The River of Souls

“River’s just ahead,” said Matthew, who could see it about thirty yards distant through the trees. Quinn was holding his hand, gripped hard, and a few yards behind them came Abram, the crippled Mars and Tobey.

“Need to rest just a minute,” Mars said. When Matthew and Quinn paused, Mars’ sons eased their father down to the ground with his back against a willow’s trunk. “Stepped in a gopher hole,” Mars told Matthew. “Heard that ankle snap like a broomstick.”

“Does it pain you very much?”

Mars gave Matthew half of a smile; the other half of it was sad. “Not much. You like to see my brand, suh? Now…that did pain me much. Pained me more, to watch my wife and sons be branded. God bless my Jenny, I miss her. You own slaves, suh?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What kind of work you do?”

“I’m…” A problem-solver, Matthew was about to say. Instead, he said, “I’m paid to stick my nose into places where it doesn’t belong.”

Mars laughed, a rich deep sound. “And here you be. Who’s payin’ you for this?”

“Mrs. Kincannon.”

“Why not the mister? He still poorly?”

“I don’t know. He was abed when I left the Green Sea.”

“Hm,” Mars said quietly, and stared past Matthew toward the River of Souls. A whiplash of lightning flared across the charcoal sky, followed by the rumble of thunder. “Boys, we did wrong runnin’. Should’ve faced up to things, right then and there. Course, you’d be hangin’ by now,” he said to Abram. “Kincannons weren’t gonna take your word for nothin’, against Cap’n Royce and Cap’n Gunn.”

“I didn’t want you two comin’ with me,” Abram said. “Told you to stay put, I was the one they wanted.”

“Weren’t gonna let you come out here alone,” Tobey answered. “Got to look out for each other, and that’s how it is. Anyway…die out here or die at the Green Sea, don’t make no difference.” He turned his attention to Matthew. “Pardon my askin’, suh, but what’s this proof you got that says Abram didn’t kill Miss—”

Tobey’s question was stopped by the crack of a musket being fired from the darkness of the thicket behind them, and at once Tobey grabbed at his left side and with a cry of pain fell to his knees. Matthew had seen the flash of the pan, and now the cloud of smoke indicated from where the shot had come.

“Down! Get down!” Matthew urged, and pulled Quinn with him to the ground. Abram crawled over to shield his father, while Tobey gasped and clutched at his bleeding side.

“Who’d I hit?” came Royce’s voice, casual and unhurried. “I was aimin’ at you, Corbett! That’s all right, I’ll get you yet! You too, Abram! Gonna get all of you before it’s done!”

Matthew realized that might well be the truth, for he had only the short-bladed sword as a weapon. Still…dark was falling…they might yet be able to get to the river. But what had happened to the other men…Magnus, Stamper, Gunn, Bovie and the others?

“Corbett, you were asked a question!” Royce said from his hidden position. “What’s your proof?”

Matthew figured the man wanted to get a fix on him when he spoke, but he couldn’t resist. He kept low to the ground, right beside Quinn and one arm over her. “The compress Dr. Stevenson gave you for the horse bite,” he said. “It broke open when Sarah grasped your arm after you’d stabbed her the first time. You knew it had. I imagine you spent some time cleaning that up after you scared Abram into running. What did you do, work it into the ground? But some of the material inside the compress was under Sarah’s fingernails. Mrs. Kincannon knows that, I showed it to her. Are you going to go to the Green Sea and kill her, too?”

Royce didn’t answer.

“No use in your killing anyone else,” Matthew told him. “You’re finished, Royce. Where are the others?” A chill passed through him, as he realized what might have happened. “Did you kill all of them?”

“Not all, I had some help from the swamp. Abram? You never should’ve shown any interest in that girl. I watched you. I watched the both of you. Whisperin’ together when you didn’t think anybody was lookin’. Walkin’ together, right in the broad daylight. And in that barn at night…makes me sick to my stomach, thinkin’ about it.”

“You were wrong, Cap’n Royce,” Abram called out. “Miss Sarah was teachin’ me to read, and that’s the—”

The next musket shot hit the willow tree trunk and threw splinters. Abram ducked his head down against his father’s shoulder.

“Don’t lie!” Royce seethed. “I know what you were doin’ in there! Night after night…I followed her, I saw you go in there too! Only one reason you’d be breakin’ the law and meetin’ in that barn after dark! Wouldn’t even offer me a smile, and her givin’ herself to that black skin! Well, she paid for it!”

“Royce!” Matthew said, as lightning flashed above and more thunder growled. “Was Sarah carrying a book when you stabbed her? And did she drop that book to the ground? Surely you saw it!”

“That’s a damned lie, too! Her teachin’ a skin to read! Don’t matter if she had a book or not, they wasn’t readin’ in that barn!”

Abram had crawled over to tend to his brother, who was in obvious pain but nodded to show he was hanging on.

“You didn’t have to kill the girl!” Matthew said. “Why didn’t you go to Kincannon? Tell him what you thought was going on?”

“Think he would have believed me? About his darlin’ daughter? He would’ve run me off tarred and feathered! I told her I knew what she was doin’, and if she was nice to me…show me a little favor…I wouldn’t tell. But she looked at me like she always did…like I was lower than dirt…and she’d rather have that damn black skin than me? Treatin’ that slave better than a white man?”

“Miss Sarah brought the books and she was teachin’ me to read!” Abram shouted back. “That’s all!”

A third shot rang out in reply. Matthew heard the ball zip past. It was a higher report than the first two shots. A pistol, Matthew thought. And did Royce have one musket or two? How quick was he at reloading the weapons? Was it worth the risk to charge at him with the sword? But he was hidden there in the thicket, and by the time Matthew crossed the fifteen yards or so between them another musket could be ready. Matthew glanced back at Abram and Tobey. The blood was oozing between Tobey’s fingers. It might not have been a killing shot but in time it would be, and time was a precious commodity.

Matthew was still weak from his own loss of blood. He thought he was turning into a bearded ragamuffin himself, a pale piece of parchment as Magnus had said at the Sword of Damocles Ball, which seemed a lifetime away. Lightning zigzagged across the sky and thunder boomed overhead, and Matthew Corbett was caught between what he ought to do and what he feared to do.

“Give it up!” Royce called. “None of you are leavin’ this swamp!”

Abram suddenly stood up. He drew a knife from the waist of his breeches. “You won’t be leavin’ it either, Cap’n Royce,” he promised, and with an inhalation of breath he ran past Matthew and Quinn toward the woods where Sarah’s killer lay in wait.

Magnus Muldoon knew it was coming. All this blood…the smell of it…the Soul Cryer was coming.

Out of the smoke it skulked, at first a shadow and then a substance, moving with the strange irregular rhythm Magnus had already seen, but this time it crept slowly forward across the mud until it reached Barrows’ body. Then its misshapen snout sniffed at the blood, and the slitted yellow eyes stared at Magnus as if trying to determine what this huge muddied beast was…a challenger to its territory, or a fellow monster best left alone.

It was not a ghost nor a witch-created demon but it was surely the biggest panther Magnus had ever seen. Except the dark blotches and streaks across its muscular brown body were burn scars, and its head showed what could happen to an animal caught in a raging forest fire. Both ears had been burned away, its skull hairless and nearly covered with scaly black scars, its muzzle malformed and twisted to expose on the left side the fangs as if in a grotesque grin, one foreleg withered by fire and its tail a blackened stub. It moved in such a manner, Magnus realized, because under the damaged skin some of the muscles had contracted and stiffened, and if this creature had been nearly burned to death seven years ago it must have suffered all the torments of agony. Even now, it must be still in pain…and maybe driven to its own kind of insanity, a thirst for blood and killing not for food but for domination. It could not growl and proclaim itself like an ordinary panther, it could only cry.

Its eyes still fixed upon Magnus, it snapped at the falling embers as if in memory of what had deformed it. Bovie clung onto Magnus’ legs, as Magnus awaited the Soul Cryer’s decision to attack or not.

With a whuff of breath the Soul Cryer suddenly lifted itself up onto its hind legs and balanced there. Bovie gave a strangled noise of terror, but Magnus remained silent and resolute though his heart hammered in his chest. Magnus thought the beast had learned this action possibly to overcome the weakness of the burned foreleg, or maybe as a way to scare off other younger and healthier male panthers. He prepared himself for the Soul Cryer to leap forward from its hind legs, and he aimed the pistol at its heart and the sword’s wicked edge at its throat.