Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3)

Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3) Page 20

"So," said the Reverend, "you've had a good year, theni"

"Yes, sir. Very good," Peter Lindsay answered. "a bumper crop of corn, apples a'plenty, and pumpkins still on the vine. You must have seen them, out in the field."

"I did. Peter, you're a blessed man. To have such a farm as this, and such a lovely family. I was speaking with a fellow not long ago about greed. You know, how greed can lead a man into the valley of destruction. It's good that you're not greedy, Peter, and that you're satisfied with your position in life."

"I am, sir, and thank you."

"Well, we certainly need the glories of the farm, don't wei Just as we need " He paused, tapping his chin with one forefinger, which had a long and ragged nail.

"The glories of Heaveni" asked Peter's wife, Faith, who was preparing the midday meal at the hearth across the room. Her kitchen was a glory of its own: clean and tidy, with walls of pale yellow pinewood, an orderly arrangement of cups and platters on shelves and in the arched fireplace itself the frying pans, trivets, spider skillets, iron pots, bake kettle, pot hooks and other vessels and tools that kept a home in operation and the family fed.

"Exactly that," the reverend agreed.

The youngest child, Robin, had been helping her mother. Now she came toward the reverend, who sat at the head of the table nursing a cup of cider, and showed him something she'd brought from the other room. She was eight years old, blonde-haired, and very proud of her small embroidered pillow, which indeed had upon it the representation of a robin perched on a tree branch.

"I made this myself," said the child.

"You didi How wonderful! Now, you're saying your mother didn't help you one bit, is that righti"

"Well " The child grinned. Her eyes were a bright, warm blue, like her mother's. "She helped got me started, and she helped got me finished."

"Oh ho! But I'm sure there was a lot of work between starting and finishing." He handed the pillow back. "ah, what's this, theni" The middle child, the thirteen-year-old tow-headed boy named aaron, had come forward as well to show off his favorite possession. "a fine collection," said the man as he took a small white clay jar and admired the bright variety of different colored marbles within. "How many do you havei"

"Twenty-two, sir."

"and you use them for what purposei Gamesi"

"Yes, sir. But just to look at, too."

"I'd think any boy would like to have these."

"Yes sir, any boy sure would."

"aaroni" said Faith Lindsay. "Don't bother Reverend Burton, now."

"He's no bother. Not at all. Here you are, aaron." He returned the jar of marbles and then lifted his bearded chin slightly to gaze at the eldest child, who stood next to the fireplace in the process of helping her mother cook the cornbread, the beans, the baked apples and the piece of ham for this special occasion.

She was sixteen years old, with the pale blonde hair of her mother and sister, the same lovely oval-shaped face and high cheekbones, and the lustrous dark brown eyes of her father. She stared fixedly at Reverend John Burton, as she paused before spooning the beans into a bowl.

"Would you like to show me something, Larki" the man prodded.

"No, sir," came the firm reply. "But I would like to ask you something." Sitting opposite the reverend, her father-a wiry man in his late thirties, wearing a blue shirt and tan-colored breeches, his face lined and freckled by the sun and his scalp bald but for cropped reddish-brown hair on the sides and a solitary thatch at the front-glanced quickly at her, his thick eyebrows uplifted.

"Go right ahead, please," said the reverend, in a gracious voice.

"Why are your fingernails like thati"

"Lark!" Peter frowned, the lines of his face deepening into ravines. at the same time, Faith shot a stern look at her daughter and shook her head.

"It's all right. Really it is." Reverend Burton held his hands up and stretched the fingers out. "Not very attractive, are theyi It's a pity I couldn't keep my nails like a gentleman ought to, among the Indians. My travels among the tribes unfortunately did not include weekly use of scissors. I presume you have a pair herei That I might use lateri"

"Yes, we do," Peter said. "Lark, what's gotten into youi"

She almost said it, but she did not. I don't trust this man. Even thinking such a thing of a reverend, a servant of God, was enough to make the red creep across her cheeks and her gaze go to the floorplanks. She began spooning the beans into the bowl, her shoulders slightly bowed forward with the weight of what she was thinking.

He looks at me too long.

"I am hungry," the reverend said, to no one in particular. "Ravenous would be the word."

"Done in just a minute," Faith assured him. "Robin, would you put the cornbread on its platteri"

"Yes, Momma."

"Get out the good napkins, aaron."

"Yes, ma'am." He put the jar of prized marbles down on the table and went to a cupboard.

Lark Lindsay glanced quickly at Reverend Burton, and then away again; he was still watching her, with eyes the pale blue color of water. The water of Christ, she thought her mother and father might say. But she was thinking more of frozen water, like the pond in midwinter when nothing can drink from it. She finished spooning out the beans, set the bowl on the table in front of her father, and then her mother asked her to refill the reverend's cup of cider from the jug so she turned her attention to that task.

He had arrived about an hour ago. Lark, her father and brother had been out in the orchard behind the barn, filling up more baskets from God's bounty, when aaron had said, Papai Somebody's on the road. Comin' this way.

It was rare to have a visitor. The nearest minister lived on the other side of Caulder's Crossing, which itself was almost eight miles south along the road. They had been overjoyed to have a guest, and Lark knew her father would take it as a sign of the beneficent grace of the Lord, which he talked about often. The land might be hard and the living a trial, Peter Lindsay said, but all you had to do to touch God in this country was to reach up. Which Lark had always thought was a roundabout way of saying that if you worked hard enough, God would reward you. But sometimes that wasn't exactly true, because she remembered several years when everybody worked themselves to the sweat and the bones, but the crops were paltry and all reaching up did was give you a withered apple from a higher branch.

She refreshed the reverend's cup of cider. He shifted his leg slightly; beside him, on the floor, was his haversack. My Bible is in there, he'd said. I like to have my Bible right next to me, where I can get to it fast when I see a sinner coming.

and Peter and Faith Lindsay had laughed-a polite laugh, seeing as how some preachers did not appreciate laughter-and aaron and Robin had smiled to hear their parents laugh, but Lark had looked at Reverend Burton's face and wondered why it was so scratched up, as if he'd been running through brambles.

"Mommai Mommai" Robin was pulling at her mother's apron, the nice blue one with the yellow trim instead of the older scorched one she usually wore. "Is this all righti" She showed that the cornbread had crumbled and fallen apart a bit when lifted from pan to platter, but Faith said it was just fine, dear.

Upon his arrival, the reverend had made himself comfortable in the kitchen and had told them the story of his life: how he'd grown up as a vicar's son in Manchester, and how he in his middle age had crossed the atlantic on a vow to his father to bring salvation to the Indians. He had been among the savages for many months now, had carried the Lord's light into many heathen hearts, but oh how he missed Manchester. England was calling him home, he'd said. There to find a new place of service, and new flocks to tend. "We're pleased to have you here after you've travelled so long and far," Peter said as aaron brought the good napkins to the table.

"Long and far, indeed. and I'm so glad to find a place to rest. I fear my feet are blistered, as these boots are just a shade small. You have some very nice boots, I see. They look comfortable."

"Yes sir, they are. Been broken in well enough by now, I'd guess."

"Hm," said the reverend, and he took a drink from his cup. The smoky-burnt smell of the ham was filling up the kitchen, as Faith always let the skin char just before she took it off the fire. Burton put his cup down and held it between both hands, and Lark could not help but take another furtive glance at the long, jagged nails. He had washed his hands and face in the kitchen bucket, and scrubbed the nails with a brush too, true enough, but the reverend smelled to Lark as if he had also gone long and far without a bath. Of course, if a man of God was out in the wilderness for months carrying Christ to the Indians then what opportunity might he have had for an encounter with soapi It was ugly for her to be thinking this way, she thought. Ugly as sin, to be throwing shadows on such a bright, sunny day as this one had dawned.

But she couldn't help it, and she thought that later-when Reverend Burton had gone-she ought to confess her sin of haughtiness or pride or suspicion or whatever it was. and it wasn't just the ragged nails that made her think of claws, either; it was the strange beard of many colors-dark brown, red, chestnut brown, silver-with a streak of charcoal black across the chin. God help her cleanse her soul of this sinful thinking, Lark thought, but it was the kind of beard that Satan might grow, the Devil wanting to be such a cock of the walk.

"Tell me, Peter," said the reverend, as Faith and Robin began to bring the plates to the table. "I passed several houses back there that looked to be deserted. There are no people nearbyi"

"My brother had a farm back that way. When his wife-rest her soul-died in '99, he took the children and went to Philadelphia. Some of those houses are older; they were empty when we came here. You know, towns rise up and fall, and fall and rise up. But it is good land here, that's for sure. and I'm hoping, with the beneficent grace of the Lord, that we won't be alone in this valley too much longer. But the nearest people from here would be at Caulder's Crossing, sir. about eight miles. a little hilly to get there, not bad."

"and I'd presume the road connects somewhere to the Pikei"

"Yes, sir. On a few miles past the Crossing."

"I'd presume also that Philadelphia is probably twenty or so milesi"

"Near twenty-five. aaron, go get another chair. Faith, you and Robin sit on this side here, and aaron can sit beside Lark."

"Philadelphia is my destination. From there, I sail to England," said the reverend. Faith set the ham platter at the center of the table, and alongside it the horn-handled knife sharp enough to slice through the burnt crust. "another thing, if you please. Your barn. Might you have a horse I could ride to Caulder's Crossingi as I said, these boots-"

"Oh, reverend! We have a wagon!" Faith said, as she put down the bowl of baked apples and sat beside Robin. "We'd be honored if you'd let us harness the team and carry you to the Crossing ourselves."

"How delightful," Burton answered. "This is truly an answer to a tired man's prayer." all the food was on the table. aaron brought in another chair and sat to the left of Lark, who had taken a seat down by her father and was looking at Reverend Burton's black tricorn hanging on one wall hook behind him, and at the long black coat hanging on another. He'd come in with that coat, which appeared to be far too small for him, wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak. His dirty, dun-colored clothing looked to have been worn day and night for God only knew how long. Still months in the wilderness, with the heathen tribes.

"Reverendi" Faith looked at him, her blue eyes sparkling, the sunlight through the windowpanes shining in her hair. "Would you lead us in a blessingi"

"I certainly shall. Let us close our eyes and bow our heads. and let me get what I need, it will just take a moment."

Lark heard the reverend open his haversack. Getting his Bible, she thought. Had he seen a sinner comingi

She heard a click, opened her eyes and lifted her head, and she saw Reverend Burton pull the trigger of the flintlock pistol he was aiming at her father's skull.

Sparks flew, white smoke burst forth, and with a crack! that rattled the panes in the sun-splashed window a small black hole opened in Peter Lindsay's forehead, almost directly between his eyes as he too looked up in response, perhaps, to some internal warning of disaster that was far more urgent than waiting for a minister's blessing.

Lark heard herself scream; but it was not so much a scream as it was a bleat.

Her father went over backwards in the chair, slinging dark matter from the back of his head onto the pinewood wall. a hand reached up, the fingers clawing.

Reverend Burton laid the smoking pistol down upon the table, and picked up the horn-handled knife.

He rose to his feet, his chair falling over behind him with a crash. He grasped the nape of aaron's neck, as the boy looked up at him with a mixture of shock and wonder. aaron's mouth was open and his eyes were already dull and unfocused, like the eyes of a small creature that knows the predator is upon it. Reverend Burton drove the blade down into the hollow of the boy's throat until the handle could drive no deeper. Then he let the handle go, and aaron slithered off the chair like a boneless, gurgling thing.

The reverend's gaze moved across the table. The hard, frozen-water eyes fixed upon Faith Lindsay, who made a noise as if she'd been struck in the stomach. Her own eyes were red-rimmed and dark-hollowed. She had aged twenty years in a matter of seconds. She tried to stand up, collided with the table and knocked over her son's jar of marbles, which rolled crazily among the platters, cups and bowls. Then her legs collapsed like those of a broken doll, she staggered back against the wall and slid down making a beaten whimpering noise.

"Momma!" Robin cried out. Her face had gone pasty-white. She also tried to stand, and so was on her feet when Reverend Burton's hand took hold of her head.

Whether he was trying to break the child's neck with the severe movement that followed, or whether he was just aiming her where he wanted her to fall, Lark did not know. Lark's head was throbbing with a terrible inner pressure; her eyes felt about to burst from her skull. The room, the air, the world had turned a blurred and misty crimson. She made a gutteral hitching noise-nuhnuh nuh, it sounded-and watched, paralyzed with fear, as Reverend Burton flung Robin against the hearth, followed her, and picked up an iron frying pan from one of the fireplace trivets.

Robin was up on her knees, sobbing quietly, when he hit her on the head. Her sobbing ceased as she fell, her chin striking the floor. Her hair was in her face. Miraculously, she began to sit up again. The reverend stared at her with true amazement, his brows slightly lifted and his teeth parted, as if witnessing a resurrection. He hit her again with the pan, the sound like the strange commingling of a low-throated church bell and a clay pitcher breaking in two. She fell forward into the fireplace, her face disappearing into the white ashes. Then Reverend Burton let the frying pan drop, and in her state of near-madness, her mind slipping back and forth between horrors, Lark saw hot embers touch fire to her little sister's hair and crisp the locks to powder and smoke.

There was a silence. Which went on, hideously, until the breath rushed again into Faith Lindsay's lungs and she began to scream, her mouth wide open. The tears that shot from her eyes were ruddy with the blood of ruptured tissues.

Reverend Burton stood looking at the dead girl. He pulled in a long draught of air and shook his head back and forth, as if to clear his own mind and vision. Or perhaps, Lark thought, he had sprained his neck killing her sister. She tried to speak, to shout or scream or curse, but found her voice had left her and all that emerged was a hoarse rattling of enraged air.

"Hush," he said to Faith. and louder, when she did not: "Hush!"

When she still did not-or could not-Reverend Burton returned to the table, took up a handful of cornbread and pressed it into her mouth until she gagged and choked. Her bright blue eyes, wide to the point of explosion, stared at him without blinking as her chest slowly rose and fell.

"There. Better," he said. His head swiveled. His gaze found Lark, whose voice was reborn in a shuddering moan. With both hands she gripped hold of the chair beside her, as if its oak legs made up the walls of a mighty fortress.

He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his right hand. "Don't think ill of me," he said, and then he went to aaron's body and, pressing down with a boot against the chest, pulled the knife out. He wiped it on one of the good napkins. Then he righted his chair, sat down at his place at the head of the table, sliced himself a piece of ham, spooned out a baked apple and a helping of beans, and began to eat.

Faith was silent, still staring but now simply at the far wall. Lark still gripped hold of the chair, her knuckles white. She did not move; she was thinking, crazily, that if she didn't move he wouldn't see her, and soon he would forget that she was even there.

He chewed down the ham and licked his fingers. "Have you ever been irritated by a flyi" he asked, as he carved the baked apple. His voice made Lark jump; she thought she had spoiled her invisibility, and she thought she was stupid and weak and she couldn't help but begin to cry, though silently. "One of those big green flies, that buzz around and around your head until you can't stand for it to live another minute. another second," he amended, between bites. "So you think, I am going to kill this fly. Yes, I am. and if it doesn't go easily, I shall pull off its wings before I crush it, because I don't like to be flouted. Then you watch the fly, and it may be slow or fast or very fast indeed, but soon you make out its pattern. Everything alive has a pattern. You see its pattern, you think one step-one little fly's buzz- ahead of its pattern, and there you have it." He emphasized his point by rapping his spoon against the table. "a dead fly. Not so different with people."

He reached for the cornbread, paused to take note of Lark's crying, and then continued his solitary feast. "I hate flies. They'll be in here in a while. Nothing you can do to keep them out."

"You're not " Lark didn't know if she'd meant to speak, but there it was. Still, the words were sluggish, and her throat strangled. "You're not you're not "

"Not really a reverend, no," he admitted, with a small shrug. "But if I'd come to your door and said, Good morning, I'm a killer, where would it have gotten mei"

"You didn't have " Could she ever make a whole sentence againi Something in her mind was screaming, but she could barely whisper. "You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to. Lark. That's a pretty name. There used to be a nest of larks in a tree outside my house, when I was a boy."

"Did you did you kill themi"

"absolutely not. They woke me up in the mornings, so I could get to work."

and now came the question that she had to ask, but that she dreaded. "are you going to kill us nowi"

He finished the apple before he spoke again. "Lark, let me tell you about power. Most men will say that power is the ability to do as you please. But I say power is the ability to do as you please, and no one is able to stop you. Oh!" He watched as Faith threw up her breakfast and in so doing blew the cornbread out of her mouth. "I think she's coming around."

Faith was trying to stand. Her face was pallid and somehow misshapen, her mouth twisted to one side and her eyes sunken inward as if a pair of vicious thumbs had forced them back into the skull. The tracks of tears glistened on her cheeks. Her mouth moved, but she made no sound.

Then Lark thought her mother's tortured eyes must have seen the bodies again, and the whole event must have whirled once more through her mind like the gunsmoke that still roiled at the ceiling. Faith slid back to the floor and began to cry like a broken-hearted child.

The Not-Reverend continued to eat. He cut another piece of ham and whittled it down between his teeth.

"We didn't we didn't do " Lark feared she too was going to vomit, for the smell of blood and burnt hair had touched her nostrils. "We didn't do anything to you."

"and that matters exactly howi" he asked, with a spoonful of beans at his mouth. When no reply was made, he ate them and dug in for another bite.

Lark wiped her eyes. She was trembling, the tears still running down her face. She was afraid to try to stand up, for she was sure that would bring him upon her with either the knife or some other implement. She listened to her mother crying, and thought that something in the sound reminded her of how Robin had wept when the spotted puppy-Dottie, they'd named it-had died of worms last summer.

Lark felt her lips curl. She felt the rage seize her heart and embolden her soul, and even though she knew that what she was about to say would mean her death she spoke it anyway: "God will fix you."

He finished the piece of ham he was working on, took a last drink of the cider, and then he put his elbows on the table and laced his murderous hands together. "Reallyi Well, I'd like to see that. I want you to listen. Listen beyond your mother's crying. What do you heari Listen now, listen very carefully. Go on what do you heari"

Lark didn't answer.

"Nothing but my voice," he said. "No one but me." He lifted his arms toward the smoky ceiling. "Where is the bolt of lightningi Where is the angel with the flaming swordi Bring them on, I'm waiting." He paused a moment, smiling thinly, and then he lowered his arms. "No, Lark. It won't be today." He regarded the nails of his right hand and with them scratched his chin. "You'll stand up now, and take off your clothes."

Lark didn't move. Deep inside her head, the words repeated over and over again.

He picked up the knife. It reflected a streak of light across his face and across the walls. "Let me ask you this, then: which ear could your mother do withouti" When no sound came from between the girl's tightly-compressed lips, he continued, "actually, she could do without either one. all you need is a hole. But fingers now that's another kettle of cod."

He waited. She waited also, her face downcast.

"I'll demonstrate," he said, and with the knife gripped in his hand he stood up.

Lark said, "Wait. Please." But she knew he would not wait; no man who had just slaughtered three people was going to wait, and so she got unsteadily to her feet and when she began to remove her clothing she tried to find a place in her mind to hide. a small place, just enough to squeeze into.

"Show me where you sleep." He was standing right beside her, the knife glinting. One ragged fingernail played across her freckled shoulders, down her throat and between her breasts.

In the room she had shared with her sister, Lark stared at the ceiling as the man moved atop her. He made no noise, and did not try to kiss her. Everything about him-his hands, his flesh, that part of him battering itself within her-was rough. The knife was on a round table beside her bed. She knew that if she reached for it he would kill her, and perhaps he was so adept at murder that if she even thought about reaching for it he would kill her, so she stayed in that safe place in her mind, that far and distant place, which was a memory of her mother holding her hand and by candlelight reciting the nightly ritual before going to bed.

Do you believe in Godi

Yes, Momma.

Do you believe that we need fear no darkness, for He lights our wayi

Yes, Momma.

Do you believe in the promise of Heaveni

Yes, Momma.

So do I. Now go to sleep.

The man was still. He had finished in silence, with a hard deep thrust that had almost conquered her refusal to break before the pain. The tears had coursed over her cheeks and she had bitten her lower lip, but she had not sung for him.

"Mommai"

It was the voice of a child. But not Robin's voice.

The man's hand went to the knife. He slid off her. Lark lifted her head, the muscles taut in her neck, and looked at her mother standing in the doorway.

Faith was holding both hands to her private area, her face half-masked by shadow and the other half sweat-shiny. "Mommai" she said in the childlike, horrifying voice. "I have to water the daisies."

It was what Robin always said. and what Lark knew her mother had said to Grand Ma Ma when she was a little girl.

"Hurry, Momma," the child in the doorway pleaded.

Lark heard the man begin to laugh. It was the slow sound of a hammer nailing a coffin shut, or the hollow cough of a puppy choking on worms. She almost turned upon him and struck at him then. almost. But she let the rage go, and instead decided she would try to keep herself and her mother alive as long as she could.

"Never seen that before," said the man. "By all means, get her to a chamberpot."

Faith allowed herself to be guided. To be directed and squatted and wiped. Lark realized that her mother's dull blue, sunken eyes no longer saw anything but what she wished to see, and if those were scenes from nearly thirty years ago on an English farm, then so be it. Faith gave no reaction to the man's presence, not even after Lark had put on her clothes again and the man instructed Lark to heat a pot of water and fetch a pair of scissors because he wished to shave. Not even, when the man had drawn the last stroke of his razor and the devil's beard was gone, he put on a pair of her father's stockings, a pair of his brown breeches, a gray shirt and a beige coat with patched elbows. When the boots came off the corpse and went onto the man's feet, Faith asked Lark if they were going to town today to see someone named Mrs. Janepenny.

"You remember, Momma!" Faith said, as she walked across the kitchen avoiding the blood and the bodies like a child making her way through a blighted garden. "about the lace!"

The man had his tricorn hat on and his haversack with the pistol in it around his shoulder. He waved away the flies, which had arrived as he'd predicted. "We're going to the barn, and you are going to help me harness the team."

The afternoon sun was bright and warm, the air cool. There were only threads of clouds in the sky. In the barn, as Lark got the harness down from its hooks beside the wagon, Faith sat on the ground outside and played with some sticks. The man brought one of the horses from its stall and was getting the harness on when Faith said excitedly, "Momma! Somebody's coming!"

Instantly the man said, "Bring her in. Quickly."

"Mother!" Lark said, but the woman just stared blankly at her. "Faith," she corrected, her mouth tasting of ashes. "Come in here! Hurry!" Her mother, an obedient child, got up and entered the barn.

The man rushed to a knothole facing the road and peered out; within seconds he turned to his haversack and took from it a spyglass, which he opened to its fullest extent and put to the knothole. Lark reasoned that the approaching visitor was still distant. There followed a silence, as Faith stood beside Lark, grasped her hand and kicked idly at the straw.

The man grunted. "I am impressed," he said. "Found himself an Indian guide, as well." He lowered the spyglass, closed it and returned it to the haversack. He stood rubbing his bare chin, his cold eyes moving back and forth between the woman, the girl and the wagon. Then he walked to an axe leaning against the wall, and when he picked it up Lark caught her breath.

He chopped out two of the spokes from one of the wagon's wheels. Then, with quick and powerful blows, he began to destroy the wheel, until the wood splintered and broke and the wagon sagged. He threw the axe aside, reached again into the haversack and brought out two items that he offered to Lark.

"Here," he said. "Go on, take them!" There was impatience in his voice. Lark accepted the gold coins, and once they were in her hand they were visible to Faith, who made a cooing noise and wanted to hold them.

"The young man's name is Matthew Corbett," said the man, and Lark noted that small beads of sweat had bloomed on his clean upper lip. "I want you to give those to him. Tell him we're square, as far as I'm concerned. Tell him to go home." He strode to the rear of the barn, where he kicked enough boards loose to crouch down and get through into the orchard beyond. "But tell him," he said when his way of escape had been made, "that if he wishes to find death, I will be glad to give that to him, also." He took his tricorn in his hand and knelt down.

"You aren't going to kill usi" Lark asked, as her mother rolled the gold coins between her palms.

The man paused. He gave her a slight smile that contained in equal measures both disdain and mockery, but not a whisker's weight of pity.

"Dear Lark," he said, "I have already killed you."

and with that, the man pushed his shoulders through, and was gone.