The River of Souls

At the edge of the River of Souls, Matthew sank to his knees in the weeds. He was almost done. He saw that the moon had fallen toward the horizon and was being consumed by the gray tendrils of clouds. He thought of Professor Fell’s octopus, slowly wrapping its tentacles about the world.

He had decided first to cross the river, here at a shallow point, to get the Solstice between himself and the hunters. He’d not seen any following him, and perhaps the cry of the so-called spirit would keep them from venturing out beyond the firelight of their sanctuary, but still…

There had to be bodies in the river—and maybe that of Magnus Muldoon—that might be attracting the reptiles. Possibly they weren’t nesting in this area of the river, since the Indians hadn’t been afraid of swimming, but Matthew wished not to take that chance with all the blood on his shirt and a thick matting of it on his left shoulder. His left arm felt dead, yet at least the rest of him was still alive and he still wore his head.

Were there any of the overturned boats floating? He could see none of them by the darkening moon. The sullen heat lay like a black cloak upon him and the swamp on all sides was a buzz and thurrup of the noise of insects fighting their own constant war for survival. He could see no stars, and not a glimmer of light yet from the east.

He was weary. He wished only to lie here in this mud and these weeds and be lulled by the cursed swamp, for better or for worse. Morning would come soon, he thought. Morning had to come soon. And then he would walk his way out of this swamp…but what of the runaway slaves? Gone, most likely. Either already captured and killed or disappeared into the wilderness. By all reason, Royce and Gunn had won. The murder of Sarah Kincannon—most probably rooted in the same kind of jealousy that had caused Magnus to kill three men for the dubious admiration of Pandora Prisskitt—would result in the deaths of Abram, Mars and Tobey as well…but possibly the slaves would escape this swamp, and keep going. To where? Matthew wondered. Where did they think they were going to find refuge? On another plantation? The custom was to brand slaves on the back or chest with a mark of ownership; another plantation owner would return them in chains to the Green Sea. Either that, or the three would eventually perish in the swamp. Royce and Gunn could not take the risk of them getting out, though; neither man knew the questions and accusations waiting for them when they returned, but in their minds they wanted the three runaways—and especially Abram—dead and silenced. I pray to Heaven you are able to do the right thing, Mrs. Kincannon had said. “Ha,” Matthew said quietly. “The right thing.” His voice was wan and hoarse. “And what is the right thing?” he asked the starless night.

“The right thing,” came a harsher voice, from only a short distance away, “is first to get your ass out of that mud, Sir Gentleman.”

Matthew at once sat up. A mountainous black-bearded figure, dark with mud, towered over him.

“Saw somebody come out of the woods,” said Magnus. “Didn’t know who it was ’til I heard you. Anybody else comin’?”

“No,” Matthew answered when he could find his voice again.“I don’t think so.”

Magnus knelt down beside him. “Indians got you?”

“Yes.”

“How’d you get away?”

“Not easily.” They’re using human heads in their ballgame, he almost said, but to revisit all that was a torture in itself. “What happened to you?”

“Fought a couple of ’em off with an oar. Then I went underwater, grabbed hold of a rock and near drowned down there, tryin’ to keep my breath. A pair of boots stepped on me, that didn’t help. When I could, I crawled into the thicket. Was gonna stay there ’til first light, then I saw somebody come out…turns out to be you.” He was silent for a moment, as the swamp spoke around them in its unintelligible chattering. “Lot of men dead, I’m figurin’.”

“Yes,” said Matthew.

“It was bad,” said Magnus, a statement rather than a question, and he waited for Matthew to nod. “Well,” said the muddied mountain, “we lost everythin’ when the boat went over. The musket…the black powder…the tinderbox…the food. Figure your cutlass is gone?”

“Gone,” Matthew said.

“Maybe we can find a boat and get it uprighted. Moon’s near dark,” Magnus said, noting the change in the lighting. “Clouds rollin’ in, maybe get some rain in the mornin’.” He stared without speaking into Matthew’s face for a time. “Smellin’ blood on you. Hurt bad?”

“I had an arrow in the shoulder. I had to pull it out. My left arm is…less than perfect.”

“Hm,” said Magnus. He scratched his muddy beard. “Could’ve been worse, I’m thinkin’.”

“Yes,” Matthew agreed, feeling as if he were in the midst of a bad dream that had no beginning and no end, one of those that set upon you and caused you to think the night was without time and the world without form. “Much worse.”

“Look here,” Magnus said suddenly. “Somebody else is comin’.”

Matthew saw for himself. Approaching from downriver was a rowboat with a pair of punched-tin lanterns set on a hook at the bow. Behind the boat was nothing was dark river; this was obviously the final journeyer from Jubilee. Matthew tried to stand but found he hadn’t yet the strength, so Sir Gentleman remained with his ass in the mud. Magnus stood up and waded out to meet the boat, and in so doing bumped against a body floating faceup with an arrow through its throat. When he pushed it aside, something slithered underneath his hand and he jerked the hand back as if it had touched a hot griddle.

In another moment the boat had drawn close enough for both Magnus and Matthew to see who was handling the oars. Matthew got to his feet; the world spun around him a few times, but he held firm to his senses.

“You know,” said the young black-haired girl, staring at him with her dark blue eyes in the dim lantern light, “that I couldn’t let you go again. Not when you’re so close.”

Matthew had no idea how to respond. Quinn Tate thought him to be someone else, of course. Swamp fever or not, she was out of her mind.

“Stepped on somethin’,” said Magnus, and he reached underwater. He came up with a short sword…not Matthew’s cutlass, but good enough to fight with.

“What happened here?” Quinn asked. She scanned the lefthand riverbank, and then she caught sight of the floating body with the arrow in its throat. She answered her own question. “I told you they’d come when they saw the torches.”

“They might still be creepin’ about,” Magnus said. “They took Matthew, but he got away from ’em. Time we were gettin’ out of here too.” He laid the sword down into the boat. “I’m gonna climb in. Just sit still and keep the oars out and flat.”

She nodded. Magnus pulled himself over the side and helped Matthew over as Quinn held the boat steady. Matthew noted that she looked at him with wonder and near adoration, as if he were a spirit sent to her from God. He sat at the stern, clasping his wounded shoulder, and at once Quinn abandoned the oars and sat on the plank seat next to him, pulling the torn shirt open to look at his injury.

“Arrow,” he told her. “I was lucky. Didn’t hit a bone.”

She touched the clotted mass of blood with gentle fingers. “Got to get somethin’ on that, Daniel. It’ll fester if you don’t.”

“Matthew,” he said quietly but forcefully. “My name is Matthew.”

Quinn seemed to catch herself drifting in some memory of the past. She blinked, a shade passed over her features, and she said, “Yes. I meant to say…Matthew.”

Magnus had sat on the center plank and taken up the oars. He hesitated, and Matthew realized he was trying to decide to go on or not. “What’s up ahead?” Magnus asked the girl, his voice a harsh rumble. “More Indians?”

“No. But other things.”

“What other things?”

“Spirits,” she said. “They wander, lookin’ for peace…or revenge. The river leadin’ you on and on, and the swamp takin’ you in and makin’ you lose your way. The quicksand pits and the snake nests, trickin’ you to step in ’em. I know from hearin’ tales…it’s a bad place.”

“Tales,” scoffed Magnus, yet his voice wasn’t as strong as it had been a moment before. A flicker of heat lightning shot across the sky to the west. “Matthew, what do you say? Do we go onward or back?”

As soon as this uncomfortable question had left Magnus’ lips, there came the sound of a distant gunshot. The noise rolled to them through the weeping willows, the gnarled oaks and along the river’s flow. In a few seconds another gunshot—likely a pistol this time, the sound a little higher register than the first, which was probably a musket—rang out. Following it almost immediately was a third shot, from another musket.

Then silence, but for the voice of the swamp.

Magnus waited. He glanced back at Matthew. “Three shots. Three runaways. Maybe got ’em all.”

Matthew looked for the red wash in the eastern sky that would be the coming of daylight, but it was not there. Time seemed to have slipped its boundaries. His shoulder had begun to throb with deep pain that radiated up the side of his neck. He had no idea what to do with the girl; she had to be taken back to Rotbottom, but still…he couldn’t be sure the three shots had killed the runaways, and there was yet the chance to save them.

“I say we go on,” Magnus decided. “Come this far, we should go on. You bear with that?”

Matthew didn’t like the idea of taking the girl any further upriver, but it seemed that the die was cast. “I bear with it,” he said, and Magnus began rowing them onward with strong strokes.

“Brought some things,” Quinn said. She reached down into the bottom of the boat and brought up a small yellow gourd topped with a cork and equipped with a leather strap. “Fresh well-water,” she said, and sloshed the liquid around for them to hear. She uncorked the gourd and offered it to Matthew, who drank gratefully and then passed it to Magnus, who also drank. The gourd was recorked and hung around her neck by the strap, and then Quinn brought up a paper wrapping of what, unwrapped, revealed several chunks of dried meat.

“Alligator?” Matthew asked before he took one.

“Surely,” she answered. “Go ahead, it was a big fat one.”

In spite of what he’d witnessed this night, he was hungry enough. He ate a piece, but he couldn’t help wondering what had made this particular reptile so fat. It had a taste somewhere between chicken and fish, with more gill than cluck. Magnus took two of the chunks and put them down his gullet as if they were from the finest steak in Charles Town. “Obliged,” he said.

Quinn reached down and brought up a third item to show Matthew: a rusted-looking pistol that likely would explode at the pulling of the trigger. “Got a tinderbox, a bag of powder and some shot too,” she said, holding up a deerskin bag.

“This belongs to your father? Or your husband?” Matthew asked.

She stared into his eyes for a few seconds before she replied. “It was yours,” she said. “I thought…maybe…you’d know it.”

“Listen to me,” Matthew told her. “I’ve never seen you before. Who do you think I am? Someone named Daniel?”

“Your name is Matthew now.” She gave him a small smile that held within it both a great grief and a heart of hope. “But you’ve done what you said you’d do. What you swore. I don’t want to rush it on you, ’cause I figure you might not remember. But you will remember, in time.”

Matthew thought the girl was beautiful—a flower among the swamp weeds—but she was surely mad. As Magnus rowed, Matthew closed his eyes and tried to find some rest, aware that Quinn was pressed against him as tightly as a new waistcoat. He was wet with sweat in the humid night, and the insects were back with a vengeance around his face and the shoulder wound. Behind his closed eyes, the cutting scythe rose and fell and the headless bodies jerked and shuddered beneath the children with their knives. He had known horror before, many times, through his dealings in the case of the Queen of Bedlam, the vicious killer Tyranus Slaughter and just lately his meeting with Professor Fell on Pendulum Island, but that scene of bloody celebration at the gamefield had nearly unhinged his already-shattered door. It had been the knowledge that he was waiting for his own head to be delivered to the game paddles that had been the worst, and everything he had wanted to do or planned to do or expected to do in this world would have been ended with the slash of the scythe.

He felt Quinn’s hand, gentle upon his cheek, and he opened his eyes to see her face very close to his own, as if inhaling the essence of him. “Daniel was your husband?” he asked.

“Is my husband,” she said. “Always will be, ’til the stars fall out of the sky.”

“He’s dead?”

“Alive,” she answered.

“In me, you think?”

“You’ll remember, soon enough.”

“I am not Daniel,” said Matthew. “No matter what you believe, I’m not him.”

She smiled, ever so faintly. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, which was stubbled now with a day’s growth of beard. “You’ll remember,” she replied. “Soon enough.”

Magnus ceased his rowing and let the vessel drift. “Boats pulled up on shore ahead,” he announced. “Looks like…five or six of ’em. Shots likely came from here. I’m puttin’ us out.”

“All right,” Matthew agreed, as Magnus aimed the boat toward the others pulled up in the brush and weeds. When they were lodged upon the bank, Matthew took up the sword and Magnus accepted the rusty pistol and the powderbag from Quinn. Magnus spent a moment loading the thing. Quinn gathered up the water gourd and the rest of the ’gator meat. Matthew’s head spun a little upon stepping onto the slimy shore, and he stumbled a step but Quinn was quickly there to keep him standing.

The glow of a fire could be seen through the trees not far ahead. Magnus went first, leading Matthew and Quinn through the tangle. Soon the voices of men could be heard, talking quietly. Magnus eased into the firelight, causing some of the fifteen or so men who sat around the fire to jump to their feet as if being visited by a bearded and muddied giant hai’nt of the swamp. Swords, muskets and pistols pointed in the direction of the new arrivals.

“Ease up, boys,” said the gravel-voiced Baltazar Stamper, who sat on a length of rotten log. Under his raven-feathered hat his hard-lined face was placid and unconcerned, but his musket was close at hand. “Just Muldoon and…well, look who’s joined the party.” He was staring past Matthew at the girl, and he smiled thinly and tipped his hat to show a mass of unruly black hair with tendrils of gray on the sides. “Where’d you come from, young miss?”

“Rotbottom’s my home,” she answered in a tentative voice, as she came fully into the firelight beside Matthew.

“Ah, Rotbottom!” This was spoken by the black-garbed and gaunt preacher Seth Lott, who remained on his feet and gave Quinn a slight bow and a sweep of his ebony tricorn. His hair was cut close to the scalp, like a sprinkling of dark sand. Matthew noted that the man’s keen-eyed gaze covered all of Quinn’s body from head to feet and then travelled upward again, with a couple of joyously wicked stops on the journey. “I am told much sin abides in Rotbottom, since you have no preacher there?”

“We have some who read the Good Book,” Quinn replied, with more strength. “I’m one of ’em.”

“Blessed are you, then,” said Lott, offering a quick smile. He returned the tricorn to his head. “Come join us, friends. We are cooking up some snakes over this bountiful fire.”

Matthew saw that many of the men held sharpened sticks upon which were pierced pieces of white meat. He recognized the broad-shouldered, brown-bearded and husky Caleb Bovie, who regarded the three additions to the ‘party’ with an impassive expression that might have been tinged with dull-eyed contempt. The others he’d probably seen before, maybe in the boats or in the crowd at the Green Sea. They were mostly lean examples of men who had labored hard and long for very little, and wore in the lines upon their faces the tales of lives of quiet desperation. It was easy to see how any of them would be out here hoping to earn money for the ears of a runaway slave, particularly one who had murdered Sarah Kincannon, for such might lift them up at least for awhile from the common clay, or serve to buy a wife a nice piece of cloth for a new dress, or a playtoy for a child. A few of these gents, however, were intent on passing the jugs back and forth; their ruddy faces, glazed eyes and occasional giggling displayed the fact that they were out here, indeed, to join the ‘party.’

“Lord, boy!” said a man with a crown of white hair and a face seamed by many summers of burning suns. “You got blood all over your shirt! What happened?”

“Indians,” Matthew answered. He felt like he needed to sit down before he fell. “From that village back there. They came up from underwater. Threw some of the boats over, and—”

“You got away from there with your head?” Stamper was roasting his piece of snake over the flames. “We made sure we got past that place quick. Never been there—thank God—but I know what it is. The Catawba, Creeks, Yuchi, and Chickasaws put the people there they call ‘Dead in Life’…the outcasts. We figured the skins had already gotten past, without attractin’ too much attention. Yeah, all those torches on the river…all that singin’ and such…sure to draw ’em out.” Matthew thought the gunfire on the river might also have alerted the Dead in Life to trespassers in their realm, but he said nothing. “Heard tell of the game,” Stamper said. “You see it?”

“A part I want to keep,” Matthew answered, “was almost in the game.”

“Lost a lot of blood, looks like. Took a knife?”

“Arrow.”

“Broke off the shaft?”

“No,” Matthew said. “I pulled the arrowhead out.”

There was a moment of respectful silence, even from the drunken gigglers. Then Stamper called out, “Halleck, pass that jug over here! Let’s give this boy a drink. I think he needs one more than you do.”

The jug was passed. Matthew had a swallow, which burned hot going down and brought tears to his eyes but he welcomed the sensation. Then Quinn took the jug, said to him, “Draw a breath,” and when he did—knowing what she was about to do—she splashed some of the liquor onto his shoulder wound.

Comets and fireballs whirled through his head. The pain almost broke his teeth. He thought for a second his tormented flesh in that area had burst into flame. Then he was aware of being helped to the ground by Magnus, because his legs had collapsed. He sat in the firelight with his hand clasped to his shoulder and the beads of sweat glistening on his face.

“Thank you,” said Quinn, giving the jug back to Stamper, who began its passage back to Halleck and the other drunkards.

“Heard three shots,” Magnus said. “Killed three snakes?”

“Snakes were killed by the sword,” Stamper answered as he chewed on the blackened meat. “Whetters, Carr and Morgan fired those shots.” He motioned toward three men on the other side of the flames. “Tell the man why you’re wastin’ gunpowder, Morgan.”

“Wasn’t no waste!” said the wild-looking red-haired man with a hooked nose and maybe four or five black teeth in his head. “Somethin’ was stalkin’ us! We all heared it!”

“Scared it off, whatever it was!” said one of the others, thin and balding and red-eyed from either his experiences of the night or sips from the jug. “Somethin’ big…followin’ us through that thicket. Didn’t make a lot a’noise, but it cracked a twig or two. Gettin’ closer and closer. Thought it might’ve been one of the skins, slippin’ up to cut our throats!”

“Those skins are a long way from here, I’m bettin’,” said Stamper, with a nostril-flare of disgust for either the runaways or the three shooters. “And no one of ’em is gonna try to cut anybody’s throat. They want to run, not fight.”

“Just tellin’ you what we heard,” Morgan insisted. “Out there lookin’ to scare up a rabbit or such…then we all heard it prowlin’ through that brush. Couldn’t see it, not even with the torch. Keepin’ well-hid.” He turned his attention from Stamper to Magnus. “So we took our shots and to Hell with whatever damn devil it was.”

“Indian, maybe?” Magnus asked. “The Dead in Life?”

“Maybe, but I don’t believe they’d roam this far from their village,” Stamper said. “Whatever it was, you boys are damned poor shots. Wasn’t a drop of blood in that thicket.” He reached over and gave his musket a loving pat. “We’ll find out before dawn whether you hit an Indian or not.”

Matthew looked up at the sky. Had it ever been so dark before dawn in his life? Quinn settled herself beside him and pushed the sweat-damp hair back from his forehead.

Magnus reached down. He took for himself a stick of burnt snake meat from the hand of a long-nosed man who seemed to think just for an instant of defying Fate, but then regained his senses and sat with his knees pulled up to his chin. Magnus chewed on the meat and surveyed the group of men. He was a formidable beast, with his hair and beard matted and filthy and his face darkened by Solstice River mud. “Why’d you pull off the river here?”

“I don’t know who got here first and started a fire,” Stamper said, “but it’s a good place to camp. High off the mud. Eat some food and wait ’til daylight. Get started again in a couple of hours.”

Magnus nodded. “I’m lookin’ for Griffin Royce and Joel Gunn. Anybody seen ’em?”

“I seen ’em,” said a man leaning against a tree on the other side of the fire. He cradled a musket, was thick-bodied, had a neck like a bull and a square-jawed face that looked like he could crush stones between his teeth. Even so, his blind left eye was stark white. “About an hour ago. They was rowin’ ahead of me, Ellis and Doyle. Movin’ fast. Rounded a bend, and they was gone.”

“Hm,” said Magnus, still chewing on the reptile.

“Why you lookin’ for them, Muldoon?” Caleb Bovie had snake meat in his teeth and a voice that sounded as if his throat had been scraped with a razor. “You’re out after the skins just like the rest of us, ain’t you?”

Magnus was suddenly at a loss for words. He looked to Matthew, who took up the banner even though he was still nearly insensible. “We wondered…if those two might’ve found the runaways yet. They started off…before everyone else. So…”

“And what the hell are you doin’ here and who are you?” Stamper asked, his eyes narrowed. “I saw you in Jubilee. Wearin’ fancy clothes with fancy manners. You’re from Charles Town, am I right? What are you doin’ out here on a slave hunt, boy?”

Magnus got his jaw unlocked. He had realized, as Matthew knew, that telling these men what Granny Pegg had said would carry no weight, and might work against their aim. “Matthew’s a friend of mine. Was at my house when the bell started ringin’.” He offered a crooked, muddy-faced grin. “Don’t hold it against him that he’s from Charles Town. Wantin’ to help me start a business. Ain’t that right, Matthew?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Business?” Stamper snorted and a few of the others dared to laugh, but quietly. “Muldoon, only business you can do is spreadin’ a stink wherever you walk.” His hand touched the musket, just in case. “And it’s news to me that you have a friend. Boy,” he said to Matthew, “you must be as poor a soul as he is.”

Quinn leaned toward the man. Her face was tight, her eyes dark, and she said in a voice of fire and ice, “Don’t you talk to him that way, mister. I won’t have it. You hear?”

“Is that so?” Stamper replied, with a quick glance at the other men, for Matthew saw he enjoyed not only being the center of attention, but also being a hornet in a chamberpot. “Why? What’s he to a sad-eyed young wench from Rotbottom?”

“He’s my husband,” Quinn said calmly, “and he’s come back to me from the dead.”