‘I don’t know where we’re going to get you another horse out here,’ said Charlie.
‘He may improve with rest,’ I said.
Charlie stood behind me, waiting. I was crouched before Tub, stroking his face and repeating his name in hopes of comforting him. His empty eyehole blinked, caving in on itself; his bloody tongue hung out of his mouth, dripping thickly into the dirt. Oh, I felt very low about it all of a sudden, and I did not like myself in the least.
‘We have to go now,’ said Charlie. He put one hand on my shoulder and the other on his pistol. ‘Do you want me do it.’
‘No. Let’s just go, and leave him.’
We walked away from the horses and to the north, to see about Warm, at last.
Chapter 46
Morris and Warm’s camp was walled in on both sides by steep, densely forested hills. We stood at the apex of the westernmost rise, looking down upon their well-groomed settlement: The horses and mules stood shoulder to shoulder in a line, a small fire smoldered before their crisp canvas tent, and their tools and saddles and bags lay in neat stacks and rows. It was late afternoon and there was a chill in the air; the sun cast an orange-white light against the trees and reflected off the river’s surface, a silvery, spidery vein. Down shore of the camp sat the humpbacked beaver dam, the water before it pooling in a lazy circle. Who could say whether the formula worked or not, but here was a fine location to test it.
I saw some movement from within the shelter and presently Morris appeared, crouching to breach its opening, and looking so unlike the fashionable and perfumed person I had known in the past I did not at first recognize him. His linens were sullied with mud and salt rings, his hair a perfect mess; his pants and sleeves were rolled back, the exposed flesh stained wine-purple. A grin was fixed to his lips and he was continually speaking, presumably to Warm, still in the tent, but he stood at such a distance from us we could not hear what he was saying. We descended on their camp at a diagonal route, walking cautiously, with care not to upset any rocks and send these tumbling down to alert the men of our approach. Nearing the base of the hill, we lost sight of the camp in a shallow; cresting this we could hear Morris’s voice and discovered he was not speaking to anyone at all, but singing a happy-worker tune. Charlie tapped my shoulder and pointed at the tent; from where we stood we could make out the interior, which was empty. At the same moment I saw this, there sounded a curt instruction from above my and Charlie’s heads: ‘Keep those hands out or it’s a bullet in the brain for the both of you.’ We looked up to find a feral, gnomelike individual sitting on the branch of a tree. He had a pistol, a baby dragoon, pointed at us. His eyes were shimmering and victorious.
‘This will be our Hermann Warm,’ said Charlie.
‘That is correct,’ said the man, ‘and your knowing my name leads me to know yours. You are the Commodore’s men, isn’t that right? The fabled Sisters brothers?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You have come a long way to get me. I am on the verge of feeling flattered. Not quite there, but close.’ I shifted where I stood and Warm spoke sharply: ‘Move like that again and I’ll kill you. You think I am fooling around, gentleman, but I have you cold and will pull the trigger, make no mistake.’ He meant what he said, and it was as though I could feel the precise, heated spot where the bullet would enter my skull. Warm, like Morris, was barefoot and wearing his pants rolled up; also the flesh of his legs and hands was stained purple and I thought, Has the gold-finding solution been effective? I could not tell from his expression, for he only looked fierce and protective. Charlie noticed the purple staining also and asked, ‘Have you been making wine, Warm?’
Rubbing his ankles together, cricketlike, Warm answered, ‘Not by a long shot.’
‘Then are you a richer man today than yesterday?’ I asked.
Suspiciously, he said, ‘The Commodore spoke to you about the solution?’
‘In his vague way, yes,’ said Charlie. ‘But we learned the hard facts from Morris.’
‘I doubt that very much,’ Warm said.
‘Ask him yourself.’
‘I believe I will.’ Without looking away from us he whistled shrilly, twice and briefly; in the distance came an identical noise and Warm performed the whistling once more. Up through the trees came Morris then, bounding boyishly over the rise and smiling still, until he saw Charlie and me, wherein he froze, and his face washed over in unqualified terror. ‘It’s all right, I’ve got them,’ said Warm. ‘I climbed up for a look-see downriver, and lucky I did, too. Saw these rascals creeping along in the direction of our camp. They have been made aware of our little experiment here, and they’re trying to tell me it was you who told them about it.’
‘They are lying,’ said Morris.
Charlie said, ‘It wasn’t just you, Morris. The one-eyed man at the Black Skull let us know where you planned to camp. But it was your diary that proved indispensable.’
Watching Morris’s face, I witnessed his tortured recollection. ‘The bed,’ he said wretchedly. ‘I’m sorry, Hermann. Goddamn me, I’d completely forgotten it.’
‘Left it behind, did you?’ said Warm. ‘Don’t take it too bad, Morris. It’s been a busy time, and we’ve been working hard, and anyway the blame should be shared. Didn’t I let that cyclops in on our plans? And for what? A few bowls of rancid stew.’
‘Still,’ said Morris.
‘Don’t give it another thought,’ Warm said. ‘We got to them before they got to us. That’s the important thing. The question now is, what to do with them?’
Morris’s face went blank. ‘The only thing is to shoot them.’
‘Would you look at that?’ said Charlie. ‘A week in the wilderness and the little man’s out for blood.’
‘Wait now,’ said Warm.
‘There is no other way,’ Morris continued. ‘We’ll bury them and be done with it. It will be a month before the Commodore stages any further action against us, and by then we will be long gone.’
‘I should definitely feel more at ease with their threat eliminated,’ Warm ventured.
‘Shoot them, Hermann. Get it over with.’
Warm pondered this. ‘It upsets my stomach to think of it.’
‘Can I say something?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Morris. ‘Hermann, shoot them. They are going to move.’
‘If they move I really will kill them. You there, the big one, go ahead and speak.’
I said, ‘Let us into your fold to work with you. We have quit our posts with the Commodore and have no allegiance to him any longer.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Warm. ‘Your very presence here betrays you.’
‘We are here because of what we read in the diary,’ said Charlie. ‘We want to see your River of Light.’
‘You want to poach it, is what you mean to say.’
‘We are the both of us impressed with your enterprise and strength of mind,’ I told him. ‘And we are sympathetic to Morris’s decision to quit the Commodore. As I said, we have made the same decision, and were impelled to visit you.’
My words, spoken sincerely, gave Warm pause, and I sensed him watching and wondering about me. When he finally replied, however, his tidings were not in my favor: ‘The problem is that even if you are split from the Commodore—which I doubt is the truth—but even if it is so, I have no faith in your motivations. Simply put, you are a pair of thieves and killers, and we have no place for you in our operation.’