Robert McCammon - Speaks the Nightbird

"Watch that smart mouth, 'fore I sew it up! Go on and get these gents some rum!"

"I ain't doin' nothin'!" the old man squalled. "I'm so wet I'm near swimmin' in my skin!"

"I believe I'd prefer ale," Woodward said, remembering how his earlier taste of Shawcombe's rum had almost burned his tongue to a cinder. "Or tea, if you have it."

"Myself the same," Matthew spoke up.

"You heard the gentlemen!" Shawcombe hollered at his hapless uncle. "Go on and fetch 'em some ale! Best in the house! Move, I said!" He took a threatening two steps toward the old man, lifting his tankard as if he were about to crown Abner's skull with it, in the process sloshing the foul-smelling liquor onto his guests. Matthew shot a dark glance at Woodward, but the older man just shook his head at the base comedy of the situation. Abner's soaked spirit collapsed before his nephew's ire and he scurried off to the storage pantry, but not without leaving a vile, half-sobbed oath lingering in his wake.

"Some people don't know who's the master of this house!" Shawcombe pulled a chair over and sat without invitation at their table. "You should pity me, gents! Everywhere I look, I have to rest my eyes on a halfwit!"

And a halfwit behind his eyes too, Matthew thought.

Woodward shifted in his chair. "I'm sure running a tavern is a troublesome business."

"That's God's own truth! Get a few travelers through here, but not many. Do some tradin' with the trappers and the redskins. 'Course, I only been here three, four months."

"You built this place yourself?" Matthew asked. He had noted a half-dozen sparkles of water dripping from the shoddy roof.

"Yep. Every log and board, done it all."

"Your bad back allowed you to cut and haul the logs?"

"My bad back?" Shawcombe frowned. "What're you goin' on about?"

"Your bad back that you injured lifting the heavy bales. Didn't you say you worked on the river Thames? I thought your injury prevented you from carrying anything like… oh… a trunk or two."

Shawcombe's face had become a chunk of stone. A few seconds passed and then his tongue flicked out and licked his lower lip. He smiled, but there was a hardness in it. "Oh," he said slowly, "my back. Well… I did have a partner. He was the one did the cuttin' and haulin'. We hired a few redskins too, paid 'em in glass beads. What I meant to say is… my back's in pain more when it's wet out. Some days I'm fit as a fiddle."

"What happened to your partner?" Woodward inquired.

"Took sick," came the quick response. His stare was still fixed on Matthew. "Fever. Poor soul had to give it up, go back to Charles Town."

"He didn't go to Fount Royal?" Matthew plowed on. His bloodhound's instinct had been alerted, and in the air hung the definite smell of deceit. "There's a doctor in Fount Royal, isn't there?"

"I wouldn't know. You asked, I'm answerin'. He went back to Charles Town."

"Here! Drink 'til your guts bust!" Two wooden tankards brimming with liquid were slammed down in the center of the table, and then Abner withdrew-still muttering and cursing- to dry himself before the hearth.

"It's a hard country," Woodward said, to break the tension between the other two men. He lifted his tankard and saw, distressingly, that an oily film had risen to the liquid's surface.

"It's a hard world," Shawcombe corrected, and only then did he pull his stare away from Matthew. "Drink up, gents," he said, uptilting the rum to his mouth.

Both Woodward and Matthew were prudent enough to try sipping the stuff first, and they were glad at their failure of courage. The ale, brewed of what tasted like fermented sour apples, was strong enough to make the mouth pucker and the throat clench. Matthew's eyes watered and Woodward was sure he felt prickles of sweat under his wig. Even so, they both got a swallow down.

"I get that ale from the Indians." Shawcombe wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "They call it a word means 'snakebite.'"

"I feel soundly bitten," Woodward said.

"Second swaller's not so bad. Once you get halfway done, you'll be a lion or a lamb." Shawcombe took another drink and sloshed the liquor around in his mouth. He propped his feet up on the table beside them and leaned back in his chair. "You don't mind me askin', what business do you have in Fount Royal?"

"It's a legal matter," Woodward answered. "I'm a magistrate."

"Ahhhhhh." Shawcombe nodded as if he understood perfectly. "Both of you wear the robes?"

"No, Matthew is my clerk."

"It's to do with the trouble there, am I right?"

"It is a matter of some concern, yes," Woodward said, not knowing how much this man knew about the events in Fount Royal, and unwilling to give him any more rope with which to bundle a tale for other travelers.

"Oh, I know the particulars," Shawcombe said. "Ain't no secret. Message riders been back and forth through here for the last couple a' months, they gimme the story. Tell me this, then: you gonna hang her, burn her, or cut her head off?"

"Firstly, the accusations against her must be proven. Secondly, execution is not one of my duties."

"But you'll be passin' the sentence, won't you? C'mon! What'll it be?"

Woodward decided the only way to get him off this route was to run the distance. "If she's found guilty, the penalty is hanging."

"Pah!" Shawcombe waved a disapproving hand. "If it was up to my quirt, I'd cut her head off and burn her to boot! Then I'd take them ashes and throw 'em in the ocean! They can't stand salt water, y'know." He tilted his head toward the hearth and hollered, "Hey, there! We're waitin' for our suppers!"

Maude snapped something at him that sprayed an arc of spittle from her mouth, and he yelled, "Get on with it, then!" Another swig of rum went down his hatch. "Well," he said to his guests' silence, "this here's how I see it: they ought to shut Fount Royal down, set fire to everything there, and call it quits. Once the Devil gets in a place, ain't no remedy but the flames. You can hang her or whatever you please, but the Devil's took root in Fount Royal now, and there ain't no savin' it."

"I think that's an extreme position," Woodward said. "Other towns have had similar problems, and they survived-and have flourished-once the situation was corrected."

"Well, I wouldn't want to live in Fount Royal, or any other place where the Devil's been walkin' 'round town like he's made hisself at home! Life's damn hard enough as it is. I don't want conjures bein' put on me while I'm sleepin'!" He grunted to emphasize his point. "Yessir, you talk pretty, but I'll wager you wouldn't care to turn down an alley and see ol' Scratch waitin' in the dark! So my advice to you, sir-lowly tavern-keeper that I am-is to cut the head off that Devil's whore and order the whole town burnt to the ground."

"I will not pretend that I know any answers to mysteries-holy or unholy," the magistrate said evenly, "but I do know the situation in Fount Royal is precarious."

"And damn dangerous too." Shawcombe started to say something else, but his open mouth expelled no words; it was obvious to Woodward and Matthew that his attention, made imprecise by strong drink, had been diverted from the matter of Fount Royal. He was admiring the gold-threaded waistcoat once more. "I swear, that's a fine piece a' work," he said, and dared to run his grimy fingers over the material again. "Where'd you get that? New York?"

"It… was a present from my wife. In London."

"I was married once'st. And once'st was enough." He gave a gruff, humorless laugh. His fingers continued to caress the fabric, much to Woodward's discomfort. "Your wife is in Charles Town?"

"No." Woodward's voice had thickened. "My wife… remains in London."

"Mine's at the bottom of the bloody Atlantic. She died on the passage, shit herself to death. They rolled her up and rolled her over. Y'know, a waistc't like this… how much is somethin' like this worth?"