The River of Souls

"Ya ain’t from around here, are ya?”

An understatement, Matthew thought. But he said politely, “No sir, I am not. I am seeking the house of a—” He paused, because more and more people in this little town of Jubilee were coming forward along the dusty street to get a gander at the newcomer in his sweat-damp clothing. Matthew had removed his coat and tricorn hat in tribute to the oppressive heat, which seemed to not only be boiling from the hot yellow ball of the midday sun but also roiling off the huge willow trees that ought to be cooling the town, not inflaming it. Matthew felt like a wet rag. His chestnut horse, Dolly, was underneath him presently drinking from a trough at a hitching-post. He wished he’d had the sense to bring a simple water bottle on this jaunt. So much for preparations from someone who always considered himself well-prepared! Fie on it! he thought. He spied a well that stood at what seemed to be the center of this community of patchwork houses, and he said to the grizzled old man who’d first approached him, “Pardon me while I get a drink, please.”

“He’p y’self,” the fellow offered, and took the reins to tie Dolly to the post while she drank.

Matthew put on his tricorn, got out of the saddle and excused himself past many of the rather threadbare-looking citizens who had come to take the measure of his worth. Men, women, children, dogs and chickens had arrived on the scene. He felt the stroke of a few hands, not along his body but along the material of his linen shirt and the suit jacket he held over his shoulder. Eight miles north of Charles Town had brought him into a wholly different world. The structures here were ramshackle hovels, except for one larger building that seemed fit enough to stand against an evening breeze, with the title Jubilee General Store painted in white above its front doorway. A lean, rawboned man wearing a floppy-brimmed hat with a raven’s feather in the hatband sat in a rocking-chair on the store’s porch, a jug of something perched on a barrel at his side and his eyes aimed at Matthew, who nodded a greeting as he approached the well. The man failed to respond, but a couple of dogs and a few small children ran circles around Matthew and stirred up what seemed to the visitor the very dust of discontent.

He cranked the bucket up. He could look to the northeast and see—beyond several more houses and wooden fences—fishing boats and canoes pulled up upon a swampy shore. The River Solstice flowed past Jubilee, merging into the Cooper only two hundred yards to the southeast. It was notable in that it was a third as wide as its larger brethren, which was nearly a mile across in places, but seemed in what he’d seen of it so far through the trees and underbrush to be a nervous river, full of twists and turns in contrast to the Cooper’s stately progress. Indeed, the North Road—a weatherbeaten trail, at its best description—had led him alongside the Cooper for a time before hiding it behind dense forest, and then had revealed it again near the point where the two waters converged.

Though the sun shimmered on the surface of the River of Souls in bright coinage, Matthew thought the water in its vault looked dark. Darker than the Cooper, it appeared. More gray in its belly, and fringed with the black of swamp mud where it agitated the earth. Across the river was naught but further wilderness, a whole country of it.

Matthew took his tricorn off and used his hand to scoop up some water. He drank first, then wet his face, hair and the back of his neck. The cloud of biting insects that had been swirling around him and darting into his eyes for the better part of the last hour retreated, but they would soon be back with—Matthew was sure—reinforcements. In this swampland, such a battle went on incessantly.

He saw that a large cornfield stood northward, and along with it a grainfield of some variety of wheat. Jubilee thus maintained itself as a farming community, but it appeared that visitors here were few and far between. And just as Matthew thought that and was taking another slurp of water from his palm, a wagon being drawn by four horses came trundling down the same narrow track he’d followed from the North Road, where the word Jubilee was painted on the trunk of a huge mossy willow. The wagon’s wheels stirred up another floating curtain of yellow dust, people stepped aside to get out of the way for it seemed the wagon’s driver had no qualms about running anyone over, and in another moment the wagon passed Matthew and the well and pulled up in front of the general store.

The rawboned man with the raven’s feather in his hatband stood up in greeting, at the same time as four young black males—slaves, without a doubt—who’d been riding in the back of the wagon got out and stood obviously waiting for a command. They were dressed not in rags but in regular and clean clothing of white shirtings, black trousers, white stockings and boots. The driver was a white man, thick-shouldered and dark-haired, also wearing simple clothes. A second white man, who’d been sitting alongside the driver, climbed carefully down from the plank seat and he was the one to whom Sir Raven’s Feather spoke. This individual was older, wore a gray shirt and a pair of dark green trousers with stockings the same hue, and had some difficulty with his right leg, for he limped and it seemed to pain him. After a quick conference with Sir Feather he motioned the slaves to go into the store. They obeyed, and a moment later were engaged in the labor of bringing out barrels and grainsacks to load onto the wagon.

Supplies for the Green Sea Plantation, is what Matthew surmised. The wagon’s driver did not offer to help the loading process; he was content to light a pipe from his tinderbox, sit back and watch the slaves earn their keep. The distance between Matthew and the driver was not too far for Matthew to note on the man’s right forearm a medical compress fixed in place by a wrapping of cloth bandages, as his sleeves were rolled up. So there was the overseer who’d suffered the horse bite, Matthew thought. And from Matthew’s knowledge of medicine Dr. Stevenson’s compress, to soothe the wound and draw out infection, would be a soft mixture of meal, clay and certain herbs wrapped up in cheesecloth, heated and applied to the wound. Matthew assumed that the doctor had left more of the mixture at the plantation and instructions on how to change the compress, for within a short time the application would be dried out and unworthy.

Some of the citizens came to watch the wagon being loaded, as the slaves worked quickly at their task. Dogs barked and scampered around, enjoying the activity. Other citizens edged closer to Matthew, still curious about his presence. And suddenly Sir Feather pointed toward Matthew, and with a puff of pipesmoke the overseer took Matthew in and the older gentleman in gray and green also turned his head to view the visitor.

Matthew nodded, as he was suddenly the center of attention. The older gentleman spoke to Sir Feather once more and then came limping toward the well. His right leg seemed to resist bending at the knee.

“Good day, sir,” said Matthew as the man neared.

“Good day to you,” the man rumbled. He was tall and slender but powerful-looking in spite of the recalcitrant leg. He was perhaps in his mid-forties, with dark brown hair brushed back from the dome of his forehead and just touched with gray at the temples. His was the face of a fighter, all sharp angles and ridges and the beak of a broken nose. His brown beard had been allowed to grow long down his chest and was also streaked with gray like the zigzagging of lightning bolts. A pair of deep-set, penetrating hazel eyes made Matthew think of a hawk sitting above him in a tree, regarding him with avian intensity to figure out what he might be made of: animal, mineral or vegetable? Or, rather, if he were worth the trouble of figuring out such, for this man carried with him a certain attitude like a hard push to the chest. One wrong word or motion here, Matthew thought, and this man would fly in his face like, indeed, the hawk in the tree.

He decided to announce himself. “My name is Matthew Corbett. I’ve come from Charles Town.”

“Well,” answered the other, “of course you have.” This was said with nary a slip of a smile; the eyes were still measuring him, taking him apart here and there, examining, coming to some conclusion. “I am Donovant Kincannon, the master of Green Sea Plantation.” No hand was offered. “From Green Sea Plantation,” he added.

“I’ve heard of it,” said Matthew. “I was speaking to Dr. Stevenson just this morning.”

“Oh? You’re a doctor?”

“No, not that.”

“A lawyer,” said Kincannon. His thick brown eyebrows went up. “I thought I could smell the odor of law books.”

“No,” said Matthew, now presenting a slight smile in spite of this jab, “though I do enjoy reading. I’m a problem-solver, from New York.”

“A what?”

“I am hired to solve people’s problems for money,” Matthew explained.

Kincannon grunted, his eyes still hard at work darting here and there, putting the pieces of this young man together like a puzzle. “I’d heard people were insane in New York. I fear this proves it.”

“I am good at my work, sir.”

“And you’ve been hired to solve a problem here? In Jubilee?”

“No, sir. I am just passing through. I’m in search of the house of Magnus Muldoon.”

“Hired by Muldoon? What’s the problem?” Kincannon removed his attention for a few seconds to watch the slaves filling up the wagon with the barrels and sacks, while the horse-bit overseer continued to sit and puff on his pipe.

“No problem, really. I’d just like to speak with him.”

“Makes no sense,” Kincannon said. “No one comes up here to visit Muldoon. He’s a solitary man.”

“Yes. Well…that might be the problem, if there is such.”

“Hm,” was Kincannon’s comment to this assertion. “I don’t see him very regularly myself,” said the master of Green Sea. “Only occasionally, when he comes to sell his bottles. He’s a glass-blower, among other things. I’ve been to his house only once, to view his wares. My daughter was quite taken with his…as she calls it…artistry.”

“I had no idea. I only met him last night, in rather…um…trying circumstances.” Matthew was aware of the pipe-smoking overseer approaching them, perhaps bored watching the slaves work and curious as to the subject of conversation. The man had a stride like a cock-of-the-walk, thrusting his chest out before him and his chin also as if daring someone to take a swing at him. “So am I to understand that Muldoon lives somewhere near here?” Matthew asked.

“A mile or so past the entrance to Green Sea. But the road north is a bit more rugged than what you’ve experienced from Charles Town.” Kincannon turned to take stock of the overseer, perhaps alerted by the pungent smell of the Virginia tobacco. “Griff!” said Kincannon. “Come meet a young wanderer who is very far from home. What’d you say your name was? Corbett?”

“Matthew Corbett, yes sir.”

“Griffin Royce,” replied the other, who was a short, stocky gent a few years older than Matthew, with thick dark brown hair that hung over his forehead in front and shot up in a cowlick in the back. He had a sunbrowned, pock-marked face with a square chin and high cheekbones that made him appear to be almost of the Indian breed. His green eyes quickly examined Matthew from head to foot before he spewed smoke and offered his hand. Matthew was prepared for another bone-crusher, but Royce went easy on him. “Pleased,” said Royce, who held the grip only for a brief couple of seconds.

Matthew nearly mentioned the compress, but he decided not to. A horse bites a man not necessarily because the horse is mean, but because the man might be. Matthew thought there was much of the brawler in the big-shouldered Griffin Royce, who had a chest like a tombstone and clenched the black clay pipe between his teeth with the ferocity of a bulldog. Royce continued to stare at him through the shifting screen of smoke, even when Matthew returned his attention to Kincannon.

“So,” he said, “you’re saying just follow the North Road and I’ll find his house?”

“It’s up that way. You’ll see it.”

“Thank you. Very good meeting you, sir. And you as well,” he told Royce, and then he turned away and began walking back to his horse.

“Mr. Corbett!” Kincannon called, and Matthew stopped to look back. “It’s not too often I meet someone who’s come all the way from New York. Also, I’m interested in your line of work. I’ve never heard of such before. Why don’t you stop by the Green Sea on your way back from Muldoon’s? Have a drink of rum with me. I know my daughter would be pleased to meet you.” He offered a faint smile that Matthew figured for this man was the epitome of warmth. “She’s a reader, too. Always has her nose in a book.”

“I’d be glad to,” Matthew said, “if it’s not too late.”

“Late or not, come by anyway. It would be an entertainment for Sarah.”

Matthew nodded. He could not fail to notice that Griffin Royce was smoking like a dragon, his entire face almost shrouded by the fumes. “Thank you, sir,” he repeated to Kincannon, and then he walked on to his horse and his continuance of battling with the wet heat and the swarms of insects that wished to suck his blood.

He rode away from Jubilee, with a last look at the little village that seemed to exist solely for the support of the Green Sea Plantation. Back on the North Road, he soon passed a low stone wall. There was an archway under which the road to the plantation proceeded across a grassy meadow where a dozen sheep were grazing. Weeping willow and oak trees stood aplenty. From this distance Matthew had no view of the main house or the river. The stone wall ceased, but the green meadows and the trees remained constant. Then, not fifty yards away, Matthew saw a white horse grazing and near it a group of gray boulders under a stand of willows. Upon one of these boulders, shielded from the sun by the tree-shade, was a young woman in a yellow dress and wide-brimmed yellow hat, sitting cross-legged and…

Of course that would have to be Sarah Kincannon, Matthew thought. She was reading a book, and nearly had her face in it. A small pond ringed with cat-tails glistened just beyond her, and Matthew wondered if she had found her particular place of peace and quiet in which to pursue whatever dreams her reading guided her toward. As Dolly continued along the road at a walking pace and Matthew was content to be on his way to Muldoon’s abode, the young woman suddenly looked up from her book and saw him. She sat motionless for a moment, and then she waved.

Matthew took off his tricorn and waved it back at her. He intended for that to be all of the interaction, but Sarah Kincannon cupped a hand to her mouth and called out, “Where are you going?”

It struck Matthew that here might be a young woman in the mold of Berry Grigsby: a brightly-colored flower, adventurous and curious in her own way, intelligent and well-read and…yes, most likely quite bored with life on a rice plantation so far from Charles Town. He had a few seconds to make a decision, and he did. He turned Dolly off the road and across the meadow toward the young woman, who composed herself a bit by sitting in a more ladylike posture atop the boulder as he approached.

“Hello!” he said when he got nearer. “You must be Sarah!”

“I am. Do you know me?”

“I met your father in Jubilee.” Matthew pulled Dolly up short of the boulder, not wanting to frighten the girl by getting too close. “He told me you enjoyed books.”

“Oh, yes I do! They’re very wonderful.” She held up the volume for him to see. “This is poetry by Robert Herrick. Do you know his work?”

“Yes,” said Matthew, “I do.” The most famous of Herrick’s poems being an urging for virgins to make the most of time, to gather their rosebuds while they may for time was fleeting; he decided not to bring that into the discourse. He noted that Sarah Kincannon had removed her shoes, her stockinged feet crossed at the ankles and hanging over the boulder’s edge. The sturdy black shoes were lined up side-by-side. She smiled at him with a broad and very pretty face, her cheeks dimpled, her hair light blond and falling in waves around her shoulders. She had her father’s hazel-brown eyes, but in her face they were soft and sincere and…really…a bit dreamy. Matthew judged her to be about seventeen years old, and again she reminded him of Berry for the direct way she looked at him, and there was an earthy and extremely attractive component in her makeup. In that moment he missed Berry greatly, and sadly replayed in his mind their last scene together.

“I don’t see many strangers here,” Sarah told him. “Who are you?”

“My name is Matthew Corbett.” He felt as if he were introducing himself to half of the Carolina colony today. “And, as you may deduce, I’m not from around here. I’m from New York.” He said this with a bit of puffery that alarmed him as soon as it was spoken, for it was offered to further pique the girl’s interest.

“New York? But what are you doing here?” She gave him a sly smile. “Lost?”

“Not yet,” he answered, “but the day is not over.” He swatted at the air to drive away the nettlesome insects, and noted that none seemed to be bothering Sarah. In fact, the flesh of her face and exposed arms glistened with some kind of ointment that must be keeping the biters away.

She seemed to read his mind, for she reached into a small brown leather purse at her side and brought out a purple-colored bottle with a cork in it. “Oil of fennel seeds,” she announced. “It does help.” She offered him the bottle, which he was glad to accept. He dabbed some on his fingers and wet his face, throat and the back of his neck, and was pleased to find the mosquitoes and other angry darters retreating from its not unpleasant aroma. “There,” Sarah said as Matthew gave the bottle back to her, “now they’ll leave you alone for awhile.”

“A little miracle,” said Matthew.

“No, just something Granny Pegg taught me. Oh…Granny Pegg is a woman on the plantation.”

“A slave?”

Sarah nodded. “We have many slaves. I mean…my father does.” A little darkness passed across her eyes but it was a summer cloud and lasted only an instant. “Charles Town must have the rice. It goes up for sale all along the coast. That makes the work very important. Vital, even.”

“I’m sure,” said Matthew. He decided to change the subject, for talking about the slaves had spoiled her smile. “I’m on my way to see Magnus Muldoon. I understand he’s a glass-blower?”

“Oh yes! He made this!” She held up the purple bottle. “He has a workshop where he makes the most beautiful things.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Is Magnus in any trouble?”

“No. I simply wish to speak with him.”

“I was wondering, because…pardon me for saying this, but…you seem a serious sort. Older than you look, I think. And you seem…” She searched for the right word. “Official,” she said. “Like…the law.”

“Well…not really,” said Matthew, “but…in a roundabout way, perhaps I do represent the law. That’s not my business with Mr. Muldoon, though. It’s a friendly visit.”

“I didn’t know he had any friends. He keeps so to himself.”

“As of last night,” Matthew answered, “he has at least one friend.” If he’ll allow it and not break my neck before I’ve had a chance to speak, was Matthew’s next thought. “I should be getting on. By the way, your father has asked me to stop by for a visit when I leave Muldoon’s. Would that be suitable with you?”

“Please,” she replied, “and say hello to Magnus for me.”

“I’ll do so.” Matthew tipped his tricorn toward her again and then turned Dolly back to the road. In another moment he was heading northward once more, but he looked over his shoulder and to reward him for this Sarah Kincannon gave him another wave. He returned it, and then focused his attention on the way ahead.

Such attention was well-needed, for the road further along was nearly overgrown by the forest’s weeds and thistles. Matthew had to beware lest Dolly step into a hole burrowed by some hidden animal. To his right through the trees and thick vegetation he caught occasional view of the Solstice River, twisting and turning, gray-green as a snake. And then rounding a bend he came upon a single house put together with white-washed boards and surrounded by willows. The place looked hardly large enough to house its builder. Off to the left stood a barn and a corral that held two horses, one black and one dappled gray. There was a pigsty with a few hogs wallowing in it, and beyond that a chicken coop. Next to the chicken coop was a shed about half the size of the house, also white-washed, that Matthew thought might hold the furnace where Muldoon did his glass-blowing. He was certainly no expert on the art, though he knew glass was heated to a molten state, blown into a bubble through usually an iron blowtube, and then fashioned into various shapes from that humble form. It was a complicated procedure and needed a steady hand and a strong lung, which it appeared Magnus Muldoon possessed.

As Matthew’s Dolly approached the house, one of the horses in the corral nickered and snorted, and a few seconds after that the front door crashed open with a noise like the coming of Judgment Day and the mountain Muldoon himself appeared, wearing black trousers and a dirty white shirt with the sleeves torn off. His hair was wild, his black beard frenzied, and his iron-gray eyes flashed fire. He lifted the short-barrelled musket he held in his arms, aimed it squarely at Matthew’s head and shouted, “Stop right there, dandy pants! Ain’t you heard that a man with no head don’t need a comb?”

Matthew reined Dolly in, perhaps a bit too hard, for the horse wanted to rear up and he had to fight her for a few seconds until she settled.

“Back away!” Muldoon said. “This is my land! Get off it!”

“Calm yourself, sir. I’ve come to—”

“Don’t care! Not listenin’! You got yourself Pandora Prisskitt and I hope you choke on her! She can comb your damned hair every night, far as I’m concerned! Now get on away!”

Matthew kept his face expressionless. He said: “Sarah Kincannon.”

“What?” came the half-roar, half-snarl.

“Sarah Kincannon,” Matthew repeated. “She sends her greetings. And she says you make some very beautiful bottles. She showed me one, just awhile ago.”

“Are you a fool, or just a plain idiot?” Muldoon demanded, the musket still aimed to part Matthew’s hair and perhaps his brain as well.

“A little of both,” Matthew answered. “Aren’t you at all curious as to why I’ve ridden all the way here from Charles Town?”

“I know why. ’Cause you don’t have the sense God gave a bumblebee.” Now, though, he did lower the musket but his frown was as frightening as any weapon. “Corbett, ain’t it? Well, what in the name of seven Hells are you doin’ here? We had our duel, you won it fair and square—I reckon—and it’s done. So what then?”

Matthew said, “I don’t like being brought from New York to die for Lady Prisskitt because she wants to attend a fancy ball. You’ve killed three men for her, I understand.”

“No more! I’m ashamed of that! Seein’ her as she was last night…as she really is…I’m ashamed nearly to death!”

“I have some suggestions,” said the problem-solver.

“Huh? What’re you goin’ on about?”

“Suggestions,” Matthew repeated. “For you. Some ideas. Can I get down, tie my horse up and come talk to you?”

“You’re talkin’ now.”

“Talking without a musket in the area, is what I mean. And, Mr. Muldoon, I think you’ll find my suggestions very interesting.”

“That so? Why should I?”

“Because you’ll have a chance to get a little revenge on Pandora Prisskitt,” said Matthew. “And I will too.”

“How’s that?”

“I think you have potential,” Matthew replied, “to be a gentleman. I can start you out on that path, if you’re willing to listen and learn.”

Magnus Muldoon snorted so hard Dolly and even the two horses in the corral jumped. “Why the hell do I care to be a gentleman?” He spoke the word like describing something foul in a chamberpot. “So I can dance and prance like those fools in town?”

“No,” said Matthew evenly, “so in time you will have your pick of any lady in Charles Town, you won’t be living out here as a hermit, and…if you’re as good at your craft as the example I’ve seen, you could set yourself up in business and make some real money. Becoming a gentleman doesn’t mean you lose who you are…you just have more confidence in who you are. But first…the rough edges have to be smoothed.”

“I think you’ve got moon sickness,” was Muldoon’s comment. “I’ll bet you’re one of ’em burns the midnight candle to a smokin’ stub and ain’t done an honest day’s work in his life.”

“Some might agree,” Matthew said, with a shrug. “But at least hear me out. All right?”

“And if I say no?”

“I’ll turn around and ride back to town. But bear in mind, Mr. Muldoon, that sweet honey attracts the female fly much more so than does angry vinegar. Lady Prisskitt has wronged you and myself as well. You know that by now. And I know you’re not at heart a killer. Much of what you said to Lady Prisskitt last night…well, the poetry was right, but the package is wrong. There are many lovely women in Charles Town who would honestly desire to hear such heartfelt sentiments…without the murderous intent and threats of violence, of course…and I can’t leave here, Mr. Muldoon, until I have at least tried to match the package with the poetry. Just so someday in the future Pandora Prisskitt may look into your glassblowing shop on Front Street and wish she were the one who had found you…instead of the woman who’s going to find you, if you listen to what I have to say and act upon it.”

Muldoon made another disturbing noise deep in his throat, like a shout that had been swallowed. “If my dear deceased Pap heard any of this,” he managed to say, “he’d be rollin’ in his grave!”

“If your mother heard it, would be she rolling in hers?” Matthew asked.

There was a long silence from Magnus, in which Matthew heard only the croaking of frogs in the direction of the river and a single crow cawing forlornly from a treebranch.

At last, the mountainous shoulders seemed to slump forward. Magnus held the musket down at his side, and he stared at the floorboards of his porch as if trying to read the future there. Then he rumbled, “Come on in. Speak your piece.” He went inside before Matthew could reply or dismount, but he left the door open.