Autumn (10 page)

             
Arabel felt a sudden uneasiness, as if furtive eyes were observing her. She glanced around but she could not see anyone. The crow turned its head, looking as well, and Whipsie kept pace as they turned a corner on the path. In the pocket of her riding habit Arabel carried the red stones from Eli’s father. Her fingers found the stones and she wrapped her hand around them. Arabel felt instantly safer and she kept her eyes to the path in front of her, wanting only to arrive at her destination and hoping for a further respite from the grey swirling energy, the man with the dead grey eyes. 

             
Ahead was a small gully and Whipsie jumped it easily. The crow flew off of Arabel’s shoulder and circled above the racing horse. Arabel watched its flight uneasily. The crow, whom Arabel had decided to call Ira, flew ahead of them, scouting out their path. Whipsie glanced back and Arabel patted her neck reassuringly.

             
“Let’s just get there,” Arabel said softly, keeping her tone and her energy as calm as possible, despite the fact that her heart had begun to race and a slick thread of fear had worked its way into her solar plexus.

             
The trees here in this part of the forest seemed to cast an air of desolation to the environment. Their great branches blocked out the view of the sky and their massive trunks hampered Arabel’s desire to urge Whipsie to accelerate her pace. Arabel realized she couldn’t ensure safety if she hastened the pace and she resigned herself to arriving in Magpie Moor soon, even if it wasn’t as soon as she would like.

             
Whipsie seemed to have picked up the fear bug after all, despite Arabel’s attempts to bury her unease. The roan was sensitive; she seemed to lose some of her sure-footedness and Arabel felt concern for the horse pricking her uneasily. Above them, the crow circled, dipping and swooping as they moved quickly toward the Rosewood Inn. 

             
The woods seemed to close in on Arabel and the sensation was one of suffocation. There were no ghostly fingers indenting her tender throat but the choking feeling persisted. Arabel could breathe, but not as deeply as she would like and her lungs burned with the desire for greater oxygen intake.

             
Arabel clutched the red stones and a bit of an old nursery rhyme entered her mind. “Safe at last, danger is past, on and on we go!”

             
The old chant from Arabel’s early school days rang within her head, as if a thousand naughty children were singing it, shouting it, with high piercing voices and a menacing undertone. Arabel whispered the words to the wind and felt a sliver of the tension abate, as if the old childhood refrain held some magic in its lyrics, some safety she could call upon instinctively. The stones were warm in Arabel’s hand, Ira landed back upon her shoulder and Whipsie carried them forward into the grey landscape.

             
Out of the corner of her eye, Arabel spotted a flash of bright yellow, completely impossible to miss in the otherwise muted environment. Arabel gazed speculatively at the yellow object; it seemed to be moving. She slowed Whipsie down to have a better look and could see very clearly now that a person was attempting to move stealthily within the densely treed thicket. The yellow colour was screaming-out-loud, however, so stealth seemed wasted upon the otherwise furtive figure.

             
Arabel could see it was a man, a small sort of man, wearing a bright yellow rain-sheath and carrying a big, black hobo bag. From the distance, she could make out no further details and Arabel was unclear what to make of the man. She was also undecided as to whether she ought to make contact or keep to herself and continue moving.

             
Arabel’s decision was taken from her as the man spied her upon the horse and he shouted out to her and began to wave one of his bright, yellow clad arms in a frantic greeting.

             
“Hello!” he yelled at her. “Miss, please stop!”

             
Arabel slowed Whipsie to a canter and moved toward the man, keeping sure to maintain a proper amount of distance so she could flee easily, should flight be warranted. Arabel could see the man was limping now; he must have injured his foot as he markedly favoured his right one over his left. The man’s dirt streaked face gave him a look of a sad and lonely tramp and his eyes were clouded with an uneasiness that took Arabel’s breath away.

             
“Thank you for stoppin’, young miss! I’ve injured me foot and need to get to Magpie Moor; any chance you’d be so kind as to help out a stranger?”

             
The tramp’s voice was more melodious than Arabel would have figured and his manner was subdued, almost reverential. Arabel could see the pain pulsing overtop his head and she watched the pulsing for a moment, transfixed by the odd, orange cloud hovering over him. Arabel felt no dangerous energy emanating from the stranger and she did not think he meant her harm.

             
“Who are you and where are you coming from?” Arabel queried.

             
“My name’s Jonty Governs and I’ve just left the Gypsies down at Ravenswood Glen,” the small man said and Arabel realized she was not the least bit surprised that it would be she to come across the wanted thief.

             
“You’re been missing for the last few months and are wanted for questioning,” Arabel pronounced and Jonty nodded solemnly, casting his eyes downward, shutting them briefly.

             
“I never hurt that young woman,” he said softly. “I never met her in me life!”

             
Arabel stared into his eyes, hard. “Why do they think you murdered her?”

             
“I dunno,” he replied miserably. “I’ve never been one for violence, y’know?”

             
“You’re a ‘shuckster’ I believe, is the term,” Arabel said, recalling the words Eli’s parents had used to describe Jonty and his misdeeds.

             
Jonty hung his head. “Miss, I haven’t always been the most honest man about town but I never killed no one! I’m a salesman, I am, just trying to make a livin’ in hard times.”

             
“Why are you running then? Why don’t you stay to answer their questions? Get this all settled,” Arabel asked.

             
“Well, miss, I ain’t never killed no one, like I said, but y’know, there might be a score or two some folks want to settle with me and I reckon I’d best just leave town rather than stay and get lynched.”

             
Strangely, Arabel believed him. This man seemed to have no small amount of fear running through his veins and she sensed that an unabashed cowardice filled his body. Jonty did not seem to have the evil core necessary to commit murder or rape. It was clear that Jonty was a small time shuckster, a snake oil salesman, a petty thief and criminal. He did not share the dark energy force of the grey eyed man.

             
“Come on, then,” Arabel said and offered him a hand up onto Whipsie’s back.

             
Ira, the crow, cawed excitedly, and turned around on Arabel’s shoulder so that it could keep its beady eyes fixed squarely upon Jonty.

             
“Thank you, miss, thank you! And where might you be headed?” The relief poured off of the thief in tangible waves.

             
“We’re off to Magpie Moor,” Arabel replied,” and don’t even think of pulling any tomfoolery,” she continued glibly, “or my crow will poke out your eyes!”

             
Jonty shuddered and Ira let out another good natured caw to second the threat. Arabel smiled to herself as she urged Whipsie back onto the path toward Magpie Moor. Arabel had the definite feeling that events were quickly lining up to reach some grand conclusion. Although too many details were still obscured by unknown factors, at least the path to clarity somehow seemed less shrouded within the mists of secrecy.

             
Arabel could sense the energy of Lady X, or Alice-May Marpole, as they called her, hovering around her. Arabel swore the ghost spoke to her; she seemed to call out softly, “Hurry, hurry,” and Arabel urged Whipsie forward into the forest, heeding the dead girls call.

             
Jonty Governs was a weasely coward, Arabel decided.

             
After spending the last two hours on horseback with the man, she’d come to a fairly solid conclusion as to what defined his character. Arabel found that despite the bright, sunny yellow of his jacket, the man himself was definitely beige of personality and black of honour. There might have been a core of honest decency deep inside of him somewhere, but if there was, it was buried so firmly under years of self-deceptive behaviour and layers of self aggrandizement that Arabel could not sense it there at all.

             
Jonty was a showman, a joker, a ne’er do well, however, a murderer he was not.

             
“I only took the gold and the horses so’s I could care for me ailing mother,” he was saying now and Arabel imagined that if she turned around he would be wringing a hanky in supposed distress, while his eyes told a sharper story.

             
“She passed only last month,” he continued, his voice trailing off sadly for effect.

             
“Who’s been hiding you?”

             
“Hiding me? Oh, d’you mean, where’ve I been stayin’? Well, I was at mum’s mostly-“

             
“No, you weren’t,” Arabel interrupted bluntly. “You were missing, vanished, and your mother was questioned. In fact, you might be pleased to note, she was very much alive last week.”

             
Jonty let out a huge cry of turmoil as Ira, the crow, pecked at him sharply.

             
“Call off your crow!” Jonty cried, shielding his face from the angry bird. “Call off the damn bird!”

             
“Ira!” Arabel spoke firmly. “Lay off, now,” and the bird settled back complacently upon her shoulder. She gave a quick stroke to its ruffled feathers.

             
“I’ll tell the truth, I swear,” Jonty said now, wiping his brow with his sleeve, “Just keep that thing away from me,” he motioned to Ira and Arabel smiled to herself.

             
“I had me a caravan hidden down by Potter’s Creek, just to the north side there, away from the Priory. No one comes down there much and I’d been fillin’ up on supplies all through spring.  I got buyers lined up for the horses I took from the Gypsies and once I’d unloaded ‘em, it was time for Jonty Governs to retire. Yup, that’s right, I thought t’ wait it out, just wait ‘til the Gypsies forgot what I looked like and I could pass meself off as someone else in town. ‘Course, that was before old Nick Chauncer saw me.”

             
“Who’s Nick Chauncer?” Arabel questioned.

             
“Oh, Nicky and me, we go a-ways back. He worked with me on the magic show, mostly crowd control, settin’ up, calmin’ ‘em down if they got too hepped up, that sort of thing. He was good with people, a fellow Gypsy. They trusted him, so he’d go into the crowd and talk me up, y’ know, make ‘em think I was better than I actually was.”

             
“I can see where you might require some help with that,” Arabel said darkly but her barb was lost on Jonty.

             
“Nicky spotted me when I was washin’ up in the creek,” Jonty continued, his voice turning slightly bitter. “He knew what I’d done a course, and he wanted money to keep quiet. I told him there wasn’t any t’ be had. He threatened to go to the Gypsy council or over to Chief Constable Bartlin. I asked him why he’d throw over a friend and he said he reckoned I weren’t no friend of his.”

             
“What did you do to alienate him?”

             
“Well, then, here’s the rub, I just dunno. When I asked him, he took a good swing at me; so I ran.” Jonty chuckled, without any humour, remembering. “He never did have very good lungs so I outran him, easy, and he hadn’t seen the caravan. But the jig was up and I knew I’d have t’ find a new spot for meself.”

             
Arabel saw the lights of the Rosewood Inn in the distance and she wondered what to do with Jonty.

             
“What were you doing in the forest where I found you? And where’ve you been staying since Nick saw you?”
             

             
“I’ve been in Magpie Moor with me caravan but yesterday I went to see me mum,” Jonty touched Arabel’s shoulder briefly, entreating her. “I swear! And then I heard a second girl’d been found dead and me name was comin’ up. I took leave, straight-a-ways, but the horse went lame and I stumbled over some damn root and hurt me foot. I was sure they’d find the damn horse and know it was one of the stolen ones, so I left her.”

             
Jonty paused in his story, and glanced around at the Rosewood Inn. “And here we are, missy, back where I needs to go. You can let me go now, I’ve told you all I know and I never killed that girl, I’ll swear to it.”