Robert McCammon - Speaks the Nightbird

He fought his way through the rain in the direction of the tavern. The immediacy of his mission gave flight to his heels. He slipped and fell once again before he reached the door, and this time the lantern splashed into a puddle and the candle went out. Red mud covered him from head to toe. When he burst through the door, he saw that Shawcombe was no longer sitting at the table, though the tankard was still in its same position and the bitter-smelling pipe smoke yet wafted in the air. Matthew restrained the urge to shout a warning to the magistrate, and he got into the room and latched the door behind him. Woodward was still stretched out and soundly asleep.

Matthew shook the man's shoulders. "Wake up! Do you hear me?" His voice, though pinched with fright, was strong enough to pierce the veil of the magistrate's sleep. Woodward began to rouse himself, his eyelids opening and the bleary eyes struggling to focus. "We have to get out!" Matthew urged. "Right now! We've got to-"

"Good God in Heaven!" Woodward croaked. He sat upright. "What happened to you?"

"Just listen!" Matthew said. "I found bodies out there! Skeletons, buried behind the barn! I think Shawcombe's a murderer!"

"What? Have you lost your senses?" Woodward sniffed the younger man's breath. "It's that damn Indian ale, isn't it?"

"No, I found the bodies down in a hole! Shawcombe may have even killed Kingsbury and thrown him in there!" He saw the magistrate's expression of bewilderment. "Listen to me! We have to leave as fast as we-"

"Gentlemen?"

It was Shawcombe. His voice beyond the door made Matthew's blood go cold. There came the rap of knuckles on the wood. "Gentlemen, is all well?"

"I think he means to kill us tonight!" Matthew whispered to the magistrate. "He wants your waistcoat!"

"My waistcoat," Woodward repeated. His mouth was dry. He looked at the door and then back to Matthew's mud-splattered face. If anything was true in this insane world, it was that Matthew did not lie, nor was he servant to flights of fantasy. The shiny fear in the younger man's eyes was all too real, and Woodward's own heart began beating rapidly.

"Gents?" Now Shawcombe's mouth was close to the door. "I heard you talkin'. Any trouble in there?"

"No trouble!" Woodward replied. He put a finger to his lips, directing Matthew to be silent. "We're very well, thank you!"

There was a few seconds' pause. Then: "Clerk, you left the front door open," Shawcombe said. "How come you to do that?"

Now came one of the most terrible decisions of Isaac Woodward's life. His saber, as rusted and blunt as it was, remained in the wagon. He had neither a dirk nor a prayer to protect them. If Shawcombe was indeed a killer, the time had arrived for him to deliver death. Woodward looked at the room's single shuttered window and made the decision: they would have to leave everything behind-trunks, wigs, clothing, all of it-to save their skins. He motioned Matthew toward the window and then he eased up out of the damp straw.

"What's got your tongue, boy?" Shawcombe demanded. His voice was turning ugly. "I asked you a question!"

"Just a moment!" Woodward opened one of the trunks, lifted a pair of shirts, and put his hands on the golden-threaded waistcoat. He could not leave this, even with a murderer breathing down his neck. There was no time to work his feet into his boots nor grab his tricorn hat. Grasping the waistcoat, he straightened up and motioned for Matthew to unlatch the window's shutter.

Matthew did. The latch thunked out of its groove and he pushed the shutter open into the falling rain.

"They're comin' out the winda!" Uncle Abner yelled, standing just beneath it. Matthew saw he was holding a lantern in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.

Behind Woodward, there was a tremendous crash as the door burst inward. He twisted around, his face bleached of blood, as Shawcombe came across the threshold with a grin that showed his peglike teeth. Behind him, Maude carried a double candlestick that held two burning tapers, her white hair wild and her wrinkled face demonic.

"Oh, oh!" Shawcombe said mockingly. "Looky here, Maude! They're tryin' to get gone without payin' their bill!"

"What's the meaning of this outrage?" Woodward snapped, putting on a mask of anger to hide his true emotion, which was raw and naked terror.

Shawcombe laughed and shook his head. "Well," he said, lifting up his right hand and inspecting the mallet with which Maude had earlier crushed the black rat, "the meanin' of it, you bloody ass, is that you and the clerk ain't goin' nowhere tonight. 'Cept Hell, I reckon." His eyes found the prize. "Ahhhhh, there 'tis. Give it here." He thrust out his grimy left hand.

Woodward looked at the dirty fingers and then at the waistcoat he held so dearly. His gaze returned to Shawcombe's greedy hand; then Woodward lifted his chin and took a long breath. "Sir," he said, "you'll have to kill me to take it."

Shawcombe laughed again, more of a piggish grunt this time. "Oh, indeedy I'll kill you! " His eyes narrowed slightly. "I 'spected you'd go out like a mouse 'stead of a man, though. 'Spected you might give a squeal like that other little drunk titmouse did when I whacked him." He abruptly swung the mallet through the air past Woodward's face, and the magistrate flinched but did not retreat. "Gonna make me take it, huh? All-righty then, ain't no skin off my bum."

"They'll send someone else," Matthew spoke up. "From Charles Town. They'll send-"

"Another fuckin' magistrate? Let 'em, then! They keep sendin' 'em, I'll keep killin' 'em!"

"They'll send the militia," he said, which was not nearly as fearsome as it sounded and was probably untrue anyway.

"The militia!" Shawcombe's teeth gleamed in the murky light. "They're gonna send the militia all the way from Charles Town? But they didn't come lookin' for Kingsbury or none of them others I laid to rest, did they?" His grin began to twist into a snarl. He lifted the mallet up to a striking position. "I think I'm gonna kill you first, you skinny son of a bi-"

Woodward made his move.

He whipped the waistcoat sharply across Shawcombe's eyes and rushed the man, grabbing his wrist before the mallet could begin its descent. Shawcombe hollered a curse and Maude started shrieking, a sound that surely scared the wall-dwelling rats into flight. Shawcombe's left hand came up-a fist now instead of a palm-and smacked into the magistrate's chin. Woodward's head rocked back, his eyes clouding, but he kept his grip on Shawcombe's right wrist. 'Abner! Abner!" the old woman was yelling. Woodward fired his own blow at Shawcombe's face, a fist that grazed the man's cheekbone when Shawcombe saw it coming and twisted to avoid it. Then Shawcombe clamped his free hand around the magistrate's throat and squeezed as they fought in the little room, one trying to get the mallet into action and the other intent on restraining it.

They staggered back against the bed. Shawcombe's eye caught a movement to his side and he looked in that direction a second before Matthew slammed him in the head with one of the magistrate's boots he'd picked up from the floor. Another swing of the boot struck Shawcombe on the shoulder, and now Matthew could see a glint of desperation in the man's eyes. Shawcombe, who had realized that the magistrate was more formidable than he appeared, gave a roar like an enraged beast and drove his knee upward into Woodward's genitals. Woodward cried out and doubled over, clutching himself. Suddenly the mallet was free. Shawcombe lifted it high, a two-handed grip, in preparation to bash in the back of the other man's skull.

"No!" said Matthew. The boot was already swinging forward, and with every ounce of strength he could muster, Matthew hit Shawcombe across the bridge of the nose with its wooden heel.