They left the parsonage, and Matthew followed Walker through the little knot of people toward the trading post. It wasn't such a terribly bad town, Matthew thought, though it was out on the raw edge of the western frontier. He saw vegetable gardens and fruit trees, and in the dim light of late afternoon lanterns were glowing in windows. He judged from the number of houses that maybe seventy to a hundred people lived here, and there were surely some outlying farms and orchards as well. There looked to be, at a passing glance, a small business area with a blacksmith's, a tavern and two or three other merchants. The locals who glanced at him and Walker did so without surprise or untoward curiosity, for surely Indians were a common sight at a trading post. He reasoned also that Walker had been here many times, and had previously met Reverend Jennings. Well, it was a relief to have Tom taken care of, and now Matthew could turn his attention to the task at hand.
They went up the stone steps to the porch. The pipe-smokers were still there, though the boy had gone. One of them called, "Walker! What's the commotion?"
"You'll have to ask the reverend," the Indian replied, with the polite decorum of an Englishman. Inside, in the lamplight, a squat, wide-bodied man behind the counter wore a tattered and yellowed wig and a faded red coat bearing what appeared to be military medals. He said in a booming voice, "Afternoon, Walker!"
"Good afternoon, Jaco."
The man's bulbous blue eyes in a face like dried mud took in Matthew and then returned to the Indian. He had six rings hanging from one ear and four from another. "Who's your companion?"
"Matthew Corbett," said Matthew, who reached to shake the man's hand and was met by a piece of wood sculpted and painted to resemble one, complete with carved fingernails and grooved knuckles. Matthew hesitated only a second before he took the timber and shook it, as any gentleman should.
"Jaco Dovehart. Pleased to meet you." Again the bulbous eyes went to Walker. "What are you all dressed up for? Never seen you in black paint. Hey! There's no trouble, is there?"
"I'm working."
"Just wanted to make sure you fellas weren't on the warpath. What'd you bring me?"
Matthew had had a chance to take a look around during this exchange. His first impression was of a merchant's bedlam. This likely being the first building put up in Belvedere and obviously as old as Moses' beard, the crooked mud-chinked walls encouraged vertigo and the warped floorboards presented a series of frightening rises and dips. Shelves held blankets, linens, clay plates and cups, wooden bowls and eating utensils, mallets, saws, axes, shears, bottles, jars and boxes of a staggering variety, wigs, slippers, boots, breeches, petticoats, gowns, shifts, and a myriad of other items. Everything, however, appeared to be either well-worn or moldy. Pieces of a plow lay on the floor, and two wagon wheels were propped in a corner. On dozens of wallpegs hung a crowding of shirts, cravats, waistcoats, leather belts, tricorn hats, caps, coats, blanket robes and bed gowns; again, everything had a musty green tinge. Matthew thought all the items here had probably belonged to dead people.
"We're looking for a man who may have passed this way," Walker said, his face especially fearsome caught as it was between the yellow lamplight and the blue haze through dirty windows. "Describe him, Matthew."
"He would have a beard. It's been described as a 'patchwork'."
"Oh, him!" Dovehart nodded. "Came in yesterday, about this time. Askin' to buy a horse. I told him I had a good horse last week, but I sold it to a Mohawk. Hey, Lizzie! Walker's here!"
A gaunt, sharp-chinned woman wearing what once had been a royal-blue gown with a frill of lace at the neck—now sickly green-stained and more ill than frill—had entered from a door at the back, holding what appeared to be a pair of candlesticks made from deer's legs, hooves and all. Her hair was coal black, her eyes were coal black, and so were her front teeth when she grinned. "Walker!" She put the bizarre candlesticks down and glided forward to offer her hand, the fingernails of which were also grimed with coal black.
"Lady Dovehart," said Walker, and as he kissed the hand Matthew saw spots of color rise on the cheeks of her sallow face.
"Watch out, now!" Dovehart cautioned, but it was spoken in good humor. "I don't go for none of them damned manners!"
"You ought to," the lady replied, with a coquettish and rather hideous smile at Walker. "What is this world comin' to, when an Indian's got better manners than an English-born?"
"I'm sure the world will survive," Walker answered graciously, turning his attention again to the trading post master. "But you were speaking about the bearded man?"
"Yeah, he came in and asked about a horse. I told him the only fella I knew might sell him a horse was Constable Abernathy. Now!" Dovehart motioned with his wooden hand. "Here's where it gets interestin'. Round about three, four in the mornin', somebody broke into Abernathy's barn and tried to steal a horse. Only he didn't know that mare's a right terror, and the sound she put up brought Abernathy runnin' out in his nightshirt with a pistol. Abernathy took a shot at the man, that mare bucked the bastard off, and he took out through the woods. All mornin' long Abernathy, his brother Lewis and Frog Dawson—you know Frog, that crazy bastard—have been ridin' up and down the road huntin' that fella."
"But they didn't find him," Walker said.
"No, didn't find him. But Abernathy said when they found him, they was gonna take his skin and trade it to me for a nice bag of hickory nuts."
"Any blood on the road?"
"No, not that either. Shot must've missed, but it scared him plenty."
Matthew thought that what might have scared Slaughter—if indeed he could be frightened—was being thrown for a second time from a horse. The first time had ended in his capture. He wondered if after this incident Slaughter might swear off horses and keep his boots on the ground.
"Odd, though." Matthew watched, his face expressionless, as Dovehart actually used his wooden hand to scratch the back of his neck. "That fella could've just walked up to the constable's door and
bought
the mare. He had plenty of money in his bag."
"He bought something here?" Matthew asked.
"Oh yeah, sure did. He bought . . . you kept the tally, Lizzie. What was it all?"
"A haversack, for one. Some salted meat, for two."
Salted meat from
this
place? Matthew wondered if Slaughter might be lying dead in the woods from food poisoning, which would make his job all the easier.
"And the ammunition for his pistol," Lizzie said. "For three."
"The ammunition," Matthew repeated.
"That's right. A dozen balls." Dovehart rubbed his nose so furiously with the wooden hand that Matthew expected to see splinters sticking out of it. "And everythin' else a shooter needs, of course. Two flints, powderhorn and powder, cloth patches. He got himself a deal."
Matthew glanced quickly at Walker, but the Indian was examining a gaudy brown-and-red striped waistcoat that hung from a wallpeg.
"What'd the man do?" Lizzie asked, drawing closer to Matthew. "I mean, besides tryin' to steal the constable's horse?"
"He's a killer. Escaped from me and my associate yesterday. I suspect he didn't want to meet the constable face-to-face. Probably couldn't bring himself to pay a penny to the law, either. But I think he's gotten a little over-confident."
"He seemed all right," Lizzie said. "He had a nice smile, and his voice was refined. Said he was on his way to Philadelphia, that he had to get there for some business and Indians stole his horse last night when he was camped. I thought that was kind of peculiar, but then again all kinds of people pass through here goin' north and south."
"Did you inquire as to what kind of business he was in?" Matthew asked.
"I did. Just to
converse
, you see." She used that lofty word as if she'd been waiting years to drag it out from its shuttered attic. "He said he was between jobs, but that he was goin' back into the business of settlin' accounts."
Matthew thought that over. It meant something, certainly. But what?
"Oh!" Lizzie snapped her black-nailed fingers. "Almost forgot. He bought a spyglass, too."
Walker In Two Worlds lifted his gaze from his inspection of the English waistcoat, which he'd found had a stitched-up tear in its back that had likely been made by a knife. The brown bloodstain very nearly blended into the color of the stripes.
"Special on that one," Dovehart announced.
Matthew put a hand against the pocket of his own waistcoat and felt the jewelry there. He said, "You have guns?"
"Surely! Got a nice musket . . . no, wait . . . the barrel fell off that one a few days ago, needs a bit of work. Are you handy with gunsmithin' tools, sir?"
"How about a pistol?" Matthew asked.
"Three for your approval, sir! Lizzie, show the man!"
Lady Dovehart leaned down, opened a box on the floor and brought up, one after the other, three flintlock pistols in various stages of decay. Two looked to be more dangerous for the firer than for the target, but the third—a little brown bullpup of a gun, hardly a handful—appeared to be in fairly decent shape but for the green patina on all exposed metal parts.
"Twelve shillings, an excellent choice!" said the master. "But for you, seeing as how you're a friend of a friend, ten!"
"I have no money, but I have this." Matthew brought out the first trinket that came to his fingers; it was the silver brooch with the four black stones.
"Hmmmm." Dovehart picked the brooch up with his good left hand to examine it more closely. Before he got it up to his face, his wife snatched it away.
She held it near a lantern. "Ohhhhh," she crooned. "It's pretty! You know, my favorite color's black. Kinda royal-like lookin', ain't it?" She elbowed her husband in the ribs. "Sell the young sir his pistol, Jaco."
"Including the same items you sold the man we're after?" Matthew prodded. "Flints, powderhorn, powder, patches and a dozen balls?"
"All right. Very well. Sold."
"Including also a pair of stockings?" Matthew had seen a few on one of the shelves. How clean they would be he had no idea, but he needed a pair anyway. "
And
," he continued, "I'd like
that
, if it fits." He pointed to another item that had caught his eye; it was a fringed buckskin jacket, hanging from a peg next to the waistcoat Walker had been ogling.
"Well, sir." Dovehart frowned. "Now, I'm not so sure that we can—"
"Try it," the lady said. "Go on, it looks about right."
"God A'mighty!" Dovehart fumed as Matthew shrugged into the jacket, which was on the large size across the shoulders and had a burn mark along the left arm as if a torch had been passed over it. Otherwise, it was fine. "I'm tryin' to run a
business
here!"
The lady was already pinning her brooch on, and she picked up a little oval handmirror that was cracked down the middle to admire her new acquisition.
"Jaco?" Walker had come up to the counter again. "Do you have another spyglass?"
"Huh? No, that was our one and only. Lizzie, stop grinnin' at yourself! God save us from prideful wives!" That comment was directed at Walker, but Matthew saw Dovehart quickly shift his gaze as if it had been originally meant for him. Obviously, the matter of Walker not having a wife was a thorny subject, best left alone.
"One more thing," Walker continued calmly, as if the comment had never existed. "He'll need a carry-bag for all that."
"Got anythin' else to trade?"
Matthew started to reach for another item from his pocket, but before he could get there Walker said with a hint of steel in his voice, "Good will is a valuable commodity. I'd expect you could find
something
." He stared across the counter into Dovehart's eyes and became utterly immobile, as if nothing on earth could shift him from the position.
"Well . . . " Dovehart glanced nervously at Matthew and then back to the Indian. "I suppose . . . there's an old shooter's bag up on the top shelf over there. Ought to do."
Walker found it and gave it to Matthew. It was made of deerskin with the hair still on it and had a drawstring closure, as well as a braided leather strap that fit around the shoulder.
"Alrighty! You through robbin' me?" asked the master, with a measure of heat in his face.
"I'll remember your good will," Walker answered, "the next time the pelts come in."
"And I hope it's
soon
! Been waitin' for a good load of 'em nearly a month now!"
In his buckskin jacket and new stockings, with his bullpup pistol and the necessaries in the shooter's bag around his shoulder, Matthew bid good-bye to the Doveharts—the master still fussing about lost business, the mistress fixed on her mirror—and followed Walker out into the darkening afternoon. A drizzle was falling again, proclaiming a nasty night. Matthew's stomach rumbled; he looked toward the single little tavern, identified by the sign
Tavern
, and said, "I'll buy us a meal." Surely the tavern-keepers would accept the engraved silver ring for two bowls of corn soup and a few slices of whatever meat was available.
"I am not allowed in there," said Walker, who did not slow his pace past the tavern. "It's for Englishmen and Dutchmen only."
"Oh. I see."
"They think we
smell
. It upsets their appetite." He went on a few more strides before he spoke again. "Constable Abernathy's house is around the bend there. I can find where Slaughter was thrown, and where he entered the woods. I can find his track, and his direction. But it has to be done before dark. We can make another mile, maybe two. Are you able?"
Am I? he asked himself. The lights in the tavern windows were fading behind them. It seemed to him that it was the last call of civilization, before . . . whatever lay out there, ahead.
Slaughter. In the dark. With a razor and a pistol. Settling his accounts.
"I am," Matthew said.
Walker began to move at a slow run, and Matthew grit his teeth and kept up.