He also loved the fact that she called him an artist. The first time she'd said that to him, in her father's garden, he had looked into her face and asked himself what the term life-long bachelor really meant, anyway.
Priscilla had closed the door when she went to fetch him. She stood at Oliver's side, clutching the sleeve of his cream-colored shirt. He opened the door, and the man outside turned around from observing the parade of wagons, carts and passersby on Fourth Street.
"Oliver Quisenhunt," the man said.
Oliver nodded, when his flinch had passed. He thought he might have heard a note of what? relief in the man's voice. And Priscilla had been right about him: this was a raw-boned and rough-edged leatherstocking straight from the woods, it appeared. Straight from the frontier where Indians hacked your limbs off and boiled them in pots for their suppers. This man looked as if he'd seen a few of those boiling pots. Maybe had barely escaped from one, as well. How old? About twenty-six, twenty-seven? It was hard to tell, with those blue bruises splotching his right cheekbone and forehead. Both his eyes were bloodshot. The left eye had a white medical plaster laid just below it. The dark hollows under his eyes, and the general grim menace of his countenance was he twenty-seven, going on fifty? A few days' beard, a mess of black hair, the palms of his hands wrapped up in dirty leather, torn burgundy-colored breeches and a waistcoat the same color, stained stockings, filthy white shirt and a fringed buckskin jacket scabby with grime. On his feet were honest-to-God Indian moccasins.
He was a scout, Oliver guessed. Someone who goes ahead to clear the way, who takes the risks only the bravest-or most foolhardy-men can face.
He thought they called that kind of man a providence rider.
"My name is Matthew Corbett," said the visitor. "May I come in?"
"Ah well I am very busy at present, sir. I mean to say, it would be best if you came back some other-" "I want to talk to you about one of your inventions," Matthew plowed on. "An exploding safebox." "An exploding oh. Yes. Those. You mean the keyless safe? The thief trap?"
"Whatever you call it. I just want to know how it got into the hands of a killer named Tyranthus Slaughter."
"Slaughter?" Quisenhunt searched his memory. "I'm sorry, I have no recollection of that name. I sold no thief trap to him."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. I keep strict records of who buys my " He almost said art. But instead he said, "Creations."
Matthew hadn't known quite what to expect from this man. Quisenhunt was thin and gangly, had hands that seemed too big for his skinny wrists and feet like longboats. He had large brown eyes and a topping of blond hair with a cowlick that shot up at the crown like an exotic plant. Thick blond eyebrows arched up over the rims of his spectacles, as if he were perpetually asking a question. Matthew already knew he was twenty-eight years old, from his inquiries, but Quisenhunt seemed younger than that. There was something almost childlike about him, in his slightly-slumped posture, or in the inflections of his voice that seemed to rise on the last word of every sentence. This impression was aided by the multitude of freckles scattered across his cherry-cheeked face. He looked to Matthew to be a strangely overgrown twelve-year-old boy wearing his father's buckled shoes, white stockings, dark brown breeches, cream-colored shirt and yellow-striped cravat. The phrase mishap of nature came to mind.
It was time to roll out the cannon. Matthew said, "I am a representative of the law from New York. In this case, you may consider me an arm of the royal court. I'm looking for Slaughter. You may have information I need."
"Oh," came the hushed response. Quisenhunt rubbed his lower lip. "Well, then why aren't you in company with the Philadelphia officials? I personally know High Constable Abram Farraday."
"Yes," Matthew said. "He sent me here."
"I thought you were an Indian scout," Quisenhunt said, and almost sounded disappointed. "May I?" Matthew made a motion of entrance.
There was an uncomfortable moment where the master of the house looked to his wife to see if she approved letting such a ragamuffin into their domain, whether he was a law man, an Indian scout, or chief of the street beggars. But then she nodded graciously at Matthew, retreated a step, and asked if he might like a nice cup of lemon water.
Quisenhunt took Matthew along a hallway and through the door to his workshop, and there Matthew saw how much a man could love his calling.
Three days ago, in the weak light of early morning, Matthew had stumbled down out of the forest into the village below the watermill. He didn't get very far before a man wearing a brown woolen cap, a gray coat and carrying a torch came out between two houses and hollered, "Who goes there?" Matthew thought it was wise he answer, because the man was also aiming a blunderbuss at him.
Indian trouble, the watchman had told him as they went to see the town's constable, by name Josaphat Newkirk. The town's name was not Caulder's Crossing but Hoornbeck, and according to the watchman was situated on the Philadelphia Pike about four miles away from the city. The Indians have got their warpaint on, the watchman told him as they walked. Matthew still had a pounding headache and his vision blurred in and out, but he could function, more or less. Hey! Did they jump you too?
Who? Matthew had asked.
The Indians, man! They're crawlin' all around here!
Hoornbeck, a small town that overlooked a picturesque lake, was in a state of high alert. Men with guns were everywhere, leading skittish horses. Women stood in groups holding babies or comforting frightened children. By the time Matthew was escorted to the constable's office in the white-washed town hall, a clerk reported that Constable Newkirk had gone out on his rounds to check with the other watchmen. Matthew had no time to waste; he asked to be taken to the town's doctor, so in a few minutes he was at the door of a white house with dark green shutters on the edge of the lake.
Dr. Martin Lowe, a big bearish man with close-cropped brown hair, a brown beard streaked with gray and brown eyes behind his spectacles, took a look at him, rushed him in and put him on a table with three candles on either side of Matthew's head. He began to examine the injuries while his wife boiled water for tea and hot towels.
"Lucky here," said the doctor, in a bass rumble that Matthew could feel in his chest. He touched the sore, blood-crusted area below Matthew's left eye. Matthew hadn't realized before now that Slaughter's fingernails had worked their magic. "You might have lost that eye if those claws had caught you any higher. And that was a bad blow to your head, from the size of the bruise. Very dangerous. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three," Matthew said, when he concentrated and half of the man's six fingers disappeared like wisps of smoke.
"Mouth open. Did you swallow any teeth?"
"Sir please listen I'm not here about myself. I'm looking for a man who probably came in " What day was this? "Yesterday." Slaughter was simple enough to describe. "He would have had an arrow in his upper right arm."
"You mean Lord Shelby's land speculator, Sir Edmond Grudge. Constable Newkirk brought him in."