Where the Dead Talk (16 page)

"Damn it, Brewster," MacGuire said, "that all sounds like a bunch of horseshit. That noise was cannons, though – and this fellah here probably knows how many, where they are."

To Pomeroy the booms sounded nothing like artillery, and he had more than enough experience with artillery to recognize the sound, even at a distance. He may have paid more attention to the local spirits and women when garrisoned in the Highlands – but he’d still been an artilleryman.

"That wasn’t artillery," he said.

"Oh, please," MacGuire said, "I ain’t that dumb."

"Don't be so sure," Pomeroy said.

"Don’t you smarm me none, neither. You’d better answer my questions. Now where are they? And how many troops you got?"

Fine, Pomeroy thought. The man obviously wasn’t going to hear anything else until he got the answer his mind had already sunk its teeth into. It might stir things up enough to give him an opportunity, in any event.

"Two artillery companies to the north, one more to the west, across the river. Two battalions total," he lied. He didn’t even blink when he said it.

"Good Lord in heaven," MacGuire said.

"It’s not true," Brewster said.

MacGuire spun on him.

"I heard it with my own ears – he just gave us detailed troop information. I’m starting to wonder if you’ve been telling us a bunch of clap trap to cover for your own treachery, Brewster."

"Didn’t you just hear him?" one of the others said to Brewster, pointing at Pomeroy.

"He’s lying to you, trying to shake you up," Brewster said.

"You ain’t making it any easier for us to trust you," MacGuire said. "You might be spinning these yarns to us to stall for time while your Loyalist friends or a company of Regulars comes marching in through the door," MacGuire said.

The stamp of a fast riding horse was heard, coming right up in front of the tavern. A second later the door opened and Eldridge Carrier burst into the room, his clothes dusty from riding, lank hair hanging from underneath his hat.

"My family," he said, his eyes wide and white in his grimy face, "they ain’t right. They was waiting for me – but something’s gone in them. It ain’t right, something ain’t right."

He was babbling. Pomeroy suspected that his family wasn’t much like he’d last seen them.

"Did you see any troops, Eldridge?" MacGuire said.

"Troops?" the man said, the word coming out of his mouth as though he’d never said it before.

"British artillery. They’re all over."

The man looked around the room, his features pinching into tight lines.

"What do you mean?" he said.

His eyes landed on Pomeroy and widened. His mouth pulled into a tight frown.

"Eldridge," Jude said, "what did you see?"

The man ignored him, and strode over to Pomeroy.

"What’d you do to my family?" Eldridge said, leaning down in front of him. His voice was strangled.

The tavernkeep is on the right track, thought Pomeroy.

"Their eyes, what did they look like?" Pomeroy said.

The man looked at him, his own eyes widening.

"What did they say to you?" Pomeroy said.

The man started to speak several times, then set his mouth in a hard line. Without warning, he slapped Pomeroy across the face, hard enough to make squiggly flashes of light explode behind his eyelids. Jude came up behind him.

"That’s what’s been happening, Eldridge," he said. "He’s not lying."

The man whirled to face him.

"Don’t you tell me that!" he yelled, spittle flying.

He looked around the room, his eyes wild. They landed on Elizabeth. He turned back to Jude.

"We all left to fight," the man said, "all except’n you. And I see you still got yours, and then some."

"Eldridge, there’s no –"

"Don’t you talk! Don’t you talk!" the man screeched. "We don’t need to listen to a devilish negro tell us right and wrong. Whore-mongering tavernkeep!"

He swung back to Pomeroy.

"And come to find it’s the British, the very ones we left to fight – and they’s taken everything."

If he had some sort of logic going, Pomeroy couldn’t find it. The man wasn’t making sense – and the situation seemed to be darkening by the moment. The man stared at them. He lifted one hand off to his side, palm up.

"Cooper," he said, "grab some rope."

A log snapped in the fire.

"We’s gonna hang ‘em, and we’s gonna do it right now," the man said. His eyes never left Pomeroy’s own. MacGuire pushed open the door and peered outside.

"The horses is gone," he said. His eyes were wide and panicky. All the militia men started talking at once. Morrill and one of the Cooper brothers pushed the door open and went out. They started whistling loudly and calling for their horses. Carrier walked back to Pomeroy and leaned in close. His eyes were jumpy.

"You know what I think?"

"That there’s nothing a good game of whist can’t settle?" Pomeroy said.

"You mayn’t be nothing more than the bait," he said, "so as we might gather together in one place with you, and make for an easy target."

"Really?" Pomeroy said. "And how exactly is it that we knew that a handful of you would desert your company and come slinking back to this pissant little village?"

Carrier punched him in the face hard enough to snap his head back. Pomeroy squeezed his eyes shut against the pain for a second, then spit as blood filled his mouth. His lip throbbed, numb and mashed.

"What’d you do to my family?" Carrier said.

Pomeroy spit again, a great bloody gob spattering on the floor.

"Why don’t you go back out into the dark and ask them?" Pomeroy said. "You’ll see soon enough."

Carrier threw another fist at him, but Jude reached out fast and snagged his wrist.

"You’ve got it all wrong," he said.

"I’ve got nothing wrong!" Carrier screamed, "and I’ll see you swinging too before I hear any different."

He spun and looked at the stunned men standing around the tables by the fire.

"Get me that rope," he yelled.

"But the horses are gone. All our stuff, too," MacGuire said.

Morrill came back in.

"I can’t find‘em nowhere," he said. "Andy’s still looking. Someone must of stole‘em."

"Brewster," Carrier said, "where’s your rope? Rope!"

"No one is going to hang here tonight, Eldridge," the tavernkeep said.

"You traitorous, dark-skinned beast –" Carrier began, but was cut off when the tavernkeep grabbed him by the front of his doublet.

"Another word and I’m throwing you out into the night to fend for yourself, so help me," he said.

Carrier was wriggling and scrambling. Pomeroy saw it before anyone else did.

"Knife!" he yelled out to the tavernkeep.

Carrier pulled a wicked looking blade from a leather sheath and was about to gut the Brewster with it. The tavernkeep twisted fast, still holding the front of Carrier’s doublet, and slammed him to the floor, knocking over a chair. Carrier was driven into the wooden floorboards. The knife stayed in his hand. Brewster stomped on Carrier’s wrist and it broke with a splintering crack. The knife clattered out across the floor as Carrier screamed.

"Stop it, Jude," one of the militia said. "Do it right now."

He pointed his musket straight at Jude’s head.

"Don’t you make me," the militia man said.

The tavernkeep was breathing heavy, trying to watch both Carrier and the musket at the same time. Pomeroy saw the woman moving slowly to the wall behind her.

"I’m not making you nothing, Ben MacGuire," Jude said, "and you and the rest better start listening to what I’ve been telling you."

"I don’t trust him," one of the other militia men said.

On the floor in front of Morrill, Carrier moaned, cradling his broken wrist.

"Well, you’d better start," Pomeroy said.

All eyes snapped to him.

"The Devil is on the loose here in West Bradhill – or something just as foul," Pomeroy continued, "or hadn’t you noticed that things were dark – no fires burning, no woodsmoke on the air. If the British Army had come tramping through, don’t you think you’d be able to see that? Wagons, torn up roads, burned houses, stables, businesses. Sentries, pickets, and the lot. Trust me, you’d have noticed."

The woman was at the wall.

"And our tavernkeep here has seen it. He’s a decent man who wouldn’t deny even a prisoner a drink and a meal, and he’s treated you men with respect and courtesy despite the lack of turnabout on your part, and – "

There was a click.

"Put that musket down," Elizabeth said, "or I’m going to put a shot straight into your skull. So help me, I will."

She pointed a pistol directly at MacGuire. MacGuire swiveled his head back and around – the woman and pistol, the tavernkeep, and Pomeroy.

"Don’t you do it, Mrs. Watts," MacGuire said, softly.

"Put it down."

"I’ve got my finger already squeezin’ tight on this trigger. Shootin’ me is gonna be shootin’ him," he said.

"It’s still going to be shooting you, Ben MacGuire. Don’t forget that part," she said.

The other men in the tavern were still. Carrier was sobbing and muttering to himself in a ball on the floor. MacGuire was breathing hard, eyes jumping around. From the night outside, there was a distant scream. Eyes jumped to the front windows.

"This ain’t right," he said.

"Please," Elizabeth said, "you men need to start listening to what Jude and the officer are telling you. Forget the rebellion and forget the British. None of that matters here anymore. There’s something much worse happening."

The tavernkeep looked at MacGuire.

"We’re telling the truth," he said.

MacGuire lowered the musket.

"Come," Pomeroy said, looking up at the woman, "I think they’re ready to listen."

The woman looked uncertain, but lowered the barrel of the gun. MacGuire was staring at Pomeroy, unsure of what was happening. The tavern door swung open and the candles flickered. Pomeroy looked over.

"A little late for our party, I see," he said.

Carolyn Bucknell stepped into the common room and looked around the fire-lit gathering. She smoothed the front of her muddy skirt.

"The dead are walking, all around," she said. Her voice held a tremor and Pomeroy noted that her hands shook. "Lines of them, marching on the green. All around the church. Everywhere."

They Were All Gone

Thomas lay still and covered his head with his arms. Tall grasses slapped across his neck and cat-o’nine-tails rustled all around him, their stalks twisting. The wind from the lake rose to a screaming pitch and swept right over him, tugging at his shirt, shoving its fingers up inside. He was afraid to open his eyes – he couldn't get rid of the image of Pannalancet, pulled under the water, grabbed by pale arms. Something had gone wrong – he’d known that from the look on the old man’s face. Thomas hadn’t found him at his cabin, but the scent of smoke had led him back to the lake itself. He’d watched the ceremony from the shore, desperate to tell him all that had happened, afraid to interrupt.

He lifted his head. Looking through the weeds, he saw the surface of the water still dancing, shadows moving across it. To the left, he could see the spot where Nathan had slipped below the surface. Now a terrible shadow hung at the far side of the water. It rose up into the sky, higher than the tallest trees. The edges were blurry, the stars behind dim, as if seen through water. At its center, no light passed – it was darker than the night sky. It was full of movement, and brought on a dizzy feeling, as if Thomas was looking over the edge of the tallest cliff in the world.

It was what they’d done with Nathan – he was certain of that. Just seeing the lake in the darkness again brought that horrible night back, and sent a sickening wave of guilt through his gut. All he wanted to do was wriggle backwards on his stomach until he was in the trees again – and then run as fast as he could in the other direction.

But he was the only one left.

There was no one left – they were all gone, taken one by one. And he’d been as useless as he’d feared: not able to save them, not able to reach Pannalancet in time, not able to find Jonathon. Their words – Jonathon’s, his uncle’s, the Major’s – echoed in his head, daring him to give up, daring him to remember that he was just a scrawny, deaf boy. He lifted his head then crawled forward, towards where the old man’s fire was burning down. The last red embers flew off on the wind. Across the lake, the shadow was moving out into the trees. As it passed into them, trunks snapped and leaves flew off like startled sparrows.

In spite of Pannalancet's warning, he searched around the fire. There was an empty woven basket – he tossed it aside. A small fold of leather had bits of some plants. He held it to his nose and got the fragrance of fresh stems and leaves. He shoved it into his pocket. There was a twisted up bundle of cloth. Thomas unwound it. It held a handful of smooth stones and a jar, like the kind his father used for storing fruit preserves. Reaching in, he lifted it up and held it in the moonlight. It was half full with a dark liquid. Retying the cloth bundle, he continued searching around on his hands and knees. There wasn’t anything else.

The winds suddenly died down. The water on the lake smoothed out again, the reflection of the high moon appearing on the surface like an apparition. The huge shadow passed off into the forest on the other side. Thomas walked to the edge of the water. He looked to the spot where Pannalancet had gone under, but there was no sign of him. Shreds of mist moved across the water, gathering among the lilies and cattails that dotted the edge. He turned back to the fire; the embers glowed and brightened, danced with the breeze.

Pannalancet hadn't finished. The items in the cloth were important. They had to be. He searched the ground around the fire one more time, the moonlight painting it fine silver. He was about to straighten up when he suddenly froze. A shadow in the moonlight, by his feet. He spun around and saw a figure rising out of the water: large with pale flesh, water dripping down in heavy rivulets, hair hanging limp and soaking.