And there it was. The central truth, the essence of Matthew's anguish, perceived by a man who in New York might be called a savage. For Matthew had realized, on the way from Fort Laurens to the village, that Greathouse's death would be only the first of many at the hands of Slaughter. He cursed his stupidity and greed; he cursed his smallness, and his vanity. He cursed the black leather bag, with its red wax seal of an octopus, and he cursed the gold that had shone so brightly in his eyes that day at the Chapel estate. He felt as if he'd stepped into a trap that had been set out for him just as surely as if Professor Fell had planned it so. Such traps, he thought, were easy enough to step into, but hell was paid to get out.
He realized, also, that he was going to have to settle his own debt with Satan, if he was ever to get out of this.
He found himself staring at Walker's hunting tools: the sharp-tipped spears, the bows and the quiver of arrows.
"Are you a good hunter?" Matthew asked.
"I keep myself fed, and I what is the word contribute my part."
Matthew nodded. Then he swung his gaze back to meet Walker's. "Have you ever hunted a man?" "A man," Walker repeated, tonelessly. "Have you? Or, to the point could you?"
Walker looked into the small flickering fire. "It is not could that matters, but would. I could, but I would not. And you could not, for before the sun rises again your pain will make you forget that idea."
"My hands are all right."
"I was talking about your legs. I saw that you limped as you came in." "My feet are cut a little bit, but that's no matter."
Again the tight smile that was a grimace distorted the Indian's face. "Oh, you Englishmen! Forever fighting everything around you, even your own spirits and vessels. You don't know when to cut the rope before it strangles you, or how to avoid the quicksand pool that lies in plain sight. You seek to bend everything to your way, even if it destroys you. To win, even if winning leads to your death. Haven't you had enough death for one day, Matthew Corbett?"
"I'm not dead. And I don't plan on dying anytime soon."
"Neither do I. But I suspect the man you wish to hunt would not wish to be captured, and has grown a killer's eye in the back of his head. Besides that, you don't even know what direction he's gone."
"That's why I need you," Matthew said. "Someone who can follow tracks."
Walker put a hand to his face and shook his head, as if this were such a ridiculous idea he didn't want to shame Matthew by revealing his expression of either mirth or derision.
Matthew felt his own resolve start to flag, yet he had to make another effort. "I have to get him back. Do you understand that? God knows what he'll do out there, and whatever blood he spills will be on my soul. Are you listening?"
"Listening," Walker said behind his hand, "but not hearing very well."
"Then hear this. I have money. Not with me, but I can get it for you. Gold coins. Eighty pounds worth. If you help me find Slaughter and bring him back, you can have it all."
Walker said nothing for awhile. Then he grunted and lowered his hand. He looked up at Matthew with narrowed eyes, as one might regard the most foolish of fools. "Eighty pounds," he said. "That would be quite a lot of money, would it not? It would make me the richest insane man in this village. What should I spend it on, then? Let me think. I'll buy the moon, and bring her down to earth so she might sing me to sleep at night. No, no; I should buy the sun, so that I should always have a warm-hearted brother to light my way. Or I might buy the wind, or the water, or the earth underfoot. I might buy a whole new self, and wear English clothes as I parade up and down the streets of your great town. No, I have it! I shall buy time itself, the river of days and nights, and I shall command it to carry me backwards in my canoe until I reach the moment I was taken from my people across the dark divide to your land and became insane. Ah! Now we have an agreement, Matthew Corbett, if you might promise me that eighty pounds of gold will return me to sanity, and how I used to think, and what I used to know was true. Because that is all I desire in this world, and without sanity there is one walk I can never make, and that is upon the Sky Road when I die. So did you bring the paper and quill to sign this agreement, or shall it be written on the smoke?" He held a palm toward the firepit, and the smoke there swirled between his fingers as it rose upward toward the roof hole.
Matthew had no reply, and at length Walker again turned his attention to the small tongues of flame, as if they might speak to him the reassurance for which he yearned to hear. But Matthew was not done yet. Walker's mention of "time" had reminded him that he had one more card to play.
He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and brought out the leather holder that secured his silver watch. As he opened it, bits of glass fell out. He saw that the watch had been broken, probably in his fall to the ground, and if not damaged at that point then surely by immersion in the well water. The time had stopped at ten-oh-seven.
"This is broken," Matthew said, as Walker looked on, "but the silver should be worth something. I can give it to you now, and the gold later, if you'll help me."
Walker held his palm out. Matthew put the watch in it. Walker drew it to himself, and stared silently at the watch's immobile hands.
With an acid hint of irony in his voice, Walker said, "I would never have believed it, but time does stop for the Englishman."
A cryptic remark, Matthew thought, that seemed to hold some meaning for the Indian, but was otherwise impenetrable.
A few seconds after that, there came the tap-tapping noise of what Matthew reasoned must be the stick being struck against the side of Walker's dwelling. He heard a voice call out, and then Walker stood up and went to the entrance, where he pulled the skin aside and spoke for a moment with what Matthew saw was an elderly man whose deeply-seamed face was almost covered with time-faded tattoos. Walker listened intently, nodded and then said to Matthew, "Your friend has died."
Sixteen
"In fact," Walker continued, as Matthew's heart seemed to cease beating, "your friend has died twice. Both times the medicine sisters have been able to sing his soul into returning to his body, but they think it would understand better if you were to speak to it in your own language. They say he's a very strong man, though, which is a good thing. Go with Old Dry Ashes, he'll take you there."
Matthew passed by Walker, who withdrew with the watch clasped in his hand, and went out into the gray light. Old Dry Ashes turned and began walking at a brisk pace that challenged the ability of Matthew's aching legs. Again a group of children followed along, chattering and laughing at the pale, wobbling scarecrow, while their dogs ran around in circles and every so often aimed an indignant bark in Matthew's direction.
The journey this time was mercifully short. Old Dry Ashes led Matthew to a structure that was twice as large as Walker's dwelling. It also was emitting smoke from a hole at the center of its roof, and its walls were covered with deerskins marked with red, blue and yellow designs that appeared, to Matthew's limited comprehension, to be stick-figure depictions of human beings, animals and fantastic shapes with multiple arms, legs and eyes that might represent denizens of the spirit world. He thought this place, the domain of the medicine sisters, must be the village's hospital, if indeed any connection could be made to the English world. Strips of leather decorated with feathers, beads and carved totems marked the entry, and set above it-ominously so-was a human skull missing its lower jaw, perhaps to mark the fact that the medicine sisters lost patients just as did doctors in New York, and they wished not to be spoken badly of by the departed in their afterlife. Or, that bones were only bones, and all flesh no matter how proud, how beautiful, or how strong, was destined to fail.