Robert McCammon - Mister Slaughter

He had returned home, but not as he'd left. For better or for worse, he had blood on his hands. As did the boy beside him, but if Tom suffered any qualms about his part in the death of Tyranthus Slaughter, he kept them locked up in the ironclad vault of his soul. The most he'd professed about it to Matthew was that he viewed it as an execution, and lawful or not it was done so it wasn't worth speaking of any more.

But Matthew was sure Lillehorne was going to have a lot to say about it.

"Matthew! Hey, there!" Running up alongside the wagon was his friend, the blacksmith's apprentice John Five, newlywed in September to Constance Wade, now the happy Mrs. Five.

"Hello, John," Matthew answered, but he kept the team moving.

"Where've you been?"

"Working." "You all right?"

"I'll be all right," Matthew said.

"Folks were wonderin'. When your partner came back last week, and you didn't. I've heard what he's been tellin', about the redskins. Some were sayin' you'd had it."

"Almost did," Matthew said. "But I gave it back."

"You up to comin' to supper one night?" "I am. Give me a few days."

"Okay." John reached up and slapped Matthew's leg. "Welcome home."

Not much further along, a well-dressed middle-aged woman with an exuberant, sharp-nosed face waved at him with her handkerchief and stepped forward. "Oh, Mr. Corbett!" she called. "So good to see you! Will we be reading any more of your adventures in the next Earwig?"

"No madam," he told Mrs. Iris Garrow, wife of Stephen Garrow the Duke Street horn merchant. "Definitely not."

"But surely you won't deprive us!"

"Some things are best left to the imagination," he said, for he'd decided that the spicy element of sausages once sold at Sally Almond's to patrons just such as Mrs. Garrow need not be revealed. He knew that High Constable Farraday in Philadelphia felt the same about keeping the lid on the grisly box, for there was not enough water, wine, ale or hard cider in the colonies to wash that taste out of people's mouths.

"Are you somebody special 'round here?" Tom asked.

"Just a citizen," Matthew said, as they left Mrs. Garrow behind. "The same as anyone."

It was no surprise to Matthew that Hudson Greathouse had returned to New York, because he'd already known it to be true. After Nathaniel Powers had given him and Tom this wagon and some money to get back on, Matthew had turned off the Philadelphia Pike on the very same road by which Slaughter had directed his captors to Fort Laurens. Tom had remained silent as they'd passed the New Unity cemetery and Reverend Burton's cabin. On reaching the treacherous slope that led down to the ruins of the fort and beyond it the Seneca village, Matthew had seen that the wagon afforded him and Greathouse by High Constable Lillehorne was gone.

Matthew and Tom had left their wagon at the top of the hill and walked the rest of the way. Passing through Fort Laurens onto the path to the village, their progress was soon accompanied by the noise of cawing crows and barking dogs from the depths of the woods. When the first feathered brave finally showed himself, Matthew called out, "English!"

Again, there was a merry circus among the tribe as Matthew and Tom were escorted in, but after Matthew stuck out his chest and hollered, "English!" a few more times he was taken to a forbidding-looking, solemn man who at least could understand a little of the language and speak it enough to be understood in turn.

From what Matthew could gather, Greathouse had regained enough health to walk out on his own two legs, with the help of a hickory stick. In the time he'd been there, he had earned respect from the medicine sisters because, if Matthew comprehended this correctly, he had wrestled with Death in the wilderness beyond and returned grinning like a wolf. It seemed, from what the solemn Indian was able to make clear, that Gray Wolf had sat before the fire with the elders and drank a cup of rattlesnake blood with them, which much impressed everyone. Also, he was quite the good singer, which Matthew would never have guessed.

The Indians had previously brought in the two old nags that had pulled the wagon, intending-from what Matthew could gather-to kill them and use them as food for the dogs, but prevailing wisdom had dictated that the dogs should not suffer such an indignity. So they were allowed to graze and serve as playthings for the children until the day came that Gray Wolf was ready to leave. Then the horses were taken back up the hill, the wagon was pushed to the top and turned in the direction of the English world, and Gray Wolf set off for his home.

Matthew would have been interested to see how Gray Wolf had talked himself across the Raritan river ferry, having no money, but maybe he'd offered a song for his passage.

Before he'd left, Matthew had turned around and found that He Runs Fast had come out of the crowd. He Runs Fast spoke to the interpreter, and the question directed back to Matthew was: "Where son?"

"The Sky Road," Matthew said.

The interpreter didn't understand this. Matthew tried again: "Tell him his son did a great deed, his son was a true son, and now his son has gone to walk with the spirits."

The message was relayed and an answer given. "You say dead?" asked the brave, speaking for He Runs Fast. "Dead, yes."

He Runs Fast had been silent for a moment, staring at the ground. Then he spoke quietly, and the interpreter said, "He wish spirits make sense." But after saying that to the interpreter, He Runs Fast had turned away, and had broken into a trot in the direction of the lake.

Matthew's wagon had reached the Great Dock, where it appeared another merry circus was in progress, with a number of ships being loaded and unloaded. Crates and barrels were being carted up and down gangplanks, dock workers rushed around to the orders of their supervisors hollering through the sawed-off horns of bulls to amplify their voices, ropes were being coiled up, chains rattled, horses stamped nervously at their wagons and as usual the higglers were shouting to sell their roasted chestnuts, hot cider and corncakes.

"Always like this?" Tom asked.

"Pretty much." Matthew halted the team. "I'll be right back. I have to find the next ship leaving for England." He set the brake and got down, then went around to the rear of the wagon. In the back were two duffel bags that Powers had afforded them, holding a supply of clean clothes for their return trip to New York, and a smaller brown canvas bag.

Carrying the canvas bag, he walked along the dock until he saw a hook-nosed, bewigged man in a light gray suit who was marking in an account book with a pencil. He didn't know the individual, but reasoned he was one of the dock managers. He approached, got the man's attention from the confusion of commerce, and inquired about the ship he sought.

The man turned a page. "The Golden Eye. Care to sign up?"

"No, thank you. Where is it?"

"Two down, wharf nine. Leaving on the next tide. It'd be a grand adventure." "Thank you all the same."

Matthew set off for wharf number nine, the numerals painted in white on the pilings. He was almost there when he heard the quick clack-clack-clacking of shoes on the timbers behind him, nearly running, and before he felt the black cane with its silver lion's-head tap his shoulder none too gently he heard the sharp voice say, "Corbett! What the devil is this?"

Matthew stopped and turned to face Gardner Lillehorne, who wore a sea-blue suit, a tricorn the same aquatic hue, and a waistcoat striped blue-and-ebony. Behind him smirked Dippin Nack, who was always eager to watch Matthew receive a verbal thrashing.

"Where is the prisoner?" Lillehorne demanded. On the narrow, pallid face his carefully-trimmed mustache and goatee seemed to bristle.