Part 16 (1/2)

Walker eased forward. He leaned down and lifted the Bible.

”He's dead,” Tom said. A spool of b.l.o.o.d.y saliva unraveled from his mouth over his injured lip and down his chin. His voice was listless, matter-of-fact. ”I touched him. He's dead.”

Matthew could not bring himself to look at the reverend's face, but he saw how bad it was by looking at Walker's. If an Indian could ever go pale, this one did. Matthew saw an incomprehension in Walker's eyes, a statement of horror that was made more terrible because it was silent. A muscle jumped in Walker's jaw, and then the Indian put aside the Bible and gazed upward-not to Heaven, but at the sleeping loft. He climbed up the ladder.

”That man came back,” Tom said. ”That man. This mornin'.” He shook his head. ”Yesterday. Knocked the door down. He was on us 'fore we could move.”

Walker returned with a thin blue blanket, which he used to wrap around the misshapen ma.s.s that had been John Burton's face and head.

James gave another sharp cry, and Tom adjusted his arms because they'd begun to drift down. ”I think ” Tom swallowed, either thick saliva or blood. ”I think James' back is broke. That man brought a chair down on him. Right 'cross his back. There wasn't anythin' could be done.”

”How long have you been sitting there?” Matthew asked.

”All night,” he said. ”I can't I can't put James down. Y'see? I think his back is broke. He cries so much.”

Walker stood over the corpse. Flies were spinning in the air, and the place smelled of blood and a darker sour odor of death. ”No human,” he said, ”could do this.”

”What?” Matthew hadn't understood him; his own mind felt mired in the mud of corruption. He stared at a hayfork that leaned against the wall near the door.

”No human could do this,” Walker repeated. ”Not any human I've ever met.”

James shrieked again. Tom lifted his arms. Matthew wondered how many times he'd done that over the course of the long night to keep the dog's body evenly supported; the boy's arms must feel like they were about to tear loose from the sockets.

”His back is broke,” Tom said. ”But I've got him. I've got him, all right.” He looked up at Matthew, and gave a dazed, battered half-smile that made fresh blood drool from his mouth. ”He's my friend.”

Matthew felt the Indian staring at him. He avoided it, and ran the back of a hand across his mouth. Tom's eyes were closed, perhaps also avoiding what he must certainly know should be done.

”Belvedere,” Walker said quietly. ”It won't come to us us.”

”Shhhhh,” Tom told the dog, as it whimpered. The sound became a low groaning noise. ”I've got you,” he said, his eyes still closed, and possibly more tightly shut than a few seconds before. ”I've got you.”

Walker said to Matthew, ”Give me your neckcloth.” The cravat, he meant. Matthew's brain was fogged. He heard a blood-gorged fly buzz past his ear and felt another graze his right eyebrow. He unknotted the cravat, removed it from around his throat and gave it to the Indian, who tore from it a long strip and handed the rest of it back. Walker twisted the cloth for strength and began to wrap the ends of the strip around each hand. When Walker took a forward step, the boy's eyes opened.

”No,” Tom said. Walker stopped.

”He's my dog. My friend.” The boy lifted his arms again, and now winced at the supreme effort of holding them steady. ”I'll do it if you'll hold him so he don't hurt.”

”All right,” said the Indian.

Walker unwound the strangler's cloth from his hands and lay it across Tom's left shoulder, and then he knelt down before Tom and held out his arms like a cradle to accept the suffering animal.

James cried out terribly as the exchange was made, but Tom said, ”Shhhhh, shhhhh,” and perhaps the dog even in its pain understood the sound of deeper agony in its companion's voice. Then James whimpered a little bit, and Walker said, ”I have him.”

”Thank you, sir,” answered Tom in a distant, dreamlike tone, as he began to wrap the cloth between his own hands, which Matthew saw bore razor cuts.

Matthew stepped back. Tom eased the taut cloth around James' neck, trying to be tender. James began to whimper again. Its pink tongue came out to lick at the air. Tom leaned forward and kissed his dog on the head, and then very quickly he crisscrossed one hand over the other and fresh blood and mucous blew from his nostrils as he did what he had to do, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth grinding down into the wound of his lower lip.

Matthew looked at his feet. His moccasins stood in the pool of the reverend's blood. The indignant flies swarmed and spun. Matthew backstepped, hit the remnants of a broken chair, and almost fell. He righted himself, swayed unsteadily, felt sickness roil in a hot wave in his stomach. He had seen murder before, yes, and brutal murder at that; but Slaughter's work had been done with so much pleasure pleasure.

”Don't shame yourself,” he heard Walker tell him, and he knew that not only were his eyes swimming, but that his face must have been as white as his cravat had been only yesterday morning.

Slowly, his eyes still downcast, Matthew busied himself with winding the cravat around his throat again. After all, it had been very expensive. It was the mark of a gentleman, and what every young man of merit wore in New York. He carefully knotted it and pushed its ends down under the neck of his dirty s.h.i.+rt. Then he stood very still, listening to the patter of rain on the roof. Tom turned away from Walker. He went to a bucket of water on the floor that had survived the violence, got down on his knees with the slow pained grace of an old man and began to wash the blood from his nostrils.

”His tracks head to Belvedere,” Walker said, speaking to the boy. A small black-haired carca.s.s with a brown snout lay on the floor in front of the fireplace, as if sleeping there after a day fully done. ”We intend to catch him, if he hasn't already gotten himself a horse.”

”He'll want a horse,” Tom agreed. He splashed water into his face and rubbed life back into his shoulders. ”Maybe one or two to be bought there, not many.”

”One would be enough.”

”He can be tracked, even on a horse,” said the boy. ”All we have to do is get us some horses, we can find him.”

We, Tom had said. Matthew made no response, and neither did Walker.

Tom took their silence for another reason. ”I can steal us some horses, if I have to. Done it before. Well one one horse, I mean.” He started to stand up, but suddenly his strength left him and he staggered and fell onto his side. horse, I mean.” He started to stand up, but suddenly his strength left him and he staggered and fell onto his side.

”You're not in any shape to be stealing horses,” Walker observed. ”Can you walk?”

”I don't know.”

”Decide in a hurry. Matthew and I are leaving.”

”I can walk,” Tom said, and with a show of sheer willpower over physical distress he stood up, staggered again, and then held his balance. He looked from Walker to Matthew and back again, the bruised and bloodied face defiant.

”How fast fast can you walk?” was the next question. can you walk?” was the next question.

For that, Tom seemed to have no answer. He blinked heavily, obviously in need of sleep as well as medical attention. He held his hands up before his face and looked at the razor cuts there as if he had no memory of having been wounded. Then he turned his attention to Matthew. ”You're a Christian, aren't you?”

”Yes.”

”Will you help me, then? You bein' a Christian, and the reverend bein' a Christian. Help me bury him?”

”There's no time for that,” said Walker.

”I promised. Said I'd stay with him 'til he died, and then I'd bury him. I won't go back on a promise.”

”We can't lose time. Do you understand that?”

”I understand it. But I won't go back on a promise.”

”Do you want to play play at catching Slaughter?” Walker asked Matthew, with a flash of anger behind it. ”Or do you want to really at catching Slaughter?” Walker asked Matthew, with a flash of anger behind it. ”Or do you want to really try try?”

”We're talkin',” Tom said, ”when we could be buryin'. I want to put the reverend under, and James, too. There in that cemetery, with the other ones. After that, I'll show you how to get to Belvedere through the woods. Cuts about four miles off goin' by the road.”

”I already know that way,” said the Indian.

”I reckon you do,” Tom replied, and he winced at some pain and blew a little b.l.o.o.d.y snot out of his nose.

How the boy was even standing up, Matthew had no idea. He might have a broken nose or even a broken jaw, by the looks of him. Probably missing some teeth, too. But he was alive, and that was more than most of Slaughter's victims could claim. Matthew thought that this boy probably had the hardest bark of anybody he'd ever met, including Greathouse himself. Of course they had to get to Belvedere, and they had to get there before sundown.