The River of Souls (25 page)

Suddenly Matthew’s hand was on the next door, and opening it displayed the Prussian swordsman Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren, he of the blond hair, gray teeth and deadly command of the rapier. He whom Matthew had bested, broken his left wrist and sent him reeling into a fishpond. He who had seemingly vanished from the world, and was yet out there somewhere in the shadows. In this instance, however, Dahlgren had the use of both arms and was coming at him, teeth bared, with a rapier. Matthew slammed the door in his face. 

The third door showed a wagon travelling under a sky threatening rain, and a man with a patchwork beard sitting in the back with his eyes closed, his arms and legs confined by irons. A fly landed at the corner of the man’s mouth. The man did not move, nor did his eyes open. The fly began to crawl across the lower lip, unhurriedly, and when it reached the center the man’s mouth moved in a blur. There was a quick sucking sound, and then Matthew heard the faintest
crunch
. The eyes of the killer Tyranthus Slaughter opened and fixed upon Matthew, and when the man grinned there was a bit of crushed fly on one of his front teeth. 

Matthew also slammed that door. 

The fourth door opened upon a dining hall, and sitting in a chair before the assembled guests was a man who was not a man, but appeared to be an automaton, a wiry-looking construction of a man dressed in a white suit with gold trim and whorls of gold upon the suit jacket and trouser legs. It wore a white tricorn, also trimmed in gold, white stockings and black shoes with gold buckles. The hands were concealed in flesh-colored fabric gloves, and a flesh-colored fabric cowl covered the face and head yet showed the faintest impression of nose-tip, cheekbones and eye-sockets. With a sound of meshing gears and the rattling of a chain the figure began to move, the head turning…slowly…left to right and back again, the right hand rising up to press against the chin as if measuring a thought, and then from the bizarre figure issued a tinny voice with a hint of a rasp and whine,
One of you has been brought here to die
. 

Matthew closed that door firmly, but with an unfirm hand. 

He stood staring at the fifth door. 

Behind that one…what? He feared that one, perhaps more than any other. Behind it was…something he had never known before, something that perhaps he could not survive. Something that perhaps would remove Matthew Corbett from life itself, and distance him from everything and everyone he had ever known and loved. 

That door…the fifth one…he could not bear to open, yet it must be opened because he realized it was his destiny. 

He reached for it and took the handle. He had no choice but to open it, and see what was ahead for him…if he could indeed take the sight of his future and not lose who and what he was in the present. 

He began to open the door. 

Wisps of smoke drifted out. He smelled the smoke, very strongly. 

“Matthew? Matthew?” 

He opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground, with his head on Quinn’s lap, and the odor of smoke was not confined to the realm of dreams. Indeed, smoke had drifted into the storm-dark woods and moved sinuously around them like spirits of the dead. 

“Matthew?” Quinn said again, shaking his uninjured shoulder. 

And he realized then that they were not alone. 

He sat up. 

Standing not twenty feet away in the thicket were three black men. Two were younger, and supported an older man between them. The older man, who had a pate of close-cropped white hair and a frizz of white beard, looked to be in pain; he was putting no weight on his left leg. The elder was thin, with a seamed face that looked as if it had suffered many hardships, but the two younger men were thicker-bodied and fit-looking. One was bald, with heavy eyebrows and a long chin adorned by a dark patch of beard, while the other had a high forehead, high cheekbones and expressive eyes that also held the darkness of suffering. The elder man wore brown trousers and a gray shirt, his clothing tattered by thorns. The other two were dressed in similar brown trousers, both with patched knees. The bald one was wearing a dark green shirt and the other man a white shirt stained with sweat. All their clothes were much the worse for wear, having been torn at by the claws of the wilderness. 

They stood staring at Matthew and Quinn, as if trying to decide what to do. Tendrils of smoke crawled through the woods around them, and not too far behind them the smoke was thick enough to blur out the trees. 

Matthew spoke. “Which one of you is Abram?” 

They didn’t answer, nor did they move. 

“Mars,” Matthew said to the elder, “I’ve spoken to your grandmother. Help me stand up, please,” he requested of Quinn, and she did. He wavered on his feet but found his balance. “You have to go back to the Green Sea. Abram?” 

The man with the expressive, suffering eyes said, “Yes.” 

“I’ve come out here to find you. There’s a group of men looking for you…all of you. Among them Royce and Gunn. They don’t want you to tell the Kincannons what you know. If they can, I think they’ll try to kill you.” 

“Likely try,” said Abram. 

“Who’re
you
, suh?” Mars asked, pain etched on his face. “Out here with a
girl
?” 

“My name is Matthew Corbett. I’m from Charles Town, I was nearby and I heard the bell ringing last night. This is Quinn Tate, from Rotbottom.”
My wife
? he almost said. 

“Where are the other men?” Tobey asked. “How many?” 

“They’ve gone on ahead. Seven in number, but one of them knows the truth too and he’s here as I am…to prevent any more killing.” 

“The
truth
?” Abram asked, his eyes narrowing. “What truth do you know?” 

“I
believe
,” Matthew said, “that Griffin Royce was jealous of the attention Sarah was showing you. I believe he thought something else was going on between you in the barn. She was teaching you to
read
, is that correct?” 

Abram nodded. “Against the law. Against the law for me to be out of the quarter and in that barn, too. A whippin’ offense. Miss Sarah said she’d protect me. Cap’n Royce told me to stay away from her, or he’d fix things. Hurt one of the women, he said, and I’d be to blame for it. I told Miss Sarah…but she say, not gonna let Cap’n Royce tell her what to do. Couldn’t tell Massa Kincannon, though. Against the law, all of it.” 

“Mrs. Kincannon knows all that now,” Matthew said. “I believe also that at the Green Sea I can prove Royce killed Sarah and left that knife in her for you to pull out. He knew you’d be walking to the quarter that way. Then he waited and watched. He
wanted
you to run, to look guilty. But what are you doing
here
? Why are you doubling back?” 

“Pap broke his ankle, happened last night,” Tobey answered. “Figured there’d be men behind us, but didn’t know how far they’d follow. We talked ’bout it. Ran into a fire up ahead, saw trees burnin’. Wind’s movin’ it toward the river. Heard the Soul Cryer last night, too.” He had an expression of anguish on his face. “We don’t know where we’re goin’, suh. We thought we could run away…but there ain’t no runnin’ away. River of Souls leads on and on, but it don’t take you nowhere…you just get more lost. Granny tried to help us, said for us to get away and keep goin’…but where do you go, when there ain’t nowhere? She was wrong, suh. So we talked ’bout it, and we thought on it. With Pap’s hurt…and with what’s out there…we’re goin’ back. Face what has to be faced. That’s the all of it.” 

Matthew reasoned that Stamper would read their trail and see the slaves had turned back, if he hadn’t already. He didn’t care to wait for Royce and Gunn. Smoke was drifting through the woods and was caught like mist in the tops of the trees, but yet there was no sight nor sound of a moving fire. “We have fresh water,” he said, motioning to Quinn’s water gourd. “Have some if you like. Then we’ll start back.” 

Quinn took the gourd’s strap off her shoulder, uncorked it and offered it to the three men as they came forward. Mars winced with pain as he was supported between his sons, for his injured foot snagged on the brush in spite of their efforts to lift him up. He was indeed leaving a clear trail for Stamper to follow. 

“Can’t figure
you
, suh,” said Mars to Matthew after he’d had his drink. “You say you can prove Abram didn’t kill Sarah? How?” 

“Leave that to me when we get there.” 

“Look hardly able to walk y’self, forgive me for sayin’. All that blood, you took a bad injury.” 

“I’ll survive it. Royce and Gunn found your boat. We’ve got to get back to it. Can you find the way?” Matthew was asking both Abram and Tobey. 

“Best way is to get to the river and follow it down,” said Abram. “We go southwest, we’ll likely get there in maybe an hour or two.” 

Matthew nodded. It was going to be slow travelling, with Mars’s broken ankle. He took a drink of water from the gourd and so did Quinn, who then corked it again and put its strap back around her shoulder. She gave Matthew an encouraging smile, and he had the thought that she was a ragged angel, come to see him through this ordeal. “Ready?” he asked the runaways, and Abram pointed out the direction they should go. Matthew started off, with Quinn right behind him and the two sons helping their father struggle on. 

“There’s the fire,” said Stamper, as smoke swirled around himself and the other six men. A line of trees was ablaze about a half-mile ahead, and the dry wind that had picked up was blowing it in their direction. As they watched, they could see hungry flames jumping from tree to tree. “Lightnin’ strike either last night or early this mornin’,” he said. “That timber’s dry, gonna flare up in a hurry.” 

The smoke was thickening, burning both the eyes and the lungs. Bovie coughed some of it out and said, “Trail keeps on goin’ that way. What’ll we do, Stamper?” 

“I don’t like bein’ out here with a fire comin’. That damn thing jumps, it’ll get all around you. Could be the skins turned in another direction.” He looked past Magnus at Royce. “What do you say, Griff?” 

“I say we follow the trail. If it turns, we’ll see it.” 

“Keep goin’,” was Foxworth’s advice. “Come too far not to get ’em.” 

“Fire’s movin’ this way,” said Stamper, a muscle working in his jaw. “Could be it’s already burned their trail up, we’ll never find ’em.” 

“We won’t find ’em by standin’ here.” Royce looked up at the dark gray sky. “Maybe it’ll rain, put the flames out. Come on,” he said impatiently, “we’ve got to move.” 

“Don’t like that fire,” Barrows said, angling his good eye at the others. “Wind’s pickin’ up, too. Not sure we ought to—” 

He was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying, off to their right. Instantly all firearms were aimed in the direction of the dense thicket, but nothing alive could be seen in there. The crying noise went on for perhaps five or six seconds, ending with what sounded like a harsh sob of despair. 

There was silence, but for the noise of the distant fire eating its way through the wilderness. All the men were frozen in place. Then Magnus heard something coming through the woods…something big and heavy. “Listen!” he said, and heard his own voice tremble: “
Listen!
” 

Whatever it was, it was crashing through the underbrush and coming fast. Royce retreated, standing behind and to Gunn’s left with his musket raised and ready. Foxworth backed up until his spine met a tree. Barrows’ single eye had widened. Stamper and Bovie both stood their ground, as smoke swept past and the devil’s dry wind blew toward the River of Souls. 

Magnus’ finger was on the trigger of the rusty pistol. He hoped it wouldn’t explode in his hand…but whatever was coming, it was going to need more than a pistol ball to stop it. 

From the dark, smoke-swept woods burst into the torchlight not just one beast, but three. 

Magnus fired. So too did Gunn, Barrows and Stamper, nearly at the same time. Bovie, armed with only the sword, let out a holler and slashed at the first creature that came through…a large buck with a spread of antlers, followed by two does. In the clouds of blue gunsmoke, the buck staggered under the impact of the shots but kept going past the men.