"Give me the gun," Greathouse said, and Matthew was relieved to hand it over. Just ahead of them, Slaughter had started on again, but Greathouse called to him, "Wait!" and the barefoot beast of barbershop butchery obeyed as meekly as a lamb.
It was apparent, as they neared the fort, that fire had done a nasty turn on the Dutchmen. Large sections of the treetrunk wall had burned away, the ravages of flame still to be seen beneath the mesh of nature even after three decades. What must have been a guardhouse, up on the right front corner, was a mass of tangled timbers held together by black vines, its witch's hat of a roof fallen down and overhanging the wall at an angle that defied gravity. Matthew noted gunports here and there, wide enough for the snouts of blunderbuss shotguns to deliver loads of gravel, nails, or glass as well as lead balls. It was clear, however, that the Indian hatchet and the bowstring had decided this particular battle, and he wondered how many hundreds of arrowheads would still be found in the logs. Or, indeed, how many skeletons might lie beyond the broken walls.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Slaughter had stopped before the hole where the gate had been. He put his hands on his hips and admired the place as if he were already an earl, and this his madman's castle. "We found it from an old map. Just the sort of refuge where a couple of hardworking highwaymen might rest for a few days and count their gold among the safety of the forgotten dead." He grinned broadly at his new partners. "Shall we enter?"
"After you." Greathouse motioned with the pistol.
"Must you still wave that thing around? I thought we were past that." Slaughter suddenly frowned and clutched at his gut. "Oh, dear," he said. "I've been holding my shit in respect for you gentlemen, but I really must let it go now. Pardon me." He started walking off to the left, down into a small gulley full of brush and leaves.
"Where do you think you're going?" Greathouse took a step toward him.
"I told you." Slaughter flashed a baleful look at them. "Do you want to hold my hand?" He descended into the gulley, mindless of the gun, and then he pulled his breeches down to expose a large white rump the sight of which instantly made Greathouse and Matthew avert their eyes.
"Stay where we can see you!" Greathouse commanded, even as he walked away a few paces. The sound of cursing, grunting and straining that issued up from Slaughter's place of excretion was truly horrific. Matthew could see the very top of Slaughter's head, but no further down did he wish to witness. At last the hobble-gobble ceased, there came the noise of a handful of leaves being gathered and, presumably, used, and then Slaughter walked back up with his gray breeches in place and the long tail of his gray shirt flagging. "Thank you," Slaughter said. "I'm ready now." "You first," Greathouse directed. "And slowly."
Slaughter entered the dead fort, with Greathouse a few feet behind and Matthew following.
Within the walls were the ruins of a small town. What had been horsepaths between log buildings were weeded up and littered with debris like broken barrels and shards of pottery. Fires had gnawed most of the interior structures down to the tindersticks. An overturned wagon attested to the violence that had visited this place, as well as the shutters that had been hacked away from the windowframes of the few remaining cabins. Doors had been torn from their hinges and thrown aside. Once inside the walls, the Indians had taken their task of destruction from house to house, and Matthew doubted that very many of the settlers had lived to see the next hour.
Matthew saw no skeletons in the wreckage of Fort Laurens, for which he was grateful. Either the Indians had carried off the corpses, or more Dutchmen had come later to claim their brethren. Still, this was a gloomy place, and the imagination could quickly stir up the embers of ghosts from the piles of cold ashes.
There was one good element in this picture: the drizzle had changed to a light spit, though the sky remained low and leaden. A whisper of chill wind blew from the west, with the promise that autumn's days were numbered.
Greathouse and Matthew followed Slaughter deeper into the center of the ruins. Matthew recoiled when he almost stepped on the head of a small ceramic doll, its blue-painted eyes staring up from the weeds and its body already crushed to powder. In another moment they came upon a few intact log cabins and two other structures-a barn and small warehouse, they appeared to be-arranged in a circle around a common area that held a stone well with a peaked roof above it. Both the barn and warehouse had suffered fire damage but were still standing, more or less; the cabins were in various stages of collapse. Slaughter took course for the one cabin that at least had a whole roof, and Matthew realized they had reached the highwayman's hideaway.
"Hold it!" Greathouse said before Slaughter could pass through the opening where a door used to stand. Slaughter stopped on the threshold and waited for them, his mouth twisted to one side with what might have been irritation. "Your pleasure, sir. Do you wish to go in first, to make sure I'm not leading you onto a floor that will collapse beneath you?" Greathouse peered in, as did Matthew. The place was dark, even with the shutters ripped from the windows. Not much could be seen inside. "Go ahead, then," Greathouse said, with a directional thrust of the pistol, and Slaughter's bare feet left muddy prints across the floorboards.
Inside, the one large room was grim and austere, and certainly had been so even on the day of its construction. But Slaughter and Rattison had evidently made it a home, of sorts. On the floor were two piles of straw, similar to James' bedding, but these big enough for men. A fireplace of rough stones held a mound of ash and some pieces of charred wood, and lying next to the hearth were pots and pans, indicating that at least one of the ruffians could play at cooking. There were two battered chairs, and a leather trunk between them that must have served as a table. A pair of woolen blankets were folded and stacked in a corner on the floor, showing that someone had a penchant for neatness even in the midst of decay. Both Greathouse and Matthew quickly noted that leaning over by the fireplace was a long wooden shovel with an edge of iron on its business point.
It was toward this implement that Slaughter intended to go, until Greathouse said sharply, "Wait" When Slaughter paid no heed, Greathouse's thumb pulled the pistol's striker to full-cock.
Slaughter stopped, his hand outstretched to touch the shovel. "I do presume you want the safebox. Yes? If so, this will be needed."
Greathouse kept the pistol aimed. A little muscle had begun twitching in his jaw. "All right, then. Get to it." Slaughter walked to one of the piles of bedding straw, which he shoved aside with his foot. Matthew surmised
that Slaughter might not have trusted Rattison to the full extent of comradeship, and had been sleeping atop the treasure. Slaughter thrust the shovel downward and used it to pry up a short board, which he then put to one side. Three more boards were lifted and also removed. Then Slaughter stepped back and said with an exaggerated bow, "Sirs, your fortune awaits."
Cautiously, watchful of the shovel in Slaughter's grip, Greathouse and Matthew came forward to look down into the hole. They saw, simply, a square of straw.