Slaughter had ridden away. Tom had followed, still waiting for his one chance to strike.
A black suit. A black horse. A black night. Tom had lost Slaughter at a crossroads. Had gone a distance in all directions, but the man was gone. Not lost, but gone.
"You came back and decided to follow me? All that way?" Matthew had asked. " Why?"
"'Cause," Tom had answered, with a shrug. "I knew that if you were alive, you'd keep tryin'."
Now, as Lillehorne and Nack followed Matthew to the wagon, Matthew said, "I'll tell you the whole story later. I want to talk to Hudson first."
"Well then, who's this?" They had reached the wagon, and Lillehorne was motioning at Tom. "I send you after a killer and you bring back a boy?"
"Tom helped me. I couldn't have done it without him."
"Oh, I'm sure," Lillehorne sneered. "Tom who?"
"Bond," said the boy.
"Where are your parents?"
"Got a grandpa in Aberdeen."
"No one else?" He waited, but Tom just gave him a blank stare. "What are we supposed to do with him?" Lillehorne asked Matthew. "Add him to the orphanage roll?"
"No, sir," Tom said. "Not an orphanage." He climbed down and took his duffel bag from the back. "Say you found the next ship leavin' for England?"
"Put your bag down," Matthew told him. "We've come a long way. There's no hurry for that."
"Got a long way yet to go," Tom answered. "You know I'm one to keep movin'."
"I should say so." Matthew thought he ought to try again, since he wanted to at least buy Tom a good meal at the Trot and introduce him to the regulars there, but he knew it would be a waste of breath. When this boy made up his mind to do something, it was done. "Wharf nine. The Golden Eye, leaving on the next tide. I hope you don't mind that Slaughter's boots are lying on the deck." He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat for some of the money Powers had given him. "Here. I want you to-"
"No charity," Tom interrupted. "I'll work my way over, if they're hirin'." He aimed his intense gray eyes along the row of masted vessels, and he gave the faintest hint of a smile as if he sensed the opportunity for a grand adventure. "Figure I ought to learn somethin' about ships, anyway." He held out his hand. "So long."
Matthew shook it. The boy's grip was as hard as his grit. "Good luck."
Tom swung the duffel bag over his shoulder and moved on. True to his nature, he never looked back.
Thirty-Three
"The truth," said Greathouse, as he ruminated over his third cup of wine, "is that we failed." He frowned, rethinking his statement. "No," he amended. "/ failed. As the one with the most experience-I won't say the most sense-I should have known he was going to try something. I just didn't know it was going to be so effective." He took another drink, and then he grinned across the table at Matthew. "Did I tell you they named me Gray Wolf?"
"Several times." At this point in the evening, Matthew could not bring himself to tell his supper companion that he'd already known it.
"Well then, there you are," Greathouse said, though Matthew wasn't exactly sure where they were in this conversation. One minute they were talking about Slaughter, the next about the great one's experiences in the Seneca village. It seemed to Matthew as if Greathouse had actually enjoyed his time there, once it was sure he'd returned from the wilderness beyond.
They were sitting in the Trot Then Gallop, on Crown Street. This being Matthew's first night back, his meal and drinks were on the house courtesy of the tavernmaster, Felix Sudbury. Many people had come forward to wish him welcome home, including Effrem Owles and his father Benjamin, Solomon Tully, Robert Deverick and Israel Brandier. Matthew had been polite, but firm in his refusal to say anything more than that the criminal he and Greathouse had been sent after was dead. Case closed. Savin' it for the Earwig ,huh? Israel had asked, but Matthew said there would be no more of those outlandish tales in Marmaduke's broadsheet and he offered to vow on a Bible if they didn't believe him.
As the night progressed, the interest in knowing Matthew's business waned, since he remained steadfastly not talking, and the other patrons drifted away from him to their own concerns. Matthew had noted, however, that he'd gotten some sidelong glances from people who thought they had known him very well up to this evening, and perhaps were wondering what had changed about him in his month's journey.
One thing different, among many, was that he now believed in ghosts more than ever, since he'd seen both Walker In Two Worlds and Lark Lindsay on the street this afternoon. Several times, in fact.
Even now, as he sat with Greathouse and drank his own third cup of wine, he was sure someone was sitting at the table behind him and to his right. If he turned his head just a fraction he could make out from the corner of his eye an Indian with black facepaint and an arrangement of feathers dyed dark green and indigo tied to his scalplock with leather cords. Of course when he looked fully in that direction Walker was not there, but now in the corner of his other eye a lovely, serene blonde girl was standing over by the table where Effrem Owles and Robert Deverick were playing chess.
He had brought them back with him, he thought. How long they wished to stay-how long they would stay-he didn't know. But they were friends of his, just as much as any of the others, and they were welcome.
"What do you keep looking at?" Greathouse asked.
"Shadows," Matthew said, and let it go at that.
When he had gone to the Grigsby house today, after Tom had boarded the Golden Eye, Matthew had knocked at the door and Berry had answered it. They had just stared at each other for a few seconds, he taking her in like sunlight after thinking he would likely die in the dark, and she seemingly frozen with his name on her lips. And then just as she'd cried out, "Matthew!" and reached for him her grandfather had let forth a bellow from behind her and shouldered her aside to throw his arms around Matthew in a crushing embrace.
"My boy! My boy!" Marmaduke had shouted, his large blue eyes ashine in the frames of his spectacles and his heavy white eyebrows twitching on the moon-round face. "We feared you were dead! Good God, boy! Come in here and tell us the whole story!"
The whole story was what Matthew was determined not to tell, even as Marmaduke pushed a platter of honey-drizzled biscuits and a mug of mimbo upon him at the kitchen table. Berry sat beside him, very close, and Matthew could not help but notice and be gratified by the fact that she kept placing her hand upon his arm or shoulder and rubbing there as if to make certain he was real and would not fade away like a dream upon awakening.
"Tell! Tell!" Marmy insisted, as his right hand seemed to grip an invisible quill and prepared to scribe upon the table.
"No," Matthew had said, after he'd eaten two of the biscuits and put down half the sugared rum. "I'm sorry, but I can't."
"But you must Your readers are clamoring!"
"My business depends on privacy. There'll be no more of those stories." "Nonsense! I've made you into a celebrity!"