The River of Souls

As Abram started for Griffin Royce’s hiding place with a knife in his hand, Matthew scrambled up from the ground and with two desperate strides crashed into Abram, knocking him aside just as the musket fired. He had not come this far to watch Abram be shot down. The ball passed somewhere behind Matthew’s head and into the trees. Abram fell to the ground, and Matthew realized he had no choice but to charge into the smoke-filled thicket with his sword ready to slash flesh from bone because Royce would already be pouring the powder into another weapon.

He leaped into the churning gunsmoke and through vines and thorny weeds that clutched at him like little claws. And there about ten feet to his left and crouched against an oak tree was the figure of Royce, frantically ramrodding a ball and cloth patch down into a second musket’s muzzle. Matthew rushed the man, even as Royce turned the musket on him and cocked it with a grimy thumb. As the musket’s barrel came at him, Matthew swung out with the sword and deflected it, the musket firing with a noise that shocked Matthew’s eardrums but the shot going wide. Then Royce became a truly wild animal, and with clenched teeth and a growling in his throat he struck at Matthew with the musket’s barrel but again Matthew’s sword knocked it aside.

Royce launched himself at Matthew, the man’s right shoulder hitting him in the chest with bone-jarring force. The musket was dropped and forgotten as Royce fought Matthew for the sword, and Matthew was swung around and slammed so hard against the oak’s trunk the breath burst from him and he and nearly lost his grip. Royce punched a fist into the arrow wound on Matthew’s shoulder, breaking it open and causing a fresh blossoming of blood. Matthew fought back as hard as he could, catching Royce on the jaw with his left fist and striking him a blow on the throat that caused his opponent to gag and falter for a few seconds, but the man was powerful and adept at close-in fighting. A knee rammed into Matthew’s stomach and a fist struck him on the back of the neck, but still Matthew clung to the sword, for to lose that was certain death. Royce gripped Matthew’s hair and tried to knee him in the face. Matthew stopped the knee with his free arm and struck into the pit of Royce’s stomach. The stocky killer let out a pained gasp of breath, but he would not let go of Matthew’s right wrist and began to brutally twist it to weaken the fingers and free the sword. With his other hand he drew his knife from its sheath, but before it could find flesh Matthew saw it coming. He was able to grasp the killer’s knife hand and for the moment hold the blade at bay with the strength of desperation.

Matthew gritted his teeth and would not open his fingers. He thought his wrist was about to snap, but let it break; he wasn’t giving up to this animal, and letting him kill—

“Stop that, Cap’n Royce,” said Abram. “Drop the knife. I don’t want to have to cut you.”

The pressure on Matthew’s wrist went away. He was released. Matthew staggered a few paces, then took in the scene. Abram had come up behind Royce and was gripping the back of the man’s shirt. More importantly, Abram’s blade was right up under Royce’s chin. Royce’s knife fell from his hand.

“You all right?” Abram asked Matthew, and Matthew nodded but he was lying; he eased himself down to the ground, and was met there by Quinn. She put her arms around him and held him tightly and might have said to him Daniel, my sweet Daniel but Matthew was nearly beyond hearing.

“Got you now,” said Abram to Royce, who managed for all his rage and ferocity to remain very still. “Takin’ you back to the Green Sea, cap’n. You’re my prisoner.” And then, because he was yet a slave and Royce a white man, however low, he added by force of habit the respectful, “Suh.”

The Soul Cryer remained upright on its hind legs, as the yellow eyes in its burn-scarred head threw their own fire at Magnus.

“Shoot it!” Bovie croaked. “Christ’s sake…shoot it!”

But Magnus did not pull the trigger, nor did he slash with the sword.

The Soul Cryer wavered, about to lose its tentative balance. Magnus recognized in the beast the cruelty of this wilderness and perhaps the cruelty of the world itself. He thought it was a tortured thing, a creature forsaken and maybe feared by its own breed. It prowled alone out here, hunted alone and wept alone. He knew solitude, and what it could do to a man. He wondered if years of it could do the same thing to a scarred and tormented panther, and maybe in the slitted eyes there was a death wish, if indeed the creature could think beyond the green walls of its prison.

Embers rained down. The smoke swirled and the fire gave a dull roar as it jumped from tree to tree.

Go home, Magnus thought. Go—

The Soul Cryer trembled as its muscles tensed. It took a staggered step forward, its malformed mouth opening at a sideways angle to expose the vicious fangs. Saliva drooled from the jaws and down upon the black-streaked chest.

—home, Magnus thought, and he pulled the pistol’s trigger.

The ball hit the Soul Cryer as near to the heart as Magnus could aim. The creature gave a grunt of pain and fell backwards but quickly it righted itself again, now on all fours, and crouched staring at Magnus through the banners of gray smoke that moved between them. Magnus knew that one ball was surely not enough to kill it, unless it had indeed damaged the heart. The Soul Cryer was breathing heavily and blood bubbled at the blackened nostrils, but it showed no other sign of weakness or injury.

He had no time to reload. He stood with the sword ready. His hand was trembling.

The Soul Cryer suddenly turned toward Barrows’ body, moving with its pained rhythm. With its eyes still on Magnus, the beast angled its head and gripped its jaws around the dead man’s skull. It shook the body like a strawman in a display of tremendous power, and the jaws crunched around the skull and the fangs broke bone and the Soul Cryer ate Barrows’ brains with the determination of an eager child eating sugar candy.

Magnus noted blood pooling under the panther’s chest. The Soul Cryer fed on Barrows’ essence, its eyes never leaving Magnus, and in their yellow glare Magnus saw the message Get away from here. Get away…and never, ever come back.

When Barrows’ broken head was emptied, the Soul Cryer’s eyes blinked, releasing Magnus from their spell. The beast backed away, favoring its ruined foreleg. Giving a noise so near to a human sob that Magnus thought he might hear it in his nightmares, the panther turned with its stiffened motion and leaped into the thicket it claimed as home, and then nothing was left of it but a streak of bright red blood upon the swamp’s ancient mud.

“Oh Jesus,” Bovie gasped. “Jesus help us…”

It occured to Magnus that, though Caleb Bovie had been bitten on the balls by a cottonmouth, the man might be too tough to succumb to snake poison. Either that, or the snake hadn’t gotten both fangs to the task, or the venom had not been delivered in an amount to kill, or it was simply not time for Bovie to go. In any case, though Bovie’s face was still tinged with blue and his lips caked with dried foam, Magnus thought that if the lout was going to die he would’ve been dead already.

“Can you stand up and walk?” Magnus asked.

“Give it a try,” Bovie answered, still in a weak voice, but it was a moment before he did. The roar of the oncoming fire gave him the will to get to his knees, and then the mud-covered mountain hauled him up the rest of the way. Bovie staggered and almost went down again, but Magnus held him steady.

“My head’s spinnin’,” Bovie complained. “Legs feel like much a’nothin’.”

“I’m not carryin’ you out of here, that’s for sure.”

Bovie took in the bodies on the ground. “Did Royce…” He looked at Magnus with his red-rimmed eyes. “Did Royce kill that girl?”

“Yes,” was the answer.

“But why would’ve he have done such a thing?”

“Because,” Magnus said, and he’d already spent time thinking on this subject, “some men want what they can’t have, some men want to kill for what they can’t have…and I reckon some men want to kill what they can’t have. It’s that angel and devil fightin’, just like you said…and when the devil wins, sometimes an angel dies.”

“Reckon so,” said Bovie. “Damn…am I gonna live?”

“I believe you are.”

“Told you it was just a black snake.”

“So you did,” Magnus said. He glanced back through the smoke at the oncoming flames. It looked to be a solid wall of fire. He wondered if somewhere the Soul Cryer was not watching it as well, and if the creature might lie down exhausted and ready to die, and this time let the flames finish their job of destruction and rebirth. Magnus, however, was not ready to do the same. Royce was still out there, going after Matthew and the runaways. Magnus retrieved Stamper’s musket and gave Barrows’ musket to Bovie. Both, he saw, were primed and ready to be cocked and fired. He saw also that, regrettably, neither dead man had boots big enough to fit his feet. “Let’s get our tails to the river,” he said, and he started off with Bovie following, limping and rubbing his snake-bit balls.

They had reached the Solstice River and, following its course, came upon the rowboat the slaves had stolen from the Green Sea. It had been pulled up onto shore through the mud and inexpertly covered with tree branches and foliage. Only a few yards from it was the boat that had brought Royce and Gunn. Overhead the lightning flared and the thunder spoke, and the sky to the northeast glowed red above the burning forest. Matthew could see the flames spearing up into the air and orange sparks flying like swarms of locusts. He was in a dazed state, clutching at his raw shoulder wound and being supported by Quinn. Mars had been limping along as best he could, using a broken branch as a walking-stick. Tobey was still on his feet, but barely; his eyes were half-closed, he was stumbling from side to side and the blood from his wound had reddened his shirt and the left leg of his breeches. He was in a bad way, Matthew thought; Tobey had to be gotten back to the Green Sea as quickly as possible, or he would die.

Abram had guided Griffin Royce forward by grasping the back of the man’s shirt and holding the reloaded pistol to Royce’s spine. Matthew had Royce’s knife tucked in the waistband of his breeches, and Quinn carried the short-bladed sword.

As weak as he was, Matthew knew he needed to make some decisions regarding the boats. All of them could not travel in only one. “That one,” he said to Abram, motioning toward the boat that had brought Royce and Gunn, “should carry you, Mars and Tobey. Give me the pistol.”

“I ought to travel with Royce,” Abram said. “Get him in faster that way, suh.”

“You need to row your brother in,” Matthew answered. “Royce can row for Quinn and myself.”

“I ain’t rowin’ for nobody,” Royce sneered. “What am I goin’ back to, a hangin’ party?”

“Well, suh,” said Abram, who released Royce’s shirt and brought up his own knife to place against the front of Royce’s throat, “seein’ as how Miss Sarah was a kind friend to me, and you took her life, there would be nothin’ to stop me from killin’ you right here…and when we get back, sayin’ you was likely lost on the River of Souls. Who would there be to say any different?” He pressed the pistol’s barrel into Royce’s backbone. “Ball or blade, suh. You got a choosin’?”

“Corbett won’t let you do that! Would you?” The hard green eyes glared at Matthew.

“Seems you killed a friend of mine, too,” said Matthew, returning the glare. “I don’t know how you did it and maybe I don’t want to know.” He reached back and took the pistol from Abram’s hand. He placed the barrel between Royce’s eyes and cocked the weapon. “You were asked a question. If you won’t row, then…ball or blade?”

“You won’t kill me! You don’t have the guts for it!”

Matthew thought about it. Lightning sizzled overhead, followed by a blast of thunder that he could feel vibrate in his bones. “You’re correct,” he said. He placed the barrel against Royce’s right knee. “I won’t kill you, but I’ll cripple you and leave you out here. How long do you think you would last?”

“Gunn told me you were supposed to be the law! You wouldn’t do such a thing!”

“Shall we put it to the test?” Matthew asked. And, truthfully, he was asking himself whether to go ahead and blast Royce’s knee or give the man another moment to decide, because Tobey was leaning against Abram and beginning to cough up blood.

Matthew’s resolve, and the decision that he would do what he threatened, must have shown in his face. Royce looked up at the stormy sky, then at the sword Quinn held and back again to Matthew. It occurred to Matthew that the killer was still seeking a way out of his situation.

“I’ll row,” said Royce, but something in his tone was yet arrogant and haughty; he was far from giving up.

“I don’t like it, suh,” Abram said to Matthew, as he supported his brother. “Man’s a fox.”

“Royce, clear those branches off the boat,” Matthew ordered. “Pull it out to the water.”

Royce gave a grunt and stood stock-still until Quinn suddenly nipped his right cheek with a quick motion of the blade. He looked at her in shock as blood crept down his face.

“He told you to do somethin’,” she said, her eyes dark and dangerous. “Best do it.”

Royce put his hand to his cheek and drew it away. He examined the blood on his fingers, and then without another word he turned and began to follow Matthew’s instructions, as Matthew stood close enough to wing him with a shot if he tried to run.

The boat was dragged into the river. Abram helped Tobey in, then his father, and he took up the oars.

“We’ll be all right,” Matthew said. “Get him in as fast as you can.”

Abram nodded and began to row downriver. Matthew directed Royce to the second boat with a motion of the pistol, and Royce obeyed. That boat, too, was pulled out of the mud and into the shallows. It took some maneuvering and some caution, but in a few minutes Matthew and Quinn were sitting together at the stern while Royce, facing them, sat on the middle plank seat and, with the oars in their locks, began to row them back toward the Green Sea.

Matthew kept the pistol trained on him. Lightning zigzagged across the dark sky and thunder echoed through the swamp. Quinn pressed close against Matthew, but she was also watching Royce for any trickery. Royce pulled steadily at the oars, his face impassive but his eyes narrowed and searching for a way out.

“Keep to the middle,” Matthew told him, as Royce began to let the boat drift toward the right bank. Up ahead, the boat carrying the runaways was rounding a bend and moving out of sight.

“Whatever you say,” Royce answered. “Man who’s got the gun calls the shots.”

Matthew was thinking. What to do about Quinn. Her Daniel would be leaving her, as soon as Royce was returned to the Green Sea and the runaways pardoned. It seemed to Matthew that it would be particularly cruel, for her to lose ‘Daniel’ again, but what could he possibly do about it? He was looking forward to a cleaning of his shoulder wound, a hot bath at the Carringtons’ inn, and as soon as he was able to travel he was taking a packet boat back home. This animal sitting before him, manning the oars, was not worth the rope it would take to hang him. How many had he killed besides Sarah Kincannon and Magnus Muldoon? And Joel Gunn, too? A lead ball to Royce’s head might be the more fitting end to him, but Matthew would have to let a court have the final word. He had no doubt what that word would—

Raindrops.

Rain had begun falling. The drops were few, but they were heavy. Lightning streaked, followed by the hollow boom of thunder. Royce kept rowing, unhurriedly. Maybe upon his face there was a thin and cunning smile. Matthew felt a sense of alarm; he knew the pistol’s flashpan cover was closed, but when the trigger was pulled the cover opened for the flint to ignite a small amount of powder at the touchhole…and rain was definitely not kind to gunpowder. If the powder at the flashpan became damp, the weapon would be useless except as a club.

Within a matter of seconds, the sky opened up and—Matthew’s worst fear—a torrent of rain descended.

The rain fell so heavily, in gray sheets, that he could hardly make out Royce sitting before them; the man was just a shape in the deluge. Rain beat down upon Matthew and Quinn, and the surface of the River of Souls was thrashed as if by the twistings of a thousand alligators.

Royce—or the blurred shape of Royce—ceased rowing.

Water streamed down Matthew’s face. “Keep rowing!” he shouted against the voice of the storm. He was aware that this torrent was also beating down upon the pistol and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. “Go on!” he demanded.

Royce didn’t answer. Slowly and deliberately, the man stood up. Through the curtain of rain Matthew saw him lift the oar on his right from its lock.

“Stop it!” Matthew shouted, but Royce would not stop. Matthew had no choice. The time had come. He aimed at Royce’s chest and pulled the trigger.

The trigger snapped.

The rain-soaked gun remained mute.

“I’ll be leavin’ now,” Royce said. He swung out with the oar and slammed it into the left side of Matthew’s head.

Matthew fell to his knees in the boat, bright and searing pain fogging his vision and filling his brain. He dropped the useless pistol, and did not see that Quinn was on her feet and slashing out with the sword. Royce turned the blade aside with the oar and followed that with a fist to Quinn’s face that brought the blood from her nostrils and sent her reeling back into the boat, which swayed precariously from side to side on the tortured river.

Under the driving rain, Matthew was aware that he had to fight back. Dazed, his vision cut to a dark haze, he found the knife in his waistband and drew it out, at the same time trying to get to his feet. A second blow of the oar, to almost the same place near the left temple of Matthew’s head, knocked the knife from his nerveless fingers and sent him over the side of the boat into the River of Souls.

He went down, his head full of fire. He had the sensation of drifting into a different realm, worlds away from…he could not remember from where, nor could he remember exactly where he was or why, but he realized he could not breathe and he must find air…and yet, this was a peaceful place, this darkness and quiet, and here he might find rest if he so chose.

In the boat, as the deluge continued to slam down, Royce grabbed Quinn by the hair with both hands and dragged her forward in preparation to throw her over the side. She had lost the sword. Her hands scrabbled at the bottom of the boat, seeking the weapon. Royce hauled her up and grinned in her bloodied face.

“Over you go, Rotbottom bitch,” he said, spitting water. “But first…I’ll take a kiss.”

He pressed his mouth against hers with a force that nearly broke her teeth.

Quinn kissed him hard, in return.

Her kiss was delivered by the knife that Matthew had dropped and her fingers had found, and deep into the heart this kiss was driven, and twisted for good measure and good fortune on the journey that Griffin Royce was about to undertake.

He gasped and pulled back, but the knife remained in his heart and Quinn’s hand held it firm as the life streamed out of him. His mouth opened and filled with rain. His green eyes blinked, shedding water. All the world, it seemed, had turned to a river without beginning or end. The haunted girl from Rotbottom and the animalish killer from the Green Sea stood together in a rowboat between shores obscured by the downpour, and above them thunder shouted like the voice of God condemning men for sins too foul to forgive.

Royce looked down at the knife, as if to wish it away. He took hold of Quinn’s hand but was suddenly too weak to push it aside. Then his rain-beaten face seemed to run and distort like melting tallow, and when Quinn released the knife Royce fell backward into the bow of the boat and lay there, arms and legs splayed and knife still piercing his heart. His sightless green gaze flickered and dimmed, as the River of Souls carried the boat in the direction of the Green Sea on its sinuous path to the Atlantic.

Quinn leaped overboard. Her Daniel had risen back to the surface but his face was still underwater. She swam to him and lifted his face from the river, and there she saw the ugly darkening bruise and swelling at his left temple. For a few seconds he was still and her heart nearly broke because she feared she’d lost him again, and then his body convulsed and water burst from his mouth and nose and he drew in a ragged breath of air strained through the falling rain.

“Stay with me,” she pleaded, holding him close lest the river pull him under again. “Daniel…please stay with me.”

She thought he might have nodded, but she wasn’t sure.

For a moment she watched the boat carrying the body of Griffin Royce drift away until it was obscured by the curtains of rain. He would be no more threat or harm to anyone, she thought, unless he was as strong a spirit as her husband and could also find his way back from the vale of Death. But she didn’t believe God, in His final judgment, would allow such a wicked soul to find a way through. Then, holding tightly and lovingly to her Daniel, the girl from Rotbottom struck out for the opposite shore.