The River of Souls

It was a fine morning to walk along Front Street in the warm sunshine, which if Matthew knew anything about Charles Town in the summer—and he certainly did from past experience as clerk to Magistrate Woodward here in his younger days—the warmth of the sun would turn to wretched heat as the day wore on and the shadows grew small. By noon the smell of the swamp would ooze over the town’s stone walls and permeate the little shops selling coffees and teas and bon-bons for the genteel, and the odor of decaying fish afloat and abloat against the wharf would violate even the most sweetly-scented fragrance of a garden’s roses or the perfumes sold to dab behind a lady’s ear or upon a gentleman’s cravat. In other words, at high noon it was time to get out the silk fans and employ the nosegays, so Matthew walked the street early and wisely before such aromas could embellish the air.

Besides, last night he’d gotten a strong enough whiff of this place. He had slept on a goosedown mattress in a comfortable bed in an inn owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Carrington, both agreeable people who were curious about New York and asked many questions concerning the life and manners there, and he had supped this morning on orange muffins with cinnamon butter followed by spiced ginger tea, and he appeared to be composed and content…and yet this was an illusion. For as he strolled along Front Street in his neat gray suit, his pale blue shirt and his gray tricorn with a dark blue band, even as he peaceably passed the shops and seemed to be at peace with all under God’s eye, he was at war with himself.

He had come to this situation of internal combat sometime before dawn, just when the town’s roosters began to crow. One part of himself wished to directly return to New York upon the next packet boat leaving port, and the other part…

…perhaps not so quickly.

He strolled on, from tree-shade to tree-shade. The scene—or rather, the sense—of last night’s festivity would not leave him. Several well-dressed gentlemen and ladies who passed him nodded in greeting. He wondered if they had been present at the ball, and if they still thought him such the hero for besting Magnus Muldoon with a comb. But the part of it that particularly galled Matthew was the truth of something the bearded mountain had said: I kinda see you now. I kinda see how you brung this fella all the way from New York, for me to kill just ’cause you have to go to these fancy dances. That ain’t right, Pandora. Ain’t right, to use a person that way.

And Pandora’s less-than-musical reply: Get out of this world, you black-bearded monster!

It was an ugly picture, Matthew thought as he walked. Made more ugly by the superficial beauty of the queenly Lady Prisskitt, which had beguiled him so completely and might nearly have crowned him as the king of his own coffin.

He walked a distance further, mindful of other people strolling on the street and the passage of carriages, the horses clip-clopping along. In a moment he stopped to gaze into the window of a tailor’s shop that displayed some shirts and suits in light summer hues. He was thinking…thinking…thinking that thinking was often his undoing…but it seemed to him that Pandora Prisskitt should not get away completely free from causing the deaths of three men—however those deaths had been delivered by the hand of a man who loved her valiantly and in vain. Also, Matthew disliked the fact of being used, intended to be either the fourth corpse or another frightened fool running for his life. And there was also the issue of Magnus Muldoon, a sad and heavy-hearted soul who seemed to think himself more Lancelot than Luckless Lout.

So…the question being, in his state of internal war…should he board the next packet boat heading north…or should he stay for a few more days, and stir up the muddy waters of love?

A face appeared in the window.

Rather, it was the reflection of a face in the glass. A woman in a pale green hat and gown the same color had come to stand just behind his right shoulder, and when she spoke Matthew felt both a punch to his stomach and a thrill course up his spine.

“Matthew? Matthew Corbett? Is that you?”

He turned toward her, for he already knew. He brought up a smile, but his face felt too tight to hold it steady.

She was both the same and of course very different, as he also was. Here is the witch, he recalled her saying in the foul gaol of the fledgling town of Fount Royal, as she defiantly threw off her dirty cloak of sackcloth to reveal the woman beneath. He remembered the moment of her nudity quite clearly, and in truth he had carried that moment and opened it like a locket for a peek inside from time to time. His cheeks reddened a few degrees, which he hoped she attributed to the external temperature.

“Hello, Rachel,” he answered, and he took Rachel Howarth’s offered hand and almost kissed it, but decorum prevailed.

She had been weathered in her twenty-eight years, primarily by her ordeal of being accused of witchcraft in that nasty situation and her months facing the stake and the flames, but she was still very youthful and indeed as beautiful as Matthew remembered. Her heart-shaped face with a small cleft in the chin was framed by the fall of her long, thick midnight-black hair. Her eyes were pale amber-brown, verging on a fascinating golden hue, and her skin color was near mahogany as bespoke her Portuguese heritage. She was altogether twice as beautiful, Matthew thought, as Pandora Prisskitt considered herself thrice to be. And Matthew knew Rachel’s soul as well, which was also a dwelling of beauty.

But also, he knew where the so-called “devil’s marks” were on her naked body, and these little dark marks and flecks that appeared on everyone’s flesh had almost sent her skin flaming. He had been her champion and had saved her from that imprisonment and from that fire, and the last he had seen of her was when he had left her to claim her own future in Fount Royal, and to find his own in the greater town of New York.

“I am amazed!” she said, with a smile that might have been described as giddy. She appeared to be about to throw herself into his arms, yet she was restraining her forward motion. “Matthew! What are you doing here?”

“On business from New York,” he replied, in a steadfast tone. “I’m a problem-solver now.”

“Oh? People pay you to solve their problems?”

“Yes, that’s about it.”

“If so, then,” she said, “I owe you quite the chestful of gold coins. I cannot believe I am seeing you! Just out here, in the broad daylight!”

“I was in attendance last night at the Sword of Damocles Ball.”

Rachel made a face as if the midday odors had come early. “Oh, with those people? Surely you haven’t become—”

“One of them? If I gather your meaning correctly, I hope not. I was hired as an escort for one of the local ladies. The story is a bit complicated, but I survived the sword.” And conquered with the comb, he thought. “But you…what are you doing here?” Did he feel his heart flutter just a bit, under her golden gaze? He had fought a bear to save her life, and bore the scar for that. Perhaps there was another scar that ran a bit deeper?

“Well, I…” She suddenly looked to her left. “David! You must meet this young man!”

Matthew followed her line of sight. A tall gent in a tan-colored suit and a darker brown tricorn was coming across the street. He paused to allow a carriage to pass by, and then he continued onward. He was smiling and healthy-looking and appeared to be in his early thirties. He walked with a purposeful stride, a man of energy and means.

“This is David, my husband,” Rachel told the young problem-solver from New York. “I am Rachel Stevenson now.” She smiled again, a little awkwardly, as if she could hardly believe this herself. “A doctor’s wife!”

“Ah,” said Matthew, whose hand extended almost of its own accord toward the approaching master of this beautiful woman’s heart. He said, with his own smile fixed in place, “I am Matthew Corbett, sir, and I am very pleased to meet you.”

They shook hands. The doctor had a grip that might put someone’s hand in need of a doctor. “David Stevenson.” He had a sharp-featured, handsome face and very blue eyes, which now blinked with sudden recognition. “Oh! You are the one!” And so saying, he rushed upon Matthew and hugged him and clapped Matthew upon the back with such fervor that a half-digested orange muffin nearly popped out. Then the good doctor Stevenson seized Matthew by both shoulders and grinned in his face with the power of the Carolina sun and said, “I thank God you were born, sir! I thank God that you did not give up on Rachel, when others might have. And I see the scar, and I know what you did for the woman I love. I should bow down on my knees before you!”

“Not necessary,” said Matthew, fearing the doctor might actually do such a thing. “I was glad to do my part in that particular play, and I am surely glad that now her time of woe and worry has come to an end.” And certainly it appeared so, for wife retreated toward husband and husband put arm around wife and wife who was once accused of witchcraft in a nasty little cell smiled very happily indeed, and the scarred champion nodded his approval for time had moved on and so must all men and women. She had made him what he was today, and because of her he had come very far from his first experience at “problem-solving”—though he hadn’t known it at the time—in Fount Royal. Still, it was a bittersweet moment for Matthew, who had never felt so alone in a place in his life.

“We live on an estate just outside town,” Rachel said. “You must come to dinner with us tonight!”

“We insist!” said Dr. Stevenson. “It’s the least we can do!”

Matthew thought about it, but not too long. He had other business on his mind, and after this was done he planned on going home. There was no need to revisit his—or Rachel’s—past any further, and besides he reasoned really that Rachel herself would begin to feel uncomfortable about this invitation as soon as he accepted it. Therefore he said, “Thank you, but I have to decline. My time here is very limited, but—again—thank you.”

“Solving another problem?” Rachel asked. Was it Matthew’s imagination, or did she look a mite relieved? After all, he recalled an event in an Indian village, when he was nearly insensible and recovering from the wounds inflicted upon him by Jack One Eye, in which he’d dreamed that this beautiful woman had crawled atop him to further the healing process by the heat of her body and passion of her kiss. But had it really been a dream? Only Rachel knew for sure, and though this was not a problem it was surely a mystery that Matthew knew he would never solve. Perhaps it was better that way, to keep some events in the realm of the mysterious.

“Well,” Matthew answered, “as you mention it, yes. Or rather, a personal issue I’d like to address. May I ask if either of you know a man named Magnus—”

“Muldoon?” the doctor interrupted. “Of course! He’s done work on the estate, clearing trees and such. A tireless worker, to be sure. And I tended to his father in the poor man’s last days of swamp fever, just after I arrived last summer, Muldoon’s mother having passed away several years ago. You have business with him?”

“I do. Might I ask how to find him?”

“I’ve never been to his house,” was the reply. “He brought his father to me in their wagon to tend to. But I believe it’s up the North Road past the town of Jubilee and the Green Sea Plantation, which is maybe eight miles from here.” He gave an impish smile. “You might ask for further directions there, as the trails up along the River of Souls are…shall we say…for the adventurous.”

“The River of Souls?” Matthew asked.

“Yes, the Solstice River, which branches off from the Cooper. The Green Sea Plantation grows rice along there.”

“Ah.” Matthew nodded. He’d heard of the Solstice River during his time spent here as a magistrate’s clerk, but neither he nor Magistrate Woodward had ever had need to travel in that northward direction. For the most part they had remained within the town’s walls, dedicated to the local legal matters. “Swamp country, then.”

“What isn’t, around here?” The doctor shrugged. “One gets used to damp earth under the boots.”

“Just so the boots aren’t under the damp earth,” Matthew said, thinking of his last escapade through muddy water on Pendulum Island. “I lived here for several years, but I’ve never heard the Solstice River called the River of Souls.”

“Witchcraft,” Rachel answered.

“Pardon?” Matthew turned his attention to her, and the word he thought he would never hear issue from her lips.

“Supposedly,” David Stevenson said, bringing up his bemused smile, “a witch cursed the river, for drowning her son. And cursed the entire swamp around it, as well. This was many, many years ago…if such really happened. So now the river’s upper course remains largely unexplored, and according to the tale I heard it was said that…well…ridiculous indeed, but those who travel up it are destined to witness horrors that test the soul. And that the witch still lives and searches for a soul to trade the Devil for her son’s.” He had spoken these last two sentences with a quietly jocular air, worthy of a sophisticated distance between those who believed such poppycock and those who did not. He glanced up at the sun’s progress. “Getting hot early, I fear. It’ll be sweltering by noon.”

“Yes, certainly,” Matthew agreed, feeling the risings of sweat on the back of his neck even though they stood in tree-shade. In regards to the River Solstice, as he had spent much of his time in Charles Town either reading, plotting out chess problems, studying Latin and French or scribing testimony for the magistrate in cases that went on for hour after hour, Matthew had been primarily a single citizen of his own world. The selfsame for the Sword of Damocles Ball and all the other events meant for the town’s elite; he’d existed far below their influence, and certainly would never have been in the rarified orbit as the Prisskitts or anyone at that damnable festivity. “You heard this tale from whom, and when?”

“An elderly negress, nearing ninety years, at the Green Sea Plantation only a few days ago. She told a very compelling story, also entertaining, as I worked. I was summoned there to apply a compress to a horse bite on an overseer’s arm. It had become infected. While I was there I suggested an inspection of the slaves and house servants, thirty-four in all. I wound up pulling a few teeth and washing out some minor wounds.”

“The whip?” asked Matthew, having had some experience with that particular pain.

“No, thankfully not. The Kincannon family restrains the use of that. The wounds I tended were snakebites—not poisonous, obviously—and others related to working in the ricefields. I have had to go there and amputate a hand mangled by an alligator, unfortunately.”

“Dangerous work, it seems,” said Matthew. “Very dangerous. And often deadly. But the rice must grow and be harvested, and the new fields carved from the swamps.” Matthew checked the degree of the sun, and decided that if he were going he’d best get to the nearest stable, secure a horse and be on his way. An eight-mile trip would be about two hours, depending on the trail.

He reached out and took Rachel’s hand. “I’m so pleased to have seen you,” he told her. “Pleased also that you are happy, and have found a true home.” He squeezed her hand quickly and then released it. “Sir,” he said to Dr. Stevenson, “I wish you both a fine life and excellent health. If I’m in this vicinity again anytime soon, I’ll surely accept a visit to your estate and dinner.”

“Our pleasure, sir,” answered the doctor, who reached forward again to shake Matthew’s hand and give it another bone-crush.

“Goodbye, Matthew.” Rachel dared to deliver a kiss to his left cheek, which was likely more scandalous here than in New York, and yet it was correct. “Good travels to you today, and I hope…” She paused, searching the chest of hope that Matthew had given her when he had freed her from her bondage. “I hope you find a solution to every problem,” she finished, with a tender smile.

“Myself as well,” he answered, and giving a slight bow to Dr. and Mrs. Stevenson, he turned away and walked in the direction of the stable from which he’d rented his chestnut steed a few days ago. He was very tempted to look back, and with each step forward tempted a bit more, but the point of going forward was progress and thus he was to all eyes admirably progressive. He continued on, following his shadow along Front Street’s white-and-gray stones and thinking that he should be turning around and heading to the packet boat dock to secure his ticket and then going to the inn for his bags, and yet…

Matthew knew himself. When he was curious about a situation or a person, there was no retreat until he had satisfied his curiosity. He could not let this go. Thus his intended trip to the mountain Muldoon today, up the North Road into rice and Green Sea country, into the supposed realm of witches and devils on the River Solstice, into the future unknown…if only for a few hours, which suited him just fine.

He walked on at a steady pace, seeing the stable ahead, and readied his money for the rental of a noble horse to carry the warrior onward.