Part 25 (1/2)

”Just a little more, now,” Slaughter whispered, right up in his face. ”Starting to break, isn't it? Listen for the bones to snap!”

And then Slaughter twisted Matthew's wrist so fiercely searing pain coursed along the tortured arm through his neck and paralyzed him. He cried out, equally in panic as well as pain, as the knife fell from his frozen hand to the floor. Slaughter released Matthew's wrist to jab at his eyes with the fingernails, an effort Matthew was able to deflect even as he clung desperately to Slaughter's knife arm. Slaughter then grasped the front of Matthew's buckskin jacket, and with a display of awesome one-handed strength whirled around and flung him across the chamber to crash heavily into the base of the opposite wall.

Matthew got up on his knees. He tasted blood. The room swam about him.

Slaughter came toward him almost leisurely, the knife at his side. He was hardly breathing heavily. ”Dear Matthew! Don't you know by now? It would take two of you to polish me off. Alas, there is only-”

One of the wooden buckets was within Matthew's reach. He picked it up and hurled it at the man's head.

Slaughter dodged, snake-quick, but not quick enough that the bucket didn't glance off his wounded scalp. Its pa.s.sage tore the bandage away, brought a hiss from between Slaughter's teeth and caused blood to stream anew from the hideous, raw red furrow above his ear. ”d.a.m.n it!” he shouted, staggering back and clasping a hand to the injury. How dare you How dare you, was his tone of voice. He blinked rapidly; blood was in his eye. ”d.a.m.n-”

He never finished the second oath, because Matthew had gotten to his feet and now he hit the man in the mouth as hard as he could. Even falling, Slaughter swung out with the knife; it slashed across Matthew's chest, carving through buckskin, waistcoat cloth and s.h.i.+rt linen as cleanly as it had cut through the burnt crust of a ham.

Slaughter went down on his back, making the planks squeal and tremble. Matthew had no time to worry about a slashed chest. He stomped on the knife hand; once, twice, again did the man have a grip of iron? Slaughter was trying to grab Matthew's leg, and then he reached up and caught the jacket, but the fingers of his other hand had sprung their knuckles and the knife was loose. Matthew bent down to get it but again Slaughter's nails came at his face. He kicked at the knife, if only to remove it from the killer's immediate choices, and the weapon of murderous destruction slid up under one of the revolving wheels.

Slaughter was on his knees. The arrow wound was running crimson through his hair. Matthew hit him in the mouth again, but Slaughter just grinned with b.l.o.o.d.y teeth. A fist struck Matthew in the chest and made his lungs. .h.i.tch for air, another blow smashed him on the right cheekbone and a third hit his jaw and rocked his head back, and then the killer was up and driving him across the floor toward the mechanisms, where a set of pyramid-shaped teeth in one of the groaning gearwheels could very well sc.r.a.pe a face from a skull.

That was Slaughter's intent. He bent Matthew's face toward the teeth, put a hand on the back of his head and pushed. Matthew resisted, the cords and muscles of his neck straining. He thrashed to escape, frantically throwing both elbows, but the man's grip was just too strong. Matthew knew that in another few seconds his fast-dwindling strength would be history, and so too would he be when Slaughter polished him off. Still he fought, and still he knew he was losing. He heard Slaughter grunt when an elbow crashed against his chest, but it was only a matter of time.

Matthew felt himself going. Felt himself giving up, whether he wanted to or not. Try Try? He had tried. Tried all he could. It was not to be. And all those deaths all for nothing Slaughter released one hand to pound him across the back of the head, which made red comets shoot through his brain. And from the gloom that was closing in on him Matthew imagined that Slaughter leaned forward, as Matthew's face hung inches over the revolving teeth, and whispered something in his ear that was strangely familiar: ”With a shove and a shriek I pa.s.s through the town, and what fast horse might ride me down?”

Very soon, now. Very soon.

Try. I'm sorry, he thought. I am all tried out. I'm sorry, he thought. I am all tried out.

Something hit the wheel.

Not his face. Something that sounded like pebbles. Someone had just thrown a handful of pebbles into the room, is what it sounded like. Matthew heard them-four or five, it might have been-hit the wheel and bounce off; one struck the side of his neck and gave him a sting.

All at once Slaughter cast him aside like dirty laundry. Matthew fell to his knees. He stared down at the floor where his own blood was dripping. He was used up, nothing left. He thought he was going to pa.s.s out in another few seconds, and lie here like a lamb for the well, yes.

”Who's there there?” he heard Slaughter roar. The man stalked to the nearest window, which looked toward the woods. ”Who's there there, please?” The diplomat at work. ”This is a private private matter!” matter!”

Matthew saw something roll past his face. His eyes followed it.

It was a marble.

Green, it appeared to be. No, not altogether green. It had within it a swirl of blue.

Matthew was dazed. He had seen that before. Hadn't he? Somewhere.

”Show yourself!” Slaughter shouted. He reached into his haversack again-his bottomless bag of horrors, it seemed-and this time brought out the razor, which had an evil glint about it that Matthew had never noted in his own shaving-gla.s.s.

”Somebody's spying on us,” he heard the man mutter. ”I'll fix 'em, just you wait there. I'll fix 'em.” And then, louder, ”Come on in! Where are you?”

Matthew didn't wish to stay for the cutting party. He looked over his shoulder. At one of the windows on the opposite side of the mill.

If he was going, it was time to get.

Matthew hauled himself up.

With the desperate urgency of someone fleeing Satan Incarnate he ran or hobbled or somehow got to the window. As he heard Slaughter bellow and start after him, he flung himself through the frame.

For a few seconds he was actually riding on top of the watermill's wheel, for he had come out amid the blades. Then he was on the downward slope, he banged the right side of his head on a slat, and suddenly he was in cold water that rushed him away from the mill. How deep the stream was he didn't know, but if his feet dragged the bottom he wasn't aware of it. The chill of the water had given him a start, but now everything was darkening once more, getting hazy around the edges. He went past several half-submerged rocks that he tried to grasp, but the stream was fast and his reflexes seemed to be several seconds behind his intentions. The stream curved to the right, spun him around in white water eddies and picked up more speed.

If Greathouse could see him now, he thought. It was to laugh at, really. To laugh at until one wept. He had the strength of a wet feather. His vision was fading; everything was giving out on him, he had blood in his mouth and a knot on his head and maybe, he thought, this was the end of it. Because his face kept going down into the water, and he couldn't seem to keep his head up.

His chance to get Slaughter was gone. That was to laugh at, as well. Had he ever possessed a chance to ”get” Slaughter? He doubted it. The man was unstoppable.

He was very, very tired. His feet found no bottom. The stream was speeding him along, and now Matthew heard a roaring noise that at any other time might have secured his full attention but that now only made him think his life was numbered in minutes and there was not much to be done about that.

There was a waterfall ahead.

He let his neck relax, and his face slipped into the water. He felt like a floating bruise. He felt like an utter failure. There was not much to be done about that, either.

Oh, but he could try try, couldn't he?

No, there would be no more trying. Not today. He just wanted to drift, to some land where there was neither pain of mind nor body.

He lifted his face up. The water hissed, rus.h.i.+ng past boulders with mossy beards. On either side of the stream was thick forest. He could see a fog ahead; a mist, it was. The waterfall's spume. He felt a rocky bottom under his feet, which then fell away again. The sound of falling water was louder, and he wondered how steep the drop would be. He might tumble into a deep, swirling pool, or he might come down on more boulders and drown with shattered bones. He hoped it would be quick.

I charge you to be my arrow, Walker had said.

And Lark speaking: Reach up reach up Reach up reach up Matthew saw he was going to pa.s.s one of the big rocks, just a few feet to his right. Once beyond that, it was over the falls and done.

If he died, he thought, Slaughter would go on and on, truly unstoppable. If he died, then Walker and Lark had offered up their lives for nothing.

It was a hard thing to think about. It caused him, in a way, to want want to die. To punish himself, maybe, for being so weak. to die. To punish himself, maybe, for being so weak.

The big rock was coming up, very fast.

He began to weep, for Walker and Lark, for her family, for himself too.

Because he realized very clearly that his lot in life was not some place beyond pain of mind and body. His lot in life was, in fact, directly in harm's way. He had asked for that, when he'd signed on with the Herrald Agency. And maybe that was the lot in life of all people, and realizing that either broke you or built you. Just as Lark said her father told her: there were only two directions in life, up or down. He was looking at that big rock coming nearer, and as he wept he was thinking that the good thing about tears is sometimes they wash your eyes clear.

Slaughter would be along soon, for sure. Looking for him, to finish the job. Matthew thought he maybe had seven or eight minutes. Maybe. But if he only had two minutes, or one one minute, he ought to get out of this stream and not let a waterfall break Walker's arrow. minute, he ought to get out of this stream and not let a waterfall break Walker's arrow.

The big rock was right there.

Painfully, Matthew kicked toward it, and he reached up.

It took him a long time to get out. Seven minutes? Ten? He had no idea. He was hurt and hurting, no doubt about it. Spitting blood from a cut inside his mouth where his own teeth had bitten flesh, his head throbbing, his vision fading in and out, the muscles of his legs stiff and cramping, his neck nearly wrenched. But he got out by swimming from one big rock to the next, grabbing hold of the mossy beards and pulling himself onward, until at last he could stand up and hobble into the woods.

He staggered like a drunk through the dense thicket, lost his footing almost at once and slid into a hollow full of vines and fallen leaves. There he lay on his back, the world slowly spinning around him. He hoped that if Slaughter followed the stream he might think the waterfall had done his work for him; still, Matthew knew he was not safe, that he ought to get up and keep moving, but he could not. He forced himself to turn over, get up on his knees and start digging into the leaves, winnowing himself in like a wounded mole.