The River of Souls (27 page)

“Bootprints over here!” Stamper said, motioning to the prints in the mud. “Five people. One lamed, for sure. Can’t be more than a half-mile ahead.” 

“I’ve been holdin’ my guts,” said Bovie, with a pained expression. “I’ve gotta take a shit!” He put down his sword and musket, opened his trousers, pushed them down to his ankles and squatted. “Ahhhh!” he said. “Oh my Christ, what a—” 

He let loose a scream that might have been heard in Charles Town, and suddenly he was scrambling through the mud with his trousers still down. “Somethin’ bit me!” he shouted. “Got me on the balls!” 

Magnus saw the ugly brown snake writhing away into the high weeds from where Bovie had rudely disturbed its place of rest. Water moccasin, he thought. Bovie had seen it too, and now he struggled to his feet and pulled his trousers up and looked at Stamper with a fear-blanched face. “Bastard bit me, Stamper! It ain’t a poison one though, is it? Say it ain’t a poison one!” 

“Cottonmouth,” said Royce, before Stamper could say otherwise. 

“Wasn’t no cottonmouth!” Bovie shouted angrily. “It was a black snake, wasn’t no cottonmouth!” 

There was a moment of silence, and then Stamper said, “We ought to be movin’ on.” 

“It was a black snake!” Bovie insisted. “Got me on the damned balls, but I’ll be all right. I’ll be all right, won’t I, Stamper?” 

“Let’s keep movin’,” Stamper replied, and he went on. 

“I’m feelin’ all right!” Bovie’s eyes were too wide and too glassy. “Stings a little bit, that’s all!” He retrieved his weapons and started after Stamper, with Barrows following, then Royce and Magnus. “I’m gonna be fine!” he announced to the others, with a crooked grin. “Laugh about it when we get back!” 

Magnus thought that there was nothing funny about being bitten on the balls by a venomous cottonmouth, and even now the poison was moving in Bovie’s blood. But he said nothing else, and he kept his head down and watched where he stepped because there might be nests of the things in here somewhere. 

“You ever know anybody got bit on the balls by a black snake?” Bovie asked, his question aimed at anyone who might answer. “Damn me, if that won’t make a story to earn me a drink or two! Stings a little bit. Nothin’ bad.” 

They continued to follow the bootprints, as the swamp deepened and the pools of gray water spread. The smoke was following them, floating through the brush and hanging from the trees. “Hot in here!” Bovie said. “Damn, I’m sweatin’. My balls are swole up, Stamper! God A’mighty, that black snake got me good!” 

“Yep, must’ve,” said Stamper, staring straight ahead. 

“I’m all right, though,” Bovie said. “You boys gettin’ tired? I ain’t tired. Nossir. And I ain’t afraid of that
thing
, either. Devil panther or whatever it is, I’ll stand up to it! You believe in the devil, Stamper?” 

“I do, Caleb.” 

“I believe there’s a devil and an angel in every man,” Bovie went on, his face, hair and brown beard damp with sweat. “They’re fightin’ in you all the time, tryin’ to win you over. Sometimes I can feel ’em fightin’ in me. Pullin’ me this way, and pullin’ me that. They’re whisperin’ in your ear, and they’re slidin’ in and out of your head. You feel that way, Stamper?” 

“Yep.” 

“My balls are kinda hurtin’. Maybe I need to stop for a minute and get a breath.” 

“Keep goin’,” Royce insisted. “We can’t stop for a dead man.” 

“What was that?” Bovie asked. “What’d he say, Stamper?” 

“He said, we can’t stop right now.” 

“All right, then.” Bovie’s voice had weakened. “All right,” he said again, as if he wasn’t sure he’d spoken it the first time. 

They hadn’t gone on but a few more minutes when Caleb Bovie said, “I can’t hardly breathe, all of a sudden. Damn this smoke…I can’t hardly breathe.” He dropped his sword to run a trembling hand across his face and he left the sword behind, lying in the mud. “I’m feelin’ like I need to rest, Stamper. My legs are ’bout to give out. I don’t know…I’m feelin’ poorly.” 

“We’re not stoppin’,” said Royce. 

“Yes,” Stamper said, with a hard glare at the other man. “We
are
stoppin’. Caleb, sit yourself down for a few minutes and rest.” 

“No!” Royce got up in Stamper’s face, his green eyes aflame. “The skins are just ahead! You said so yourself! We’ve got to
stop
’em!” 

“
Stop
’em?” Stamper’s eyebrows went up. “Why, Griff? If they’re headin’ back to the Green Sea, why would we want to stop ’em?” 

“We don’t know they’re headin’ there! Could be they’re tryin’ to cross the river and cut south! You think they’re goin’ back to give themselves up? Hell, no!” 

Bovie was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, his musket leaning beside him. He had begun to shake, as if freezing cold in this swamp’s heat. Magnus approached him, walking at the edge of what looked to be an expanse of black, grainy mud. Stamper noted his progress and called out, “Muldoon! Careful! You’re walkin’ close to a quicksand pit!” 

Magnus abruptly stopped where he was. He knelt on the ground a few feet away from Bovie, who had started to rock himself back and forth, his face gray and his eyes fixed on a limitless distance. 

“I’m changin’ my ways when I get home,” said Bovie, speaking to all and none. “Goin’ to church every Sabbath. Doin’ what I ought to do. I swear it.” He realized Magnus was kneeling near him, and he turned bloodshot eyes upon the hermit. “I’m cold,” he said, shivering. “Ain’t you cold, too?” 

“A mite,” said Magnus. 

“Knew it wasn’t just me. My gut’s hurtin’ bad.” Pain was beginning to show in Bovie’s face. He clenched his hands over his stomach and squeezed his eyes shut. “Hurtin’ bad…oh mercy…mercy on me…” 

“We ought to leave him,” was Royce’s pronouncement. “Wastin’ time, waitin’ for—” 

“Shut your mouth,” said Stamper. The way he said it made Royce’s mouth close in a tight, thin line. Stamper walked over and stood near the dying man, and Barrows came nearer as well. Royce took a long look at the others, and then he placed his musket against his shoulder and walked over to stand beside Magnus. Royce stared off into the swamp, toward the river and the path of footprints leading to it. 

“Stamper,” Bovie rasped, his eyes open now, watery and red-rimmed, and he looked pleadingly up at the other man. “Can you help me get home? I can stand up and walk. Swear to God I can.” 

“You just stay where you are. Just rest a bit.” 

“I’m hurtin’, Stamper. All over. I think I…I need to stand up.” Bovie tried, and when he got up halfway he let loose an agonized cry and fell to his knees. He stayed there, his hands still gripped to his belly, his face now taking on a bluish tinge. Foam was gathering in the corners of his mouth. He began to blink rapidly, his breathing loud and harsh. “Oh Christ,” he whispered, his voice choked with pain. “Save me…please…save me…” 

Magnus started to get up off his knees. When he began to stand up, he was struck from behind by Griffin Royce, who swung the butt of his musket hard against the back of Magnus’ skull. 

Magnus staggered and dropped both his torch and the pistol. Fireballs exploded in his brain, and he pitched sideways into the quicksand pit. 

Stamper looked dumbly at Royce, his mouth hanging open. He therefore saw Royce take a step forward, cock the musket, aim its barrel at his head and pull the trigger. Through the burst of blue smoke the lead ball hit him just under the left eye. Stamper’s head rocked back, the hat with its raven’s feather went flying, and he fell backward into the mud as if pole-axed. 

Royce already had drawn his knife. He walked two paces through the roiling smoke to where Barrows was standing in shocked disbelief, and without hesitation drove the blade downward into the hollow of the man’s throat. Barrows had no time to get his musket up for a shot or draw his pistol; he lifted his left arm, the fingers clawing at the bandages on Royce’s right forearm. Royce twisted the blade, the thin smile of a true predator warping his mouth. With a blood-choked gasp Barrows tore free and turned to run, but Royce was quickly upon him. His teeth gritted and red whorls in his cheeks, Royce drove the blade into the man’s back once…twice…four more times with the force of uncontrolled rage, until Barrows’ knees gave way and he fell on his face, the white stone of an eye pressed into the mud. 

Royce stepped back to view his work, the breath hot in his lungs and his blood singing in the afterglow of violence. Magnus was a prisoner of the quicksand, Stamper was stretched out and Barrows done for. Bovie had pitched forward on his hands and knees, trembling and retching. “God help me,” he gasped, beginning to sob. “Oh Christ Jesus…help me…” 

Royce had no more time to waste. He replaced his knife in its sheath and helped himself to Bovie’s musket, which he knew to be still loaded after the encounter with the buck. He picked up Magnus’ pistol, also still loaded, and slid that into the waist of his breeches. He would reload his own weapon later, he decided, when he got nearer the skins and Corbett. He had plenty of powder and shot in his ammunition bag. Who to shoot first would be the question. He put his own musket under his arm, held the other one in his left hand and then picked up Stamper’s torch where it lay guttering in the mud. 

Bovie fell on his side and began to curl up, crying and moaning. Royce stood over Bovie for a few seconds more, his eyes narrowed with disgust at this scene of human weakness. In a voice loud enough for Bovie to hear, Royce said, “
Cottonmouth
.” Then he turned away from the stricken man and hurried on after his prey.

Eighteen

Magnus awakened in the grip of Death. 

He couldn’t breathe. His face was pressed upon by a wet, heavy darkness. Panic shook him. In the horror of the instant he realized where he must be, on his right side in the quicksand pit. His head pounded and he could taste blood. Someone had hit him from behind…
Royce.
He had to get his face up into the air. Had to get his legs under himself, and his body straightened out…the quicksand was up his nostrils and in his mouth and sealing shut his eyes, and Magnus knew that if he did not get air within the next few seconds he was finished in this world. 

He fought against the mire. It fought back. The paste of black earth had him. He strained his neck and face upward, toward where he thought the surface was. His muscles screamed, and he wanted to scream. Maybe he did, there in the dark pressure of wet, clinging tides. 

But in the next instant his nose and mouth broke the surface, which was only a few inches above, and though he remained blind and gripped hard by this demonic mud he was able to spit his mouth clear and draw a howling breath that shuddered through him and gave him a small gift of hope. 

He was able then also to expell the quicksand from his nostrils, and breathe air tainted with the sharp and putrid odors of the swamp and the smell of smoke from the fire that burned beyond. The next challenge was getting his entire face and head clear of the muck. It was going to take an effort of muscle and will. Magnus felt both faltering, but by God he had to try before he was pulled down any deeper. 

He went about an attempt to get his body straightened out and keep his face at the surface. He worked hard at this objective, but the quicksand worked harder to hold him firm and, indeed, draw him downward. Though he was able to maintain a breathing space, any movement of intended speed or strength was met by a resistance that made him feel he had the weak muscles of a helpless infant. He had the distinct memory of trying to draw a comb through his bear-greased hair, hitting clots and knots and ripping his hair out to spite both Pandora Prisskitt and Matthew Corbett; he felt now like that comb, heavy with bear grease and doomed to fail. 

The substance was thick about him, like both a wet sand and a clinging mud. Was there anyone out there to help him? He tried to answer that question by calling for help, but the quicksand threatened to flood his mouth. If anyone had answered, he couldn’t tell because his ears were stopped up. 

Trapped, Magnus thought. And then the real terror hit him and he began to flail at his fate, to try to fight his way out of this with sheer boulder-shouldered brawn, but the quicksand just seemed to close more tightly around him and once again his face went under. He stopped fighting, for he realized muscle would not overpower this suckpit and hard motion brought forth an equally hard reaction. He suddenly remembered very clearly Matthew’s first words to him upon arriving at the house. 

Calm yourself, sir
. 

Magnus ceased all motion. His heart was pounding, telling him it was wrong to give up the fight, yet he intended to fight not with terrified brawn but with a calm brain. Slowly…slowly…he pushed his face upward through the muck…slowly…not incurring the wrath of the suckpit…and his nose and mouth once more broke the surface. He spat out quicksand and took in air, and determined that slow movements might yet defeat the will of the pit. Thus he began to very slowly push with his legs against the mass of viscous earth, and it took an iron will not to fight hard but it was this or death and he was not ready to give up, and surely not to the evil of a witch-cursed swamp.