrils. He stopped breathing.

"What kind of
game
are you playing at?" Slaughter shouted. "Can't you see I'm hurt, I don't have time for this!"

Matthew didn't move.

"You have the wrong
impression
!" Slaughter went on. His voice was moving. "I was
attacked
! That thief tried to kill me!"

Matthew heard him crunching through leaves alongside the stream. He's not speaking to me, Matthew realized. He's speaking to whoever threw the pebbles. Not pebbles . . . marbles. But
who
?

"Come out, let's talk about this!"

Matthew knew that the razor would do most of the talking. Slaughter was silent; he'd continued on, away from Matthew's hiding-place. Had he looked over the falls? Seen anything that might lead him to believe a certain constable from New York was deader than yesterday's codfish pie?

Matthew could breathe again, but he still didn't move. He didn't think he
could
move, even if he wished. He was safe here, buried in all these leaves. At least he had the illusion of safety, and that was all he could ask for.

"All right, then!" he heard Slaughter shout, some distance away. The voice was ragged and tired; the beast was also in pain. "As you please!"

Then, nothing more.

Matthew thought of calling for help to whoever had thrown the pebbles—marbles—but the thought was short-lived. Slaughter might still be near enough to hear. What would Slaughter do next? Matthew wondered. His mind was sluggish, filling up with dark mud. What would any man with an arrow in his shoulder and a bloody gash across his scalp do? Find a doctor while he could still stand up. He would go down to that village—Caulder's Crossing or whatever it was—and find a doctor to mend him.

Matthew decided he should rest here for awhile. A short while. Slaughter wasn't going anywhere fast. Matthew needed some rest. He needed some strength. He would let himself rest here until he was sure he could walk again without falling, he thought. Then he would get up, and he would go down in search of the doctor. No . . . better to find the town's constable first. Tell him to bring a gun or two, or three. Also bring about five more men.

I'm not done, Matthew thought. Not finished.

His eyes were closed, though he hadn't remembered closing them.

He did not drift off; he plunged into an abyss.

When his eyes opened again, the light had faded to purple. He had no idea at first where he was, or why. Night is coming on, he thought. Why am I buried, and in
what
? Everything suddenly came back in a jumble and rush, a madman's picture book. He had to get up now, he told himself. Slaughter was down in the village, wherever that was from here. Get up, get up!

Matthew moved, but the pain that throbbed through him—from arms, legs, scalp, cheekbone, chest, everywhere it seemed—put quit to that intention. He felt as if his bones had been yanked from their sockets and thrust back in at crooked angles. He might have groaned, he didn't know. Some small frightened animal darted away. Slowly, against every bruise that shouted his name, he started digging out of the leaves. His head ached fiercely, and it seemed to take tremendous effort and concentration to do anything. He was the one who needed the doctor, he thought. Maybe later, after Slaughter was behind bars.

Get up, get up!
Now
!

He tried. His feet slipped out from under him. He rolled down into underbrush and stickers.

The purple light darkened. Matthew felt the chill of the night around him, but the earth was warm.

He would try again in a little while, he thought. Not yet. He wasn't strong enough yet. But he wasn't done, he told himself. He wasn't finished. Neither would he give up, no matter what. He would just keep on trying.

And that was
something
, wasn't it?

Ollie? There' a man asking for you."

He looked up from his work at Priscilla, who had knocked first before opening the door to his workshop at the rear of the house; it was her way never to intrude upon him unless it was important, and he appreciated her value of his privacy. Which meant concentration; which meant productivity; which meant progress.

Oliver set aside his tweezers and lifted the magnification lenses clipped to his spectacles so he could see her clearly. The lenses, ground to his exacting specifications by the optician Dr. Seter Van Kampen here in Philadelphia, could make a gnat appear elephantine and a tiny gearwheel gargantuan. Not that he worked with gnats or elephants; he did not, though gearwheels of all sizes were commonplace on his desktop and now, indeed, were scattered there. But what might have been a disorderly scatter to any other man was to Oliver a comforting variety of challenges, or puzzle parts waiting to be put into their places.

He was a man of many loves. First of all, he loved his wife. He loved the fact that she was five months pregnant, loved her plumpness and her curly brown hair, the sparkle of her eyes, the way she called him Ollie—all prim and proper in daylight, but truth be told at night she made the name sound a little wicked, indecent even, and thus the blessed event approaching—and he loved the fact that she granted him such privacy to do his work, here in the sun-splashed room with its high windows. He loved also the shine of sunlight on tweezers and calipers, metal-shears, pincers, the delicate miniature pliers, wire snippers, files, the little hammers and all the rest of his toolbox. He loved the weight and feel of brass, the grain of wood, the pungent smells of whale oil and bear grease, the beautiful God-like geometry of gear-teeth, the confidence of screws and the jollity of springs. If Priscilla would not think him too odd—and this was also why he valued his privacy—he would have professed that he had names for all his instruments, his hammers and pliers and such, and sometimes he would say quietly as he put two pieces together, "Very well, now, Alfred! Fit there into Sophie and give her a good turning!" Or some such encouagement to succeed. Which, now that he thought of it, sounded indecent too, but who ever said an inventor had to be
decent
?

Or, for that matter,
boring
?

He also loved gunpowder. Its rich, almost earthy smell. Its promise and power. Its danger. Yes, that was part of the love, too.

"Who is it?" Oliver asked.

"He just inquired if this was the house of Oliver Quisenhunt. He said it was vital that he speak to you."

"
Vital
? He used that word?"

"He did. He . . . um . . . he's a little frightening in appearance. I'll go back and ask his name, if you want."

Oliver frowned. He was twenty-eight years old, had been a bachelor—a
life-long
bachelor, he'd assured his friends over ale at the Seven Stars Inn—until he'd met a pretty little plump curly-haired sparkling-eyed girl two years ago whose wealthy father wanted a Dutch clock in their parlor repaired. It had taken him the longest time to fix that clock. It had been strange, repairing a clock and wishing time would stop. At the same time.

"No, that's all right." He pushed his chair back and stood up. "Something so
vital
, I suppose we ought to find out what, eh?"

She caught his arm. "Ollie," she said, and she looked up at him imploringly. Way up, because he was rail-thin and six-feet-three-inches tall and towered above her plump little self. "He . . . he might be dangerous."

"Really? Well," he said with a smile, "danger is my business. Part of it, at least. Let's go see what he wants."

In the rooms there was a place for everything and everything in its place. One thing that Priscilla had taught him, an artist did not need to live in confusion. Did not need to fill up the house with books and scribbled-upon papers and little gearwheels and sacks of gunpowder and lead balls everywhere and underfoot clay jars full of different varieties of grease that made a terrible mess if they were broken. Indeed, not with the new Quisenhunt coming. So he had his workshop where what she termed confusion was his paradise, and she had the rest of the house, excepting of course the cellar.

He also loved the fact that she called him an artist. The first time she'd said that to him, in her father's garden, he had looked into her face and asked himself what the term life-long bachelor really
meant
, anyway.

Priscilla had closed the door when she went to fetch him. She stood at Oliver's side, clutching the sleeve of his cream-colored shirt. He opened the door, and the man outside turned around from observing the parade of wagons, carts and passersby on Fourth Street.

"Oliver Quisenhunt," the man said.

Oliver nodded, when his flinch had passed. He thought he might have heard a note of . . . what? . . .
relief
in the man's voice. And Priscilla had been right about him: this was a raw-boned and rough-edged leatherstocking straight from the woods, it appeared. Straight from the frontier where Indians hacked your limbs off and boiled them in pots for their suppers. This man looked as if he'd seen a few of those boiling pots. Maybe had barely escaped from one, as well. How old? About twenty-six, twenty-seven? It was hard to tell, with those blue bruises splotching his right cheekbone and forehead. Both his eyes were bloodshot. The left eye had a white medical plaster laid just below it. The dark hollows under his eyes, and the general grim menace of his countenance . . . was he twenty-seven, going on fifty? A few days' beard, a mess of black hair, the palms of his hands wrapped up in dirty leather, torn burgundy-colored breeches and a waistcoat the same color, stained stockings, filthy white shirt and a fringed buckskin jacket scabby with grime. On his feet were honest-to-God Indian moccasins.

He was a scout, Oliver guessed. Someone who goes ahead to clear the way, who takes the risks only the bravest—or most foolhardy—men can face.

He thought they called that kind of man a providence rider.

"My name is Matthew Corbett," said the visitor. "May I come in?"

"Ah . . . well . . . I am very busy at present, sir. I mean to say, it would be best if you came back some other—"

"I want to talk to you about one of your inventions," Matthew plowed on. "An exploding safebox."

"An . . . exploding . . . oh. Yes. Those. You mean the keyless safe? The thief trap?"