Soon Matthew came to the split in the road that led to Belvedere. Walker was down on his haunches, examining the ground. The Indian gave Matthew time to catch his breath, and then he said, "Bare feet going this way." He pointed in the direction of New Unity. "Boots coming back, and going this way." His finger aimed toward Belvedere. He stood up, narrowing his eyes as he stared at Matthew. "He's going to the trading post. There was money in that box?"
"Yes."
"He wants to buy a horse. The boot tracks were made yesterday, about midday. He's walking quickly, with a long stride. He might have reached Belvedere by late afternoon or early evening. If he bought a horse, he's gone."
"Unless he stayed in Belvedere to rest."
"He may have," Walker said. "We won't know until we get there."
Matthew was looking along the road that led to Reverend Burton's cabin. "I have to go that way first," he said, his voice hollow.
"For what reason?"
"I know," Matthew answered, "where Slaughter got the boots." And he set off, again moving as quickly as he was able. Walker caught up within a few strides, and stayed a distance off to his right.
Rain began to fall quietly through the trees. Red and yellow leaves drifted down. As Matthew reached Reverend Burton's house, he saw that the door was open, sagging inward on its hinges. He went up the steps to the porch, where he couldn't help but note splotches of dark red on the planks. Then he walked through the door, and into the world of Tyranthus Slaughter.
It was a place of blood and brutality. Matthew abruptly stopped, for he'd heard first the greedy buzzing of flies. The reverend's body lay on its back amid splintered furniture, both boots gone, the hands outstretched, palms upward. A pool of blood surrounded the head, and there the flies were feasting. The face was covered by the heavy Good Book, which had been opened about to the middle. Matthew stepped forward, slowly, and saw upon the Bible's back a smear of mud from the bare foot that had pressed it down.
And there was Tom.
The boy was on his knees, near the fireplace. Half his face was a black bruise. His nostrils were crusted with blood, his lower lip ripped open, a razor slash across his left cheekbone. His dark brown shirt was torn open to the waist, his pale chest scored with razor cuts. He looked up at Matthew with eyes sunken into swollen slits.
He was holding James in both arms, at about chest-height. The dog lay on its right side. Matthew saw that it was breathing shallowly. It was bleeding from the mouth and nose and its visible eye had rolled back into its head.
When Walker came into the house, Tom gave a start and dropped the dog a few inches. What could only be called a scream of agony came from James' mouth, and instantly Tom lifted the dog up again to chest-height. Gradually, its piercing cries subsided.
"He's with me," Matthew said to Tom, as the boy gave an involuntary shiver; his voice sounded unrecognizable to him, the voice of someone speaking beyond the door through which he'd just walked.
Tom just stared blankly at him.
Walker eased forward. He leaned down and lifted the Bible.
"He's dead," Tom said. A spool of bloody 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 bri ng hi mself to look at the reverend's face, but he saw how bad it was by looki ng 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 mass 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. Ysee? 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."
"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.
"Wo," 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.