Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

The Doctor decided that our new partner would continue to work with Miss Howard and me for the immediate future: it was impossible to predict what kind of new trouble our search for Libby Hatch’s origins would stir up, but it was safe to say that if we did run into more danger, El Niño’s talents would come in handy. This was an easy enough consideration to see and accept; what wasn’t so obvious, but would prove pleasantly true over the next two days, was just how amusing our companion would continue to be. As we scrounged around those villages on the east bank of the Hudson, with Miss Howard asking anybody and everybody she could find about the Fraser family, El Niño and I became better and better friends, clowning, laughing, and telling any troublesome or resentful locals we ran into just where they could take their small-town hostility. The aborigine’s fierce loyalty-now enthusiastically transferred to us, after years of being reluctantly given to the mean-spirited son of his original benefactor-caused Miss Howard to develop her own attachment to him, in a way what wouldn’t have been possible with your average American white male: there was no condescension or attempt at chivalry in El Niño’s approach to her, just simple respect for someone who’d done him a good turn.

We needed all the bright spirits we could muster during that first day of our search, for it produced nothing but negative answers to Miss Howard’s questions, and more moody, distrustful stares from the local population. The fact that we were pursuing a murderer didn’t seem to cut much ice with those people: we were, first and foremost, strangers, and no constructive goal of ours could remove that barrier. Wednesday night found us back at Mr. Picton’s with nothing to show for our efforts, but we got up before dawn on Thursday and headed out again, trying not to let frustration get to us. When sunrise did come, we were crossing the river on a small ferry, heading directly into the bright, harsh morning glare. It was a state of affairs what would’ve been sickening if it hadn’t been for El Niño, who lay in the back of the buckboard sharpening his kris and happily singing some song in his native tongue what he informed me was about morning in the tropical jungles that’d once been his home.

The rest of our morning was filled with more disappointment, as was our afternoon. Town after town, tavern after tavern, postal office after postal office went by, with Miss Howard diligently dragging herself into every establishment and asking the same set of questions about a family named Fraser. By the time the light started to turn golden, I for one was more than willing to acknowledge the hopelessness of our finding anything out before the grand jury convened: we didn’t even know, after all, if Fraser had been Libby Hatch’s original name, an alias, or the handle what the father of her first child had gone by. All we felt sure of was that somewhere-maybe in a completely different state-there was a grave with that first kid’s name on it; and as late afternoon wound on into early evening Miss Howard, too, began to think that maybe such was all we really needed to know, at least for the time being. If Mr. Picton found that he required more specifics concerning that portion of the woman’s life for the actual trial (assuming we got that far), we could keep trying to find them-and he could grill Libby about such matters on the stand, too. But more and more Miss Howard was starting to feel that Libby’s violence was as much a result of having been born a girl in an oppressive, hypocritical society as it was of any possible irregularities in her family life; and our fruitless, pressured search was starting to seem like a waste of time as a result. Needless to say, Miss Howard wasn’t one to put up with such a feeling for very long.

And so, when the court house clock in Ballston Spa tolled out seven o’clock that evening, we found ourselves in a position to hear it, having made our way back into town along the Malta road. We wound through Ballston’s closed shops and quiet houses, then around the train depot and up Bath Street, passing beneath Mr. Picton’s window. El Niño was sleeping in the bed of the wagon, Miss Howard was deep in her own thoughts as she rode next to me, and I was having a tough time keeping my eyes open, as my mind was lulled into relaxation by the slow, steady clatter of our faithful Morgan’s hooves.

Which, of course, was exactly the sort of moment when all hell was bound to break loose.

“Stevie!” I half thought the voice was in my head, part of some dream I was slipping into. “Stevie! Sara! Dammit, can’t you hear me?”

Miss Howard roused me, and together we turned to look at the quiet blocks around us, failing to see a single soul; but when the voice called out to us again, I marked it as Mr. Picton’s, and realized it was coming from his office window.

“Up here!” he said, at which point we glanced up to see him hanging almost half out of the court house, waving his pipe in one hand and a piece of paper in the other, trying desperately to get our attention. “Listen, Stevie,” he went on, “you’ve got to get out to the Westons’ and bring the Doctor back here! They don’t have a blasted telephone, and we need to talk! He was going to be back by nine, but I’ve just had a wire from John-we’ve got to go over it now !”

“But the hearing’s in the morning,” Miss Howard tried to answer, “and he’s still got to-”

“That doesn’t matter-all taken care of!” Mr. Picton shouted, confusing the hell out of both Miss Howard and me. “Sara, you’d better take my surrey and go fetch Lucius and Cyrus-but Stevie, you’ve got to get the Doctor, as fast as you can!”

In one quick move Miss Howard jumped to the ground, starting toward High Street and the court house steps at a run. She turned around when she was about halfway there to tell me, “Wake El Niño up, Stevie-he can keep you from drifting off again!”

“Like that’s gonna happen!” I said, full of new energy. “I wanna know what the hell’s going on!”

Miss Howard smiled, gathered her skirt together, and turned to keep running. Thinking the matter over, I figured I could in fact use some company to break the monotony of a drive back along the road we’d just come in on, so I gave my companion on the bed of the wagon a good shake, causing him to bolt upright, produce his kris , and ready himself to throw it, all in one lightning move.

“Take it easy, son,” I said, patting the driver’s bench where Miss Howard had been sitting. “Come on up here and grab ahold of something-the ride’s about to get a little rough!” With a gleeful laugh at the idea of being graduated to the bench, El Niño jumped up beside me and got ready to roll as I turned the wagon around and slapped the reins against the Morgan’s backside. We wouldn’t be able to travel full speed until we got outside town again, but once we did the little stallion showed he was no worse for the day’s work, and as we barreled along we raised such a cloud of dust-not to mention such an unholy racket-that El Niño couldn’t resist breaking into another song, what he told me he’d picked up during his pirating days in the South China Sea.

It was still fully light out when we reached the Westons’ farm, a testament as much to the durability of our horse as to my driving talents. Josiah Weston, though taken off guard by the sight of the aborigine in my evening clothes, told me that the Doctor and Clara Hatch were somewhere down by the stream behind the house, once again drawing. This didn’t surprise me; the Doctor had amazing patience when it came to these things, and if a given kid responded to a certain form of treatment or communication, he could stay with it for days on end. Telling El Niño to get some feed and water for our horse, I took off down toward the stream at a run.