Mister Slaughter (36 page)

Matthew had known it was going to be bad, in the house. He had eased Lark to the ground against the tree, and he and Walker had gone inside to find the aftermath of Mister Slaughter's visit. Neither one of them had stayed but a moment, in that sunny kitchen with all the food upon the table. It appeared that only one person had left the table well-fed.

Gone,
Lark had said when she could speak again.
Not more than ten minutes
.
Back of the barn.

Walker had told Matthew to stay where he was, that he was not going to do anything stupid but that he was going to find Slaughter's trail across the apple orchard, and he had set off at a cautious trot. Matthew had sat down beside Lark to hear the story when she was able to give it. Several times Faith Lindsay had asked him if he was Mr. Shayne, and once had inquired when Ruth could come to play.

Matthew had returned to the house when, after Lark had finished her tale, the girl had begun crying with her hands to her face. Just a little at first, as if she feared releasing what she was holding back within; but then, suddenly and terribly, she had broken. It had begun as a wail that Slaughter must have heard as he climbed the hillside toward the deeper woods. And as Lark had sobbed and trembled her mother had rubbed her shoulder and whispered in the little-girl voice, "Don't cry, Momma, don't cry. We'll get the lace tomorrow."

Lark had lifted her agonized face and stared at her mother, who said brightly, "For the
dolls
, Momma. You know. To make their
dresses
." Which was when Matthew had gone into the house for the second time, preferring for the moment the silent company of the dead to the tortures of the living.

"Why are you wearing that?" Faith asked of the Indian, as Walker came up beside Matthew and Lark blinked, looking around herself as if trying to determine who was speaking.

"I am a Seneca," Walker replied. The woman was obviously puzzled, for she frowned and shook her head. She returned to her task of smoothing and smoothing and smoothing the hem of Lark's dress.

Matthew knelt down beside Lark. "The man's name is Tyranthus Slaughter. He's a . . . " She already knew that part about him being a killer, so it was not necessary. "Escaped prisoner," he said. "Walker In Two Worlds is helping me track him. I'm going to take him to the gaol in New York."

The girl's mouth gave a bitter twist. "You are?
How
?"

"I have a pistol in my bag. Walker has his arrows. We'll run him to ground, eventually."

"Eventually," she repeated. "How long is that?"

"As long as it takes."

"He said . . . he's going to Philadelphia. We told him about Caulder's Crossing, that it was just a few miles from the Pike." She caught her breath, as if she'd suddenly been struck. Her eyes again filled with tears. "Why did he have to kill them? Why did he have to kill them?"

"Shhhhh, Momma, don't cry," Faith fretted.

"Matthew." Walker stood over him. "We shouldn't waste time or daylight. We can catch him before dark, if we start now."

"Start
now
?" Lark's bloodshot eyes widened. "You can't leave us here! Not with . . . in there."

"There's no time to bury them." It was a statement of fact, and spoken with the hard truth of the Indian.

"Caulder's Crossing is eight miles. I can't walk with . . . my mother, like she is. Not alone. And what if
he
comes out of the woods while we're on the road? If he caught us out there . . . " She left the rest of it unspoken.

That was why Slaughter had destroyed the wagon's wheel, Matthew thought. He'd seen it in the barn. Lark and her mother could have taken the wagon to town, but Slaughter had wanted to slow his pursuers down in case the bribe didn't work. Thus Matthew and Walker were now encumbered by a desperate sixteen-year-old girl and a woman with the mind of a seven-year-old.

"You look funny," said Faith to the Indian.

He ignored the comment. "You'll have to either stay here or walk the road. We don't have time to throw away."

"Spoken," Matthew said quietly, "like Mr. Oxley."

Walker turned upon him with something like cold fury on his face, though it would have been barely perceptible to anyone but Matthew. "Did you see what I saw in that kitchen? The hand of a
monster
? If you want him to escape, just keep standing here enjoying the shade. Do we go, or not?" Exasperated when Matthew didn't immediately respond, Walker asked Lark, "Are there saddles for the horses?"

"No. They either pull the plow or the wagon."

Walker spoke in his own language, and from the sound of it even an Englishman couldn't have expressed a more vehement oath.

Matthew had decided. "There's a third choice. They come with us."

"You are mad," Walker shot back, in his own calm but devastating fashion. "Those woods at the top of the hill are thicker than what we went through this morning. We'd be slowed to a crawl."

"At least we'd be moving."

"Yes, at the pace of a girl and a . . . girl," he said. "Matthew, we can't take them up in there! One broken ankle, and we're done."

"Slaughter won't have an easy time of it, either. He'll be moving faster than us, yes, but he's still leaving a trail, isn't he?" Matthew held up his leather-wrapped hand when Walker started to protest again. "If he's not heading for Caulder's Crossing, he's heading for the Pike. Maybe he hopes he can get a ride from there. But if his trail leads to the Crossing, that's where we can leave them." He motioned toward Lark and her mother, the former paying close attention and the latter totally oblivious.

Walker stared at the ground. After a moment he said tersely, "They'll need food. A piece of the ham and some cornbread should do. Something to carry it in. And cloaks or a blanket. Warm, but light. A flask for water. The sturdiest shoes they have, too."

Lark got up and, with a quick glance and a nod of thanks at Matthew, set her jaw and started into the house. At once Faith was after her. "Momma! Momma! Where're you going?"

"I'm going inside," Lark answered, pausing at the door.

"Inside," the woman said.

"Inside our
house
. I have to get us some things before we go. Do you understand that, Mother?"

"Our . . . house?" There was something ominous in the reply. She kept her gaze fixed on her daughter's face, and Matthew saw the woman's lips try to make words. Nothing came out at first. Then she said, in a dazed voice that was midway between a woman's and a child's, "I'm not . . . I'm not your mother."

"Yes, you are. I'm Lark. Don't you know me?"

"Lark," she repeated, as if she'd never heard it before.

"Mother, we have to leave here. I'm going inside now. I want you to stay—"

"I don't want you to go inside, Momma," said the little girl, clutching at Lark's hand. It must have been a painful grip, for Matthew saw Lark flinch. "Please." She leaned her head forward, her eyes wide, and whispered, "I'm
afraid
of that place."

"I'm . . . afraid of it, too. But I have to go." Lark slowly eased her hand free. "Faith," she said, "I want you to stay out here, with them."

"Mr. Shayne and the funny man."

"That's right. Will you do that for me?" Something dark, like the shadow of a passing cloud, moved across her face. "Will you do that for your momma?"

"Yes'm," came the reply. All seemed to be well again, in the land of faraway and long ago. But not entirely well; again she leaned forward, and this time whispered, "The funny man doesn't have on enough clothes."

Lark went into the house. Faith came over toward Matthew and Walker—but not too close—and sat down once more on the ground.

When Matthew looked into Walker's face, he saw the Indian's eyes burning holes through him. Walker abruptly turned away, and strode in the direction of the orchard.

In less than three minutes Lark re-emerged, ashen-faced and silent, with a dark brown cloak, a second cloak the gray of morning mist, and around her shoulder a canvas bag stitched with red and yellow flowers. She had not changed her shoes, as they appeared sturdy enough, but she'd brought for her mother a leather pair to trade for the fabric slippers Faith wore. As Lark put the shoes on her mother's feet, Faith did not seem to note all the blood on the slippers that were removed. Then Lark put the dark brown cloak around Faith's shoulders, fastened it at the throat, and they stood up.

"Where are we going?" Faith asked, as Lark took her hand.

"To Mrs. Janepenny's house," was the response. "I think I'd like to get that lace."

"Isn't Daddy coming?"

"No. We'll meet Daddy later on."

The answer seemed to make Faith happy. But as Matthew, Lark and Faith met Walker behind the house and began to make their way through the orchard toward the rocky hillside ahead, the woman abruptly stopped and looked back, and Matthew stopped also. Lark pulled at her mother's hand and said firmly, "Come on, we have to keep going."

"This . . . isn't the way. To Mrs. Janepenny's. I don't . . . know . . . where . . . " Again, the voice was wavering between age and youth, anguish and innocence. "I don't know where I
am
," she said, and Matthew saw the bright tears begin to roll down her cheeks.

"You're with
me
, dear," Lark answered. Matthew thought it took a brave soul to keep a steady voice, to betray not a quaver nor a tremble, for surely she knew that this was not the worst part; surely she knew that the worst would come when—if—her mother's mind fully awakened from this protective dream. "You're with me. That's all that matters."

"I am . . . I am . . . Faith Burgess," the woman said, as if speaking to the house. "Faith Burgess," she repeated, and now lifted her chin as any child might, in defiance of some imagined horror that might lie beyond the walls.

"We're going to Mrs. Janepenny's by a different way," Lark told her. "Look at me." The woman tore her gaze away from the house, the cords standing up in her neck, and obeyed. "We're going up the hill and through the woods. I want you to be careful where you step. If you need help, ask me. But try to keep up, because we're in . . . well, Mr. Shayne and his friend are in a hurry, and they've offered to take us with them. All right?"

"The hill?" Faith's manner of speech had fully become the child's again. "What hill, Momma?"

"The one I'm going to help you climb," said Lark.

Faith nodded, but her eyes were blank. "Yes'm."

Matthew saw that Walker had gone ahead. He was waiting on one knee at the base of the hill about forty yards away. The hill was stubbled with large boulders and spindly pines, and at the top the woods boiled up in a thick chaos of green, yellow, purple and red. As Walker had said, many places to set a trap.

Faith turned her back to the house. She began walking, her hand held firm in Lark's, and together they left the dead behind.

Something of formidable size crashed away through the thicket as the travellers came upon a swiftly-moving stream. Whatever it had been, Walker gave only an incurious glance in its direction, and Matthew knew it had not been Slaughter taking to his heels.

"Drink," said Walker, as if they needed encouragement. The last two miles had been a rugged, hard go, through tangles of brush, hanging vines, and thorns; but Matthew was pleased to note, as Walker indicated all the broken vegetation and the bootmarks in the dirt and fallen leaves, that Slaughter had already blazed this trail.

Walker knelt down, cupped his hands for a drink, and left them to their own devices. Matthew stretched out, put his face in the cold water and drank directly from it; Lark took the waterflask from her bag, filled it, and let Faith ease her thirst before she drank. Matthew sat up, rubbed his mouth with his buckskin sleeve and watched as the Indian set foot in the stream, which was about a foot deep, and waded to the other side. The current swirled around Walker's legs. He examined the bank, bent down for a closer look, and then regarded the foliage ahead.

"Interesting," Walker said. He stood up. "It seems Slaughter doesn't trust you, Matthew. He didn't think you'd go home, after all."

"What do you mean?"

"He didn't come out here. He followed the stream for a distance. That means he suspects you wouldn't give up—gold coins or not—and he's making an effort to elude us."

"Momma," Faith said quietly. "My feet hurt."

"Mine too," Lark answered, and patted her mother's shoulder. "We'll just have to bear it."

Matthew got to his own feet, which were certainly no strangers to pain. "You're not saying he's gotten away, have you?" he asked urgently.

"I'm saying he's making an
effort
. We'll have to follow him. In the water."

"But which way?"

Walker pointed to the left, upstream. "Humans and animals alike usually have a desire to reach higher ground. Unless Slaughter knows I'd think that, in which case . . . " He shrugged. "I say we go upstream first. If I can't find where he came out—and it won't be beyond a hundred yards, most likely—we'll go downstream. Everyone ready?" He waited for Lark to nod assent, and then he turned and began wading against the current.

Lark and Faith followed, with Matthew at the rear. That had been the order of progression since they'd started off, nearly three hours ago. Matthew was in fact situated there by Walker's command, to make sure the girl and her mother did not falter and to lend a hand if one of them fell. So far, they were both doing an admirable job of coping with this torturous course, though Walker had been right about their being slowed to a crawl. But if the Indian was frustrated about their lack of speed, he didn't show it; he simply plodded on ahead, waited for them to catch up, and did the same over and over again.

They weren't in the stream a matter of minutes before Faith slipped. She went down on her knees, crying out with pain, and at once Matthew was at her side helping Lark stand her up. Walker stopped a distance ahead to mark their struggle, for the current was indeed strong, and then he continued forward, his eyes searching the right bank.

"I hurt my knee," Faith said. "Momma, I hurt my knee." Her lower lip quivered, but she was a big girl and did not weep.