The River of Souls (21 page)

“Your husband,” said Seth Lott to Quinn. “As a man of God, I am interested in your story. Of life and death, rebirth and resurrection. What happened to him, dear child?” 

Many of the men were listening, though some had started a game of cards to go along with their taste from the jug. Quinn shifted uneasily, perhaps taking note—as Matthew did—of the rapacious eyes upon her. 

“My Daniel died last summer,” she said, speaking to the reverend. “It was a hot summer. Dry, like this one. Thunder and lightning, but no rain. You know how it can happen here, all of a sudden. The lightning strikes, and a tree catches fire. Then another one, and one after that, and then the whole woods starts burnin’. It can happen so fast, if the wind is dry and the thicket’s parched. So it was last summer.” 

“Wildfires,” said Lott. “Yes, they do start quick. They move fast, until they burn themselves out. It’s God’s will.” 

Quinn nodded. “Maybe it is. But it’s a hard will, I think. God must be a long ways from this place. Must be thinkin’ of other things, and helpin’ other people.” 

“God helps those who help themselves,” said the preacher. “That’s His mysterious way.” 

Matthew wondered if—taking into consideration that Magnus had been more truthful than spiteful—Lott had dismissed his young pregnant mistress with those exact words. 

“Could be,” said Quinn, her expression impassive. “When that fire takes hold and starts movin’, nothin’ can hardly stop it. Animals run from it and get caught when the wind jumps the fire from place to place. Happens to men, too. Last summer fire was ragin’ toward Rotbottom. We ain’t much, but we’re
somewhere
. Got lives and houses and families just like in any place. My Daniel and some men went out to chop down trees and dig firebreaks, stop it from gettin’ any closer to town.” 

“I saw the smoke,” said Stamper. “Looked a long way off, though. Happens just about every year.” 

“You got the swamp and the river to keep Jubilee from burnin’,” Quinn went on. “We got our picks and shovels and wantin’ to keep what’s ours. Maybe twenty men went out there, to fight the fire that was comin’. Lightin’ up the sky at night like the Devil’s grin, and throwin’ sparks onto anything that would burn. And the wind pickin’ up, and moanin’, and rushin’ those flames on. Gettin’ closer all the time, gettin’ stronger, and startin’ to catch even the swamp trees alight. My Daniel went out there, to help save our town…and he was one of three who didn’t come back, when it was all said and done.” 

“Burned up, was he?” asked Stamper, indelicately. 

“Not burned,” the girl replied. “
Taken
.” 

“Taken?” Matthew frowned. “How do you mean?” 

“By the beast,” said Quinn. “It came out of the smoke. Nearest man saw its shadow…couldn’t tell much of it…but it fell on my Daniel, and he was gone.” She reached out and put her hand on Matthew’s. “You said before you left me…you had a feelin’…a
fear
that day. But you looked in my face, and you told me how much you loved me, and you said, ‘Quinn…don’t you worry, ’cause I’ll be back.’ Said the child I was carryin’ was too important for distance to come between us…not the distance between our town and that fire, or the distance between life and death. Don’t you remember that?” 

Matthew was silent, but he felt an arrow pierce his heart as two tears ran from Quinn’s eyes in her terribly-composed and solemn face. It was a mask, he thought, that hid tremendous suffering, more than a young girl could stand without creating a desperate fiction. 

“You’re Daniel, returned to me,” she said. “I
know
it. I feel his spirit in you. And maybe you don’t remember everything of us…how things were…but as he gets stronger, he’ll tell you. And someday, maybe soon, you’ll remember all about Daniel Tate, and you’ll let Matthew Corbett go…because he’s just a suit of skin over the heart of my husband.” Her hand squeezed his, and she managed the saddest of smiles that drove Matthew’s arrow deeper. “I can’t ever let you go again…and we can have another child, Daniel. I’m so sorry…so sorry…I was so tore up I lost our baby. I just cried our baby’s life away, and for that I am so sorry.” She leaned toward him, her eyes glistening. “It was a boy. They told me, before they wrapped him in white linen and buried him. You remember that white linen, Daniel? For our weddin’? And how much you paid for it at the store in Jubilee?” 

“White linen is expensive,” was Stamper’s comment. “Pity to bury somethin’ as expensive as that.” 

Someone across the fire laughed, and Matthew saw Quinn wince as if struck by a slap across the face, and he took hold of his short-bladed sword that had likely belonged to a man now beheaded and lost to the world, and with every ounce of strength he possessed he struggled to his feet and stood in the leaping firelight with the young madwoman at his feet. 

“One more word of disrespect to
her
,” said Matthew to Baltazar Stamper, “and I’ll run you through or die trying.” 

“Let’s test that out, boy,” answered Caleb Bovie, who reached beside himself to grasp a wicked-looking sword that had probably twice the blade of Matthew’s weapon. He stood up, grinning and wild-eyed. His chest swelled out as he inhaled the swamp air, bugs and all. “Muldoon,” he said, “I’ll be on you ’fore you cock that pistol, so if I were you I’d just stand real still.” 

“Don’t need to cock it.” Magnus held it up to use as a club. He took a single step toward Bovie. “Come on, let’s see if you’ve got any brains in that damn ugly head.” 

Before anyone else could move, something moved in the thicket beyond. 

A torchlight could be seen approaching. “Hold your tempers and everyone keep their brains in their heads,” said Stamper, as he got to his feet. Most of the other men stood up as well, and brandished firearms or swords toward the advancing unknown. 

“
Who comes forth?”
Stamper called. A faint tremor in the man’s heavy-lunged voice told Matthew that the tales of this haunted swamp must not be fully lost on even the hardest of these men. 

There was a few seconds’ pause, in which the crackling of the fire and the humming of insects were the only sounds. 

Then a voice came: “
Stamper?
” 

“I know myself, but who are
you
?” 

More movement sounded in the thicket. The torchlight spread wider. A few of the men cocked their muskets. “Stay your triggers!” Stamper hissed. “I think I recognize that voice.” He spoke to the distance again: “
We have some nervous men with guns in here, gentlemen
!
Kindly tell us who you are
!” 

“Oh, for the sake of Christ!” replied the man, much nearer now and still coming. “It’s Griff Royce and Joel Gunn! Hold your fire!” 

Matthew and Magnus exchanged glances. Bovie’s attention, a short-lived beast, had turned from the approach of violence to the approach of the two Green Sea ‘captains.’ Quinn stood up, but grasped onto Matthew’s arm as if fearful the spirit of Daniel would again fly away from the body it supposedly inhabited. 

In another moment the two men appeared through the tangle of vines and brush, both of them looking hollow-eyed and weary under the torchlight. Gunn was carrying the torch. Both men were armed with muskets and had knives in sheaths tucked into their trousers at the waists. They came into the circle of the fire, as the other men visibly relaxed and lowered their weapons. 

“No ears yet?” Stamper asked. 

“Not yet, but we’ll get ’em,” Royce answered. He and Gunn scanned the assembly, and both of them stopped at Matthew, Quinn and Magnus. “
Well,
” said Royce, in a voice that held a knife’s edge of tension. “What do we have
here
?” The pock-marked face with its square chin and high cheekbones showed the hint of a cruel—perhaps cunning—smile. The green eyes seemed full of flames. “The young man from Charles Town…Matthew Corbett, isn’t it? Magnus Muldoon the love-struck hermit and…
who
is this?” If his eyes indeed
were
full of flames, the fires reached toward Quinn. “A beauty in rags?” he asked. “Or a ragged beauty? From Rotbottom, I’m thinkin’?” 

Gunn had no interest in Royce’s focus of attention; he was fixed on the sight of Matthew Corbett. “
You!
” he said, with a curl of contempt on his fleshy lips. “Not enough that you came in where you weren’t wanted, you had to come
here
?” He saw the bloody shirt. “Looks like you paid a price for it, too! I could’ve told you not to come on this hunt!” 

“And Joel would’ve been
right
, Corbett,” said Royce, as he walked forward to stand only a few feet away from Matthew. “Dangerous place out here. Things can happen mighty fast.” He eyed the gory shirt. “I see you found that out already. What hit you?” 

“Boy got himself taken by the Dead in Life,” Stamper supplied. “Accordin’ to him they came up under some boats and took quite a few Jubilee men. Boy caught an arrow but kept his head.” 

“Bad wound, looks to be,” Royce went on. “Best head back to the Green Sea, you and Muldoon both.” 

“I’ll live,” said Matthew, grimly. He looked at the cloth bandages on Royce’s right forearm, where the medical compress had been yesterday. To his dismay, he saw that both of Royce’s forearms were scratched and bloody, and so too were Gunn’s. If there was any evidence of scratches from Sarah Kincannon’s fingernails, they were lost amid the others. “You went through some thorns?” 

“A heavy patch. There was no easy way around.” Royce held Matthew’s stare for a few seconds, and then he visibly dismissed the younger man and turned toward Stamper. “We’re not too far ahead. Saw your fire back here. Knew it couldn’t have been the skins, they wouldn’t be that stupid, but we had to come take a look. No offense meant.” 

“None taken,” said Stamper. “But why’d you two leave the river?” 

“We found their boat,” said Gunn, who kept spearing Matthew with his hard blue eyes. “Tried to drag it out and hide it, but the mud told the tale.” 

“They’re on foot now,” Royce said. “They had a choice to make. Either swim back across and head through heavy swamp, or go northeast through the woods to the grasslands. I think they’ll likely take the easier way.” 

“May I ask this question?” Seth Lott ventured, his voice mannered and quiet. “Where do they think they’re
going
? To freedom from the crime? Where would they ever hope to find refuge out there?” He motioned broadly toward the wilderness. 

“Wild animals run ’cause it’s in their nature,” Royce answered. He had spied the snake upon the stone, and kneeling down he drew his knife and began to carve himself some meat. “They don’t know where they’re goin’. All they’re tryin’ to do is run from justice. And that damn buck Abram…drawin’ his blood into it, and makin’ them pay too.” He took a stick from one of the others, pushed the chunk of snakemeat upon its sharpened end and began to roast his meal. “I’ll tell you, if I had my way that damn Granny Pegg would be swingin’ from a rope right now, too. Seems to me she should’ve stopped Abram from runnin’, should’ve told him to face up to what he’d done. Saved us all a lot of trouble.” 

Matthew couldn’t help it. It came out of him before he could stop it, and maybe it was because of his loss of blood or weariness or lightheadedness, but he spoke the words: “Mr. Royce…how many knives do you own?” 

Royce looked up from the business of snake-cooking. His expression was untroubled. “Three. How many do
you
own?” 

“None. But I was wondering…have you lost a knife lately?” 

“Not that I know of.” Royce gave Gunn a quick, dark glance before the calm expression returned. “Matthew…can I call you such?…you ought to sit down before you fall down. I think the swamp’s workin’ on that wound right now.” 

“I was wondering,” Matthew went on, in spite of himself, “where Abram might have gotten the knife he used to kill Sarah.” He paused to let that circle Royce’s head. “I mean to say…could Abram have stolen one of
your
knives? He had to get the knife from somewhere. Or from
you
, Mr. Gunn.” Matthew turned his face toward the other captain. “My question is…how did Abram get hold of that knife?” 

“Easy answer.” Royce’s teeth began to tear at the meat. “A servant in the big house likely stole a knife and got it to him. Those girls are always stealin’ things to take down to the quarter. One of ’em slipped a knife up her skirt and Abram got hold of it. That’s how it happened.” 

“Bet Abram slipped somethin’ else up the bitch’s skirt in exchange,” said Gunn, and he laughed a little too loudly and harshly, which a few of the others echoed with dumb humor. 

“A lady’s present, gentlemen,” Stamper cautioned, with a sly grin. 

“Where?” asked Bovie. “All I see is Rotbottom trash.” He aimed his eyes not at Quinn, but at Matthew. “Cracked in the head, too. Thinks this boy here is her dead husband come back to life. Ain’t that a crazy thing, Royce?” 

Royce made a noise of affirmation while he consumed the snakemeat. 

Matthew thought he should say something in Quinn’s defense, yet he knew not what to say. Suddenly Quinn let go of his arm and stepped forward, and she lifted her chin in defiance of the rough-hewn men around the fire and she said, “I pity you.” 

The three words, quietly spoken, brought down silence. 

“Where are your women?” she asked them. “Where are your wives? Why aren’t they here with you? Because you didn’t want ’em, or because they don’t care whether you come back home or not? They know what’s said about this river…this swamp. They must not love you very much, to let you come out here…and them not with you, to see you through this. Well, I’m here with Daniel…” She hesitated, struggling inwardly. “
Matthew
,” she corrected. “And I am going to see him through. You will never know what
real
love is. You will never touch it, or hear it spoken in a voice. That’s why I pity you…every one of you poor wretched men.” 

To this, one of the men across the fire—Matthew thought it was the red-haired Morgan—lifted his leg and let utter a reply from between his buttocks, which brought a gale of laughter from the gallery. But the laughter did not last very long, and afterward the silence seemed as heavy as a gravestone.