The River of Souls

The rowboat’s prow slid onto mud amid a tangled thicket. The water here was only a few inches deep, and the torch showed no red-eyed reptile waiting in the high weeds. Matthew leaned over the bow…

“Careful,” Magnus cautioned. And explained to Matthew’s jittery start: “Don’t fall in.”

“Thank you,” Matthew answered, as he wet his face and wiped the bloody matter off his cheeks, forehead and chin with his shirt. He made out what appeared to be the meager light of candles through the woods ahead. Light through windows? he wondered. Ah, yes…the town of Rotbottom, according to Granny Pegg the last stand of civilization on the River of Souls. The thrum of frogs was like a constant drumbeat, the noise of crickets and night-insects a rising and falling cacophony. It seemed that a hundred nasty little humming and buzzing flying things were circling his head and trying to drink the liquid from his eyeballs. He waved them away with his torch and kept scrubbing his face in an attempt to get every bit of human debris off himself. He had had time to think, between the attack of the alligators and his request to head for shore, that it was certainly not a sure thing that the trio of runaways could be found—or could be saved from being killed by any of the other men. In fact, it was a high chance that they could not be saved, if they were indeed found, and all of this would be for naught. Still…what would he be, if he did not try?

“Have to pick up our pace,” Magnus said. “Try to get to the front of the pack. Way back here, we can’t do anything.”

“I know,” Matthew replied.

“How we gonna stop those skins bein’ murdered?” Magnus asked, as if in the past few minutes this question had suddenly dawned on him. “How are we gonna prove Royce killed Sarah? Seems like all you’ve got is some clay under Sarah’s fingernails, and Granny Pegg’s story. That won’t send a man swingin’. Anyhow, Gunn’ll stand up for him. Hell, they’ll kill those slaves and cut their ears off before we ever see ’em…then what’re you gonna prove?”

“That…I don’t know,” Matthew admitted. “The first thing we have to do—if we can—is to stop any murdering of Abram and the others. Royce and Gunn want to silence them, but they don’t trust the river or the swamp to do it for them. So if we can find the slaves first, so much the better.” And good luck with that effort, he thought. He swung the torch again at the multitude of swarming insects. “Damn these things!” he fumed. “They’re everywhere!”

Magnus scratched his own cheek where a biter had landed and left a swelling. “Before he settled in Jubilee,” said Magnus, “Baltazar Stamper made his livin’ trackin’ down runaway slaves. He and Bovie both. If anybody can find ’em, it’s those two. And that preacher’s half-crazy and hot on the trigger. I wouldn’t turn my back on any of those three.”

“It seems we have excellent company on this jaunt.” Matthew had finished cleaning his face to his satisfaction, and now he waved the torch again to ward off the hungry congregation. He started to slide back into the boat.

“Mud,” someone said.

The voice made Matthew freeze, though it was spoken so softly it might nearly have been only the sultry breeze searching through the rushes. It had been a feminine voice with a low, smoky quality. Matthew knew someone was standing there amid the underbrush, but his torchlight could not find her among the shadows of shadows.

“What?” he asked, as if proposing his question to the swamp itself.

“Mud,” came the repeated reply, and then she moved forward from the wildness of vines and thorns and lifted her own punched-tin lantern. The torchlight fell upon her. “Mud keeps them away,” she said. She came toward him without being invited, and she looked into his eyes as if trying to spy the essence of his soul. He felt himself being probed in every hidden place, which caused him to want to draw back and away from the young woman…but he did not. Then, also without being asked, she leaned down, scooped up a handful of dark river mud, and held it out for his approval. He smelled in it the strong odor of the swamp, a heady and earthy aroma that might have been repellent for its many layers of decay and rebirth, and yet Matthew caught within it a strangely medicinal whiff as well, as pungent as camphor. He wondered how many thousands of dead trees and riverweeds and passage of years were in that handful of mud. It was if the young woman was offering him a salve formed from the River of Souls itself.

Matthew understood, and he took some of the mud on his fingers and streaked it across his chin, cheeks, forehead and across the bridge of his nose like warpaint in his battle against the bugs.

“More than that,” she urged, and he obeyed her.

“Thank you,” he said, when the job was done and the insects began to whirl away from their interrupted feast.

She stood before him, staring at him with dark blue eyes that seemed luminous in the light, and sparkling like the star-strewn sky. “Pleased,” she answered at last, in her quiet, smoky voice.

Of course she was a citizen of Rotbottom, Matthew thought. But she was not what he might have expected to find out here in this country, this last gasp of so-called civilization before the true wilderness began. For one thing, she was very lovely. Matthew might even have considered her beautiful, and far more so than Pandora Prisskitt for she was natural and unadorned in her loveliness. She was perhaps seventeen or eighteen, small-boned and slim, wearing a dress sewn from some kind of coarse gray cloth but adorned at the neck with a ruffle of indigo-dyed lace. Her hair was black and lustrous, not pinned up or prepared in any way popular in Charles Town, but allowed to fall casually about her shoulders in thick waves and in bangs on her forehead. She had beestung lips and a thin-bridged nose that turned up slightly at the tip, like the slightest disdain for her own state of ragamuffinry. She had a firm jaw and high cheekbones and in no way appeared weak or impoverishered in spirit; in fact, she faced the two journeyers with what Matthew thought was a stately air of what might have been great confidence, as if to say this was her world and these two men were strangers upon it.

“My name is Quinn Tate,” the young woman said. “What is yours?”

“Matthew Corbett. This is—”

“Magnus Muldoon,” came the rumble. “Think I can’t speak for myself?”

“Matthew Corbett,” she repeated, still staring intensely at him. “I’ve seen the boats goin’ upriver. What’s happenin’?”

“A hunt for three runaway slaves from the Green Sea Plantation. But…it’s more than that.”

“I heard gunshots. Others were out here, callin’ to the boats, but the men wouldn’t answer.”

“They’re in a hurry. We only stopped because…well…”

“You wanted to wash your face,” said Quinn, with a faint smile that seemed to say she knew more than she was telling.

“We need to be on our way, miss,” Magnus told her. “Thanks for helpin’ my friend.” He pushed the oars into the mud in preparation to back the boat off.

Quinn Tate let the boat start drifting backward before she spoke again. “You need more help, I’m thinkin’.”

“We’ll manage,” said Magnus.

“No,” she answered, “you won’t. Neither will most of those men ahead of you. Those goin’ first…without knowin’ what they’re goin’ into…they likely won’t come back.”

“Uh-huh,” said Magnus, pushing them out toward the middle of the river.

“Just a minute.” Matthew wished Magnus to slow their retreat, because of something in the girl’s voice…some note of surety, or knowledge, or warning. “What exactly are they going into? The ones up ahead,” he clarified.

“First thing they’re gonna run up on soon,” said Quinn, standing in the mud with her lantern upraised, “is the village of the Dead in Life.” She was speaking quietly, but her voice carried through the sultry air and across the water.

Magnus ceased his rowing. “What?”

“The Indians call it somethin’ different. A name I can’t get my tongue around. It’s like…their little piece of Hell on earth. Not far up the river, maybe a mile or more.”

“All right, it’s an Indian village,” said Magnus, though he rowed in closer to Quinn by a few strokes. “What makes it so different from any other?”

“The warriors only come out at night,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “To hunt. They don’t care what they catch. They have a game they play. This is what I hear, from some who’ve seen and gotten away. I wouldn’t want to be caught by any of ’em, because that village is where all the tribes for miles around put their bad men and women and their…what would you call ’em?…ones who aren’t right in the head.”

“It’s a village of exiles?” Matthew asked. Or an Indian insane asylum? he wondered.

“Whatever it is, it’s up there, and those torches are gonna draw ’em to the river like flies to…” She shrugged. “Dead meat.”

Magnus sat with the oars across his knees. He rubbed a hand across his mouth, and Matthew saw him beginning to wonder if Abram, Mars and Tobey were worth going any further upriver, especially since—if the girl was right—they might have been already taken by the Indians. But the moment and the hesitation passed, and Magnus took up the oars and squared his shoulders again.

“We’ll go on,” he announced. A few more boats were coming up the river behind them, still distant yet close enough to be heard the drunken shouting and laughter of their passengers, who obviously had not seen any body parts floating in the water and were too inflamed by liquor to be rightly frightened of the alligators.

“Are you the one?” Quinn suddenly asked. She was speaking to Matthew.

“Pardon?” he asked, not understanding. The moon floated between them, cut into pieces by ripples.

“Are you the one?” she repeated. She held his gaze. “Yes, I think you are. I think…you wouldn’t have come to me, where I was standin’, if you weren’t. I wouldn’t have been there, waitin’ for you, if you weren’t. Yes.” She nodded, and she reached out as if to draw him closer. “I know who you are. Who you really are, I mean.”

“You know me? How?”

“You had another name, and now you call yourself Matthew Corbett…but that’s not your real name.”

“She’s out of her mind,” Magnus muttered, low enough only for Matthew to hear. “Swamp fever’s got her.”

Matthew thought Magnus was right, and yet…he had to ask the questions: “What do you think my real name is? And where do you know me from?”

“Oh,” she answered with a small, sad smile, “I can’t bear to speak it yet. And I know you from here.” She put her free hand over her heart. “This is where you live. You may not remember me…not just yet…but I have not let you go.”

“Swamp fever,” Magnus repeated. He began to work the oars and the boat glided forward.

The young woman followed them along the muddy shore. She was wearing leather sandals, which sank into the muck with every step. “I can help you,” she repeated. “Up the river. I can go with you.”

“Pity,” said Magnus. “She’s a beautiful girl, to be so addled.”

“Don’t go!” Quinn called, as the boat pulled away from her. “Don’t leave me again! Do you hear?” A note of panic surfaced. “Please don’t leave me!”

“Don’t listen.” Magnus put his back to the rowing and the boat gained speed. “No use in it.”

“Matthew!” Quinn swung her lantern back and forth with the strength of desperation. “You said you’d come back to me! Please!”

Though Matthew tried not to listen, he couldn’t help but hear. He didn’t look back at her, though it took an effort. The mud was drying on his face, but he felt the rising beads of sweat on his forehead and at the nape of his neck. He had never in his life met that young woman before, as far as he knew. How could he have? He’d never been on this river before, had never even heard of Rotbottom. Matthew! he heard her call once more, and then she stopped calling.

After Magnus had rowed on a little further and some distance had been put between them and the dark shapes of the houses of Rotbottom, Matthew said, “I don’t know what to make of that. Yes, I suppose you’re right. About the swamp fever. She thinks I’m someone else.”

“Maybe you look like somebody she used to know,” Magnus offered. “Damn shame. Out of her head, for sure.”

They rounded a bend on the serpentine river and found they were catching up to a small group of rowboats and canoes. Torchflames and candlelight flickered on the water. Matthew saw that once again the jugs were being passed around, and rough voices were slurred as they shouted back and forth. Up ahead, a man in one of the boats stood in the bow with a jug in one hand and as he drank from it he slashed his sword from side to side as if fighting invisible foes.

Matthew had a very clear memory of Sarah Kincannon sitting on the boulder beneath the willows, reading her book. How fast a life could be changed, he thought; how fast a life could be extinguished. He recalled how her brightness had clouded over when speaking about the slaves. But, however one might consider the subject of slavery, it was a fact that slaves were necessary on these plantations, for only slaves had the endurance to work in the swampy fields, under the harsh sun and conditions that pale skins could not tolerate. Of course there were many slaves in the town of New York; it was again a fact of life. The difference between the slaveholders of the northern colonies and those of the southern had to do with the land itself. In New York the slaves usually lived in the attic or basement of the main house, whereas the plantation had enough space to create its own slave quarters. Was the work more full of hardship in the south as opposed to the north? Certainly the northern slaves were used as laborers, in the fields or on the docks as well as in the households, and so it was difficult to say. Matthew knew that whips bit flesh the same in the north as they did in the south, depending only upon the mercy and motives of the master.

Magnus’ rowing was smooth and efficient. He was working harder than the rowers in the vessels ahead, and so they were steadily catching up and would soon pass them.

“Sarah seemed like a very fine young woman,” Matthew said. “You certainly impressed her with your artistry.” When Magnus didn’t respond to this, Matthew continued on: “Your glass-blowing,” he explained. “She liked your work.”

At first Matthew thought Magnus was too lost in either his own reverie or the pattern of the rowing to answer, but then Magnus shrugged his massive shoulders and said, “Glad of that. She paid me for ’em, but that wasn’t why I done ’em. Happy to make things she liked. Happy to go visit her and talk for a spell.”

“You spent a lot of time with her?”

“No, not a lot.” He gave Matthew a quick, sharp glance that said he was still proud and determined to continue living in his hermitage. “But when I did go visit her…she was always kind to me. In the summer, offerin’ me a cup of lemon water. Cider in the winter. And she wanted to hear about me. The glass-blowin’…that too…but she wanted to know about me. How I got where I was, and what I was thinkin’. I started makin’ bottles I knew she would most like…usin’ the colors she favored. Greens and purples, they were. When I took her somethin’ I knew she would like…you should’ve seen her face light up. Seen her eyes shine. It made me feel good inside, knowin’ I was bringin’ her somethin’ she thought was pretty. I tried to take some bottles to Pandora once, but Father Prisskitt wouldn’t let me in the door. Said if I came back, he’d have a musketball ready for me.” Magnus stopped rowing and let the boat drift for a moment. “It’s a kind of Hell to think you’re in love with somebody who don’t care if you live or die, ain’t it? Who don’t show you no care a’tall…and yet you keep on ’cause you’re thinkin’ you can make it happen, like knockin’ down a door or breakin’ through a wall. Then it gets to where you have to make it happen, or you think you’re no damn good. It gets to where it’s a thorn in your head, and ain’t no other rose can catch root there.” He began rowing once more, his gaze fixed past Matthew toward the river. “You must think I’m a poor piece a’work. don’t you? To be so tranced by such a woman?”

“I think all men have been tranced, by some woman or another,” Matthew replied. “And women the same. We men don’t hold the only key to that particular vault.”

“Reckon not,” Magnus agreed. “You have a woman?”

“Good question. I’m not quite sure.”

“If you don’t know for sure…then you must not. You livin’ in that big town…maybe you wanted to come see me and give me some advice you oughta be takin’ yourself.”

“Oh?” Matthew’s eyebrows went up. “What would that be?”

“Climbin’ out of the hole you dug for yourself. I know I dug a deep one, ’cause I didn’t have use for people I thought was laughin’ at me and my folks. What hole are you in, and why’d you dig it so deep?”

Matthew had to ponder that one for a moment. “Someone else is digging it for me,” he replied, thinking of the image of the masked Professor Fell working tirelessly in a windblown cemetery, shovelling out a grave meant for a young man from New York. “I don’t intend to be pushed into it before my time,” he said. “Neither do I wish anyone I care for to find themselves in it, and dirt thrown into her face.”

“Her face?” asked Magnus.

“Hey, Sipsey!” shouted one of the men in the boat just ahead. “Play us a tune!”

The voice had been ragged and slurred. Up further along the river, the man with the fiddle obliged by beginning what at first was a slow, sad and gray song that suddenly with a scrape of the bow blazed itself up into a conflagration of notes. The man with the jug and the sword was standing in his boat, twisting his upper torso to the music and slashing at the air; he let go a wild holler that seemed to reverberate across the wilderness and for a moment silence all the night-things that chattered and chittered for a space of their own.

In another boat, someone who was obviously also not only a music-lover but a lover of the jug fired a pistol into the air, and Magnus muttered, “Damn fools.”

Matthew caught sight of something, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

It was something sliding into the water from the righthand thicket.

He thought at first it was another alligator, but it moved so fast and so smoothly he was unable to tell for sure. He caught other quick movements from that direction, maybe three or four dark shapes submerging themselves. Something was definitely in the river that had not been there a moment before. Matthew felt the flesh prickle on his arms and at the back of his neck.

The man with the sword and jug was still cavorting to the fiddle player’s tune. Matthew said, “Magnus?”

Before Magnus could answer or Matthew could determine what he was going to say next, there came a high thrumming sound nearly masked by the fiddle music.

The swordsman suddenly dropped his jug to clutch at his throat, which had just been pierced by an arrow. He fell backwards into the river, his sword now ineffectual and the liquor in his blood not strong enough to overcome a sharpened flint through the windpipe.

In the next instant, the boat from which the swordsman had fallen was overturned by a pair of mud-dark figures that burst up from beneath, spilling the craft’s other two passengers into the water. The same also with a boat to the left of that one, even as a musketball shrieked off into the sky, and two more unfortunates tumbled into the Solstice. A torch hissed as the water drank its flame. Arrows came flying from the thicket on the right, one lodging itself into the shaft of Magnus’ oar on that side and another passing by Matthew’s face so close it nearly shaved his cheek of the day’s whiskers. Up ahead, three more boats were overturned, including the one that carried Sipsey, the fiddler. Pistols flared and swords struck down at the river from those boats still upright, and in answer to those insults more arrows flew from the wilderness to strike wood and flesh alike.

Matthew felt a thump beneath their boat, and then another. His heart hammered in his chest. An arrow passed through the flame of his torch and threw a firestorm of sparks. Suddenly they were going over, and as Matthew fell across the side of their boat he felt an arrow strike him in the meat of his left shoulder. The pain stole his breath, and in the following second he was in the river holding his cutlass and a dead torch. He was underwater one instant and the next could stand on a muddy bottom, the river up to his collarbone. The attackers had chosen a shallow place in which to devise this assault, using the river’s foundation to propel themselves upward against the hulls. This fact did not linger long in his brain, because the mud-smeared figures were everywhere around him and so were flailing white men who found themselves, like Matthew, very suddenly much too far from home.